Okay, @abh12345.
How about this.
—People's stake are people's stake. They're free to do what they will with it, which means if they want to spread it out and build it over dozens of alt accounts that they manage to automate, too, that's their thing. If they think they can help others this way, then that is also their thing, and more power to them for trying to do something good.
—What others do or don't do with their stake is not a reflection on anyone else. If they choose to help some people and not others, that's their choice. If they choose to spread their vote out over hundreds of people, that's their choice. Having a person behind bot accounts who is at least trying to be selective, and in my opinion, accomplishing it, is far better than others buying their own upvotes or just letting their upvotes go to whatever with a thought of what it may be supporting.
—Comments are woefully undervalued. Every day, hundreds if not thousands go unnoticed, let alone upvoted, sufficiently or otherwise to get over the dust threshold. As one who easily writes more characters in a week on comments than on posts, even in a down week, I put just as much thought in my responses as I put in my posts. Some of them could be posts.
I've been on the receiving end of the fulltimebot accounts. They've seemed to be selective in the comments they've supported (it's certainly not been every comment), and while a few have been jacked up somewhat, most have been $0.10 or less. So, if there's not been curation going on, it's been random enough in my case that I could only guess at what was happening.
I'd rather have fulltimegeek's accounts upvoting then flagging. Not just his, but anyone with large SP and/or more than one account. I think more positive good happens from supporting those who are trying to produce quality content and engage, then flagging those who might not be. A lot of time and energy gets spent with flagwars, a lot of ill will results, and in the end, except in those cases where reputations are ruined, the fairer fights between 'whales' that go on here don't seem to resolve anything.
Thanks Glen
Spot on with your points about it being folks stake to do with as they wish, and the fact that commentary is very undervalued - the lifeblood of engagement no less!
And yes, some of them could be posts - like the one I'm replying to, and hitmeasap's further up.
I take your point. One thing a flag can do is provide a positive for the everyone producing 'quality' content via pull back of pending rewards to the pool.
Well the replies here have been really great, I'm feeling good and unworried today. Cheers :)
Nice to hear you're okay with what I said, @abh12345. When I didn't hear back from you, there was a part of me that wondered if I was preachy sounding or something, or just restating the obvious. Sometimes, though, it's good to get back to basics, so that's where I went.
re: flags
I keep reading how people say that, and in theory, I'm with you all. That would be fine if that's where it stopped. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Feelings get hurt, there's generally some collateral damage to innocent bystanders, and it can very quickly lead to even the innocence not being able to post anymore, or at least have it all grayed out.
I really wonder how this would work offchain. You have a company selling products, and then all of a sudden, someone comes in and takes a chunk out of their sales, before they even receive the money. Sure there's a taxing authority that comes by and takes a chunk, but that's usually after the fact and the company can decide whether or not to send the tax money or hold onto it (and face the consequences).
Here, we say with flags, you don't deserve what you're getting. And for it to make any difference, it has to be a higher stake account. So even with dozens if not hundreds of upvotes (however, they arrived—not all are going to be bots in all instances), the higher SP is saying "some of you don't know what you're talking about."
And I imagine it's not only the author that gets hit, but also the curators. So, I don't know. We're all used to the idea that if you want to consume, you pay. If you don't, then you don't pay. You might try to spread the word and let people know you don't like the product or service, and they might lose revenue that way, but as far as I know, no one is coming by and taking away a chunk of the incoming money before it arrives.
Looks like I'm working on another post length comment here. Better stop. :)
I take your point. Sadly in that off-chain place you speak of, there is a lot of collateral damage in love and war, and the same happens here.
That is my rather weak response to your 2nd post-like comment on my blog :)