Flags have pretty much stopped in the #thunderdome

Only 6 out of the 49 posts posted in steemit.chat #thunderdome channel this year have received any flag, and most (if not all) of these were not #thunderdome related flags.

Here's the stated purpose of the channel:

Your original posts only - By posting here you accept that your post will be either up voted if perceived as quality OR FLAGGED if not

So obviously we're not up to the challenge any more, so I guess the results of the experiment are in.

Results

It seems that it's hard to bother enough to flag, and that the stigma of flagging, the popular interpretation that it is only for abuse, can not be overcome easily.

I stopped voting in any way because I took a break for the holiday season and didn't come back to reading them. Sorry guys, but I follow a lot of you guys anyway.

But what I observe in the voting pattern of most posts in the channel is cooperative voting, i.e. people supporting each other. This is a great thing to see. It seems that #thunderdome has turned into a "high quality" post link drop, instead of a the ruthless quality appraisal it was intended to be.

I guess I kind of saw this coming. Hive account@fknmayhem said the same to me, as well as others such as Hive account@lextenebris who have made arguments underlining how flagging costs are not balanced in favor of the flagger at all, making it not very worth while to do.