Flags or Downvotes tend to cause big controversy at times...but they're also quite useful.
I'm sure most of you have noticed the option to flag posts by now, but not anything labeled as a down-vote like many of us are used to on Reddit. Over the last year, these pieces have adapted around a bit to what we have now. So I wanted spend a little time touching on what flags are, what they do, how they're meant to be used (in general) and possible repercussions they can cause. Especially because there is some subjectivity involved.
Q: What are flags on Steemit?
You've probably noticed the little flag icon in the top right corner of posts like this:
If you click this, you'll see a little box open up giving some guidelines of what they're meant to be used for from a community standpoint. However, since Steemit is decentralized, we don't have formal 'moderators' like on most other sites. The community have to be doing much of the 'policing' (even though this probably isn't the best word for it.)
[ADVICE: If you flag somebody, it's best to leave a comment stating WHY you are flagging.]
Q: How are they are NOT meant to be used?
- Simply because you disagree with somebody else's opinion does not warrant a flag. Here on Steemit we try to foster communication between differing points of view in a civil manner. So while you are free to disagree, it's not a flaggable offense.
This is not quite the same as Reddit or some forum boards in this sense. Simply not upvoting is enough in these matters.
Q: How are they meant to be used (in general anyway)?
As you can see in the picture above, flags are meant to be used in the following ways:
- Fraud
This doesn't happen often anymore, thank god. Trying to acquire money or votes in a deceitful way is frowned upon by the community. This could include things like starting a contest promising prizes yet not paying anything out, representing somebody else's identity (catfishing) in your posts (introduction posts typically) while NOT being satirical, or other promises that had no intent on being kept.
[Remember on the blockchain we can see transfers within Steemit, allowing people to follow the 'paper trail'. For catfishing, often users will be asked to verify their identity if it seems questionable.]
Plagiarism
Trying to pass off work that isn't yours, as your own is a BIG BIG no-no here. So much of Steemit is based around providing some form of original content and adding value. While there is room things like sharing links, cool videos, pieces of art, etc it is important to make it clear if something is created by you. A good rule of thumb is that if you use something that wasn't made by you...give a reference link to where it came from. How would you feel if someone copy/pasted a post you worked long and hard on and started making money on it like it was their creation?Hate Speech: speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.
Source
- Trolling: Make a deliberately offensive or provocative online post with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.
Source
- Intentional miscategorized content or spam
Short Answer: For the most part flags are meant as a way to deal with abuse like plagiarism, fruad, trolling, misusing tags or trolling. I do recommend for newbies to hold off on flagging due to disagreement on rewards until you understand the platform and community better.**
Miscategorized content generally means using tags that don't apply to the post itself, often just trying to get access to the high traffic. If everyone posted with the steemit tag, even when it had nothing to do about it, simply clogs up that feed making it rather unusable. I also often see this with certain challenge tags, such as the MemeChallenge or SteemitPhotoChallenge. PLEASE PLEASE don't use these tags unless it's an actual entry in these contests. They're meant as an easy way for judges to view the entries. If you use these tags for something else, you're simply making things difficult on those involved, possibly getting yourself flagged.
Spam is pretty straight forward here. Making a bunch of copy/paste posts, comments, or whatever just flood our community with things adding no value. I've seen so many people make a bot to write 'Great Post' on every post, just hoping to get followers, votes or the like. Over time, you will find yourself getting flagged by users for this.
These three can are rather straight forward and can pretty well be lumped together as abuse. The last one is WAY more subjective and where many users can find themselves in spots they don't like.
- Disagreement on Rewards
This was the last bullet point added onto the flag list, probably around 5-6 months ago and what made flagging a bit more subjective than situations of abuse. Disagreeing on rewards pretty much means that you feel a post is being over rewarded, even though you don't view it as abuse. Generally this was due to big users voting up themselves or their other accounts, many whales (large Steem Power holders) piling their votes on to a single post, or the like.
But as you can easily see, this is a lot more of a subjective decision than the others. How do you decided how much a post should make? Is it technically against the 'rules'? Is a person or people trying to game the system and drain the reward pool (since there are a limited amount of daily rewards)? While you are free to flag for this reason, I generally don't recommend it. If you do, this above the others should have a comment left stating explicit why the flag was given.
Q: What do they do?
First I want to note that when you flag...it costs voting power just like an upvote would with about 0.5% being deducted from your voting power percentage. Each flag you cast does essentially mean that you have one less vote available (relative to the 20%/day regeneration rate of your vote power percentage.)
When you flag somebody's post or comment, it actually reduces the earned payout on it and the authors reputation. Small dots are shown to denote to others when larger accounts have flagged, with more dots showing more flag strength on a post.
The more Steem Power and higher reputation a person has, the more powerful their flag is. However, if you have unlocked the vote slider bar, you have the option to set a percentage towards the flag you give.
It's important to know that even though you name with the flag may not show on the drop down list of votes at the bottom of a post, people Can find out who has flagged their post using sites like steemd.com, steemdb.com, etc. Everything we do on the blockchain can be seen by others...remember that.
Q: What sort of repercussions can happen if I flag somebody?
Often new people find themselves being on the receiving end of flags as retaliation from you flagging them. This is why it's a good idea to leave a comment on why you flag someone else. It takes the question out of their mind, ideally so they understand why it's happening.
Many users take these are a lesson learned and simply don't do that again. Others just start screaming how unfair it is while they continue their rather obvious (to everyone else) abuse.
Be aware of the possibility of being counter-flagged
Q: Are there any groups who monitor for abuse?
If you either find yourself being abused or notice someone else being abusive but don't want to risk the counter-flagging, there is a channel in Steemit.Chat called The Steemit Abuse Channel. Many people in here are veteran users and/or a part of the 
If there is an issue, calmly go into this channel and write a message stating the issue and or concern. Please try to do this as calmly as possible proving a little information on the situation as well as a link to the post, comment or user in question.
You can support much of the work this group does by upvoting report posts by the
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