A possible improvement for encouraging HIVE Growth and Participation from Contests <3
Good morning Splinterfriends and Hivers, Soulkeepers and Crownrenders, Golem Overlords and DCrops Farmers, Holozingers and Moonkarters, CryptoShooters and DemoniCore Monks, Rising Stars and WOO Wrestlers :)
Man... look at all those great games here on Hive! I'm sure I missed some, because I all those from memory... and that list keeps growing!!
Even in my short time here, it has grown substantially!
I have been playing Splinterlands for about 3 years. I have dabbled on Peak'd for about the same... but it wasn't until about 6 months ago I got serious about it.
I wanted to help people - that's kinda my purpose in life. It's what I have done for most of my adulthood (Customer Service).
Recently, I have learned a lot about fostering the ecosystem here on Hive and how important it is to become a part of the community here. Looking more into this blockchain and the Tokenomics, there is such a massive potential to help people... but without education, it becomes very easy to see Hive as "Free Money"
I too was part of the "Free Money" crowd until I read a few posts and saw the DHF Proposal Splinterlands put forth... Suddenly, the importance of not just "using" Hive... became apparent.
I mean... I'm Legacy Crypto... one of the greatest "Should be" stories ever. My crypto journey is laughably tragic but who cares!
Life happens, how we respond... determines the outcome.
What's the point to that? Simple: Crypto started as a way to "Decentralize Money".
Understanding more of how Hive worked showed the importance of why Splinterlands Players (more importantly Whales)... should not just invest in the Splinterlands Token... but also pay more attention to the Blockchain.
The old school mentality of "Ehhhhhhhhh... I'll let someone else take care of that"... is how we ended up in this "Modern System" we're in... and how's that going for us?
Money being printed to death, cost of living through the roof... taxes... ohhhhh man... taxes... 😡
Anyways - Hive is an opportunity for US to invest in something WE can use, for fun, profit, sharing, helping and more... but it's not "someone else's" responsibility... it is ours.
So... for the sake of this post... please pause a moment, wipe the bias from your mind...
(Close your eyes and focus for 5 seconds on an imaginary blank sheet of paper in your mind)
When you open them, say to yourself: my mind is blank, I shall not let intrusive thoughts dictate my perspective on this until AFTER I am done reading this.
That helps me tell my ADHD noggin to shut up a bit and don't tell me what to think!
Ok... so... the issue at hand...
Something I discovered to my dismay was one of my favorite weekly contests from Splinterlands was creating an opportunity to take a large amount of Curation Rewards out of the Hive ecosystem and this creates Sell Pressure on Binance and other exchanges.
You can read the whole post here... but heads up... it's a long one.
Synopsis: We created a means for people to Earn Hive by "Doing Activities".
Obviously, this was not the intent... but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right?
One analogy I always try to use when helping people understand why another person is upset because they were attempting to do something "good"...
"I get it, you didn't realize what you were doing was hurtful. That's ok, as long as you understand it now... but you MUST recognize, from this moment forward... even if you didn't MEAN to hurt them...
I mean, if you drop an egg and it breaks... but you didn't MEAN to drop it... it's still broken, yeah? You never intended to be hurtful... but unless you are willing to understand that you ARE being hurtful, things will not improve."
Ok... the point: It doesn't matter the INTENT... What matters are the CONSEQUENCES.
"Promote Community Interaction and grow the awareness of Splinterlands via Contest with the promise of Prizes - this will help attract New Players!"
This is a fantastic way to grow Brand Awareness. I used this so much with my Restaurant and I still use it currently at my job selling cars :)
We created a mechanism for people to "Enter Contest, Follow Rules, Win Hive, Ship it to Binance"...
Please understand this KEY CONCEPT: There is NOTHING inherently wrong with this.
Obviously, at this point, you're probably having an intrusive thought or three... something along the lines of "What the hell... that's stupid... you're stupid... there is a LOT wrong with this!"
Clear mind? Ok good. We continue on our thought journey...
How can there be nothing wrong with what they are doing? They're taking all this Hive and shipping it off... lowering the value of Hive... devaluing our Hive!! This sucks!!
The answer is... well, I've alluded to it... bias. Our familiarity with Hive creates a very false belief that "Well... I know this... everybody should know this."
This is one of the most fundamentally flawed reasonings ever and super common in us humans...
