New Rules for the Social Media Challenge - Where am I at on HIVE?
Prologue
In order to support those players and writers that actually support the HIVE-Ecosystem by staking their rewards and keeping them on the chain, the @splinterlands team has decided to apply a new rule into their challenges:
Participants who demonstrate an investor mindset by holding and growing their HP are more likely to be rewarded. Those who consistently extract all rewards without reinvesting into the ecosystem may not be eligible for prizes.
There was a really interesting #rant a few days ago that also refers to this, done by @acidyo - Click here for the Value-Post and after reading that one and engaging a little into the discussion, I think it's very good move by the team.
EDIT: It would be good to know what the exact limits for the new rules are, and who is excluded - only writers who take out 100% of their rewards? 90%? 50%? What time frame? Some open questions there, that hopefully will be answered in the future 😊
The Problem in a nutshell
Upvote-Farming
The Splinterlands-Channel as well as many other channels have Auto-Vote bots, that will automatically put an upvote on ANY post made - no matter the quality. That can lead to over-rewarding low-quality posts (based on one's own value system, of course). Those can be regulated by downvotes, but that again can cause feudes and anger - as discussed in the Value-Post, there is no solution, just compromise.
The Strive towards Average
In the challenges hosted by the Splinterlands-Team, they try to curate everything and are doing a great job - but it's usually around 150 entries per challenge, and I can imagine that it's hard to really read carefully through everything.
THIS IS NOT A CRITIQUE TOWARDS THE CURATORS! Shouting that out just in case someone interprets my text that way. I think they do a very good job.
When both high-quality and average-quality get rewarded (low quality not, when detected) - then the providers of high-quality might think: "Why go through all this effort if I can get the same reward with less energy input, creating an average post?" That leads to a strive towards the most efficient way of blogging, leading to average (which then pulls the average down as a result, and slowly the whole quality degrades). The most reward for the least input - and suddenly we're on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and all those platforms that provide low quality content and are striving to get lower. A downward spiral that we can currently see all over societies and cultures, but that's another topic.
How the new rule helps with that
Having a new rule that as by-product serves the ecosystem can help to slow that spiral down. If I understand correctly, it will run the posts through a filter before curating. That reduces the workload for curators in the beginning, giving them more time to then value the posts more carefully, hence helping to uphold the quality of posts.
Got an opinion? Please engage!
Just comment below what you think about his I'd love to read some other thoughts on the topic. I actually read throught most of the 130 Comments on the Value post, so I'm not afraid 😃 I'm sort of a newbie here, too, so by default I have to learn a lot.
Where am I at on HIVE?
Hive Power (HP)
Around New Year, I wrote a article for the community challenge about my Splinterlands goals for this year, and included the goals I have on Hive. This was the Status Quo only one month ago:
Here's the now. As you can see, my account grew by 100 HIVE-Power which is great for a month of work - I was spending a lot of time thinking about good topics for articles that are actually interesting, like the content that I personally like to read on the channel, and browsing through other channels in order to see what else would be fun to blog about.
The goal for this year was to get to 500 HP, which seems very likely to achieve. Hence, I'll push myself a little and see if I can get to 1000 HP by the end of this year, and 500 HP by end of May.
Hive Backed Dollars (HBD)
I did take out around 80 HIVE in order to do some shopping for cards and other things within the HIVE-Ecosystem, for Splinterlands mainly. The surge in price for HIVE token facilitated that. I get rewarded by 50% HIVE-Power which I always leave staked, and 50% HBD which I sometimes convert, sometimes put into savings - depending on my current milestone that I'm working on. Currently, I'm trying to convert around half of my HBD-Rewards into SPS in order to stake more, and/or into DEC to buy more cards.
Even though I spend some of the rewards, I was able to grow my stake from 50 HBD in December 2024 (Here's the post when I hit 50 HBD) to 65 HBD - that's 30% growth. I'm quite happy with that. The goal for this year was 100 HBD initially, but if I can keep up the pace, I might be able to get to 200 HBD, while still being able to fund some new cards on Splinterlands. Now that I write it, I should start saving for Conclave...
Conclusion
The discussion led by @acidyo really got me thinking a lot. Even though I think that my content is usually quite good and I put in a lot of work, I can still improve - mainly by forgetting about the HP and HBD goals that I have, and just focus on the posts themselves, and the value that they contribute to the community. See trap here, the one that I wrote about? I have goals that I want to achieve, but I have to set myself some rules in order to achieve them in a way that is coherent with my values - aka holding myself to a high standard.
I was also thinking about how my posts can help to grow the community. My last post for example was not a complex battle analysis, but a more cheerful post on how I spent my Glint-Rewards with my daughter while doing her hair. I usually refrain from publishing pack openings since I deem them kind of boring, but my thought process was - if I had a lot of fun doing this, maybe someone out there might get interested as well by reading something that includes the family into Splinterlands, as well as everyday chores (ever tried to comb curly hair? 🤣 ).
