If 99% of flags were being used to punish so called bad behavior then why is it that you see so much bad behavior still existing among those with the most power?
I am totally with you as to if this is just putting lip stick on a pig, if a downvote can cancel out a upvote all they are going to be doing in the long run is enabling a lot more people to be punitive toward each other if they want based on opinion not abuse.
I agree whales can get away with more and that's one of the reasons I think flagging hurts the platform more than helps it.
...sometimes it doesn't even have to be whales it can just be someone with a bit more power. Being a blogger for years I was quite shocked when I first came on here thinking this was a open debatable platform of opinions only to be told to f off and if I came back I wouldn't like what was going to happen to me. Once, with a woman who is a reporter who has a blog on here no less, after giving my opinion she just replied I was a joke and flagged me. lol.
If the monetary impact was removed from flags, what would your suggestion be to deal with a plagiarized post that has a sizeable payout?
I've seen people make a lot of money plagiarizing articles and once they get outted the upvoting stops and they abandon the account. This all happens with no flags being given out.
If you see an article that is plagiarized, report it to steemcleaners. Not only will they flag it (if need be) you'll get some tiny reward as well for reporting it.
Honestly I think flagging should be an option used for abuse that people can tag that will bring the attention of Steem Cleaners down upon the post. They can view it and determine the action that needs to be taken/addressed. I think it will stop the abuse of flagging people just because they don't like what's said versus the post being abusive, and encourage those with lower sp to flag abuse, right now low sp holders flagging a post really doesn't do anything and most won't take the time to contact steem cleaners to report the abuse.
But steemcleaners are just regular users too, if you remove the monetary impact of the flag then they wouldn't have the ability to remove any rewards.
I was trying to say they probably would be the best way to deal with what post get flagged and/or determining who they should bring in to deal with bot abuse like what markymark does.