Learning ethics from an as$#%le #2 - Voting

To start,

I'm not writing this to tell anyone how they should be voting, or what to upvote/downvote, I'm simply pointing out a lack of common ethical behavior and integrity.

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I want to first point out the sense of entitlement that I see so often here. Some steemians seem to think that they should only ever receive upvotes, and throw a tantrum when someone downvotes their post. This often leads to a "flag war" when a bitch gets upset about a downvote, then goes and flags every post by the user who flagged them, for no reason other than "fuck this guy... He flagged me!"

Get the fuck over yourselves... To quote the Steem Whitepaper,

they [users] can vote content up or down and
Steem will use their votes to determine individual rewards.

When someone "downvotes" or "flags" your post, it's part of how steemit "determines individual rewards", and not everyone is going to like your post. When you click the little flag button on a post...

... the very first "common reason" to flag a post is a disagreement with rewards. Maybe someone doesn't think you should earn $20 just for sharing a movie trailer, or taking a picture of your pet. Maybe someone doesn't believe you should be rewarded for the typical spammy bullshit you see on facebook like simply sharing a meme. There are dozens of reason why someone might "disagree with rewards" on a particular post. Is that a reason to "return the favor" and go downvote one of their posts? It is if you're a self-entitled, whiney bitch, I guess...

Just because steemit offers rewards for content doesn't mean you're owed or entitled to anything. Not everyone is able or willing to put out content worth monetizing, and that may sound like a rude thing to say, but the truth is often ugly.

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Self-Voting

Upvoting your own posts and comments artificially inflates the value of a post. Of course you're going to like your post, you wrote it, but a high-five to yourself does not mean your post is actually worth anything to someone else. You're supposed to be rewarded on the interest it garners from the community, not yourself.

Take this one step further and add in bots that allow you to buy votes on your own posts, and you've got a ton of rewards that are being taken from the pool because of that entitled attitude of "my post is worth WAY more than I'm actually getting!", which may be the case, but that's not up to you to decide...

To quote the Steem Whitepaper again:

...algorithms must be
designed in such a manner that they are resistant to intentional manipulation for profit. Any widespread abuse of the scoring system could cause community members to lose faith in the perceived fairness of the economic system.

When you use voting bots to increase your profits, you're doing so against the guidelines set forth by the creators of this site. You're "gaming the system" and forcibly taking rewards from the pool that are supposed to be awarded when someone thinks your content is worthy, not beause you paid them to do so.
Argue anyway you like with catch-phrases like "it's my stake, I'll use it however I want!", and you just make yourself look ignorant and greedy.

Did you know there is an #upvoteforupvote tag?
Oh yeah! And it pisses me off to no end. The only reason I'm using it here is to bring attention to it, and put this post into a feed full of people who truly need to read it. If you upvote this post because it's on that tag, thanks, but don't expect me to go upvote one of yours...

Beyond that, there even exists a whole website devoted to circle jerking. www.steemfollower.com lets you game the system even further, and promises you more followers and steem power if you use their site, and I want a hacker friend to DDOS the whole damn thing...

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This has been an exercise in futility, as unscrupulous people will always find a way to cheat for their own gain. Have a nice day, and remember: the things you do affect the way people see you as a person. If you're here acting like a greedy asshole, you're probably a greedy asshole in your home life, and I feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with that.

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