Value to the community is not only what I find interesting, but also what might attract new players - and opening packs and rewards is definitely one of the fun parts in the game.
Please excuse my excessive writing today!
I was somewhat inspired and caffeinated, and the topic of values and the philosophy around it is just one of my favorites to think about. So, to all that made it through until here - huge respect to you! I hope you got something out of the time spent here...
Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it at least as much as I enjoyed writing :-D If you have any comments or feedback - please let me know! And don't forget to leave your own posts for me to curate. Thank you very much!
If you don't play the game yet, you can use my referral: Click here for referral :-)
Thank you!
@splinterboost is an example for an auto-vote - I have just published this article, and already got a vote from it. It's not huge, but it occurs without review - nobody can read an article that long in 20 seconds :-D I don't know if they have algorhythms in place that help against abuse.
Another part are voting trails - one can follow a trail of a person they trust, and automatically vote on the articles that person is curating. I do that, too, because it also leads me to interesting articles. As example, I found the value post by following a downvote-trail which lead me to downvotes on comments from someone who likes to insult a lot, like really a lot. That rude person now tags me regularly in rant-posts about downvoting trails, which is interesting to read since it gives a different perspective.
@splinterboost is awesome. I have about 1400 HP delegated to them and they pay me in hive every day (usually between 0.3 and 0.6). I don't know their algorithm, but they do have one. In the past I know that they didn't give upvotes for posts under a certain word count.
Thank you for letting me know! I have 100 HP delegated to them, which is a lot - I was thinking about undelegating until my own stake grows more, but until now, I haven't decided on it yet :-D
Delegate Tokens and HP to Fallen Angels to earn weekly rewards!
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Thank you!
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STOPI tell you that this is horrible for the ecosystem in the saddest possible way.
Except for those who do Power Down, that's a real HIVE Leech.
I'm sorry, I'm confused - which part is horrible for the ecosystem? The new rule?
Yes bro.
Could you elaborate on why it is bad? Or is it for the same reasons that Olaf.gui is point out in the comment below?
As I said in the text, I'm still kind of a newbie, so the different opinions and view-points help me to navigate this whole new world 😅
I have engaged in this type of discussion before, since this has been a trending topic lately. Let me start by saying that I have over 3000 HP. I never powered down, but I also never powered up, except for a bit at the beginning, when I was always running out of RC from renting using Peakmonsters.
To me, the post in itself is a contribution to Hive. The rewards are for each person to decide what to do. It shouldn't matter if someone takes out all rewards, stakes everything, or even brings a huge amount of outside money. That should not affect the upvote. However, people are free to upvote as they please and have their own criteria.
Since people are free to have their own criteria for upvotes and not voting is throwing money away, it's understandable that auto votes are used. Not everyone has the time to read a lot of posts. That's why I'm so against downvotes except when they are used to combat exploits or abuse. Downvotes shouldn't be used because you disagree or dislike someone. However, it happens and has already happened to me. It's especially bad because whales can do that without consequences, bullying people as they please.
Anyway, back on using upvotes however people like. Contests are not different. They exist for a reason. In particular, Splinterlands contests were created because the team thought it was better than letting their upvote unused or setting some type of auto vote, which would have been easier. To me, there are 2 reasons. 1) Promote the game within Hive and increase activity in the Splinterlands community. 2) Increase the chances the rewards from their curation go to Splinterlands players who are more likely to use them to buy SPL assets.
With that in mind, it's much more beneficial for Splinterlands if participants use all the rewards from their posts to invest in Splinterlands than any other type of split, especially when compared to powering up everything!
With that in mind, why would they opt for this recent rule change where participants need to keep at least part of their rewards in Hive? That could have only happened because there was pressure from people who put Hive's interests above Splinterlands'. That is not good. Ultimately, the team is free to be influenced by who they choose. However, part of the vote is from the DAO, using DAO assets, which should follow the SPS holders' wishes, not some Hive whales.
Another complaint I have is that the rules are very vague. "Specifically, we will review past rewards earned and currently held Hive Power (HP) as part of the selection process." "Participants who demonstrate an investor mindset by holding and growing their HP are more likely to be rewarded. Those who consistently extract all rewards without reinvesting into the ecosystem may not be eligible for prizes." What am I supposed to do with this? By default, posts pay half in HP (staked) and half in liquid form. That's what I keep mine at but people can change this percentage all the way to either side. Is 50/50 good enough, using all the liquid rewards as we please? Or will that be punished too?
To conclude, I'm not against these rule changes. I am against how they were changed and how vague they are.
Great assessment, thank you so much for replying!
I feel the same way about a lot of things you write there, but my faith in humanity (based on the experiences with blogging and social media) is not very high. I would love to be able to trust humans with power, but the possibility of making money corrupts many of them too easily, leading to a degradation of quality - and I still hope that I'm wrong with that.
