Believe it or not the system is actually sorta working in the case of @haejin. What the fuck is a @haejin? Well, check out his blog. He does technical analysis of cryptos to determine which are good buys. It involves a quantum mentality that patterns exist in the stock ticker that can be used to understand universal trends of stocks and then pick good ones based on knowledge of those repeating patterns. He's been doing this for 15 years and brings a measure of expertise to the system.
Does it work? Fuck if I know, but I believe that he is able to recognize patterns and it does seem some of those patterns are repetitive, but I'm not sure the extent to which it works. He's made some good calls, but also didn't call the massive correction. He had two posts in trending at the same time. One was calling for 23k BTC and the other saying corrections are healthy as we took a dive.
Some of his picks have seen substantial growth, but we're in a bull market. Some of his stuff seems pretty cool, but there are other explanations. It's enough that I've purchased a few picks on his recommendations, but I'm not betting a house on it. I've spoken to him once, and he seems like a normal dude. I was wondering if he wanted to come on the Minnow Mayor Town Hall with me before all this stuff blew up.
Rancho
I found @haejin because another whale told me about him. He was getting 4000 views on his $20 rewards posts. It seems a lot of traders are coming here to figure out what @haejin is telling them to do.
I don't know how Rancho found @haejin, but Rancho is one of the largest accounts on here and a very early investor in Steem, but he's been passive af. The guy barely ever votes and almost never notices what's going on here it would seem, but some how he found haejin and started hitting his posts, of which there are several a day, with massive $260+ upvotes. I don't know what he liked because he never commented or anything, but maybe he made some money on a @haejin tip? Maybe he liked the views to rewards ratio? IDk, but he started dropping lovebombs on @haejin.
As a result of the extra love on his posts basically everything that haejin wrote went into trending right away. He picked up thousands of followers and a few prominent members of the community displeased by his share of the rewards pool
Flagging
As much I believe that Rancho has every single right to upvote posts to whatever level he wants I also believe this community has the power and authority to use their votes to nullify those rewards. If the community thinks that the technical analysis posts aren't worth it they have every right to flag. This is actually how we as a community can turn trending page, which basically just states who has the most votes, into a trending page to where there's some level of consensus on what a good article is.
Don't like the circle jerk post on a recipe and don't think it's worth it? Flag it.
Right now there's a lot of stigma against flags, but as long as we're in linear rewards if we're not flagging then we're not actually helping to discover content. That's bad for us as a platform. We used to be able to avoid some of this with exponential rewards, but those days are gone. Right now we're often just discovering who can trade or buy votes the best. What we really need to do is figure out how to get good content on our front page so that people come here to find good content!
Violence
Now, I've stated before and stand by my argument that flagging is a type of violence. It's financial violence. You're removing value that other people put there. I get the argument that it's not yours until pay day, but that's more of an experienced trader perspective than a typical author on the block. They think it's theirs, and when you take it away through a flag it feels like you have stolen from them, and I tend to see merit in both sides.
But the part that may not always be clear coming from the leader of a peace group is that sometimes violence is ok. This is do no harm, but take no shit land. If you think that the reward pool is being raped or taken advantage of then by all means flag. If they are causing you and this community harm by taking advantage of the system then give them a digital boot up the ass. If you don't we all suffer from their theft!
If you think the rewards are way out of line then flag. We're not going to have real content, people, or project discovery if we never flag.
Gotta be careful flagging
I've been in short lived flag wars and they suck and this community can behave in ways you don't expect. So, flagging because of rewards disagreement is actually an ok thing to do. Sometimes it's necessary for people abusing the pool. Sometimes it's necessary to bring rewards down to sensible levels. Sometimes you do it to break up a circle jerk. It can be scary af because you're stepping into trouble when you flag right now because it's a heated thing to do these days.
Also, it's clouded because at other times people are just being a dick, opinion flagging, or going on offense... at that point the community may not respect your choices. You may simply be drawing attention to the exact person you're trying to smush and that doesn't always work out well.
If you're a minnow you have to be careful flagging people because you don't have a lot of steem power. Other accounts can nuke your rep, nuke your rewards, and basically revenge flag you to pieces. It's tricky business just like a fist fight may get your face bloodied you might just get your financial ass handed to you for the previous week's rewards.