But let's review the rules of most of these contests that are creating the opportunity for this Resource Extraction:
I see... Well... It certainly doesn't provide any suggestions about what we the Community would want or hope our Participants to do... does it?
So... ask yourself... do you know how to rebuild a Diesel Engine? I surely don't... why not? Because we haven't learned...
With that parable... How can we expect people to know what is expected from them (or at least hoped)... How can we expect people to know what we consider "Good Hive Behavior".
The participants who, for years have extracted all this Hive... Have done NOTHING wrong. Why??? Because they showed up, saw the sign that said: "Do X, Win Hive" and PLAYED BY OUR RULES...
The solution for this is NOT Punishment... it is NOT SHAME... It is EDUCATION.
Make no mistake, the burden is 100% upon us, as a Community to STATE OUR EXPECTATIONS... and if we do not... we cannot become upset at others who act differently that what we "hoped they would do"... That is 100% our fault.
Fortunately, there is a rather simple and elegant solution to all of this. We simply need to educate the people who enter these contests on what we believe to be the "Right Way" of doing things.
Unless we CLEARLY state our expectations... and restate them... and restate them... and re... you get it.
Unless we do that... unless we make the effort to educate people... we cannot fault them for not knowing.
But... education really isn't the goal... is it?
Unless I am WILDLY mistaken... the goal is not simply to educate people on what we want for a contest or a challenge or a [Insert Reward]...
The Goal, as it has always been, is to WELCOME and ENCOURAGE new people to experience the awesomeness of a Digital Community.
Whether it is Splinterlands, or Holozing or Moonkarts, or Soulkeep or Pinmapple, or Alien Art Hive or... we don't want people to just "show up, enter contest, see ya next week"... right?
We want them to show up... say "woah this is cool... these people are AWESOME... I can earn some money doing this... but if I were to take 10%, 20% 50% of those rewards... and invest them in this community... I could earn EVEN MORE down the road... and BECOME the support for others like me, in the future..."
The Goal is GROWTH. The Goal is to BUILD. The Goal is show people a place on Earth, albeit digital, where they are welcome... and should they choose to stay... have an opportunity to grow personally, professionally and financially.
Now... that's what we want... what we hope... will everyone do it? Nah. That's not how Human's work. Some people are going to say "That's stupid"... a lot of people will... but that's ok. Because those that stay... will help others... and Hive will grow organically.
If we take the opposite approach... sure... some might stay through the punishment or the shame... but they'll have a negative sentiment about Hive and their experience... which means they're less likely to share and if they do share with others... it's probably something along the lines of "Hey man, there's way to earn some cash online but there's a few rules and the people can be jerks... it's worth it though"...
Not really a beacon for growth... is it?
In order to promote a welcoming and healthy environment that encourages participation and growth... we must make our expectations known... but in a positive and encouraging light.
What is the easiest way to educate people about something you want???
Ok... so HOW do we tell them - that's actually SUPER EASY!! Not kidding!!
Step 1. Include it in the Rules (this has already been done)
Step 2. Each Community: Hive, Splinterlands, Holozing, Moonkarts, Soulkeep, etc... Should create a Post on Hive titled "Community Values" or something like that.
Each post should CLEARLY state what [Insert Community] deems as "Model Hive Behavior". If we don't tell people what we expect of them... we cannot and I mean CANNOT be upset when they don't do what we think they should be doing. That's ASININE.
Ok enough with that, serious topic... after creating this post, where we CLEARLY STATE what we, "the Community", believe to be "Good Behavior" and expect from our Contestants... we need to LINK IT IN THE RULES as our "Community Guidelines"... but we need to go ONE STEP further...
I don't know about the other projects... but for Splinterlands, when a Curator Upvotes your post... they always post a comment... like this:
How easy would it be to include a line like this, to be saved in the Snippet the Curators use each comment:
"To ensure the continued growth of our Community, we encourage all participants to read our [Community Guidelines] Post to ensure they have the opportunity to earn maximum rewards for their entry to this contest and our future contests!"
That way, when contestants enter and each time they receive an Curation... they are thanked and reminded about the "Community Post" (clickable link, obv)... and that post must be written in a warm, friendly, engaging way about why we believe this to be the best way to do things...
