I'm upset...
Why do some people feel the need to promote themselves to sheriff of Steemit-town?
Why do they try to exercise force and control over others - something I'm sure they wouldn't enjoy if it were done to them. This is childish, immature and egomaniac behavior.
Aren't we better than that?
Aren't we all here to enjoy freedom and creativity - whatever creativity means to each and everyone of us?
If you don't like that the posts of a tiny account like e.g. @thevoiceofgod consist mostly of only one word or sentence - why don't you ignore them?
If earning money from one-word memes doesn't fly here, @thevoiceofgod will surely notice that and disappear after a while. But what's wrong with allowing them to test out their style of creativity?
How does their behavior harm you so much that you have to flag them and "put them in their place"? When you give them a lecture on their blog on how they should behave according to you, doesn't that make you the spammer?
Wouldn't we be much better humans if we encouraged creativity in others? Even if we don't really understand or care for their personal brand of creativity?
How about putting tolerance over domination?
Live and let live
Yesterday someone notified me that he almost flagged me, until he read something that apparently "saved me from his flag". Oh, wow, thanks for saving me from a danger I didn't know I was in. My big mistake was that I had apparently used a wrong tag.
Why don't we create a new society in here that is based on compassion instead of control?
I know it's hard, because we're all so used to being controlled. But we shouldn't see this platform as an opportunity to finally do unto others what has been done to us all our lives. Why don't we see it as a platform that allows us to create something that's never been there before?
Do you really want to replicate the world out there, in here? Wouldn't that be a complete waste and misuse of a blockchain?
Maybe next time, before you flag someone, just stop and relax.
Ask yourself if starting a #waronspam is really worth your energy.
State your opinion. Tell the author "I don't like any of your posts!" if that makes you feel better. But maybe try and take the judgment and violence out before you hit "post"?
Ask yourself if you are here to connect and make friends, or to condemn and rule others
Like the guy did, who almost flagged me. He seems like a nice and helpful guy after all. Even if he thought it necessary to express a warning to me.
This all saddens me... We all are actual human beings here, even if many of us appear to be anonymous Steemit names. It's easy to assume malicious intent when you don't know who the other person is, and if they actually are a person or just a bot.
I met a lot of Berlin Steemians this week again at a meet-up. It makes such a difference to meet the actual humans. I could never flag any of them. I would never flag anyone on Steemit, for that matter, unless they really bother or try to harm me. If I don't like their content I unfollow them and move on. I don't have time for negativity.
Small disclaimer
I know there are some people and bots here who actually do harm the community and I've seen a "Sherlock Holmes" around who spies them out. That is actually a service to the Steemit community, I believe, and I am not addressing these guys with my rant up here.
I'm addressing just the random people who have their own vision of how people should behave here and who take it upon themselves to reinforce that, assuming the worst of people, instead of being forgiving and maybe starting a conversation first before flagging and condemning.
At the end of the day, I think we all have a similar vision for Steemit. We just have different ways to get there.
Personally, I would love it if we all allowed every single person here to feel free to be themselves, to know they have creative freedom, and to receive encouragement and positive recognition instead of mistrust and punishment.
In my opinion, flagging on personal opinion is bullying.
I think there are good reasons to flag a post;
This one is a bit subjective. Value means entertainment, education, science, art, community, or literary works.
That's a good list! Agree with that. Except sometimes you may not know if someone does something intentionally (no. 3). But when you're certain, okay. Thank you @timeshiftarts!
Just to add to the "tag" thing. If someone is going to flag you for this, they would most likely remove their flag if you were, in fact, wrong and removed the tag. Or explain why you added the tag and they may agree and remove the flag.
I get that it is frustrating, but it's the only tool available right now to stop people who are abusing the system. Since we don't have a way to really search through steemit yet, the tags are all we have to find the content we want to read about. If we want to read about #bitcoin and someone posts a picture of their cat using the tag #bitcoin because it is a popular tag, that is surely going to annoy some people and they will flag it. It's not the best system but it's really all there is right now.
"In my opinion, flagging on personal opinion is bullying" - 100% agree, some people on other platforms love to follow my art, but then when I post links where they can buy it or God forbid - prices, they report me for SPAM. For a lot of people SPAM seems to have come to mean anything people don't agree with, or anyone trying to sell anything at all. If you want to enjoy my art for free online but not buy any, just don't click the links, right?
Personally I feel you should be allowed to monetize your blog in any way you like. I monetize some of my blogs with in context Amazon links and use my referral tags when talking about cryptocurrencies because I'm bringing related information to the table.
There is no good reason you shouldn't be able to sell your art when writing content about it.
I find a lot of this 'protecting Steemit' quite upsetting. The very cute 'IamGrootbot' recently posted that it is still being flagged by people, even thought it will only post on your page if you indicate that you want it to (and it then resteems your post). Downvoting this very cute post is a bit like kicking Bambi!!!! There's room for all sorts...
And I will add that "protecting" isn't really protecting....it's harmful. If people start walking away in droves due to attacks, the value of the whole platform drops in every way. Like we learned in school, we all just need to play nice here.....or go back to the wastebook drama! haha
Very true!
This sucks! This platform has been so very refreshing for me. I essentially am almost completely off wastebook, and in a whole new world here. People just need to play nice or the whole idea flattens out and turns into drama. So sorry you got attacked. Trolls can lie anywhere. We aren't perfect and neither are they......hugs
Thank you, @kimmydee2 :)
I just had to resteem this. You express and explain so beautifully what I feel about this community. In my short time here and right from the start I have felt welcomed. I got off YouTube and Facebook mainly because of the excessive and intrusive advertising as well as the obvious bias and censorship. But the "last straw" was the hateful trolls. I blocked so many. But I only flagged once, when a person I was following received in our thread an explicit threat of death. Twitter is now censoring and going ad crazy. Steemit was such a delight to discover. I love how it shows me what's "outside the box".
Thank you, Thyme :)
Your right about people getting a little carried away with what they consider spam. I looked at thevoiceofgod's blog and it is certainly creative. Although it is simple, there is nothing wrong with it. I tried to counter the downvote in question but it's already been ten days so it's best to just move on I guess.
The problem is that spam is getting out of control and people are trying to do something about it. Sometimes I guess people who are doing nothing wrong will get caught up in the fight. It's unfortunate, but spam can't be ignored anymore. We tried ignoring it and it got a good foothold so now it's time to do something about it.
Hm, yes I guess that's, true. Thank you Steve!
Ich kann der Liste von @timeshiftarts nur zustimmen.
Ansich soll jeder wie er will, solange er nicht die Grenzen eines anderen mit Füssen tritt.
Ich versteh eh nicht, warum manche so wild aufs flaggen sind, vermutlich liegt das im Wesen des Menschen, andere kleiner machen zu wollen als Ausdruck der (vermeintlichen) eigenen Grösse.