I am not a fan of the flag.

The item people sometimes call a down vote.
It is up in the upper right corner of the post and is barely visible. It is shaped like a flag and it is nowhere near the voting area.

I feel people are bringing mental baggage from other sites and feel they should down vote posts as well as up vote them.
I actually have thought of what I hope are compelling reasons you should NOT.

Scenario/Example: The Busker

Let's say I am a busker and I'm standing on a street corner playing my guitar and singing
People walk by and they hear me, reach into their pockets or wallets and throw some money into my guitar case

That is pretty normal.

This is the scenario we have with an up vote. If you don't like it you just don't vote.

Flagging a post actually takes money away from the person. That is like you walking by me busking and deciding that a chord I just played was flat, so you reach into my case an pull out $10 and walk off and light it on fire. The money is now tainted, no one gets it, it is not in the economy anymore.

If you happen to be a particularly powerful in the neighborhood where I busk you might walk by and have the power to set my entire guitar case on fire.

The hours I spent putting something together snuffed out by you on a whim. The other people that liked it, their desires for how their money was spent. That does not matter. All that matters is you had your way. Perhaps they played blues, or Reggae and you only like Classical guitarists. Perhaps they once said something you didn't like so now out of spite you always destroy them whenever you see them.

Can you not see how this is aggressive?

As to solutions how to fix this:

• Remove the flag
- it is kind of needed to deal with spam, plagiarism, and offensive posts that do not let people opt in.
• Only allow certain people to use the flag (aka moderators)
I believe this has a great potential for abuse and if many of you have spent time on reddit you will know what I mean.
• Persuasion
This is the approach I have been trying to use. I am trying to make people realize that someone doing well here does not take money out of your pocket. It potentially does the opposite because now there is another with more power that might vote on your posts. It needs to even out and is in beta. I try to educate them to the fact the FLAG is obviously not designed to be used for DOWN VOTE. Otherwise, it would look like a down arrow and be near the voting.

This place has a lot of possibility and is really quite excellent. If you feel yourself reaching for the flag to click on it, ask yourself some simple things.

• Is it plagiarizing someone else and have you verified that is the case?
• Is it spam that keeps getting posted over and over, and this means the same thing? It does not mean the same story topic. People should be able to write about how the sky is blue as much as they want as long as they do it different each time.
• Is it graphic or offensive and forcing you to see it without giving a warning and allowing you to opt in>?

If it is not one of those things then you shouldn't be clicking it. All that remains is you being aggressive and forcing your will on others and stealing other people's money they wanted to give to the busker.

I'm still trying...

I know others are as well...

EDIT: Hive account@hoopatang had a good idea

What if we added a down vote button that shows the negative opinions, but does not remove the money people wished to contribute? Then the FLAG could remain as a way to report abuse. Down voting would not be stealing other people's money they chose to supply with a vote.