The problem

One of the most controversial features of the Steemit system is the ability to flag a post. As the devs and many others have emphasised, flagging a post is not something to be done lightly, but only if the post is offensive, spam, plagiarised, or in any other way contradictory to the ethical code of Steemit. Of course, that code is decided upon by the community through the voting system, which is why responsible voting is so important.

I use the word 'flagging' because it's important not to confuse this action with the opposite of upvoting, even though they effectively have opposite effects. The distinction is simple: whereas we are encouraged to upvote a post we like, it is not acceptable to flag a post simply because we don't like it. There has to be an objectively better reason for taking this action.

However, it's clear that we're seeing a lot of needless flagging, especially on popular posts (whether out of spite or some other reason), and even on less visible posts, for no apparent reason. For instance, I received a flag on one of my posts with an accompanying comment that simply read "You are not being intellectually honest". Baffled by this strange comment, I asked for an explanation, which I never got. The flag, however, remained.

Proposed solution

It does not seem right or fair that anyone should be allowed to devalue a post by flagging it for no good reason. Therefore, I propose a change whereby flags must be accompanied by a publicly stated brief reason for flagging, to be shown as a special kind of comment. There should also be a means of challenging a flag whereby it can be removed if enough users agree with the challenger, perhaps by indicating their agreement through voting on this flag comment accordingly. This, together with some clearly stated guidelines for flagging from Hive account@steemservices would also go a long way towards preventing the abuse of the flagging system.

It's important that we preserve the integrity of Steemit by making sure that such abuses of the system are discouraged as much as possible, and that the value of a post can be determined by the community freely and fairly without being skewed by needless flagging.