Yeah, I don't know who named it, but I think you spoke up in favor of the downvote regularization and had the final word on the GUI change that implemented it. And that was based on how you interpreted either the white or blue paper. Now, if the downvotes somehow magically helped to tap into crowd wisdom, I could see a point to it, but they don't. Anyhow, when one realizes that Proof-of-Brain isn't smart at all, the downvotes, outside of a limited spectrum of use cases, cause more harm to author morale and the platform than they do help. And This is especially the case when one to three actors can null the will of hundreds of stakeholders. It applies whether they are on a voting trail or not because if they are on a voting trail, it's an intentional act to see that rewards go to specific content. Healthy markets function by consumers supporting things they like. Without crowd wisdom and outside a very narrow band of use cases, flags (or downvotes) are on a par with Molotov cocktails getting thrown through plate glass windows. Nothing good comes from it unless you subscribe to the broken window fallacy.
Addendum:
Interesting moments in Steem's history: The GUI was changed to reflect the idea that the whitepaper explicitly condoned downvotes when @smooth said: "Reducing subjectively excessive payouts is a valid reason for downvoting/flagging" However, when the whitepaper speaks to negative voting, it only says that it is possible, it does not say that it is "VALID." Much like in real life: I can kill a man, I can steal his lunch, I can burn his business down to the ground. The law of the concrete jungle allows for all of these things, but it doesn't mean that one should do them. This post is a prime example, it has the goodwill of 388 stakeholders behind it, and all it took was for your will to censor its rewards. Is this the HIVE that you want? Where the guy with the most stake can say: NO REWARDS FOR YOU!
^That can't possibly be the desired atmosphere you want, can it?
RE: After dedicating 5.5 years to Hive/Steem, I've been informed by KING ACIDYO that I added no value