The system encourages spam, and discourages the fighting of spam.

As most of you may know, when you vote something up, you get a curation reward, and depending on your timing and the success of the post, this reward could be quite good. Just yesterday I voted up a post that was about an hour old, it had made 2 cents, my vote put it at around 40 cents, and then it got noticed later and ended up at around 2000$ ! My reward for that was about 15 Steem, not too shabby for just one mouse click.

On the other side of the coin, flagging something earns you exactly zero, other than a reduction in voting power.

Something happened today that demonstrates perfectly what I'm talking about. @kental messages me on steemit chat asking me to vote on his post about bees: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@kental/kiss-a-bee-bee-garden-on-steemit-honey-pumping-joyfull-weekend-how-to-be-a-beekeeper . I have nothing against @kental and his post, it was actually very good. I could have gotten in on the ground floor and voted on it, but I noticed it wasn't tagged right. So, like a douchebag, I tell him 'no sorry I won't vote on it because of tags', and what do you know? It goes on to make at least 800$. If I had just voted on it, I could have made probably 2 Steem or so, but instead I got 0.

And then I went on a very unproductive flagging session which ended in a flame/flag war which burned away a good chunk of my voting power and I won't have much to show for it, trust me. Plus that made me miss out of @dantheman 's post too.

And @kental, do you think he's going to give a rat's ass about tags in the future? Hell no, the system paid him $800. He has every reason to keep doing what he's doing. And there is little reason for me to try to stop it, indeed, the system would have rewarded me for helping him spam (again, I think his post is good).

One of the worst parts is that I can't afford to mute @kental. He is a good poster and might be a success again. If i mute him, I'll be missing out. I can't afford to mute anyone really because you never know when a post might go viral.

I'm going to have to deal with this chaotic system.

Edit: I did vote on his post after all and will get a small curation.

I somewhat agree, as to not being rewarded for downflagging in the short run, but doesn't contributing to the quality of the posting (which downflagging is) eventually create a more valuable platform, thus eventually benefitting you through a higher steemvalue? (far off compared to steem and SD in your count 24 hours later I know, but still)

Yea, it's like brushing your teeth. In the short run, it's a pain, you have to buy tooth paste, tooth brushes, floss, and spend some time on it every day. But in the long run, you'll have healthy teeth.

It would be nice if the system could reward good behaviors in the short term.

I too think the system needs a bit of improvement. The reality is, for new members, their votes count for exactly nothing. No matter when they chime in or how big a $ post, they will get nothing unless they have already earned Steem Power.

@dantheman 's post today was good. They are looking at changing the system, but am concerned at what he proposed. I wrote up a good bit of my mind and have formulated some improvements. Not sure if Dan will even take a look at my reply.

Here is a link to Dan's post: https://steemit.com/steem/@dantheman/people-rank-using-page-rank-algorithm-for-better-curation-and-rewards

Yea that was a good post. The one I wished I had voted on a earlier.

Where tags would you have put on that post? bee and beekeeper would never have shown to anyone after the first few minutes of being on the new page. It is kind of an introduceyourself post. The way things are with tagging steemit seems to be a it doesn't' fit into any existing tags pace right now. It's not right but until tagging works it's not going to get any better.

I didn't think it was an #introduceyourself .

Was a partial introduceyourself. Not a full one like some threads. This is why one person just flagging for that can be bad. What I see and he might have seen as a valid tag you see differently.

Gardening, NaturalRemedies, Beekeeping, Bees, Honey

Gardening is the only one of those that is currently on the list.

I'm still trying to figure the system out also. Thanks for the article because I didn't realize how important the tags were. I'm not getting many votes on an article I wrote but i'm starting to understand what's going on..

I disagree .

The system encourages good contwnt over bad.

It is not perfect though however your statement is fundamentally wrong.

Care to go into any more detail, other than just using the word "fundamentally"?

just shows how you will change your ethics for money..flagged my post when it was a good and relevant one..but upvoted another for money lol..where's your integrity now, bro @neoxian

Are you trying to convince me to police tags again? Maybe I'll just police yours.