The people who designed, developed, and develop this system disagree with you. They have now expressed that by incorporating "disagreement over rewards" into the flag dialog.
It is a gray area, but I do believe that the voting on these posts is essentially a form of abuse. Much of the voting power has decided to vote on these long form posts in order to generate curation rewards (including to use in funding voting guild businesses) because there is an expectation that "quality" and the reputation of the author is a free ride when it comes to the risk of being downvoted. They are incorrect.
But value is subjective; if someone likes something, they're going to like it as a token of their appreciation. Disliking something, I guess, is the same. I just feel that showing your disapproval through negating said tokens is a violent act. Not intentionally violent, but indeed violent in nature, as you're suppressing someone else's subjective appreciation.
You are right though, and it does fly both ways, I just feel there should be a medium for people to show that they disapprove of something, as such a dislike button. It would improve metrics, transparency, and overall consensus.
Its a good point about metrics.... the rest of it, the way to indicate that you don't like something without effecting rewards is to post a comment saying "this is fucking stupid"
No one is negating, we're all just expressing views. As I asked in another reply, if I downvote and then someone upvotes after me, are they negating my downvote (or my opinion)? I don't think so.
Perhaps it would help to understand (if you don't already; I'm not sure) that upvotes and downvotes/flags are equal and opposite. If two people with the same SP vote on a post, one up and one down, the effect is to not change the reward at all. We're all entitled to our views on what is the best approach to use our own vote power.
I agree that the flag icon is bad and misleading. I'd love to see it put back to having symmetric up and downvote buttons, since that's how the system actually works.
I understand, I just feel, that there should be a downvote button that doesn't negate rewards, and is simply there to show people that their content isn't valued the same by every one. Although upvotes/flags are equal to one and other, they're not seen in the same respect. One is negative and one is positive. Any negative act you take upon someone, even out of kindness, can be considered violent. When you're negating someone's rewards, then it's evidently violent.
Not to sound condescending, but do you understand how people powerless to tip the scales, might feel in that situation?
Putting so much emphazis on "feeling" as if though it was a thought, in general makes me less inclined to read comments. However I do see what you mean by doesn't "negate" and perhaps that could be one use of the downvote. On the other hand, I might suggest it should be the other way around.
Maybe the downvote should adjust payout as is done today, but the flag should have no monetary value attached to it.
That way, payments could be adjusted with regular votes and the flag could be kept as a separate mechanism (just to show if someone thought it was simple spam/harrasment) as there would not be the same incentive to flag simply in order to bring down the payments of others.
"It is a gray area, but I do believe that the voting on these posts is essentially a form of abuse."
This is where I have to disagree. Unless the platform says it's abuse, it is not. You may find it harmful to the platform or it's users, but that's still not to say it should be labeled "abuse".
"The platform" says it is "abuse" when the stakeholders do, and only then. There is no central authority defining these rules.
Anyway, I don't think the label is that important.
Well, I separated the terms "platform" and "users" to narrow it down to the combination of the data made visible from the blockchain and on the most promoted user interface/website.
I don't consider myself, users in general or any stakeholder for that matter, to be a rigid part of that particular "platform".
Also, I used the word "says" in the same way as "the book cover say x". Not to suggest that anyone in particular was actually saying it anew right now.
I think that the labeling is actually more important than it may seem at first.
For example, it would seem here that if I voted for this post you would consider my behaviour abuse of the "platform" (your previously used definition). This would be even though I make hardly anything from it and am not associated with any guild or other form of organized voting. Just for thinking that this is good content and you seeing it as bad content, you would have termed this abuse, no?
I may dislike the content and consider it a "poor" use, but I wouldn't consider it "abuse" unless it actually directly and clearly violated a stated current goal of the developers of the platform (my definition).
Maybe you don't mean the same thing when you use a word such as "abuse" and this could be the cause of a lot of confusion.
Good feedback. I do strive to minimize confusion. Thanks.