Remember - we don't know what they don't know. They could be Crypto n00bs who stumbled upon Hive... or seasoned vets of multiple Bull Cycles... Regardless... unless we welcome them... encourage them... and continue to uplift them... why on Earth would they stick around??
Which is kinda the opposite of what we want lol...
Step 3. Encourage sharing on other platforms - not just for the "Social Media Posts"... this ensures the participants spread the word about the Community they are in, OUTSIDE of... The community they are in 😐 (super important for growth)!!
Anyways, there you have it folks!! The issue, the cause and the solution. I'm happy to help if I can, you can tag me in any posts on Hive or message me on Discord!!
My Display Name is CaptainDingus or "The guy with llamakron tattoos" but you can search my username too "llamakron" :)
Have a wonderful day and I can't wait to see the discussion in the comments!
That's all I have for you today folks!! Thank you for reading and I would LOVE for you to join me in game!!
Naturally, after everything leading up to this moment, I do think Splinterlands and Soulkeep are some of the BEST web3 games out there!
They bring the #play2earn feature to the forefront of development as well as many opportunities for people to earn rewards - whether Player or Investor!!
If you're interested in the future of gaming, it's worth checking out!
You can sign up here: Splinterlands
Cheers 🍻,
- CaptainDingus
#Splinterlands #Hive #Soulkeep #play2earn #web3 #NFTGaming #Rebellion #Conflicts #TowerDefense
#Holozing #Moonkarts #Crownrend #CryptoShots #dCrops #DemoniCore #HiveGamingCommunity
My thoughts on extration + the stigma of cashing out. Not directed at you, the post above or anyone. Just my conclusion based on recent content speaking on such.
Personally I'm not a big fan on telling others what to do with their funds. Nor am I a big fan in not voting a post that I otherwise would of voted based on an insinuation and/or practice of someone who cashes out/ powers up/ holds liquid. I understand why and don't fault those who vote based on such dynamics. My dynamics for voting content; If a post brings value for whatever reason then that warrants my vote. What the author does with their funds is not much of my business. Its good to be informed so we can make better decisions but lets not shame reasonable actions like cashing out. We all own the reward pool but funds that reach someones wallet is no longer part of the community reward pool as it has already been dispensed to its then owner. The owner of such can do what they want with their funds.
In regards to promotional votes; if a post follows the rules it deserves the vote regardless of what the Author does with the rewards that hits their wallet. Anything else is a breach of contract. What I think needs to change is this big negative stigma that gets attached to those who cash out their earnings. Cashing out is to be expected. I would argue that once WEB2 flocks here, cashing out will become the norm. Would I rather see power ups and held Hive? Of course and I bet those with hoards of liquid Hive waiting to be placed on market during the next pump hope so as well. I believe the simple rule of "If you shipped Hive off chain in the last 30 days you can't participate in this challenge" might be a good deterrent to weed out those who want to only participate to increase their fiat wallets. Tag along the rules must have a reputation of XX or above so extractors don't just mosey in with new accounts after extracting.
There is many sides to the coin with who are getting called extractors. For example some call those who turn their gaming rewards into HIVE extractors, others say these are good Hivens who are increasing their stake. Some think that HIVE earned from post creation spent on the apps/projects here on Hive are extractors because their accounts show less held HIVE then earned. The term is used too loosely. In my opinion there is a clear difference between someone who sole action is shipping every last hive they earn off chain compared to someone who trades it locally within the vast network of opportunity here on Hive. Shifting of Value, for example (1) DEC to HIVE or (2) HIVE to DEC should not be seen as extracting but instead be seen as Hive creating a self sustaining economy.
A quote from myself from another similar post
I agree with you 100%. The post itself is the value. Otherwise, someone could put $1M into hive, make spam posts and get huge upvotes. Having high HP already brings several benefits by itself.
@olaf.gui I agree with you about the Post being the value... unless it is a Contest Entry... Because that's what it is at that point.
It will receive upvotes based on the merit of the post - but the big upvotes they are chasing... that's the key.
No one should "expect" an upvote just because they enter... just like we shouldn't "expect" people to power up 100% of their Rewards...
Contest Rewards (big upvotes) are always at the discretion of the Curator and never guaranteed.
With that being said: I am 100% for encouraging everyone to participate in every contest, in every community...
