10,000 Newbies?

Week by week, for almost eight years now, I’ve been publishing regular summaries of Hive principles, events, or just Hive-related thoughts in Czech for my local community. It’s a niche Slavic language, yet I keep noticing people translate these, read and comment on them. Here’s a post of that kind, perhaps a tad longer, inspired by our recent talks with @honeydue, @ph1102, and the regulars of his show, @incublus, @borniet, among many others—that list would be quite extensive. On retention, the KE ratio, communities, curation, or even Hive’s fairness—ticklish topics indeed. Discussion is more than welcome.

Of Newbies and Us

Imagine 10,000 brand-new real, active users eager to start their Hive journey, publishing their intro, and then posting 1-7 times a week for three months. Commenting. They’re just random folks we usually entrap in our sticky bit of that wide web:

Several muse-kissed wonderkids seeking soulmates outside the empty spaces that they are living in; photographers who lost the stock photo war to machines; a new generation of crypto-bros shilling their pet memecoins, slinging referral links, and hyping play-to-earn games so mind-numbingly dull, no one would touch them without that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; crowds from the less-fortunate countries, where an extra dollar is a blessing; dozens lured through all these “here’s your two bucks, go and spend the money over there to earn some extra coins” initiatives; a bunch of sporty Actifitters or travelers; a handful of flat-earthers from all over the globe; and even random inquiring passers-by like I once was. Add a few scammers who are always willing to exploit the system, a manic preacher or two, blindfolded activists, a doomsday cultist, several meatheads, hippies and junkies. The usual cocktail. Shaken, not stirred.

Those ten thousand people would easily outnumber us, the OGs. Would they get the appropriate share of the rewards?

Not quite. The cream of the crop would soon establish themselves. Those who have something to say, can reach the right people at the right time, treat Lady Fortuna to a drink occasionally, and don’t desperately need to earn their living here, so they won’t get under pressure when things go farther south than expected. You, who actually read this post and not just browse it, fit this mold too. Don’t you?

A vast majority of these newbies would not really last these three months, losing their high hopes after publishing ten, twenty, or even fifty posts that earn only a dime. Many would just start comment farming, as it often generates more profit with less effort provided you know whom to comment on.

Nevertheless, OG rewards will likely remain at roughly the same level. Most of us rely on community support from people we’ve met. On-chain, in person, on Discord... Hive’s a social network, isn’t it? Besides, betting on curation initiatives is not really a long-term strategy, although we do get more than our fair share of these upvotes. We would hardly lose our current support to thousands of newbies (and let’s be honest here, many of these votes are automated), and they can hardly gain enough attention that fast, especially in such a tsunami of newcomers. Curation trails would diversify more, spreading more votes perhaps, limiting how often one can be upvoted. Yet again, most of the OGs don’t really publish daily, and we won’t mind much being curated just biweekly.

Growing Communities

The most tenacious unsuccessful newbies would explore all the typical dead ends—letting AI generate their post instead of sharing personal experience; using sketches or photos that might not actually be theirs; sipping that yummy instant coffee in Cinnamon Cup Coffee; praising industrial brews, or even random alcoholic beverages on Beersaturday… All that in machine-translated English. MT seems to work quite well for Spanish but often fails badly with other languages. Still, people use it because they’re forced to, just to get curated. Hoping for a Deus ex machina. That ten-buck upvote.

Hive, however, should be way more fragmented. Less of that Deux. With communities taking care of themselves—moderating, curating and policing their members. Language-based, country-based, region-based, topic-based, you name it. The existing curating initiatives do not empower this fragmentation, or decentralization if you will, enough. Can you get curated when you write exclusively in Bengali, Yoruba, Igbo, Cebuano, Japanese, Dutch, or perhaps Czech? Incidentally, a Czech-only post is eligible for Curangel curation thanks to two local curators, but does this fairly apply to the other languages too?

What’s the advantage of machine-translated text, sometimes even used as the exclusive language of a post? It hardly pleases the reader but makes a post eligible for such curation. Sad, yet true. Art for the sake of art? Where’s the human touch then?

Let’s build communities instead, incubate and nurture them. Community-based curation projects and initiatives. Let’s empower local languages, stand up for topics we relate to. Let’s read, engage, comment, speak our mind, dare to voice our opinions, and embrace our languages—any language we can actually speak. Then we can realize how much the KE ratio matters—not for being bullied for not having enough HP, but for recognizing that Hive Power is called power for a reason, as I keep saying. Our Hive Power represents our share of the platform. We reward the best content in our eyes, and perhaps our friends—we all do that, let’s face it. And can be rewarded by the others. By the community.

Grow for yourself and grow (for) your communities—you’d likely engage in more than one of them.

Such communities can accommodate thousands of newcomers, reward them fairer, hook them up, keep them engaged. Ensure retention, that’s the fancy word for that. Lead their first steps in this realm. Bridge Hive to the successful social media—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and others are in all languages, including dead or fictional ones. Could a post in Sindarin— a Tolkien-invented Elvish language, or Klingon get curated here without being translated into English? Why not, if there’s enough people who have mastered them enough to have fun with them?

Yes, in My Backyard!

The nature of Hive allows us to be citizens of multiple communities at once, often ones that seem completely unrelated. A crypto trader, poet, vegan and crochet fiend at once? Perfectly fine here, join the suitable communities, or create them. Nurture them, engage with like-minded people, and grow together.

Kudos to all community founders, moderators, curators, and everyone who volunteers to make Hive a tad better of a place! We need more people like you, folks!

Posted Using INLEO