![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXeF5Hsqxj4dQTV9eKTsUsJDBSRMyurews6h8YdMfny8K/image.png)
from the art of [EscorpioTR](http://escorpiotr.deviantart.com/art/Thor-s-Hammer-119777395)
The platform has adapted a simple solution to addressing spam, plagiarism and abuse.

What used to be called a downvote has become a flag, and the community has struggled with the consequences of this solution, both when it was a downvote and after the action was renamed to flagging, ever since it was implemented. Many saw it as a detriment to the community and rightly so, but they failed to address the problems that downvoting/flagging addressed: the lack of Admins/Mods and the subsequent need of the community to police itself. 

The issues surrounding the community with downvoting have been discussed at length in numerous topics. Currently it seems that every other day someone is affected negatively in their user experience with the problems of downvoting, and are voicing their concerns with this problem. The issues range from whales downvoting to remove rewards, as exemplified by the numerous grievances on that topic over abit and smooth's experiment, to flag wars ensuing between users from disagreements and squabbles. 

The current system has it's inherent flaws. The fact that downvoting was renamed to flagging is one. This confusion is part of the fix from months ago addressing the previous issues of downvoting and it's consequences of affecting reputation and visibility while acting as a downvote and removing rewards. 
Adding onto the confusion was the change in the list of reasons why flagging is acceptable. It shows that the rebranding of downvotes to flags was a bandaid solution and the need to express the obvious intended consequences of downvoting to remove rewards, so expanding the list of reasons for flagging to include disagreement on rewards didn't help to clarify more than it added to the confusion: is it a flag, or a downvote?
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbiv1VPRFfEaenruqXkiFGCCbKFNuzR323PEyPLNnZQo1/image.png)

The other problem is that gang stalking and [griefing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer) cannot be countered by the community. If the community is to police itself we are powerless against these problems. To my knowledge that has never been addressed with solutions but it needs to, as people are being chased away by combined efforts of bad actors, and it doesn't have to be that way.

Flagging in internet terms denotes marking content as abusive, either outright abuse such as threats, personal attacks and other cruel, malicious acts, or spamming, trolling, and plagiarizing. Flagging is used in order to curb and minimize visibility or outright prevent such content/acts. On this platform this is one of the three(or two in case of no upvotes) simultaneous aspects that flagging is used for. The other aspect that is inline with flagging is reducing reputation, or the numeric of the good standing through contribution to the community. One cannot have reputation without contributions, and without worthwhile contributions that the community appreciates, one cannot have high reputation. The aspect that is not really in line with flagging is reducing payout, but as something abusive, spam or plagiarizing will hardly have any reward, this isn't that much of an issue, it's built into the simplicity of the system. Flagging is equated and has been equated to a downvote. Many will argue that it is a simple solution, but this solution of downvotes to police the community is marginally effective at best against large SP holders who can use their vests in a detrimental way to the community or against gang stalking activities, while it still can be used to grief people and all these actions chase users away from the platform.

Flagging's simplicity is that it acts just as the opposite of an upvote. While an upvote increases reputation, visibility and payout, a downvote or flag decreases reputation, visibility and payout. So what is the problem? The big problem, that many have acknowledged, is that this is a determent to community building and engagement. I think we can all agree that downvoting does little to those ends, and community policing should increase engagement and overall retention and not be incentivized as a way to engage in flag wars or griefing. While it's simplicity is to be applauded the consequences of this system are that a few bad actors can gang stalk, engage in senseless flag wars, and there is little the community can do against large SP holders who are considered bad actors and detrimental to the community, and there is no incentive for those bad apples to correct their behavior. 

What's one solution?
De-incentivize downvoting. By increasing the amount of Voting Power spent on downvoting by ten times, or maybe less, large SP holders such as whales will consider alternatives to downvoting and it won't be as appealing to use a downvote. This isn't the end to the solution, there could also be a curb on how a downvote is weighed in respects to an upvote, maybe 33.33% less than an upvote in terms of vests, that will minimize the effect and in turn abusive downvoting.

This opens up the problem of spam. Spam cannot be countered by a downvoting system stunted like I suggested, nor can abusive content be effectively policed, as a bad actor could not be effectively countered under such a system. To solve that, one solution is to implement a whole new system designed for flagging and in turn counterflagging.

This system of flagging will become unlocked at a certain reputation level. One way to determine that level is to average the reputation of the community for everyone with a certain amount of posts/comments. So we will average the reputation of everyone with over 100 comments and that will be the designated level one must achieve to unlock such a system. This is partially to stop sibyl attacks. Also, a more veteran member will undoubtedly be better suited in engaging at effective policing, primarily because the group they belong to wants to see the community benefit and grow.

