If you haven't read [this](https://steemit.com/steemit/@ats-david/content-crusaders-the-fight-to-save-steemit-will-fail), I would recommend that you take a look at it and the comments. There's no reason to flag. Just ignore it and move on. We should be building up/expanding the community, not fighting over content preferences.

Hi @beanz, I have just upvoted your post, but I am not going to flag @steemsports. I am not going to upvote their content either. Probably never did that. I am not interested in such content, but also I am not considering their actions as an abuse. 
Flagging is not a solution. Making better content is. Unfortunately, that is not my field of expertise ;-)

I agree, flags are not specifically an attack, the way I see it.  I consider a flag when I see content that brings no value to the platform.  Abuse brings no value to the platform.  Vote-buying is abuse.  I can totally see the argument that @steemsports has a vote-buying component.

But I wouldn't characterise @steemsports as vote-buying.  Is it 50% vote-buying and 50% something else?  Is it 10% vote-buying and 90% something else?  I don't know.  I don't even know what the threshold is to characterise something as vote-buying.

Bottom line, I think @steemsports brings value to the platform, in spite of having a vote-buying component.

i despise sports. i think it is a waste of time and life. i think it is a destructive force in society. i do not gamble either. 

many people find it to be a positive social experience, and method of relaxation. even gambling can be fun for some if it is not an addiction.

i have not found overwhelming evidence that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. i prefer to live and let live.

as for vote buying, i have seen very few instances, not enough to concern me. compared to other abuses i see on steemit, the prevalence of vote buying pales. the 100 cheat-ahs gang and steemcleaners do more damage to steemit than anything else i've seen except whale vote trading. whales playing "you vote me, i'll vote you" with each other, is not increasing the value of content here.

if this were an actual free market, and SP were not in an unending nosedive, i might be concerned about vote buying. i'm trying to prioritize. how about whales using multiples to upvote themselves? is that worse than vote buying? i think it is. the same with multiples used in flagging, like the cheat-ah gang.

Considering it... happy holidays very insightfull post. After reading if Im thinking its a good chance the writing was good.

Free market

Flagged for basically flag buying.

Vote buying is considered abuse because when someone purely buys votes, the assumption is that he adds nothing else to the community. This is not the case with Steemsports, which a lot of people seem to enjoy.

In fact, you yourself are basically incentivizing malicious behavior, hence the flag.

<p>This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the second half of Dec 23. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $7.89 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.</p> 
<p>See the full rankings and details in <a href="https://steemit.com/curation/@screenname/the-daily-tribune-most-undervalued-posts-of-dec-23---part-ii">The Daily Tribune: Dec 23 - Part II</a>. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in <a href="https://steemit.com/curation/@screenname/introducing-the-daily-tribune-most-undervalued-posts-of-nov-04---part-i">our initial post</a>.</p>
<p>If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.</p>

So you are telling everyone to flag out of subjective reasons?
 Its not only for abuse?
 Is it a flag or a downvote?

This is a major thing, so please let me know.
 If it is not only for abuse I will stop making posts about flaggots, I will however start up a flagging guild to start the flagging wars off.
 Please let me know.

[nested reply to @beanz](https://steemit.com/steemsports/@beanz/game-of-flags-a-fun-redistribution-game-win-steem-by-flagging#@beanz/re-smooth-re-beanz-re-smooth-re-beanz-re-surfermarly-re-beanz-game-of-flags-a-fun-redistribution-game-win-steem-by-flagging-20161224t092836562z)
> Well then around 50% of the SP from the rewards pool goes and stays with @steemsports. If you don't see that as problematic then I have little faith in your judgement.

It is not really an easy call. They've built a real team, with developers, a brand, a following on the site, a dedicated UI, and a marketing and business plan, all of  which is based on Steem and promotes Steem to people not already on the site. 

To be clear I _have_ given them feedback suggesting to distribute some of the SP in some manner (such as season-long contests or special bonus events or something), but at the same time when I look at their account and I see a value of $16,607, and I think about the amount of time and effort that has gone into it along with what is being done, to me it appears they are bringing that much value and more to Steem.

Abuse is subjective.  I don't think you should flag things simply because you don't like them.

Dear @beanz, we wish you and your family a blessed festive season. 

You were very brave to stand up and you have my respect (the founder), but know that we aren't the enemy, we are a bunch of fun, nice people writing and posting sports content and creating engagement in the community through innovative games.

Voting for us, is voting for innovation and for proving that Steem is a platform that welcomes business initiatives that can thrive without being witch-hunted.

When values were higher pre-downvoting from @dantheman, writers and editors were being paid more and the winners would receive up to 5 SP and some SBD. For the project to be viable for writers to be paid correctly for their efforts each post needs to make 150 to 200$ minimum. 

Our current breakdown of liquids rewards pool:
15% editors
12% writers
3% steemsportsfund (our petty cash fund to pay random expenses)
70% back to the community to the winners

All of the SP is retained by @steemsports and is owned by two founders (we don't even take a salary as yet for our tireless efforts), most of the funds will be used towards development and advertising of a web app. See http://bitsports.io to see what we have been up to in stealth beta. We are likely the only showcase of an alternate use case for the Steem blockchain on the market.

Regarding vote-buying, well most votes are bot votes on the main post, they are simply following curation rules on Steem, whereby it pays to upvote popular authors early to earn curation rewards, since everyone knows we trend daily, we get voted alot by bots, but the bots don't actually enter the games and just help raise the reward pool for payouts. In fact the winners are mostly real accounts that I have seen posting on Steemit, have a look:

https://bitsports.io/payouts/the-steemy-games-craig-grant-vs-mr-wang

If you think about it, curation itself is a form of vote buying, the more popular your account becomes, the more people are incentivised to vote on your content simply because of the curation rewards irrespective of value, this is built into the design of Steem and the whitepaper.

Also paying out rewards to loyal customers is nothing new, all retail stores pay back a portion of purchases in the form of loyalty rewards and there is even a crypto currency called incent that is about creating such loyalty systems for crypto payments. It's just common business practice, in our case instead of whales voting on sock-puppets and cashing out, they are voting on us and we distribute to great sports writers and to the community and are also building cool stuff.

I hope you will respect our business in future as we (or at least I have respect for you), rather encourage others or you yourself build cool stuff on Steem to rival what we are doing and surpass us on the trending page rather than aiming at taking us down.

Peace and love this holiday season.

Namaste!

I voted for you post because I think critical voices are necessary to make things better here, but I am not going to flag their posts. I've never voted nor flagged anything by steemsports and I think in time it will get sorted out, as Dan as mentioned that he doesn't think steemsports works on this platform in an optimal way. I feel that steemsports definitely cheapens this platform and perhaps a different offshoot would serve it better.

Isn't NOT voting the common way to NOT add value to a certain content - hence to express our disagreement? Isn't the decision to NOT transfer Steem Power to an author the way we are able to express that we don't like or don't wanna support a specific content? I've always thought that a flag is an 'alarm system' only to be used in 'emergency situations' when a certain content could be a threat for the community (disrespect, racism etc).

I am a flag virgin, haven't raised the first one because I believe in words. The distribution of rewards is achieved by voting, not flagging. 

I believe flagging should be a paid feature because if you are willing to hide someone's content instead of telling them what bothers you about it, then you should invest some of your own strenght in weakening them. If you just don't like the fact that they are making so much with their content, then you make better content to cash in their place and don't vote for them.