Steemit.com UI Changes to Flagging - Pull Request Submitted
Flagging is probably one of the most controversial and divisive aspects of Steemit. Next to 'unfair distribution of rewards', it is probably the next highest reason that users "rage-quit" the platform. As someone who is very interested in Steemit becoming a mainstream social media platform, I am very interested in getting this 'right'.
I will not go into my personal views on flagging here, but for those interested - you can read my thoughts in this post.
One thing that I have determined is that there is not going to be a way to make everybody happy regarding this. There are too many differing views, and several of them are in direct conflict to each other. (Some people only want to flag for abusive things, while others want to use it as a means to control rewards.)
Unless a larger change is made to separate "downvotes" from "flags", there will not be a way for everyone to get what they want. (Even then - there would probably still be some unhappy people..)
This change is intended to find the best balance between the various views, given the current implementation of the flag/downvote at a blockchain level.
While I know that these changes will not completely solve the flagging conflict, I believe they are a good step in the right direction. They should at least (hopefully) make the situation a little bit better.
The Pull Request
This pull request updates the UI so that flagged posts do not stand out compared to non-flagged posts.
Reasoning:
With the current implementation of "flags" and "downvotes" being combined into the same function, users receiving "downvotes" for non-abusive reasons such as disagreement on rewards has been causing a lot of controversy. Part of the reason is because the interface shows the post as 'flagged' whenever it receives a downvote, which makes the post seem 'bad' compared to non-flagged posts, even if the poster did nothing 'wrong'.
The main argument against this change will be that users can no longer easily identify posts that have been flagged for abusive reasons. While this is true, the current implementation of the flag/downvote at a blockchain level does not provide a good means to do this without also singling out content that has been downvoted for non-abusive reasons. Users that are interested in fighting abuse can use other interfaces (such as steemd or the steemit.chat abuse channel) for this purpose, while regular users will just be presented with the "vote list" (showing the top 20 upvotes/downvotes) and pending post reward.
Ultimately, a more robust long-term solution should be pursued that gives the user the ability to 'flag' or 'downvote' separately, with a way to distinguish between the two.
The pull request makes two changes:
- Removes the flag counter, so the UI no longer shows a count of how many flags a post has received.
- Changes the post preview to only show the flag icon when a user hovers over the post. (This is the same behavior as a non-flagged post.)
Here is an example of what flagged posts will look like with the change:
Compared to the current UI:
The UI will show the flag icon when the user does a mouseover of the post, which is the same behavior as a non-flagged post:
If the logged in user has flagged a post, the mouseover will show that post with the red 'flagged' icon, so that the user can still tell if they have flagged the post:
Posts and comments that have been flagged to the point of having a negative voting score will still be hidden (the same as before):
The downvotes will still be shown in the "vote list", with the same logic as upvotes:
Here is a link to the pull request in GitHub:
https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com/pull/1039
The pull request has not been reviewed by Steemit yet, so there is no guarantee it will show up on the live site.
Since this is likely going to be a controversial change, I welcome everyone's input! Please share your thoughts/questions/concerns in the comments below.
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I find it to be a very futile exercise to discuss reasons for downvoting within a trust-less decentralized system. The UI changes that you are talking about change almost nothing. People read from left to right and having a tiny grayed out flag to the right does not make the post stand out as bad, hate speech or whatever. My goal is the success of STEEM and I will downvote anything that's near the top that I believe is not interesting to most people.
I will downvote :
Orginal pictures that are of not so good quality or that is of very subjective taste.
Picture of food. (with steem logo next to it)
*STEEM circle-jerking, including speculation on the price and people showcasing blatant Steem logo.
(Newsflash : The way the Steem reward curve currently work, very large post about subject that are not related to current events like psycology, phylosophy and the meaning of life will not thrive - EVER.
Until Steemit or another platform find a effective way to sort things by subject I will be downvoting fringe stuff that find their way to the top.
When I downvote something it's not taking away money from the platform it's only giving a bigger incentive for people at the bottom to improve their content. If I downvote something that's already highly voted it incurs me a cost by taking away my opportunity at getting some curation reward.
And you are free to do so. As I described in this post, everyone is free to use their votes as they wish. It sounds like you are using yours to advance the platform in the way you see is best - so I see no issue with it.
The UI changes are mainly intended to change the perception of getting flagged. In theory, nothing about these changes should have any impact on whatever reasons people flag for.
Thanks for taking the time to address those issues. It seems to me that the most obvious solution is to bring back the downvote button. Either way I believe this shold not a priority. Thanks taking the time to look into this.
Welcome. There was some discussion about changing the vote slider to go both ways (positive and negative). It was not considered a 'high priority' feature though, so it probably won't be implemented anytime soon.
So I guess this is why you just flagged my post, because my photos aren't of high enough quality?
I did explain in my post why that is, my children are Autistic and don't understand to hold still and pose - they are constantly running jumping and flapping, making it virtually impossible to get quality photos of them.
I'm just a bit disappointed, because these are the best quality pictures I can get of my children and I even complained about this fact in the post.
Sorry to write this on here but this was the most relevant place I could find to try and address this and ask why?
Or to see if you actually read the post and understand my explanation of why some of the photos are of such blurry quality - and still felt the need to flag it anyway?
Did not read and am not interested in looking at pictures of random kids.
Don't know what to think of this yet but resteemed so maybe you'll get more feedback.
Cool, thanks!
you're welcome
I think these changes will be beneficial if the current way downvotes are dealt/felt remains, but 'real' change to downvoting is required to mitigate the abuses and make it a more effective method of steemit social control (its true purpose).
What change(s) would you suggest?
Downvoting need 'not' be the mirror of 'upvoting', there is no economic reason for it to behave similarly, albeit oppositely, to upvoting - ie. the more STEEMPower you have the more damage you can dish out with a downvote. Harm to reputation 'and' to a post's rewards seems correct to me, but giving individuals the ability to 'wipe out' smaller members is the 'real' reason people do not like the current state of the thing.
We need to have a way for bots to be made unable to engage in flooding posts with downvotes but at the same time, take away the ability of a Whale to annihilate users. One suggestion I made in a recent post was to make downvotes COST its wielder, STEEMPower - to disincentivize abusively frequent use - the more powerful the downvote, the greater the cost. Whether the revenue from this is burned or re-distributed is another thing ..
Alternatively, make the option available to those with min 300 SP and 40 reputation - newbs (and bots) should not be allowed to use this weapon (and a weapon it most certainly is). Add to that, a maximum amount of harm that can be done with a single downvote, no matter how powerful the user - this would require a more democratic mechanism of dealing with anti-social behaviour ... more people would have to agree 'and' take action in order to have an impact - not just one person's opinion - this would require a case be made against a user or specific post.
Great suggestions!
Why not :)
Haha or you could put a flag next to the pay out. So you can flag the payment or the post. Ehh? It's OK I decline any monetary payment for this ridiculously good idea.
Thank you! It's a great start to a change. I was thinking creating an expandable menu and have the flag button from being in plain view. If more clicks to get to a flag could cause less of this behavior because let's face it, a lot of people are lazy to do more clicks when it comes to social media.
True. It is at least currently tucked away in a corner, rather than right next to the upvote button. I think this does make it require a little bit of extra effort to click it :)
Thank you very much for the information sir @timcliff, I hope that these decisions are taken to improve the platform, and motivate more people to enter it.
I hope so too :) Thanks @jlufer!
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