This was a very helpful post. I learned some things about voting and how the system works. Thank you for taking the time to write it!

Steemit is a platform where one can earn while learning something and interacting with lots of people all around the world. But, unfortunately this platform has become a means of satisfying greed. 
I have competed six months here and has also invested some money to power up my account but I never upvote my own posts or comments. I always try hard to write quality posts. However, I could not get enough reward for my hardwork.
 I never have flagged anyone's post, except in one occasion. But In some occasions my comments were flagged by some people because **they were not agree with me**! Everyone has a right to express his/her views. Should flagging be allowed in such cases where one is not agree with others? Is this not the abusive behavior? It is necessary to flag a plagiarized content or a spamming message but flagging should not be allowed to shut someone's voice.

Flag is good if the user's is really doing plagiarism,but if you flag for personal reason it is not good for the community,if ever you flag someone better choose the real people who are doing plagiarism..

It is pretty uncommon that I upvote myself.  Mostly because I forget to.  There were times that I have been part of a curation trail and I was self upvoting by default.  I think I do a pretty good job of spreading my votes around that if I wanted to self upvote every now and then I would be okay.  I think eventually when I am bigger I will delegate some SP to Steemflagrewards to help them with their mission.

You know, I've never flagged anyone. I think I only ever got a few weird spam comments on my posts and when I did I just said, politely, don't do that here people will get mad and often they apolgized and even thanked me and never came back.

I'm so small here, though, I mean I don't even know if I'm a minnow yet, so it probably isn't as apparent to me. I'm also so OLD school that I dont autovote or antyhing I just self vote and curate. That's mainly because I love steemit in the sense that it feels like the 'old internet' like early 2000s with blogger and such. I like to read what people are doing or look at their cool art and leave a comment and vote and move on. I realize that is sort of dumb maybe, as I do miss people sometimes for a few days as they might get lost in the shuffle. Yet, each morning I look forward to going through my list of people I like to read and finding new people thorugh them usually through the comments. I'm not sure people really realize the power of the comment section, but I digress.

I guess I'm just of the opinion that wherever human beings gather there will be black and cheek and pick pockets and scoundrals. I just try to ignore them because sometimes it seems whenever people have decided to pay attention to them and to make a place 'safe from them' the people who are not doing bad get ignored or put upon. They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. 

Now, I am not saying what you are doing is bad, in fact I commend you for it. I am probably far too selfish to even go to the effort to route out the baddies, I just ignore them and move on. That is probably not the best attitude.

I suppose I might be reaping the benefits of others efforts to control them, but again I use this platform in such an odd way that I never really go to the latest or trending feeds. I keep a list of those I've come to like and when I find people through them I book mark them and that's my old school way, which is maybe why I don't see all the bad stuff. 

I also write far too long comments, so there you go, I've said nothing and done it with far too many words :) But, you do what you think is good for steemit as it is truly noble that you do do it for the good of the platform. I'm not sure, though, that we won't always have such things. Mostly because I can't  think of anything anywhere that has ever been a place without that type of person/spammer/griefer/troll/baddie/parasite et al. But, that is not to say there won't ever be such a place and it's good of people like you to work towards it. Sorry about this long comment :/

Well said. The @atlantica person flagged me yesterday and it was a big surprising for me. If the platform was simply allowed to degenerate into meaningless posts for the sake of making a few cents or bucks then it will surely fail. 

Hey @atlantica, if you seriously feel you're being treated unjustly why not tell your own side of things rather than pick a fight with everyone? 

You would actually make More if you simply put in more effort and actually cared about the platform.

Well I have never flagged anyway but I wish everyone thought about the possible repercussions every now and then

I'm still cheerfully baffled by all the ways points can be scored, and imaginary money earned :)
No doubt it will make sense eventually, and in the meantime I'll upvote with no power and do all the dumb newbie things I possibly can.
There will always be the cynics and the angry people on any platform. Stack Overflow has even managed to reach a stage of partisanship and bitchiness, just when someone asks a question badly. Success breeds contempt. Maybe you should measure your success by how much static you get back? Judo the negativity into a positive attribute!

I reshared this - good writing about a very important topic. Content should indeed be in focus. As I see it it is the only thing that will really promote the platform. I have tried other places like this and was turned off by the content  or bored by the lack of interaction. Steemit do indeed have both good and bad, but there is many really good bloggers here that some of the other places lacked. Akasha might have some good bloggers too when (or if ) it gets a working technology.

Can't agree more. As always, the problem seems to be with the interpretation of flags. People feel entitled to the reward that they have received prior to payout. They need to remember that it is always "potential payout". I did consider some kind of flag anonymisation service, but that then removes the flagging power from the reward pool and make it require some kind of liquid donation to a third party service. If you can remove the fear of flagging, maybe it will become seen as a normal part of the reward generation process.

#### Eliminate self-voting
> I'd hate to see it turn into a mass vote for vote scam. 
@steevc

One way to  solve the self-voting issue is to eliminate self-voting completely for both posts & comments.  
Then, a monetized post is one which someone else thinks is valuable.

Glad you post this today.
We dictate how we want #steem should be treating.
So much ideas can be generated from our posts.
No essence in a post is a clear indication the steemian is all about a few vote.
Support part pays all the way.
I should say *pay it forward*
Keep on postin'

its better to stay away from flagging fights on steemit.

@atlantica got a little angry and went over the top. It would be nice if he/she would remove all those flags, it was hardly just?

Something could be made of this as he mentioned about educating in one of the comments. @atlantica is a half-dolphin and must have invested some real cash into STEEM looking at the age of the account.

If this person started using it properly, and not abusing it then the rewards would be more than $0.12 a post like they currently are.

There's a lot more than money here. That feeling good factor beats it any day.

#### Hi @steevc!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your **UA** account score is currently 5.796 which ranks you at **#378** across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 2 places in the last three days (old rank 380).

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 271 contributions, your post is ranked at **#11**.
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* You've built up a nice network.
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First, I’ll just add this little GIF here. It speaks volumes. 
![1738B6DE-B4B4-49FE-BBF4-466A1E6D03E0.gif](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcuEJc5bickYvSaotx2Wt8UffyjbV2TwaFYS55RKwHpcq/1738B6DE-B4B4-49FE-BBF4-466A1E6D03E0.gif)

That’s just vote farming.  They didn’t even take the time to plagiarize images like most do. This abuser thought they were slick by commenting over 90 times in a post that was about 16 days old. Fyuck. 

IMO:
I believe some think we are entitled to be here in Steem. This a place for an investment opportunity if one is willing to make the proper effort. No person is entitled to the privileges associated with participating on the Steem community/social media platform. 
Goes the same in most aspects of life, doesn’t it?

Much of life consists of people believing they are entitled to things. This social media platform is also one of those places where people believe they are entitled to something. The difference is that here on this social media platform we can all prove that we are not entitled to the rewards. I look at like an investment club where one must earn their place and the potential profits. 
Steem is just another place where humans are not entitled to financial gain. It’s just another place where one must earn their financial compensation.  I’m repeating myself now.
Finding ways to abuse this scenario threatens the authenticity of all. Therefore it is our responsibility to curate this environment.

 Just because an asshole finds something that can be abused doesn’t mean they have the right to abuse it, especially after it’s generally considered abuse by the common user. All is fair in love and war, sure, but this ain’t that. 

 If users come to steam thinking it’s a free ride or that they deserve the rewards available here, they have an unrealistic expectation.