Please don't vote on this post as I've declined rewards. See below!

There are some people who just cynically take from Steem on a daily basis. They do nothing to make it an attractive platform or interact with the community. They may actually be harming the image of Steem as a platform, but earning from content they took from others.

A prime example is Hive account@jout. He is posting around 3 times a day and it's just Youtube videos he found or memes. Nothing original that I can see and he doesn't even add anything of his own to the posts. He's been here for over a year, so he's well aware of how Steem works. He's buying sizeable votes on each post and so taking around $70 out of the reward pool each day! I note that he gave up on commenting 9 months ago, so he's not interested in talking to anyone.

I realise that is not all profit, but he's actively reducing what you can make whilst enriching some vote sellers.

So what can I do?

If we can flag his posts. This is not attacking a minnow. It's restoring the balance of where the rewards should be going, i.e. to those producing original content that has value. He's by no means the only one, but he's doing more damage than many. If we can at least make his posts unprofitable then he will lose the ability to continue without buying more Steem.

It's worth scrolling to the posts that are about to pay out, i.e. six days old, and flagging those first so we reduce what he's making now. According to SteemNow he has $441 of pending rewards that we need to take back.

What's in it for me?

Using up your voting power for flagging does reduce your ability to support others, but I think it's worth doing. If he stops then there's a little more rewards for everyone, but it's an ongoing battle to deal with such leeches.

You can actually get rewarded for your flagging. @SteemFlagRewards is a project to incentivise flagging of posts that abuse Steem. If you leave an appropriate comment the account can vote it up to a similar value to what you removed. There are some limitations on this. You need to be able to remove more than the 'dust' amount, which is about 2c, to get anything back. It's up to you if this matters.

Your comments need to adhere to some rules. You must give a reason that is one of those listed on their Discord and then tag @SteemFlagRewards. You are free to give the offender some tips on how they could do better and I think that is valuable as some don't realise they are acting against the community. In this case I would consider his actions to also come under 'bid bot abuse'. His 'promotion' of his posts is nothing to do with reaching a wider audience and all about profit.

What are the risks?

There's a chance you may get retaliatory flags, but this guy currently only has 50SP, so he cannot do you much damage. I have some others flagging me on a daily basis, but they don't have much more than him between them and I suspect this set of accounts are all controlled by Hive account@atempt, who is on the receiving end of flags for similar offences.

I'd like to see him blacklisted by the vote sellers. Is it in their interest for Steem to continue to lose users?

I realise I make myself a target by doing this and acting against the interests of the vote sellers, but I think a better Steemit that rewards honest effort and engagement to be worth fighting for.

I'm declining rewards on this post as I want you to use your voting power elsewhere. Even if you don't want to flag anyone you can vote up those who do and/or delegate to @SteemFlagRewards or to the accounts dedicated to this sort of flagging.

The future of Steem is in our hands. It's not looking to great at the moment, so let's help make it what it should be.

Steem on!

I'm Steve, the geeky guitarist.

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