I stepped on the toes of one of these haters, not that i have that great content, but because of one comment i made on a post that had nothing to do with him, i just shared my opinion and he flagged the comment and also all my totally unrelated blogposts.

Disagree because of one particular person here that has caused many women on this site harassment issues. 

https://steemit.com/exposetrolls/@anxietymaven/dantheman-exposing-the-trolls-and-harassers-be-the-change-steemit

Thank you for being reasonable. Its hard to find people like you around here.
Im still thinking about the fact that you touched Sasha,
Im dying of envy :)

https://steemit.com/music/@feminism/just-the-way-you-are

As usual, you get an update.

that is the truth what happen on steemit

<div>  <p>  This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.  </p>  <ul>        <li>      <a href="https://steemit.com/steemit/@stevescoins/a-community-response-to-steemit-trolls-at-the-individual-level"> A community response to Steemit trolls, at the individual level </a>      by      <a href="https://steemit.com/@stevescoins">  @stevescoins </a>     </li>      </ul>  <p>  <a href="https://steemit.com/steemit/@ontofractal/steem-linkback-bot-update-v0-2-release">    About linkback bot</a>. Please upvote if you like the bot and want to support its development.   </p></div>

Very good points. It is easy to get tempted to downvote someone who upset you by downvoting your stuff.
I, myself choose my upvotes carefully now. I stopped upvoting whales posts a while ago. Now I choose what to upvote and don't just jump on post becasue it was posted by some whale. I carefully spend up to 8-9 maximum votes a day on posts of people whose posts I like or consider worthy of the recognition, despite that my little SP gives little SD reward yet. I, also often reciprocate upvotes on my posts. I like to give back when others share with me.

I'm going to agree with @anxietymaven here.

The flaw with your analogy is that those being voted down are not three year olds.  They are grown ups with computers.  And at this point, we should not be in the business of teaching a grown-up, "Hey, it really isn't polite to threaten violence or downgrade someone based on their gender."

But with your analogy, the community would have to constantly keep doing that, while the victim harassment has to keep putting up with it.  

A one time mistake is understandable.  Consistently daily harassment should be stopped.  If it isn't, Steemit will always be niche.

Haters gonna hate, potatoes gonna potate!

Well-said! While I relate to the impulse to root for favorites, it's not how we will convince new members we value quality content.

What is particularly bad is whales flagging posts without any explanation so the user doesn't even necessarily know what they have done wrong.  

If you have taken the time to flag at least have the courtesy to say why otherwise the user doesn't learn anything except resentment.

I also think it is bad form if you don't check back to see if the person has corrected the behaviour so you can remove the flag.  

I think part of the problem is that some of the whales are completely untouchable due to their high reputation scores so they are ignorant of how damaging a flag can be to a new user.

It is something whales don't have to worry about so don't even give a second thought to it.

This only hurts Steemit as a platform and scares away new users.