Dear themarkymark,
Firstly, I have to admit that I am in a hurry and did not read the whole article (please accept my apologies but I just cannot read your whole writing atm Edit: I read your whole post - statement at the end!).
Secondly, Idk a lot about you or @jerrybanfield; I simply "know" that you are big players in Steemit (powerful witnesses respectively whales [?] no one wants to mess with, I think).
Thirdly, flagging must not be removed! At least if it was we would need a similar (respectively better) option because bad content (scam, spam, flaming, plagiarism etc.) has to be kept under control (below the surface/'removed from Steemit'...).
I do not have a better solution currently for such issues - I am not a (great) developer (or powerful Steemian) anyway.
He recently went and made ... bunch of idiots and scammers.
Well, to my mind generally everyone can post and share with the world whatever he wants to - although I really do not think that such topics should be shared publicly, that is why you have friends for, normally (of course there are exceptions, as always; maybe he does not have any friends and so he 'needs' to share it on the Internet, no offense, I just do not know). I really do not want to sound impolite or anything like it.
Btw. naturally posting porn is forbidden but talking about it is not a problem (depends!).
Excuse me, I am not an expert when it comes to Steemit but how can he "put his own post on trending", does not he need the community for that? Oh well, he could have lots of bots or just a lot of money too (what he presumably has if he is a whale).
So that he fell back from #19 to #31 does not seem legitimate, but I highly probable do not know every single "crime" he has committed.
In my view, you should always (try to) act rationally - objectively not subjectively. Moreover as a powerful person. Be fair and do not just hate on others (only) because you do not like them...
Idk, I do not follow Jerry; but if he really is doing all these things you claim then he definitely should change something (or probably should have even earlier). Keyword: awareness (when you are an important Steemian, moreover as a witness). Witnesses should be intelligent, polite and fair - not just rich people.
And they definitely should not be sharing "inappropriate/stupid... stuff".
Yours truly,
Gandalf The White
PS: Steem did not (necessarily) fall because of flagging.
EDIT:
@themarkymark Well, now I have finally read the whole article and I (mostly) agree with you. Jerry's behavior is not appropriate. If everything you wrote is true then he definitely should not be a witness imo. That is very sad that someone like him got that far on Steemit.