It is up to the Community to set their Standards and Expectations - or else we cannot be frustrated with the outcome 🤷♂
Just for clarification, in my own personal opinion, I would totally be fine with contestants keeping like 10%, 20% or whatever, from each post to power up.
Withdrawing 100% of the Rewards, 100% of the time... for 2+ Yeears? They're not here for the "Community". They're here for $$ - and that's ok.
It's up to us to make the change, if we want to see a change and furthermore it is also on us... to provide a welcoming community that they want to be a part of 🤗
Thank you for reading and your comment! I appreciate you Olaf!
@rentmoney - I agree with you and you are essentially saying what I am saying 😊
On a point by point breakdown:
You're absolutely right - no one should be telling people what to do with their funds.
While I can't speak for others, in my posts I have been very clear on what I define as "extraction": Accounts that have powered down 100% of every author reward, ever... and shipped them off to an exchange like Binance.
But... this is not to say they wouldn't be eligible for current and future contests. Rather, by posting a "Contest Mission Statement" and implementing things like I suggested, we would encourage them in their future behavior... rather than bashing them for past behaviors.
Remember, no one is "guaranteed an upvote" just for participating - that's solely at the discretion of the Curation Team.
We should, as individual communities and entities hosting these contests make them as inclusive as possible - yet encourage those who enter to become part of the community, rather than using it as a "Meal Ticket".
I appreciate you Rentmoney, thank you for reading and commenting :)
Have a great day!
Yes, when reading your post before I commented I concluded your post is in-line with allot of the same thoughts I decided to share in my comment. Which might be the reason I felt the comment section of this specific OP might be a good place to share my opinion on such things. Showing a little support to those who might be labeled as extractors that aren't is important. Cashing out shouldn't be frowned upon (life happens); extracting for the sake of extracting (I don't imagine) is an action that helps anyone including the individual that might be doing it. You are also appreciated. Thanks for creating the thought provoking post.
Oh I know and I agree with the rule. Standards need to be in place.
Absolutely - and we can't expect anyone to know that... unless we make it very clear.
I truly want more people to discover Hive and the Front Ends like Peak'd, Ecency, Splintertalk, InLeo and others :)
I have been trying to increase my hive again, powering up small amounts of hive daily but I did a lot of power down when I was just starting in Hive in order to build my SPL assets like the time when Venari Wavesmith was sold for 5$ and SPS was nearly .5$. That may also be the case for other so maybe it can be added to the curation criteria that an account owns SPL assets as well as an active SPL player for curation.
Curation criteria may also include accounts that does not power down for 6 months or more and for accounts that power up.
Hey @saydie thank you for reading and leaving a comment!
I totally understand what you mean and I am not saying people shouldn't receive upvotes if they power down Hive once... or at any point...
But there are some accounts that have literally Powered Down and sent to Binance and other exchanges 100% of their Author Rewards for over TWO YEARS.
That should, at the very least, be a cause to ponder "Hmmmm... do I want to upvote this content" or perhaps I choose something else to look at...
I think we should be encouraging people to not just create content... but to become part of the Community... and the only way to do that is to create a welcoming Community people WANT to be a part of 😊🤗
Thanks for dropping in and reading my post + leaving your feedback :)
It is certainly bad when a SPS blogger takes most of their earnings outside of hive but if they used their earnings to build their SPL assets can be a good thing as their hive does not leave the chain but used to helps to support SPL and/or other hive Dapps and helps grow the blockchains apps which in turn grows the chain as a whole which benefits everyone.
On the other hand, someone who takes most of their Hive earnings and has no SPL assets are the worst type of extractors and I certainly won't care if they do not get any upvotes.
That's exactly it :)
But I think the most important thing is to explain why, Encourage people to save a small %.
I'd love to see the Community grow but we can only do so with positivity :)
Delegate Tokens and HP to Fallen Angels to earn weekly rewards!
Delegate | Join to the guild
Great post! Agree completely. I think a lot of it comes down to two questions anyone can ask themselves:
Some folks have a very short timeframe, see "play2earn" and think, okay "how do I (me only) make as much fiat wealth off the game, as fast as possible?" That doesnt make them a bad person, but it does make them a drain on all the rest of us.
Other folks have a long term timeframe, see "play2earn" as a way to build crypto wealth together as a community over time and maybe, eventually, unwind some of it into fiat, if necessary. It doesn't make them a good person, but it does make them an asset for all the rest of us.
