Wow. It actually happened. I caught myself doing it.

I just read this post.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@kushfreeman/when-i-spend-good-time-writing-an-article-for-no-reason

Which is not exactly civil, but with people discovering that they can be censored for non-offensive material and other vague things the civility starts to fall apart. Now technically you can't be censored it is still in the blockchain. You can be stopped from earning, and you can have your reputation dragged to oblivion.

What I caught myself doing is wondering if I should vote on it or comment on it for fear of retaliation. I plan on voting it up as soon as I am done with this post.

Is this what we think will work for steemit?

Will it be a good impression for people coming here with recent posts about how we can't be censored and in reality we kind of can be?

This sets precedence for large groups of people deciding they don't like what other people are talking about and down voting it.

This will likely result in retaliation. People may think, big deal I have so much steem power it won't do anything to me.

Yet will it do to the perception of the platform.

The reason Hive account@berniesanders used to justify starting the big flagging of Hive account@dollarvigilante should not even be valid. Until you fix discoverability on this website so older posts do not vanish into oblivion it does not MATTER if you've heard people talk about the same topic before. We have a lot of new people. It is not as though finding those old posts is easy. It is not like we can PIN topics. All of these should have the qualifier YET

I see some reasons for a flag button to exist but honestly if this is how it is going to be used it'd likely be better if it wasn't there. However, that'd make the place not really family friendly and easy for porn, and other NSFW type things to flood in. I think it is worth keeping for that. I also think it is worth keeping for spam, as it does improve the experience. I am even in favor of it for plagiarism but if it was a choice between me having to do my own research on plagiarism and having people FLAG something because they think it has already been said before, or because they do not like it then I'd say the plagiarism is minor in comparison.

It has went in a very short period of time from one of the most free and civil places where people can talk about just about anything to a place where a few that are not happy can suck the soul out of people.

Their intentions are GOOD I can see that from their posts. They are however purely subjective and biased. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Hive account@dollarvigilante's post. Yet it could be over the top and such but that is how some people are. There are also other people who are pretentious and think they need to police what other people are allowed to talk about. I'd rather read a filth laden post that was almost 100% profanity than have someone deciding to censor and restrict what other people read, post, etc.

The argument may be that they didn't. It has impact, just as if you stole from someone. When it is spam, plagiarism, or NSFW improperly marked you won't get much of a peep. When you start going for people outside of that spectrum you are going to make enemies.

Is that what we want to start doing here?

PLEASE rethink how you use that flag. If it keeps going on then the model will need to be changed.

This environment suddenly feels hostile. We are being told which tags we can and cannot use without penalty.

How are all the new people that come to this site going to know your esoteric dos and don'ts?

I am NOT one saying whales are too powerful, I've actually advocated that people should be happy ANYTIME someone is uplifted here as it increases the chances of spreading it around for anyone. That does not mean I am in favor of a few people dictating how everyone else is allowed to speak without penalty.

I've posted many Anarchy posts, so have many other people here. If you haven't read them then you should because you'll understand pretty quickly that this type of behavior is anathema to the concepts we believe in.

So what can we do?

Can we solve this peacefully with people agreeing not to abuse the flag?

Is it going to require a hard fork and change to the code?

This will take some thought. It can't stand as it is if you want to promote this place as a place of no censorship and not have people call you out for hypocrisy. Freedom of Speech does not exist to protect popular speech. It exists to protect unpopular speech.

I am not using STEEMIT to spam. I only use it when my post related directly to steemit. This one does. It is almost 100% about steemit. It also has something to do with steemitabuse since I know that is a tag people policing spam and other issues often use.

EDIT: And Hive account@tombstone I saw you trying to head this off. I read your comment. I think you were spot on.

EDIT 2: I've had numerous people mention Hive account@neoxian as abusing flagging. I spoke to him once and he had a legit reason for the flag the user was complaining about. However, I just read this exchange and if he is intended to be moderating this thing then that is totally the wrong attitude. If you want to escalate to all out warfare then that is the attitude to have. There should NEVER be retaliatory flagging but that is where this is all leading.

EDIT 3: I believe the user was wrong in flagging Hive account@neoxian as well though. I simply believe retaliatory flagging should not be used. Both parties seem to have done that. NOTE: The user tells me these flags have been removed, so this is settled. Emotions do flair up, we are all humans. If we act in haste out of emotion hopefully we will have the good grace to reverse our mistake. Hive account@neoxian has done so, and I have asked the user if he did as well.