Do Not Flag Unless You Are Sure

in steemit •  7 years ago 

To Flag Or Not To Flag

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I have noticed a disturbing trend on Steemit among some users. I have witnessed a few cases where users of higher SP or reputation would flag lower level users. Flagging can definitely be a good tool to prevent inappropriate content, but it should be used with great care!

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

When is it ok to flag:

  • Something is NSFW and not marked NSFW
  • Something is illegal
  • Basically, some shit is REALLY wrong.
  • Obvious spam

Why should you be so careful with flagging?

Steemit involves money. This means that when you flag a user you are potentially jeopardizing their source of income. If they are doing something terribly wrong, that is fine, but it cannot be something like they have a different opinion or world view.

When to warn:

  • WHENEVER YOU CAN. Give them a chance to fix their action.
  • Plagiarized, not properly sourced.
  • Spammy, but not quite.

Abusing Power Is Bad For Everyone

If person is powerful on Steemit, it means they have a lot of SP. Which also means that they are invested in making Steemit better. Therefore, it is counter productive to abuse power in such a way that will turn people away from using Steemit.

Regards,

@unprovoked

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You are so right! I'm always scared that someone would dislike my posts and flag them even if they are not inappropriate. Thanks for sharing!

Yea and I think it happens too often.

I dont flag cause when you flag you loose power, better vote good content.

Really, that was what was thinking. That flagging must have a cost to prevent haters from flagging triggering content.

Timely opinion!
I provided a comment on a recent post and was quickly muted for having not voted. After reading further comments it was really unfortunate to see that this notion had flooded an otherwise great post about beer. Let's try to give folks the benefit of the doubt until it's clear that they have spam-soaked intentions. That said, I have no hesitation in flagging when it's necessary. Unfortunate that it's the spammers who have induced the quick trigger finger from others.

Just because 9/11 happened doesn't mean every Muslim is looking to cause problems. Tolerance is a slippery slope :/

Yea this type of stuff is just wrong. It is gonna break the system if not addressed properly.

Someone with a high ranking on here accused me of posting un-original content and cluttering the newsfeed with suppoed spam...
Sooo I made a post about it and made $ off of their false accusation! :)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@tonyendz/somebody-with-a-high-ranking-on-steemit-accused-me-of-posting-spam

True that. I flagged once, and wish I had not.

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Good advice

Due diligence should prevail. Its our community, lets make it better. Thanks for the insightful opinion.

This post has received a 0.39 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @banjo.

Great advice, and supportive perspective on how to use this power in an appropriate way. Thank you @unprovoked :)

So, to understand they can do that without any consequence? Hmm... i saw at a post that one person was down voting all users that commented there (including me).

Without any reason...

Made a post but not having a clue why he did that. I received advice to ignore it and he thought it was a crying post. But being a rookie... i was just asking in a post... didn't know how to do it other way.

Pff... :-(

better vote good content! :-)

Why not putting upfront cost when flagging?