Sh*tposting And Milking The Reward Pool
Our blockchain is a new one, was born a few months ago, but the vast majority of the users are not new to this, they are from the other chain called Steem. I wish I had statistics about the onboarding, to see how many have registered to Hive, without being part of the old blockchain but I haven't.
Anyway, the old users have come with the experience they have accumulated on Steem. Some, the early adopters have up to four years of experience, they know every little detail about how this works.
While on Steem the main concern was the excessive use of bidbots and the over rewarded posts on trending page, on Hive there's a new way of milking the reward pool and I don't see much concern about it. This is done knowingly, they know exactly what they are doing but probably think it's under the radar.
If you are reading posts on a daily basis you must have seen what I'm talking about. I see over rewarded posts made by old users with relatively high reputation, close or over $10 that are of questionable quality. Now you can argue that quality is debatable and it is interpreted differently by everyone but when it comes to comparison, you must be blind and in denial not to see what's going on here.
Posting three photos, sometimes of poor quality, five sentences and a long repetitive footer which is copy paste each time I wouldn't say it adds too much value to the platform to be rewarded with $10. Just because those users have been here for a couple of years and made friends with high stake value, it doesn't make it right to get double or triple of what those extremely low quality posts deserve. The more these posts get (unjustified), the less the other good quality posts get. It's not rocket science, anyone with half a brain knows that.
I'm not the only one who thought, or better yet, was hoping the new chain will be different. We had the chance to create a new home for ourselves and do the right thing. We also have the experience, knew what's not right and had the chance to eliminate the bad. Yet here we are, rewarding those who are knowingly milking the reward pool by shtposting and everything is ok. These people's accounts are growing nicely, they are posting more sht every day and happy they are respected and appreciated.
While you can argue that users can do whatever they want with their stake, there should be a line somewhere that should not be crossed by anyone. Good, quality work should be rewarded, old members should know better, they should be a good example to new ones and not the other way around.
Imagine what it looks like to new users. If they see what kind of posts are rewarded here (I'm talking about these low quality, over rewarded posts), they may think it's ok to do that and you can't argue they are wrong as reality proves they aren't.
It is totally disappointing and sad in the same time, no matter how you are looking at it. People learn, time and experience should make them better but in this case I can't say that's what it's happened. They have learned how to milk the reward pool and have got accomplices helping them to do that. Having a higher reputation and friends is license to milk the reward pool it seems. Try to motivate new users who are struggling to get a few cents, try to explain them why these users are getting so much for posting sh*t and their good quality post that took hours to create gets a few cents!
I'm starting to believe that rewarding quality content will never be the main focus of the platform. Rewarding quality content is just a saying, important to some, while others are here to milk as much as they can. It's a shame though as we could finally make this place great, have the home we've never had.
There should be no control here, no downvotes, no flags, no blacklists. Each of us should know what is permitted and what is not and should act accordingly. It's our responsibility! Posting sh*t just because you know you get votes anyway should never happen. It's like at work, when no one sees you, you get lazy, do nothing because you know you get paid anyway. This mentality should change once and for all!
Shared on Twitter
https://twitter.com/nobordersNB/status/1273925911184891904
It's tough not to post when you know you have 10/20/30$ of autos that will roll in each day, although I seem to have a knack of letting this 'free money' slip through my fingers 2/3/4 times a week.
There is more being directed towards content then ever before IMO, but people (due to friends, this is a social network after all) will be rewarded for whatever they do, and this is unlikely to change.
It's not about not to post but about posting quality content.
Every day?
What if I can't be arsed some days and just want to collect some inflation?
View or trade
BEER.Hey @erikah, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @pixresteemer for you. Enjoy it!Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your
BEER.I totally agree with you... and know a few cases like that. They are copy pasting the same thing everyday for the past 2 or 3 years... and no one bats an eye.
Well, I was having the same feeling... but lately I made 3 extensive articles for TravelFeed and I was surprised by how good they were rewarded. I wasn't counting on that much, honestly... after all, it's not the first time I made posts like that and I would be lucky if they would go over the $3.00 mark. 🤭
So, it seems that there is some actually quality curation going on. At least, a bit more than there used to be. 🤗
You are on Hive a lot and reading posts regularly, so I bet you've seen plenty.
I'm glad your posts got rewarded as you're one of the most genuine people I know on Hive. I know how it feels like working on a good post and not getting rewarded for it, while others ...
Yeah the accounts if they are that old have accumulated quite a bit of stake in most cases. They use that stake to spread to a few different accounts and then just vote themselves. Maybe they’ll move some to a different account here and there but they also don’t have much fear of reprisal. With the stake they have, most of them can win flag wars versus other people who only have one account with moderate stake.
If you look at the delegations of these accounts it’s the same small group of people like Bernie and it’s a shame. Hundreds of thousands of tokens and they are an asshole to people while they on the same token milk the rewards.
