I think it's a shitty job, but we've needed someone to do it. Can you imagine the hatred they have suffered over the years? I bet there were all kinds of threats so it's no wonder they stay fairly anonymous. I think it's largely been one guy and he did it as a job so had to live on what income the DHF gave him, possibly plus local benefits. It looks like the big accounts took their votes off the proposal so it's a long way off hitting the payout threshold. I don't know what discussions are still going on between them.
Hive is bound to attract all the chancers as it's practically money for nothing if you can game the system. You can create a load of bot accounts that vote for each other and that is probably easier now with AI tools. We shall see how that works out. We can also use AI to try and detect abuse. That may already be happening.
I also have issues with how HW has operated. Apart from the very obvious deliberate abuse there have been plenty of people who had no idea of 'acceptable behaviour' here and got hammered immediately. I would agree they needed warnings. Having to jump through hoops on Discord is not great and many will just give up.
Some people have fixed ideas of what Hive should be, but I think we should try to be as open as possible to different types of content. I very rarely downvote anything these days and am not involved in any groups doing so.
I definitely don't have all the answers on how to create a 'fair' system that handles different attacks. If Hive scales up then things will change and give new challenges. If the price goes up then we are bound to see more abuse. Those with the power can decide what efforts get funded.
Meanwhile most of us just get on with posting and being social here.
I actually met one of the people who worked on hivewatchers in Lisbon and he was a true gentlemen. How he maintained his composure whilst doing this terribly important role is amazing.
Having to sail through a sea of shite everyday must have been soul sucking.
While catching plagiarism was a good idea the biggest reward pool thieves were and probably still are operating with almost no consequences.
I'll name no names but we all know who they are.
I've met one too. I was involved in some anti-abuse work and it can be draining. There are various ways to try and cheat Hive, but many can be detected with some data analysis. We just have to be wary of who we point fingers at.
I remember you saying that the level of abuse is much higher than most people realise as HW catches a lot of it.
Doing that kind of work is exhausting and from what I recall HW was paid a pittance.
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