In the discussion that I had with acidyo, he stated that the think the abuse of those types auto-vote and down-votes is not that high. So the new rules are more a prevention than a reaction towards a problem that might ocurr. That can be seen as problematic and oppressive, or as progressive, depending on the view-point. I tend towards progressive based on the experiences in other blogging/social media systems.
The rules are indeed very vague, I edited that in as well, nobody really knows what they want there... And what you point out is very interesting - why wasn't there a proposal or a vote for the change? Or maybe I missed it, that still happens a lot.
Same goes for the re-investing. I'm one of many who uses his rewards only for SPL, since I don't even know how to extract them into the real world 😅 And the purchases I made definitely help the SPL-Ecosystem.
My conclusion in a question that I'll think about a little as it is applyable to the real world:
Does the mere possibility of abuse justify the preventitive restriction?
Your post is very good too and I honestly think we both agree for the most part.
My faith in humanity isn't very high either. However, I think it's not too difficult to keep the little guy in check, even if there are many of them, and some might escape whatever anti-abuse system we implement. I'm much more worried about preventing abuse from powerful people. I have gotten a few downvotes from a whale for personal reasons and also DVs from another whale because they wanted to hurt one of my upvoters. There's nothing you can do in those situations. If these were happening to most of my posts, I would stop posting. Imagine a new user getting caught up in these situations. I doubt they would stay. Anyway, this part is a little off-topic, so I'll get back to the topic.
I agree with putting some restrictions. I just don't like how and why it was done. Ever since the DAO made the deal to buy a lot of Hive to be able to get the funding for the Splinterlands proposal I have been of the opinion that it should support Splinterlands posts as much as possible. A vote would be just for the DAO part. I do think it's good to make people not cash out everything. However, I wouldn't consider putting the capital in Splinterlands and even other Hive projects to be "taking out of the ecosystem". The biggest problem is the rules being so vague that someone might get rejected when they don't even know what rules they have to follow.
Oh yeah, I also don't know how I would cash out of Hive and I put everything into Splinterlands. Hopefully, one day, I'll learn how, because if I want to cash out it means prices had increased significantly.
I agree with the whole comment, I think @azircon should really read it.
I have read the comment and responded to it.
Hive interests are important and is INDEED above splinterlands when it is related to hive. Hive stakeholders are free to do whatever they want with their stake and their vote. That includes you.
But if that is true I am free to vote (and downvote) how I choose :)
Splinterlands is "Powered by Hive": not the other way around. You are entitled to your opinion, just as I am entitled to mine.
I didn't ask you how you vote, so I appreciate if you don't ask me how I vote :)
By the way, I have checked your account, and you do plot at a decent spot. Congratulations.
Everyone's interests are important. For me, my personal interests are very important, for you they are not. For Splinterlands, their own interests should be the most important, regardless if they are using Hive or any other type of currency.
I agree that everyone should use their upvotes as they wish. Downvotes is a different issue, not related to this. I know you don't agree with me regarding DVs so it's not even worth it talking about that.
I know Splinterlands is "Powered by Hive" but that doesn't mean Splinterlands dies if Hive dies (hypothetically). Splinterlands is a private company that needs to ensure their own survival and profit. Regardless, when I say that for Splinterlands it's better if people use all their Hive to buy SPL assets instead of powering up Hive, I'm not saying that it is what we should do for the contests. I'm just saying that it would be better for Splinterlands. But it would be very difficult to keep track of that, certainly not worth it, even if there was the desire to. Keeping track of HP is much more simple.
I didn't ask how anyone voted on Hive. As an SPS stakeholder, I do have a say on how the DAO is voting, though.
You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine.
Yes your interest and only your interest is important to you. That is why you act the way you act. Only in self interest.
For me: my interests are important AND the community interests. I act accordingly. This is the premise of game theory of governing dynamics. I suggest you watch this clip. This conversation is over on my end.
No you don’t; unless you forward a proposal.
And then you will have a say proportional to your SPS stake.
Every stakeholder has a say proportional, of course. And the way the DAO voted changed without a vote.
Say all you want.
But now you need to be prepared for consequences of your actions.
Have a good day, Sir!
I honestly don't understand you. How can a normal conversation without any type of attack or rudeness turn into "you need to be prepared for consequences of your actions". What were my actions that were so wrong?
What makes you say I only have my own interests in mind? What have I ever done that makes you think that?
You did yourself!
I said that my personal interests are very important to me. I didn't say that only my personal interests are important to me. And I said that my personal interests were not important to you. What I meant is that everyone has their own self-interests in mind, which there's nothing wrong with (unless they only have those in mind), and that it's also normal for other people, especially those who aren't close to them, to not have that person's own interests in mind.