I am not a fan of the flag used against posts for reasons other than spam, abuse, or plagiarism. I occasionally write a post on this subject. I know not all people agree with me, but I continue to watch and usually it is some activity that inspires me to write the post again. It HAS NOT been done to me so it is not me whining about someone attacking me. I post these posts because, I do not see the activity as positive or good for the steemit/steem community. I cannot force people to agree with me, and I wouldn't if I could, because I do think "good ideas do not require force" is a very true statement. I can keep writing my occasional revised thoughts on the subject though and perhaps persuade people or in dialog be myself persuaded.

I have approached this many times and ultimately I keep coming to the question "What is the actual value of the downvote?"

There are a couple of PROS that come up.

• It is a way to deal with spam, plagiarism, and abuse.
• It enables a way to redistribute steem power of potential rewards pool by those who believe it is being rewarded too much.

There are a number of CONS that come up.

• It can feel like an attack.
• It can turn a place that feels censorship free, and open into a more hostile environment.

What do we do here?

What is it we actually do here? We blog. We write, video, play music, and have dialog over information we create and share.

Is there any analog to that in our history? Yes. Literature, Music, Videos, etc.

So where do you get these things? You go to a news stand, a bookstore, a music store, etc.

When you walk into these stores what do you do about the things you think suck or that you have no interest?

I think most of us simply ignore them. We focus on the things we are interested in.

When you are in these stores are you looking for little check marks to tell you how many people disliked it? If it is digital I may look for stars or eggs (newegg), but that is a different scale and is not a down vote equivalent. Sometimes that is irrelevant depending on if it is an interest, and most of those places typically only permit voting on those things by people that purchased it. Some of them even wait a bit before asking. They do not simply let anyone come along and vote down anything they dislike as 0 or 1 star.

So where is this done?

Reddit.

Is reddit popular? Yes. I suspect it could be more popular. There are people that do not use it due to how hostile it can feel.

What makes reddit hostile? Two things.

1. The down vote, and getting down vote brigaded, down voted without any comments, or perhaps the down vote was simply for TL;DR.
2. Getting trolled in comments.

Source: Know Your Meme

We don't have a terrible time with trolling on steemit. I suspect a lot of this is due to the reputation system, and that this would be considered abuse and attacking other users. It translates to not really receiving much of a reward and damaging your account. This for the most part seems much less an issue on steemit than any other platform I've seen.

The down vote which isn't even in the voting area and is shaped like a flag on steem has the same impact as on reddit, and then some. It can reduce your potential reward. If it goes below zero it can potentially damage your reputation as well.

Redistribution

A common defense used by people with power who do have sufficient power to reduce the potential reward (sometimes by a substantial amount) will use is the idea that THEY saw no value in the post for the steemit platform. They thus decided that the portion of the reward pool that was going to that post would be better allocated by cancelling out some of the steem power allocated to that post and redistributing that across the pool.

This may sound warm and fuzzy unless you REALLY take the time to think about it.

We accumulate steem power for several reasons. Only one of these is as investment into the platform. If it did not have other impact that would be the only reason we would do it, and then shareholder and boardroom concepts might be relevant. That is NOT the only reason, and in reality for many it likely is not even the most compelling of reasons. Having steem power has a noticeable effect. It allows us to reward things WE are interested in as individuals at a greater amount. We are putting our STAKE towards things we are interested in.

If I decide to commit my STAKE to a pool voluntarily and allow someone to dictate where that goes that is one thing. That is voluntary.

If someone else can come along and cancel out where I chose to place my interest, that is another thing.

The problem with the way the down vote and redistribution argument works here is that it is INVOLUNTARILY canceling out someone elses interest. It did not really matter whether you thought it had no value, or you disliked the topic. The person that voted for it obviously DID see value, and did have an interest. Do they not have a right to use their steem power?

Involuntary redistribution is analogous to theft. It comes with the impact of a down vote like reddit, yet it has the added impact of also reducing payout.

The common answer to this is that "it was not theft, as that was potential payout." It is already potential payout without the down vote due to the distribution of the steem power votes, and the changing market value of steem. That word "potential" does not justify canceling out someone elses interest. Whether YOU liked it or found it valuable is truly irrelevant. Move on. Let people express their likes. The pool will adjust based upon people's likes. It does not need you forcing your will upon others as to what they SHOULD and SHOULD NOT like or view as valuable.

That way lies force, aggression, anger, bitterness, and a much less inclusive community than we could be.

The platform wasn't built for up vote only

Another argument is that the platform was not built with the idea of up vote only. This is true, it was patterned after reddit. Yet if people only use up votes what happens? The up votes are distributed across the pool based upon steem power and rewards are given out accordingly. That seems pretty fair, and like it will WORK even if it wasn't designed that way.

Unless it is to be the kingdom ruled by a few where they can dictate what people CAN and CANNOT be rewarded for even when it is not plagiarism, is not spam, and is not abusive, then that becomes a very unpleasant environment. A Plutocracy in fact.

Censorship

There is a true statement that content cannot be truly censored on steemit due to it being on the blockchain. This is indeed true. However, if a person's rewards are reduced to zero for subjective reasons, their reputation dinged, or perhaps their rewards simply reduced so low they can't really justify extra effort they may have been doing then it can effectively be very similar to censorship. The article may still be on the blockchain, though the person may have been ran out of town by the would be plutocrats. This technically is not censorship. It is damn close.

Exit on the Positive

With all of these things said. Steemit/Steem has amazing potential. On the trolling front it is already way better than any other social media I am aware of. Yet it could be better than REDDIT.

We can learn from the mistakes of reddit rather than emulating them. The fact of the matter is that if all people did was up vote it would still produce a number, still be sortable and ranked, without ANY change. The rewards would still be distributed based upon votes and based upon STEEM POWER, but it would be an accurate reflection of actual interest as opposed to some deciding what people CAN/SHOULD or CANNOT/SHOULD NOT like.

We have the potential to be an amazingly friendly and open place of discourse sharing, and potential reward. I never felt hindered or the need to second guess what I might write until the first time I saw people getting flagged for subjective reasons. Why does anyones disinterest or dislike in a subject matter? If that were how things were I'd be down voting/flagging EVERY single sport post. I have zero interest in the topic. Yet I know a lot of people do like it. Whether I don't or not is irrelevant, just like it is irrelevant when I go into ANY store to purchase something.

NOTE: If you feel like I am trying to force you to subjectively stop imposing your will upon others, should I really have to force you to stop that?

Steem On!

EDIT: some people may have missed it and may start responding to this post. My current view after discussion, and reading the post by @bitcoindoom can be found here.