I pondered overnight if I was going to write this post. I don’t normally write posts like this. I comment on posts and I try to keep things as balanced as possible while supporting my position. I’ve done a lot of commenting during this @berniesanders vs @haejin conflict.

The Bernie vs haejin Synopsis

For the most part, I support the principle behind what @berniesanders has done, flagging @haejin over disagreement with rewards. Even though bernie let fly with his typical rhetoric at the content of @haejin’s posts, the downvotes weren’t really about the content.

They were about the 100% upvotes from an otherwise inactive whale combined with @haejin’s prolific daily multiple posting which drove the rewards on the posts up over 1% of the total reward pool available each day. The system isn’t supposed to be used like that and bernie moved to offset that abuse.

The hue and cry that went up from the @haejin cult (and it really does have the appearances of a cult) over bernie’s abuse and bullying. Many people, including myself, tried to explain that while bernie is no diplomat his downvoting is about bringing balance to the system. That if we accept upvotes, we can expect downvotes within the reasons state when you click that little flag.

Bernie’s Collateral Damage:@pawsdog

At some point during all this @pawsdog wrote a post which pointed out some oddity about the graphic that @themarkymark had produced demonstrating @haejin’s draw on the reward pool. While he didn’t accuse anyone of doctoring it, the question was raised.

Bernie reacted by downvoting not only that post but others of @pawsdog which dropped his reputation down. He’s currently at 53 so presumably he was at 54.

The @haejin cult pounced and accused bernie of all kinds of malfeasance. The developer of the tool which was used to generate the graphic around the same time had found and fixed a bug in his system which was generating the problematic results that was being used to attack bernie.

@pawsdog updated his post but bernie left his flags in place. @pawsdog became collateral damage in the conflict.

Now, I expect some of you are shaking your head and thinking, yeah bernie does stuff like that. Well, it’s not one sided.

While the @haejin cult is busy screaming about big bad @berniesanders, @haejin called on his cult followers to delegate their SP to him. From the look of his wallet, they not only dutifully did so but some were just gifting SP to him.

haejin’s Collateral Damage: @pathtosuccess

Yesterday, one of his cronies, @tt-dogg replied to one of my comments with this:

I hadn’t been engaged in conversation with him. He had been downvoting some of my comments. I was engaged in dialogue with someone else and it was a civil dialogue as were several others that had taken place in the comments.

I replied to @tt-dogg, “really... you aren't be every bit the bully you claim bernie is? I'm exercising my right to post comments that you are downvoting and now you're making threats? You really do show yourself to be an F'ing asshole”.

You might have gathered, I am not impressed with threats and bullying. Especially when it comes from someone I’m not even in dialogue with.

A few hours later, I check my Ginabot notifications on Discord and discover that @haejin had struck:

The downvotes were not about reducing any potential rewards, most of the comments hadn’t been voted on. If they had, they might have been a few cents. No, those downvotes were clearly big enough to drop my rep down when applied to 23 comments. They were clearly intended to bully me into silence because I don’t support him and his cult following. They did drop my rep from 50 to 49.

So, the @haejin is every bit the bully that they screamed and yelled @bernisanders is. I doubt I was his only collateral damage.

The haejin Effect On The Community

The difference between @haejin and @berniesanders is bernie cares about the platform, haejin only gives a damn about his own pockets while claiming to be rich and not caring.

His cult gush about him providing a ‘free service’. It’s only free if he starts to decline payment on his posts and let any upvotes value return to the reward pool. Until then, we are all paying.

This morning, as I was still deciding if I was going to write this post, I came across this post:

Your post is worth nothing! Mine neither!

I agree with what he’s written. To me, those of the @haejin cult who have come here only to support him and don’t give a damn about anything else on this platform are only here to leech it.

That goes against everything this community has stood for in its short life. We’re all paying through the threat to the community he and his followers are. After watching the goings on with that group, I have zero hope that they will be anything more than leeches.

We can hope that some of them will look around and see that this platform is way more than their cult leader. That they will start to learn the platform and take part in a meaningful way. I fear that hope will be like waiting for a confirmed addict to give up his addiction.