The function of a downvote under the new system will remain to affect rewards. Other than that, it will be the flagging system that negatively affects reputation and visibility.
(some terms: f=flag, cf=counter flag)
For effective flagging it would need to affect visibility with just one flag(1f:0cf=content hidden, negative mark against authors reputation) per content, and all users that can access the system will have the same weight for flags, regardless of reputation or vests. The reason for flagging should be divided in three categories: spam, abuse, and plagiarizing. Spam denotes posting things unrelated to the comment or post. Abuse would include trolling, threats, personal attacks, and such. Plagiarizing would be the last category, self descriptive. As a person engages in any of these categories, granted they are weighed independent of each other, the weight of a flag on their reputation will increase with each successive flag. Each flag decreasing a certain amount of reputation based on a curve that tracks/adds up previous flags. The time window for flags to be irreversible should be relatively short, enough so that a person clicking accidentally will have plenty of time to undo their flag, but not to much so that this doesn't become a game. By having a small window for reversals people will be cautious of their flags. They will be cautious because once their flag is locked in people will have a chance to counterflag, especially if it is abusive or perceived as abusive. 

CounterFlagging

The author which got flagged won't have that option to counter flag so as not to nullify the flag themselves. I suggest a ratio of 2 counterflags to 1 flag for the person flagging to be countered and their reputation to be affected, which will lead to the forth category for flagging(this case flagging a flag/counterflagging) that will be weighed on previous actions just as the other three, in order to decrease one's reputation for repeated offenses. I suggest that ratio because one counterflag to one flag will reveal the content (1f:1cf=content visible/no negative mark against reputation), restore the reputation and nullify that flag, making countering abusive flags relatively benign. 

Group Flagging/Piggyback Rule

The problem that needs to be addressed at this point is the group flag. To combat that and not allow for a group effort to drive someone's reputation into the dirt, each content will be affected by only one initial flag. So if there are multiple flags they will be counted as one flag, each excessive flag will be purely for gestural reasons. To further this, counterflagging can still happen successively even in lieu of numerous people flagging one content, but only the first flagger will be punished as they are the ones with any weight behind their flag. Each excessive flag will be null in the system, besides the first one, they will simply be gestural. So if someone counterflags it will reveal the content, regardless of numerous people having piled on the flag side. This might not seem logical or fair even, but it is. Flagging was effective with just one person. Everything after that initial flag was excessive, granted people should still have the option of showing support there's no logic to piling on, other than for gestural reasons. Even though someone might counterflag and reveal the content, even though it got numerous flags, this doesn't mean much if the content is perceived as abusive or worthy of a flag, it will take just another person to hide the content and affect the author's reputation. Equally even if there are two successive counterflags and the first flagger's reputation is affected, if it is abusive counterflagging, it only takes another person to stall the efforts of the counterflaggers, and then two more counterflags would be needed to affect the two flaggers reputation, the first flagger being one, and the one that flagged the content after the two successive counterflags punishing the initial flagger being the other who's reputation could be affected with two more counterflags (2f:4cf). In this situation with a piling on of flags after the initial flag, two counter flags and a follow up flag, the ratio of flags to counterflags would be 1:1, making the content visible(2f:2cf). For content to be hidden it will take a ratio of >1f:1cf. The nullifying of excessive flags is a shared property with counterflags. Lets continue with this scenario and recapping the timeline:
1f+nth gestural f=hidden content, authors reputation negatively affected- 1f:0cf is >1f:1cf ratio for nullifying a flag.
1f+nth gestural f+ 2cf=revealed content, initial flaggers reputation negatively affected- 1f:2cf is = 2cf:1f ratio for affecting a flaggers reputation
1f+nth gestural f+2cf+1f=revealed content, nobody's reputation affected- 2f:2cf is = 1f:1cf ratio for nullifying a flag

If there's more flags and therefore the flag to counterflag ratio is > 1f:1cf then the content will be hidden and the author's reputation will be affected negatively, being 3f:2cf. For the counterflagging to affect the flaggers reputation now, there would need to be 4 more people counterflagging (3f:6cf). It will take 1 more counterflag (3f:3cf) to reveal the content, but one more flag (4f:3cf) will hide it. Each effective flag will make it that much harder to counter flag, but not impossible, since each account has one voice over the content. To make this harder for attacks to happen, the time window for flagging and counterflagging should be a set time from the creation of the content itself, so that people can petition others to either nullify flags, to effect counterflags or simply to reveal content and not affect anyone. 


What this suggestion aims at doing is stopping gangs from driving people's reputation into the dirt, giving people who appear to have responsibility the tools to affect visibility and reputation of bad actors regardless of vests, as abusive behavior should be countered by people and not money in an effort to incentivize good behavior and community growth in turn, while addressing pertinent or perceived issues by implementing a new system.

This new system is not simple but I believe it's complexity is necessary. The problem of the community policing itself is complex, and this new system was aimed at considering that complexity. This can be implemented from a programing perspective, even though such an overhaul has no precedent on this platform it doesn't mean I want to set such a precedent only wish to address the numerous issues and confusion that downvoting/flagging is riddled with.
Any feedback is appreciated, and the input of the developers would be greatly welcomed.