Agreed.  It serves no one except the flagger to remove rewards from a post.  The others voting for it, unless there's some kind of evidence for collusion to actually unjustly drain the rewards pool, are voting it because they value that post to the level they've voted.

This is exactly what I've been talking about even before all this started happening.https://steemit.com/steemit/@skeptic/the-steemit-issues-arguments-from-the-other-side-part-1-censorship I had some comments on the above posts and I spent few hours comment on the current matters all over the place.

steemit is a simple might (voting weight) makes it right platform where there is no constitution. I've been told that SMTs can solve this. But it won't change steemit at the protocol level. The only way that can get anything done on steemit is voting weight. Bitcoin needs a 51% attack. On steemit, any amount counts. My average revenue per vote is 4 cents. A whale can easily have 1000 times that.  Without clear pre-defined rules, steemit won't prosper as it should.

Flagging any content with quality is a zero sum game. It's just like war or presidential elections. It's a waste of energy and resources. Understand that this is a war. Get more Voting weight on the good side and understand that this needs to stop.