My point however is that the system is mostly sorta working
Rancho used his power to vote.
This community used it's power to down vote.
This is actually healthy. This isn't making Steem a horrible place. This is actually a good thing for this platform to have some level of balance.
3 Unhealthy Parts
I don't think @haejin's posts are worth 260 each. I don't think they are worth 0 each. I also don't think he's a scammer or trying to rape the pool. I don't currently believe he has some agreement or anything like that with Rancho. He's not an evil guy cause he caught some rewards. I respect the flaggers saying he's rewarded too high. I'd ask you don't take him down to 0, but let him continue to earn something on the posts. I'm sure you can find a healthy line, but I think 0 is taking it too far. Let the guy earn at least the 20 he was making before this shit started. He is bringing a lot of views to the platform.
@haejin you're following a handful of recent bad examples of how to deal with flagging poorly. You're currently in the spotlight like no other person on the platform. This isn't a time for a ragequit letter. You should be thankful to get this attention and work to mitigate some of the fall out. Shouting "well, I'm gonna take my ball and go home, and you guys are dicks" which is the rough equivalent of what you wrote isn't a good response. I'd suggest you take a second to ponder a better less angry response and realize that the rest of this community has a point too.
Name calling. It would be nice if all the people could express frustration with actions and less with people. I know tempers get high, but I would continue to express that what we're seeing is multiple people trying to do what they think is best for them and this platform. This can be a healthy discussion, but not when it focuses on attacking other people. That makes a good resolution harder. So, if folks could try to cool it with some language. The upvoting whales aren't evil, the flagging whales aren't evil, the author isn't evil, and from what I've seen the commenters aren't evil. They're just people. All of them. If you could all try to be mildly civil with one another that would be swell.
Take home
I don't think @haejin's posts are worth 260 each. I don't think they are worth 0 each. I also don't think he's a scammer or trying to rape the pool. I don't currently believe he has some agreement or anything like that with Rancho. He's not an evil guy cause he caught some rewards. I respect the flaggers saying he's rewarded too high. I'd ask you don't take him down to 0, but let him continue to earn something on the posts. I'm sure you can find a healthy line, but I think 0 is taking it too far. Let the guy earn at least the 20 he was making before this shit started. He is bringing a lot of views to the platform.
@haejin you're following a handful of recent bad examples of how to deal with flagging poorly. You're currently in the spotlight like no other person on the platform. This isn't a time for a ragequit letter. You should be thankful to get this attention and work to mitigate some of the fall out. Shouting "well, I'm gonna take my ball and go home, and you guys are dicks" which is the rough equivalent of what you wrote isn't a good response. I'd suggest you take a second to ponder a better less angry response and realize that the rest of this community has a point too.
Name calling. It would be nice if all the people could express frustration with actions and less with people. I know tempers get high, but I would continue to express that what we're seeing is multiple people trying to do what they think is best for them and this platform. This can be a healthy discussion, but not when it focuses on attacking other people. That makes a good resolution harder. So, if folks could try to cool it with some language. The upvoting whales aren't evil, the flagging whales aren't evil, the author isn't evil, and from what I've seen the commenters aren't evil. They're just people. All of them. If you could all try to be mildly civil with one another that would be swell.
Linear rewards needs flagging to be a functional part of the platform that isn't filled with the stigma of flags. We need it for honest content and people discovery. I also don't think it should cost the flagger money (they don't receive curation rewards for flagging, so it costs money relative to just upvoting a different post). Flagging can be an incredibly valuable service to this community because it returns all those flagged rewards back to the community for the rest of us to share.
Flags can be healthy, flags can be useful, people upvoting and flagging are ok humans.
Whales have rights to upvote AND flag, and that can be a healthy part of this place.
If you're getting flagged take a deep breath, realize it might be the biggest thing that could happen to your account, and try not to write up rage quit letters that put you in a negative light. Be gracious, see the story from the other perspective, and try to work with folks rather than against them.
This place is pretty amazing. Please treat it and one another with respect even when you disagree and especially when you're mad.