People love round numbers, but I like pretty strings... Instead of celebrating at 100, 200, etc. I am celebrating at 111, 222, etc.

So... 111 followers, woohoo!!

img source: pixabay

Now on to the real issues...

Flagging Wars

Most active Steemians (at least those reading the posts they upvote) sure are aware of the flagging wars by now. It is very easy to find posts supporting and commiserating with those that have been 'victims' of merciless downvotes. It has been much harder to find a counterpoint to the prevailing perspective, or posts sharing support for the downvoters, rather than the 'victims'. I read this morning an excellent counterpoint perspective by Hive account@acidyo and would like to add my own thoughts, as unpopular as they may be. (Some of this was already posted in a [comment[(https://steemit.com/flags/@acidyo/my-thoughts-on-flags-for-disagreement-on-rewards#@josephsavage/re-acidyo-my-thoughts-on-flags-for-disagreement-on-rewards-20171120t164451679z) on Hive account@acidyo's post but I decided it deserves its own post so that I can alienate my own reader's instead of his.

Key Considerations

1. Both upvotes and downvotes (flags) are built into the protocol. The reasons are are fully explained in the whitepaper.
2. Upvotes earn curation rewards, but downvotes do not. This unbalanced schema is intended to create an ecosystem where positive feedback is more common than negative feedback. There are significant costs to providing negative feedback.
3. The value of upvotes and downvotes is directly proportional to investment in the ecosystem. There may be disagreement about whether voting choices are motivated by short-term or long-term thinking, but you have to be invested for at least 13 weeks (or gain the trust/support of somebody else who is) for your votes to have any value. This encourages investors to make choices with their votes that will improve the long-term potential of Steem.
4. There was a previous hard-fork changing this from a much longer period (104 weeks?) to 13. This may have shortened the time horizon that decisions are made on, but id does not change the core logic: Greater long-term commitment = greater ability to shape the ecosystem.
5. You may disagree with the way others use their votes, but they earned the right to vote however they want - either through direct investment or through previous earnings.

I would hope that people disagreeing with the outcomes will think about how the incentives lead to specific outcomes and how they can use their own SP to improve the ecosystem, instead of knee-jerk reactions and complaining.

Are there first-mover advantages? Do whales have momentum that is difficult to overcome? Do people vote in ways you disagree with? Is it a perfect system?

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee!!!

It's not a perfect system, but it's a damn good one. I believe in its long-term potential and have put my money where my mouth is. Maybe I have a little more audience because I could invest more, or maybe my bot usage choices have driven away potential readers... Those are choices that I made, and I am rewarded (or not) accordingly. Like it or not, incentives matter. Steem has the right incentives in place to encourage long-term growth in the ecosystem. Certainly improvements can be made, but let's not throw out the baby with the bath water.