The issue we have is that there is a wide interpretation for how to use flags. Yes there is a cultural guidance that is forming but why does someone with the influence Bernie has have to observe the interpretation of others?

there is no cultural guidence. All the other whales downvote material they think is overvalued or overexposed. Smooth has done it (and said so explicitly) ned has done it (remember mr yoda) dan has done it and so have most of the other small whales. Like you said, this is because there is no one who can make them follow the informal "rules".

There are two ways to look at a downvote:

1. As a flag, that is only to be used in a specific set of circumstnaces.

2. As a vote that you can use however you see fit.

The thing is, that if our "cultural norm" says we use downvotes as #1, whales absolutely can, and absolutely will ignore the informal rule just as they do right now. So the only way we can have a universal rule that applies to everyone(at least within the way the current system works) is to use votes as votes, the way they are on the blockchain.

The real issue here is that a bunch of not very good, very overpaid writers got together, complained that they didnt want to get downvoted, so the downvote got turned to a flag and got a warning in the UI.

When that didn't work, the the same group of writers threatened to retaliate against anyone who used the downvote in a way they didnt approve of, so people stopped using it.

Thats not a "community standard" thats trying to force people to vote the way you want. Changing the way the vote looks in the UI to discourage people from voting a certain way is no different from ballot tampering.

And steemit as a whole loses out because of it.