RE: Regarding Transisto and Flagging
Hi again,
Thanks for clarifying.
"Does my position as a steemit member provide me, as a benefit, wih the right to a tiny share of the pool, for me to dispose of as I wish?"
Actually, the Steemit White Paper explicitly states that is not the case. According to the White Paper:
"The same amount of money will be spent whether the user upvotes a post or not and the funds will not come from the voter. ... Under Steem, micropayments are paid to content producer, but those who vote for the content do not pay."
I'm glad you brought this up, as I am still figuring out and learning how this ingenious system actually works.
"I no longer have the satisfaction of feeling I did a good deed (if I have none left, then I really can't)."
A down vote does not affect the outcome of your vote. You can still feel good because without your vote, the result would have been even less for whomever you voted for.
At last an explanation I can understand! Thank you.
I know that I intend concentrating on doing what I love, writing and visiting other artists to encourage and even help where I can. But I also know myself. I am passionate about not standing by while someone gets bullied. As a child I had a few very sickly years, with one stretch of nine months in hospital, and I wear glasses (funny, but in those days, kids who wore glasses were far less in number than now), so it also made me good material for bullies to pick on me.
I got bullied to an extreme, once, with three kids holding me down while their leader whipped my back until I was bleeding.
My grandfather sat me down and told me, even if they are much stronger, hit back. Even if they still beat you up, you'll then have the satisfaction of knowing you hit him - at least once.
He did not know what a monster he was creating. I fought back and nobody bullied me again. But my now aroused empathy forced me to help when I see someone being bullied. This does not only apply to childhood. People get bullied at work, by their neighbours, and so on.
I saw a Nigerian who is fairly new at Steemit, all his posts are original. he wrote (I live in Africa, but am of Greek origin) a lovely post about how to grow enough food to feed your family on a tiny piece of land. This is very common in Africa and the swahili word for this kind of farm is 'shamba'.
I was delighted by his effort and upvoted and followed him. He thanked me, but when I returned to his site, I found he had been flagged to death.
What made it worse, was that there was a long list of people in the comments section complaining about him flagging them without reason.
It did not need a genius to work out that someone has managed to 'beat the system' and using his name flagged the others.
Why am I telling you this? Because I see an extremely disturbing trend. The person who did it, according to those who were able to investigate what happened, was someone called jesta. Guess what! He is #1 of the Witnesses, so I was told to forget it, he can't be touched.
Then I had someone called berniesanders attack someone, badly flagging him because he presented an interview he had with the doctor who provided the medical information for the movie VAXX. He justified what he did by saying he will flag anyone to zero who is anti-vaccine!! Again I learnt that he is one of the untouchables. He has a slavish following and one of them threatened to flag me to nothing because I had dared criticise his hero. He has not done so yet...but who knows.
Then, now, the flagging that prompted this post - and again it is someone high up, an untouchable!
This gives me the feeling that something has seriously gone wrong in Steemit, despite the original good intentions. When things like this start to happen, they just get worse. In Greek we say, the fish begins to stink from the head. In South Africa, we say, if our president can steal and cheat, why shouldn't I?
Will there be many Steemians who feel the same way? If yes, how can we stop it before it destroys the community?
If a way is to be found, then it must be dealt with immediately. I'm just sorry (and disturbed) to not find a way available for us to downvote a Witness (the president of the US can be impeached, but not a Witness?)
Hi Arthur,
I'm very sympathetic with your views about bullies. I understand completely.
I also find it abhorrent that there are wealthy Steemians who use their power to trash subject matter with which they disagree.
I don't know what the answer is, or whether or not their is an answer. For the moment, I will simply continue to support the people I see doing good work here, and encourage others to do the same.
I would like to see Steemit succeed in the long run, and I sincerely hope that those who implement changes gain the necessary wisdom and insight to make that happen.