Initially, I was surprised and a little "pissed" but now I'm super excited because I'm about to initiate a "flagging" debate. Why am I doing this?...because the "pen", my friends, is mightier than the flag (red one of course).
About a week or two ago I started experimenting with how to improve my visibility on Steemit without the use of bots. Steemit can be a sterile place for newbies, often seeing no OR little traffic for weeks or months. Presently, I do not have lots of time to create new and original content, I'm not a blogger per se, however I still need to keep visibility up and build relationships with "followers" and "following" as well, otherwise having a Steemit account is a futile existence. I also refuse to produce and recycle some of the pseudo-intellectual garbage that often surfaces and should be flagged for lack of flavor. Instead I prefer building relationships over time and have whatever conversation that emanates.
Before I get started let me share the results of my experiment:
Messages Sent - 140
Total Responses - 27
No Response - 133
Positive Response - 24 neighborly response
Remarkable Responses - 2 Used the opportunity to educate
Negative Responses - 3 Flaggers + 1 user claimed a lack of sensitivity to their content
If you haven't seen, it, let me show you what all the fuss is all about - I sent the following message to some of my followers which I abandoned mid way due to the flaggers;
I'M CELEBRATING 300 FOLLOWERS
Thank-you for YOUR awesome support!!!
Come Check Out Some of my Cool Posts:
A Cool Morning Gratitude Session
Apologies For Slow Up-Voting
FOLLOW * UPVOTE * RESTEEM * REPLY * WELOME!!
Source: Picture300
Personally, I cannot understand what the fuss is all about. Let me break it down for you...
The message was not an indiscriminate mailing of incoherent information. Primarily, It was a limited message sent to my followers (not meant in a patronising way), to thank them for being part of the milestone. I believe a personally delivered message is polite, unless we have decayed beyond that point.
I included a self-evident link for an apology for slow up-voting, simply to keep everyone informed that not up-voting was a temporary situation. Also polite I think.
Since I was sending out the message, I included a promotion of a post and of myself. This I believe is entrepreneurial. Anyone who thinks they don't self-promote or that it will go away is deluded. Believe me, personally delivering more than 100 messages on Steemit is hard work. I did it because it reminds of a nostalgic time where every fortune was born by a door-to-door salesman; and where neighbours actually spoke to each other (and not flagged them).
Ultimately, in the back of my mind I did expect some push back for my promotional style, just not as soon and as severe. So what do I think of the current situation. I think it's great. As the say in public relations there is no such thing as "good publicity" and there is no such thing as "bad publicity" - only, PUBLICITY. So, I am optimistic that I will attain my secondary objective, of good visibility.
I will not name and shame these flaggers, because by this time they would've done a pretty good job all by themselves. All I will say is that indiscriminate flagging is an extremely narrow-minded approach!
Honourable Mentions: I've mentioned that two remarkable persons took the time to understand, discuss, advise and mentor. I've decided to mention them because Steemit truly needs more people like them. I've also include the link to the blog post so that that you can see how masterfully they dealt with my "spam" to create a mutual respect. these are the two men who has inspired this post. Thank-you!
https://steemit.com/fuckthategglookingmo/@mitthradiumn/day-4-2-or-7-day-b-and-w-phot-ejpoweoh-wejesu
https://steemit.com/life/@kobusu/colorchallenge-blue-friday-epic-fir-tree
I am not in favour of flagging anyone, unless the content was extremely and obscenely offensive. The fact is there are simply too many better alternatives. You could ignore the message (133 did), you could use the opportunity to educate and debate (2 did) or simply (mute or unfollow - which is what I did to the flaggers, because they are childish bad actors, and if they treat their blog as the "richest square mile on earth" and not as a rich diverse social playground, they are snobs!)
A special message to indiscriminate red flaggers:
My "pen" will harm you, much more than your red flag will harm me!