Unfortunately I've been very busy this year and not able to read posts and engage on Hive like other times but I know you're right.
Totally agree with you on all this. I saw a post the other day from a high rep user who looks as though they've recently become active again, had less than 20 words on the post and got over $7, not mega rewards but still.
In an ideal world, everyone should know what's acceptable or not, but sadly we're never going to get there. And even if everyone knew, there will always be some who will continue to abuse the system. From what I can see, there seem to be a lot more people fighting abuse on Hive. We will never eliminate it altogether, but I think the will to do it is certainly here.
It is a mega reward if you compare it with the time he spent on doing the post. Even worse if you think of people spending two hours with selecting photos, documenting the facts and putting together a post, just to get $2 or max $3.
You can find the new accounts details here
https://peakd.com/hive-133987/@penguinpablo/hive-vs-steem-stats-friday-june-19-2020
Thanks for the link, it's very interesting to see the comparison between the two chain. One would expect to see more posts and comments on Steem as it's the older chain but that's not the case.Hive is beating Steem in every category.
To be honest, I'm not really surprised. I'm still using Steem to curate till my powerdown is complete and see the trending page, it makes me sick. They have gone in a direction that can't be qualified. That is everything but free and fair blockchain. Another 4 weeks and I'm out of there for good.
I really like the points you bring up here and agree with you almost completely.
I agree. I don't think the quality of posts is debatable because we can compare it with others and see exactly how it has been rewarded. Teachers assess the quality of the content the students produce. Fans assess the quality of musicians and teams. The people who argue this usually produce a lot of crap.
People can do whatever they want with their stake, including downvoting overrewarded junk.
Not so good, but they swallowed their pride and joined in on the fun anyway. Better to imagine how it looks to outsiders...Hive looks like a complete pyramid and scam to a lot of outsides.
I started believing that quite some time ago, so I'm just here to do my own thing.
When I said quality is debatable I was referring to the fact that comparing one photo of an artwork, painting for example compared with a long travel post with a bunch of photos, is difficult. One may say how much work went into the artwork (which is actually true), while others may say the post took them two minutes, therefor unjustified the reward. It's just an example.
Maybe I;m naive but am still hoping things can change. :)
I think people are too focused on the amount of time something takes to judge the quality.
I've never found the majority of short posts to be particularly valuable, but they are easy to read and can be interesting.
I'm also naive in hoping some things will change.
Better start downvoting.
Sure, downvoting is an option if you want to see two and a half year hard work ruined and your reputation below zero out of revenge. Absolutely.
Those aren't really the concerns for people who have the power to downvote.
You're right, those are my concerns :)
If someone crosses your line then down vote them. Report them to hive watchers. There are ways and means available.
We all have differing opinions of value, and what we find valuable. Some people still like to watch re-runs of Gilligan's Island, some people like the Munsters, and some the Adams Family. Some people may even really get a kick out of All in the Family, or of Rossane Show, i realize these are all American TV references, there are a lot of cable TV channels and Video Stream Channels with content of all kinds on it that REAL PEOPLE find REAL ENJOYABLE, not everyone is a fan of Opera and Ballet or horse jumping or equestrian shows.
If you don't like something, move on, mute, or take an action, telling others they need to take action is not an action.
If you can not change your actions, over come your fears, why do you expect others to do it for you?
I have used the report form for abuse for vote farming, and for plagiarism, I have dropped into the Discord group to let the people know of potential issues, even though I do not like discord, even though I do not like to down vote, when I see something that I can not TOLERATE I down vote and take action.
If you want change to happen start with overcoming your own fears and make a change to your Mentality.
Same old bashadow, I see you haven't changed a bit :)
We have differing views and opinions. I enjoy the content I vote on and I comment on. Not all of it needs to be High Quality Opera, there is room on Hive for the Ansel Adams quality of photography and for the backyard smart phone photographer.
There is a very wide spread between the likes of the Novels "Gone with the Wind", and "War and Peace", and the ramblings of madman on Hive. I like them both. I like the short form content, and the Long form content.
When I find questionable stuff I know where to turn. I have no clue no Idea what your concept of Quality is, it is obviously a lot different than mine. If you find something you don't like let the person know or make suggestions on how they can improve their content up to your level of quality. They may appreciate it or not.
If you really want the mentality of the people on hive to change, support the efforts of those trying to effect change the mentality, such as hivewatchers if you do not want to down vote or to even report scams or reward stealing sh*t posting post.
I find very little to complain about posting wise here. I find very little piss poor shit posting, I know it is there, because I do see some, and I either ignore, mute, down vote, or report it.
I am unlikely to change.
I absolutely agree with you. Sad but true reality which really demotivates... I had bad experience on Steem, when I got downvotes for trying to post something good or for no reason at all... :(
Sorry to hear about your experience.