I think for 99.9% of comments it hasn't gotten worse, but there is a .01% that has definitely gotten noticeably worse. There's around 5 accounts I can think of

I think for 99.9% of comments it hasn't gotten worse, but there is a .01% that has definitely gotten noticeably worse. There's around 5 accounts I can think of that have been egregious lately. I'm actually surprised how well flagging works. I don't make a habit of flagging people and I flagged someone's posts that were particularly flagrant the other day and it worked rather well. I always question "is flagging a powerful tool that needs to be used sparingly?" and the experience taught me that we should probably be a little bit more liberal with flagging. Of course flagging like all power comes with responsibility, so if flagging is used irresponsibly (for disagreement rather than quality), then that power harms the community. If you use these things, I think it's important to ask "am I part of the September cohort?" "Am I doing this to protect values like curiosity?" The algorithms involved in down-voting and flagging are clearly advanced enough that they can prevent some abuse. There is a notion of "is ___ something you are, or is ___ something you do?" It can be applied to almost anything. Is curios something I am, or is curiosity something I do? It is important to practice curiosity, not to simply "be" curious.