Internet trolls are everywhere, why would Steemit be any different? This is something that we all have to take a stand against but it is important to choose when, just as @gmuxx describes, good advice!

Ignore bad posts and they will go away, without response or feedback, positive or negative, they will fade. 
The same goes for new posters too, if you ignore them they will fade, feed them knowledge, greet them at the introduce yourself page, teach them something, give them pointers, nurture as you wish you were nurtured. 
There is a lot of talk about supporting minnows, but the red fish who will never make it to minnow status are lost opportunities, disillusioned they may never return, losing out on hard earned gains. 
Steem on, great post @GMuxx, thank you for your hard work and dedication to the community.

Resteemed to share with everyone.
  I have seen what you speak of, and it is disheartening to ask a valid question and get attacked, almost like don't ask the government any questions or your going to be sorry.
   Well I'm glad you posted this, thanks.

I just made a post about this.  Basically can some aashole whale who **just doesn't like us** can destroy us?  I thought flags were reviewed?

My related content on this topic:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@chelsea88/do-we-really-have-to-worry-about-asshole-whales-killing-our-rep-because-they-don-t-like-us

Still learning the ropes here. Found this post informative and interesting enough to grab my attention (not very easy to do these days to be honest).

As you say, it's hard when you want to make sure something that is wrong is made right. However, I don't yet have the power to make those kinds of fights my own. 

Good advice and well said.

Great advice! Thank you!

Solid advice as always my friend. Best for everyone to be careful. Even this system still has bugs to work out of it.

WOW

GMuxx back at it again with the  survival tactics!! Thanks for looking out for us minnows <3

You're doing God's work man. Hope you become a whale someday.. And take care of your MS

Great points. I've been doing this, and I'm not even a minnow anymore.

*"What this should show minnows is the importance of either picking your fights with caution or keep your head low and avoid the flak altogether. "*

I strongly recommend that minnows simply avoid any post they would feel the need to flag or make negative comments on. It's too easy for them to be abused, and too satisfying for the abuser.

You need the threat of a powerful downvote to force others to consider retaliation in their game-theoretical analysis of whether they should downvote you. You don't have this as a minnow, so even if the shining light of truth and reason is on your side, all it takes is someone emotional with some SP and two clicks.

Avoid topics and authors that trigger you, unless you are able to debate them in a reasoned and intellectual manner that makes you look better and them look worse. Note: this is very difficult to do consistently and most of us are unable to restrain emotion well enough to come out looking the clear victor in most cases. This is a high risk strategy, but sometimes, you will see your follower number shoot up as you appear to be the reasonable one in a debate with some ranting lunatic. (I have used this strategy on SJW/feminist posts, as well as the articles kyriacos posts that are full of factual falsehoods such as "The Star Trek Federation most closely resembles North Korea, politically".)

so sad to see here @gmuxx, awesome to see the community rallying around them...minnows UNITE! 
https://media.giphy.com/media/7QB0ahNvPCICY/giphy.gif

That's pretty messed up that you can basically ruin somebody's account with flagging without any type of review. Once Steemit gets really popular that's going to be a disaster.

Why can't everyone just play nicely it would be so much better. Cheers mike

Thank you very much for this bit of advise!!

Fully agree, well said

Nice one Gmuxx... I have been noticing so many posts are just a sentence and then someone else's youtube video.. If it's NOT your video... Don't put it up !! RESTEEMED buddy !!

This post received a 4.1% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @gmuxx!  For more information, [click here](https://steemit.com/steemit/@randowhale/introducing-randowhale-will-you-get-the-100-vote-give-it-a-shot)!

The rabbit and fox analogy is golden. Great post.

Good advice sir.  I didnt even know I could flag until a few days ago when I noticed all this crap going on.  I guess I just don't go looking for it.   Thanks for the read.

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Did you mean to use a David v Goliath image? 

Because David ended up winning that fight against a larger opponent...

Dont mess with the trolls and stay quite seems like OK survival plan for an individual minnow, but as a community we should not be quite at all. We should react and smash these trolls who can really cause lot of problems in a long run to whole Steemit.
How to stop them? Maybe SP should not be the only thing that gives you influence inside Steemit. Combination with reputation and maybe to enable an option FLAG THE TROLL, some kind of Steemians public court that will remove the influence from a troll who is abusing a system with his SP.

I almost never bother with a "flag" unless something is either blatantly illegal or the person posting has shown a total disregard to the value of the community.

Usually, I'll comment on copyright abuse, comment spamming, and shitposts. I won't outright say "Don't do this" and I'll never be insulting or mean. My comment is pretty much always structured in a positive way with suggestions for creating material of great value that will help the poster become a valuable part of our community.

I will also point them at any one of many blog posts I've written about abuse, and creating value in response to the flood of low quality crap. These posts were my way of helping other minnows (and the community in general) begin to become a stream of quality content.

Fully understood.

Resteemed. Just a shame this has to occur.

Sad to see this posting, it is like trolls from yt, not many safe from their hatred.