Kicking off Hive account@tagalong this week has been incredibly eye opening for me as a Steemian and content creator here on this platform. It's no secret that there have been several incredibly public and incredibly toxic flag wars lately and unfortunately when you look in my history of votes over the past week, I too am not innocent of being malicious when provoked.

However.

No matter where I look, and no matter how I approach the flagging system, I cannot help but see the good in it when it is used to benefit the system and not the user. The flagging system, much like the voting system that frequently gets abused, is not inherently bad. At its core, the flagging system is designed to return un-warranted rewards into the communal pot so that they can be better allocated. How we use that system is what determines whether this is a bad thing or not.

Original image, edited.

This was the primary driving factor in developing the Hive account@tagalong idea and methodology. To quote Cobb from Inception, "I think positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time." If one could design a system that not only educated users on how to properly use tools that they agreed to use correctly in the Terms of Service- sections 14.1.1 and 14.1.3 for reference (yes, you guys made me go and look that up)- but also educated the community on how to properly hold accountable those who seek to scam the system to benefit themselves at the cost of other users, then perhaps the general attitude towards having flags in your arsenal as well as upvotes would change for the better.

With this in mind, I want to dive deeper into the philosophy behind the Hive account@tagalong initiative with the goal of bridging the gap between those who see the problem but don't have a solution and those who have a solution but don't have the means to address the problem. To start, I've got to make sure that we're all on the same page about healthy flagging culture.

Healthy Flagging Culture? As if.

It's no small task to convince the larger part of Steemit that flagging is not only a healthy part of the Steemit economy, but also a necessary one. I could lay out a flawless argument and still find myself standing alone because of how each and every one of us has been personally affected by malicious flagging. So rather than try to convince you with words, let me just show you. Take a look with a critical eye at #artisteem. Take a look at #introduceyourself. What do you see? Do you see the accounts that have a sole purpose of farming those two tags and nothing else?

They do it because it works.

Sure, there are excellent projects out there like Hive account@spaminator and Hive account@intro.bot that keep an eye on #introduceyourself, but these aren't the only tags being abused. #crypto, #music, #art, #fiction, each of the main trending tags has, when you look close enough at the created feed, its own type of farmer who uses the visibility or indifferent curation bots to shill out irrelevant content and make a few cents per post. On a small level, a few cents doesn't mean much. Take that number, though, and multiply it by 100. Maybe even a thousand. When you start to apply a few cents to a thousand accounts, you're looking at hundreds of SBD and SP being drained from the pot on a daily basis that could be used to benefit content creators who are actually innovating or contributing value to the blockchain instead of looking for a quick buck.

But they keep doing it because it works. And because we let them.

So clearly we have a problem, but what can we do about it?

Educate.

I could write an entire post on flagging alone, and perhaps another time. To summarize: Flagging is necessary to de-incentivize behavior that games the blockchain to the detriment of equal-value users playing by the rules. Hive account@tagalong's entire purpose is to make users aware of the fact that their tags are mis-representing their content, and to give them options to fix it. Often times a user will update their tags and the point is resolved. But when they don't, the next logical step is that they must not care, and that attitude has no place on the blockchain. It is indicative of an elitist mindset that says 'I don't have to play by the rules that everyone else does.'

Then and only then does Hive account@tagalong step in.

So in the absolute worst-case scenario, what Hive account@tagalong is doing isn't flagging for quality of content but rather mis-represented content. Grace is offered, as well as critique and options for change, before ultimately the funds are re-allocated into the community pot. The importance of professional and decentralized moderation is that when flagging has the potential of turning personal (as it often does on the small-scale), the decentralized moderator can weather any personal attacks because it's not about opinions- it's about objective and measurable standards to which all Steemit users are held.

So see, flagging isn't the enemy. Being too invested in the response and retaliation is what makes flagging on an individual level dangerous and toxic. Decentralized moderation solves this final key problem. So then what can you do?

Join Us.

Lend your eyes to help us combat the rampant mis-use of the tag system for personal gain. Help us disincentivize the practice of farming popular tags and polluting feeds with irrelevant content. Promote the education of new users and healthy flagging culture.

If you aren't willing to fight on the front-lines, consider delegating to Hive account@tagalong to increase its effectiveness. Already we've raised 1,500 SP from users who see this problem and believe in Hive account@tagalong as a solution. By delegating, you're actively fostering the re-alignment of several key factors on the Steemit platform, thereby contributing to its continued growth and stability in the future.

Quick links for Delegation: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP.

In summary, flagging isn't the enemy, and neither are those we seek to educate. Misinformation and lack of education are the enemies, and if we want to fight them then we're going to need all the help we can get.

Thank you for your time and consideration. The comments are open for more questions about Hive account@tagalong and what the project looks like in practice if you are still interested.

Cheers, Mako