Which do you want to be viewed as? An asset or drain?
Exactly - and the beauty of it... no one expects people to Min/Max this lol
You Powered Down some of your Rewards?? You're not Powering Up 100%??????
GET OUT.
No one wants that... no one expects that... but if someone is doing the opposite... it is up to us, the Community, to positively encourage them to slightly alter that behavior and encourage them to change.
IMO the best way to do this is provide examples of WHY they should change and keep some Powered Up...
What benefit do they receive for doing this... I am betting none of them realize that they could be putting aside 10% or 20% and then after a year or two, when they have 10,000HP... their votes are worth ~ $.25 each! Maybe they hit 40k Hive Power and their votes are ~ $1.00 each holy cow!
In this manner, there is no "shaming"... there is no "punishment"... only education and encouragement.
THAT... is how Communities are built.
Agreed + the way you said it is better 😅 - thanks for posting about this stuff. It's a sensitive topic that can be difficult to approach. You're doing a great job at building consensus because ACTUALLY, reading these comments, it doesn't even sound like anyone is that far apart on the issue.
Everyone ultimately wants HIVE to succeed. That part is clear 💪
You nailed it buddy :)
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I have a few thoughts about this.
I believe that the content of the post, especially if it's good, is already a contribution by itself. What people do with their earnings should not matter. With that said, everyone is free to do as they please with their votes, as long as there's no abuse like vote trading or anything like that. Also, what constitutes good content varies from person to person, community to community, and even from platform to platform. I remember using 9gag a long time ago and memes, usually short ones, were the main content. If you wrote an essay, no matter how good it was, that was not the place to post it. Same thing here if I make a fantastic Splinterlands post in the music community, that's not good.
That's why I'm very against downvotes for any reason other than to combat abuse. If people like a post, it shouldn't be possible for someone else to come and say "you shouldn't like this post". Especially because only whales can do that and it creates a type of bullying.
Anyway, back to people being free to use their upvotes as they please. We can't forget that upvotes help the receiver as much as the voter. That means it's good to be frequently upvoting. I personally vote many of the posts in Splinterlands and a few others that I already follow.
Regarding your response to my other comment, about upvotes from contests, it should be up to the contest organizers. If they want, they can give a bigger upvote to people who power down, that's up to them, although that would be pretty weird. Specifically about the Splinterlands contests, there are 2 things to keep in mind:
What is the goal of the contests?
Who decides these rules?
To me, 1) is simple. It's to incentivize people to create content about Splinterlands and to reward those who do. Considering that not voting is throwing away money, might as well vote for people who play the game and are more likely to use the earnings to invest in the game. This brings up another question: what is more beneficial to Splinterlands? Someone earning and powering up everything into HP or someone selling every bit of Hive to spend on Splinterlands? I have no doubt that the second one is the best possible outcome for Splinterlands.
This ties into 2). Who owns the accounts doing the voting? Whenever I get the vote it's from steemmonsters but sps.dao, yabapmatt, and postpromoter follow the vote automatically. I don't know if postpromoter is related or not but it's not too relevant since it's the lowest vote of the 4. Steemmonsters I believe belong to the team, yabapmatt is his personal account, of course, and finally sps.dao. Yabapmatt is free to vote however he pleases and so is steemmonsters ultimately his decision (if he doesn't delegate the decision). However, sps.dao belongs to the SPS stakeholders.
Why did the rules recently change? Was it because someone convinced the team to change? While I don't agree with that, if the team is ok with it, that's fine. However, shouldn't we have a vote to see who and how the sps.dao votes?
I'm not even someone who powers down. Only once I started a power down of 1 HP because I needed it for something and when I saw how long it would take I stopped. And I did power up a bit at some point. I remember selling a few vouchers, already after the CL pre-sale, because I used peakmonsters to rent cards and I was always running out of RC. I don't know if I powered up again and I sell most of the liquid rewards to have a few more funds for Splinterlands. I also saved up $100 in HBD (worth a bit more now) and have it staked. I don't know if this is considered enough or not to be eligible for the rewards. I know I'm not one of the people who takes everything and takes out, otherwise I wouldn't have over 3k HP.
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Thanks for sharing! - @azircon
