I have been thinking a lot about finding something to learn from this whole incident.
And my conclusion is that we need a better notifications system...
This sounds crazy, but it actually comes from the realization that what failed here were proper communication lines between the parties, which became a downward spiral of missunderstanding about the use of flags and what was actually happening.
Some are getting directly hit in the cross fire, the whole platform image is being damaged by the drama and the increased missunderstanidng of what is happenning.
I don't want to get in the detail, lets forget names, wallets and actors for the sake of this lesson...
The good:
A user is bringing interest in the platform in what seems an honest way, and has been doing it for a while.
This speaks well of the person.He has kept the same style (a little more worked yes) steadly for a few months even when his payouts were in the 15$ range.
He creates tutorials to transfer the basics of his know how.
He brings followers to read his stuff in the block-chain.
So far i would define him as someone who is bringing value and creating sustainable growth.
The Bad:
Someone starts irresponsibly voting his articles and creating a suction of the rewards pool towards a single user.
If this SP was dormant before at least it woke up, If it is new SP holder maybe he needs a better explanation of how this works.
Why we automatically assume that this is been done by selfishness ?
Ok the user seeing the payouts, increased posting frequency.
(At the same time the market was turbulent, BTC was entering the correction, maybe he felt his duty was to profit from this railfall and share a bunch of quick safe positions to deal with the storm... )
I am sure many took benefits from that (I am not one of them!) I read thought his Elliot waves posts to see what his technique was because i know of a fan of him who is on the way to the lambo
...Anyway I digress as usual.
Now lets imagine that all this happened
And we had better ways to communicate between steemians.
What if, someone had been able to tell privately both the poster, and the voter that what they were doing was not ok, to use it with moderation.
To the Voter:
Don't vote blindly every-post your friend publish at 100%, also share the love, don't just vote your friends, give to the community, share is for everyone and your investment will grow the more users adopt, and stay in the platform.
You can help by using your SP curating or following the vote of many of the curation groups that are tending to the small users that are tomorrow's guides for the flood of mass adoption.
If you concentrate it around you and your friends, then you are hurting you long term investment!
To the poster:
You were doing great, and finally succeeded you are an example that dedication pays off!
However don't take it all for you, remember to leave for others.
Thank your big mecenas, and ask him to think about sharing too.
Or propose to use part of the massive potential rewards you are taking to give back to the community.
There are projects that struggle to survive out there and have future and ideas!
I don't know if this kind of clarification is suited to be given publicly i think everyone would be more comfortable to start this kind of discussion privately, and eventually reach a friendly agreement and move on.
That is the art of diplomacy, the FLAG wars you are more victorious is the one that you avoided and created a win/win, no drama solution.
In any case the feeling i have is that if we manage to express our disagreement in a positive way, much of the drama can be avoided.
I suffer to see all the VP wasted flagging and unflagging when i know there is people desperately looking for SP to support their positive projects.
Maybe next time we can try a civil approach to the Offenders initially and see where it takes us from there!
If you don't have time, drop me a DM on STEEMit.chat the same username as here, i will do it for you.
Lets work together making this place a safe home for everyone, lets use our SP in a positive way encouraging the good behavior and the individual projects to build communities and help retention.
Lets spare us all from the drama of the flags wars, it stains the platform image.
If you don't, well next time you try to flag reason into a user, leave at least partial rewards.