HF21 Training: Go flag someone else!

Ok, my last post was about flagging me. Now it's time to escalate. I want you to flag someone else.

Let's talk about good and bad flagging for a second:

Good flagging

It can be great when the ecosystem flags. It's like an auto-immune system for the rewards pool. If you don't know, when you flag you're returning others' votes back to the rewards pool. So, in a sense it's a socialist upvote to everyone but that specific content creator you just flagged. Anyway, if the ecosystem starts flagging posts that are truly bullshit, add no value, and simply leech rewards then there will be more money for authors and curators who do add value in the rewards pool. This is called crowd sourced content discovery.

If you don't know curated content is really valuable. It's hard to find what you're looking for in an infinite sea of content. Other people who do the work can save you time and may even be better researchers. So, it's highly valuable. If our platform becomes less of a cesspool of random internet droppings and more of a thoughtfully curated place where good articles can be easily found more people can save time by doing content discovery here.

So, flagging can be extremely noble and good for the platform.. Here's some good things to flag!

Physical threats: I'm gonna rip your head off
Doxxing: I found you online and your criminal ass lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
copyrighted material: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
posts with other people's content or images that aren't cited: Here's my most recent picture that I painted. I call it "the mona lisa."
inappropirate tags: Unless your article is about scientific experiments for Koreans who enjoy investment opportunities in steemmonsters then you shouldn't be using stem, sct, spt, and steemleo all as tags. It's fair game to flag these guys especially with accounts that have specific tokens staked that are being abused in the post.
disagreement over rewards: Do you see a circle jerk playing out? Maybe you'd like to see it get fewer rewards and disincentivize the behavior that's ok.

Bad flagging

So, good flagging is one of the most noble things you can do around here. Bad flagging is generally extremely childish behavior by people who can't keep their shit together.

Revenge flagging- you flagged my post on whale scrotums so I'm going to flag everything you, your mother, your followers, and everyone I can find have ever written.
threats in the comments: if you talk to this person I'm going to flag you (typically just called bullying)
calling people cunts after flagging- this may not actually be a bad flag, but it's poor form afterwards

The worst flag offenders: opinion flagging

This I think is the hottest category of flagging. It's really contentious.

Example

Let's say I don't trust the media, medical records, and especially not the medical boards. Let's say I think the boards are run by the Harmaceutical companies and the boards through whistle blowers have shared many times that things like vaccines cause neurological damage. So, I gather up information on the topic and I write a post about it.

You are a person who has read all of the mainstream science articles about vaccines and wow, big pharma docs never find anything wrong with vaccines. so, the literature always says it's safe (this is called tobacco science). So, you take your Steem Power and you flag the post by another author because you don't like their opinion.

The challenge here is that there are other ways to have discourse than flagging. If your opinion is so amazing then you shouldn't have to silence other people or punish them for thinking those thoughts or having data sources that are different than yours that lead to a different conclusion.

What you've done is called "opinion flagging" and it means that you're so threatened by another opinion that you have to silence it. This isn't evidence of the superiority of your opinion. It simply displays that you're a dick and weak because you can't live in a world where your opinion is questioned.

So.... don't opinion flag. Disagree in comments with words...

Flagging

Anyway, the moral of the story here is that there's good reasons to flag and also bad reasons to flag. You better get used to flagging because a few weeks from now I think we're gonna see a lot more of these happening.

Assignment

Ok, this is gonna be a little controversial, but if you're reading this you have an assignment. I want you to flag other people. I suggest using 1% flags.

begginers
Step 1. Find an article that seems to break the rules for good flagging
Step 2. leave a mini flag
Step 3. Leave a comment explaining why you flagged, feel free to include a link to this post

Intermediate
Step 1. Find an article by a friend
Step 2. Leave a mini flag
Step 3. Tell them you're prepping them emotionally for HF21 in the comments, and that they are still your special friend

advanced - Don't try this at home...
Do a bad flag...
Step 1. Find an article
Step 2. Flag it
Step 3. Call them a cunt in the comments for having such a stupid fucking opinion
Step 4. After it all escalates they'll probably write a post showing their emotional fragility, leave a comment on the second post, point them to this, say it was an experiment, and that you're just trying to prep them for HF21. Tell them they aren't really cunts and their article was great. You're just trying to help them.

Ok, should be a fun week

Get out there and flag someone and ready your popcorn and drama this week.