I have a doubt about the criticism part of yours.
I think criticizing NEVER helps. Sometimes people bring innovative things, sometimes they think out of the box and present in front of you things that otherwise seem vague or weird but later those people turn out to be a huge success.
Criticizing is the only reason why so many blossoming flowers never blossom because they give up.
Sometimes I think what a different world it would be if nobody criticized anybody !!!
Don't you think so?
Flagging someone who is spamming is not criticism. It is harmful and harms people in various ways. People get irritated, they feel their work isn't seen, only used to comment other's links etc.
But criticism is different!! And I think it doesn't help. It spreads only negativity and demotivates people.
Might be a language thing - constructive criticism is more important than any up vote - without criticism nothing will be developed - we need that to improve anything in life - to develop - to grow, without criticism we would still live in stone age caverns - only with criticism we can move forward. Hope that makes sense to you, you might have a different understand of the word. It should give options how to improve. Flagging is harmful? That depends - I rarely flag spammer - in early day i tried to educate but 90% of them are ignoring as they are spammers and scammers, they do not care at all about the community or anything here.
No. I meant that spamming is harmful. Didn't describe it clearly. My fault.
And Yeah, constructive criticism is helpful. I see.
But I have seen people who criticize more then they appreciate. May be its just two sides of a coin. One good and one bad, like everything else in the world, as you said :)