> Now people take it way too personal, believing 'their (!) money' has been 'taken away' and they start doing crazy stuff because they're so angry.

I think there are different kinds of flags.
- Flags against spam or plagiarism are naturally justified.
- 'Redistributing' flags are a matter of taste because most of the time they depend on a subjective point of view (<em>is</em> a post overvalued or not?).
Actually they can make sense, and I guess you are adressing these kinds of flags which you think shouldn't be taken personal. Right, I agree that there need not always be a personal aspect when flagging someone.
- The third kind of flags <em>is</em> meant 'personal' <em>for sure</em>. Their only reason is to intimidate people, take <em>all</em> their rewards and destroy their accounts (in some cases the 'attacker' explicitly states that aim).
Then there is no reasonable reaction than taking these flags the way they are intended: personal.

> I'd like to think that the Tribes are solving this in part :-) Better trending pages and overall better categorized content. Not perfect yet, but getting there.

It is really difficult to convince investors of investing in STEEM. And I doubt that enough people will invest in all these hundreds of different tokens (without noteworthy value) as long as STEEM(it) doesen't work. I think people from outside the cryptoverse just have not enough time and interest  to check all the different tribes. They want to see STEEM work - but just lets wait and see ...

> Heck, @theycallmedan has offered to do this before with @curatorhulk, but I'm sort of assuming it wasn't used that much.

The stake should come from Steemit, Inc.. One cannot expect from a single individual to sacrifice his time and money for doing that alone (and also deciding alone which flags to counter or not).
I think it should be an elected committee ot trustworthy Steemians, like you for example. :) 

> And thanks for discussing!

You are very welcome, thank you too! :)

>"Now people take it way too personal, believing 'their (!) money' has been 'taken away'..."

While this is true, flags do counter the influence and outlays of the upvoters who sought to allocate rewards.  I am actually far more irritated when I see my upvotes countered by flags than when I see flags on my posts and comments.  I spend my actual VP on my upvotes, and I do not on my posts, so flags actually cost me my stake when countering my upvotes.

Not my theoretical rewards.  My actual stake.  

Thanks!

Steemit, Inc. should only delegate the SP, but of course not influence the decisions of the elected committee (elected by the community, not by Steemit, Inc.).
Of course that should be made clear before, otherwise it wouldn't make sense.

Also the criteria of how to elect the committee needed much fine tuning. One could for example think about conditions like that every voter should be on STEEM for at least some weeks and had published some posts to prevent multi account voting. All that wouldn't be easy at all but worth a try ...

> Steemit already has a bad name and it is not really getting better.

> It will never be the site @soyrosa is hoping for. Too much happened and the scammers and 'bad boys' will stay.

Actually, I am still here, because I see much potential in STEEM. The idea of a censorship free, blockchain based social media site, where, in addition, people have the chance to earn some money, is just great.
But you are right, there are also many unsolved problems for now (and I admit not being really 'happy' about the fact of having lost quite some money by my 'STEEM adventure' during the last one and a half year!).

I hope that in the end optimists like @soyrosa and @theycallmedan will be right and STEEM becomes a huge  success.

Concerning @cheetah, this bot plays an important role in detecting plagiarism. However, I also would prefer if its owner replied directly under the comments in case someone complains about (possibly) wrong accusations.