This is not one of my usual posts, as you can see. Up to now, I haven't had much to say about this issue, but I guess it's time to say something. This issue was brought home to me in a more direct way on a comment on my last post.
Someone upvoted a comment that was left on my post, and that upvote was negated by one of the flame war bots. Then the next comment to that was made to disappear and a stupid meme was posted under that disappeared comment.
Let me say here that this has nothing to do with my post, it affects a comment on that post. However, it still ends up on my page as part of the flag war. Up to this point, I've just been seeing this kind of shit on other people's posts, but it seems to be spreading all across the steem blockchain like a virus. I've seen a few of the names involved with this plague of flagging people simply because the other person doesn't like them, but I don't know all of the actors involved, and I don't want to know. It doesn't really matter who it is, it's enough to know that it's being done by accounts with some of the largest stake on the platform, along with some not so big accounts.
The main thing that I see is how bad this entire flag war virus is for the steem platform, and for the value of steem it's self. In the past couple of months, the value of bitcoin has gone from less than $4000 to above $5000, and the price of Liecoin has more than doubled. In this same time, the value of steem has been stagnant, still sitting at 44 cents as I write this. 44 cents is about a 10 cent or so increase over that same two months that Litecoin doubled. If steem had risen in the same manner as bitcoin and Litecoin, it would probably be worth about a dollar now instead of 44 cents.
I have to ask myself, why is one of the best and most useful blockchains in existence right now stagnating while the others are gaining value? I'm no crypto expert so I don't have any technical answers for the question, but I do have a speculation. Could it be that all this flag war for no valid reason bullshit have something to do with keeping investors away from steem? You gotta ask yourself, why would you invest in a crypto coin that has self destructive tendencies due to some investors dislike for other investors. It's not like these people are flagging shitposts or plagiarizing, they're simply flagging people that they don't like, and downvoting any posts or comments that the other people upvote. Meanwhile, those of us who are just minding our own business and posting content are getting caught in the middle of this stuff.
If I was a person with some money to invest in crypto and I came across this kind of behavior on the blockchain, I would certainly think twice before investing any money in steem. And yes, this stuff is out in the public sphere on other social media for anyone to see. People are talking about it.
As an investment, this self destructive platform doesn't make any sense for a new investor. There are better crypto coins to invest in that will bring you better returns than steem will right now. Lets face it, if you have a fair amount of money to invest in a crypto, why would you want to put your money into a stagnant investment that is showing self destructive tendencies due to a flag war that is more of a pissing contest between 2 groups of people than anything else?
So, what I think this all comes down to, as I and probably a lot of other people see it, is that steem is failing in its potential, and, in my opinion, it is at least partially due to this flag war that has been dragging on for months now. I don't expect it to stop anytime soon, it has become a personal vendetta for both sides in the flag war. I also don't expect the value of steem to rise very much while the general trend in cryptos is currently in an upward direction.
It makes me wonder if my efforts at posting decent content are worth while, or a fool's errand.
That is all I have to say on the subject of the flag war for this post. I'm guessing it will fall on blind eyes anyway, the opinion of a minnow doesn't mean much on this platform.
I am declining payout for this post as I don't think this subject should be given any glory or reward. Don't upvote this post, you'll be wasting your vote. If you have read the post, leave a comment.
one of the better plainly stated and well thought out explanations ive heard so far. it's a pity certain people are intent on bringing everyone else down. i wish they would take their sour grapes elsewhere.
I agree. They're wasting resources and devaluing the steem blockchain with this nonsense.
Agreed. Both sides of any flag war are just
burning their VP, trying to hurt the other.
I'd rather see'em upvote their own comments.
At the very least, they'd get something out of it.
I agree, the whole thing is stupid.
I don't know anything about the flag war itself. I mostly post on #gaming.
It has almost zero apps and it's stupid to register in the first place.
Steemit is not meritocratic in structure - it is oligarchical.(stake based).
It's that simple.
All flaws stem from this.
It’s only a flaw if you’re one of the poor ones.
lolololol....gotta love the honesty!
And since about 80% or so of us on the blockchain qualify as one of the poor ones, it's a flaw for most of us. Pretty much like the real world. There are the kings, and there are the peasants.
My upvote is worthless anyways so I can upvote this without wasting anything.
It seems the concept behind Steem is flawed. One only needs to look at the results to see this. The author reputation system is flawed. Look at what some of the highest rep authors are posting and see this. The idea of getting paid to upvote is flawed. I can find similar ideas in my spam box, "Make money surfing the internet!" this is what click farms in third world countries do. People should upvote because they like a post and want to support the author, not because they know some upvote bots will be jacking up the payout on whatever shitpost of the day they're clicking on is to help them with their ROI. Besides helping a few large stakeholders out what has Steem done right?
As this has begun impacting me - as you relate it has you as well - I have stepped up to the plate. We who have no interest in these flag wars are now on the hook: only our action can create the solution we want. When these flaggots appear on my blog, or impact my comments, I flag now.
Prior to today, I have not been compelled to take action to rein in this behaviour. Steem is intended for the community to have control over this kind of abuse however, and in this case - where tens of thousands of spam comments are being made, robotically cast flags are targeting third parties, and etc. - it's time we stepped up and took action. We have the actual power to end this abuse of our platform.
That's what we need to do. I hope you join me in taking action, at least where this crap impacts your blog, by flagging the flaggots that are depressing the value of Steem for no other reason than they are unreasonable.
Thanks!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Any flag that I could give would just be adding to the nonsense.
Honestly, I'd rather use my voting power to upvote good content.
Me too. But, as you point out, absent control over flaggotry that is harshly impacting Steem, those upvotes aren't of much value.
Not that I have a choice anyway lol.
i think there are bad actors.. the type that money is not an object.
i think this is unaccounted for by steemit. the idea that someone might invest and not care about that investment and instead seek to destroy from within.
second point, steemit has made it clear they want
1 steemit dollar = 1 us dollar
i sense you are hoping it will rise.. but it won't.. at least it isn't meant to be more than that, if it goes higher they will try and bring it back down.
third point.. allowing people multi-accounts = fraud in my book. i only earn steem at X rate. multi-accounts defrauds this, i don't see how steemit can function while allowing this.
These are all good points, especially the multi accounts when they're just used to upvote the primary account.