To reward merit requires (both directly and indirectly) that the community police when rewards are not deserved, and that requires there be a lot more downvoting going on.
Putting the responsibility for this on uncompensated labor by the community isn't practical either, though. I can see the value of this as a stopgap solution but we really need something better.
Uncompensated labor? The members of the community are not employees, they are stakeholders who have EVERY incentive to participate in the protection of the asset STEEM.
He's right in a sense. It is uncompensated. If we had a good proposal for downvote rewards that would be great. We don't, but this proposal for 'free' downvotes moves the needle in the right direction. Intead of uncompensated downvotes that cost a lot, we have uncompensated downvotes that are free. The latter is far preferable to the former.
yeah, I'm for incentives that get people to flag. I just don't like the employee analogy I guess.
See my reply to @whatsup below