I just realized I've been on HIVE for exactly a month now, Dec 13th, 2021 being the day I joined and shared my first post on HIVE.
My first post was in C/PhotographyLovers as that's why and how I came to HIVE. HIVE was introduced to me as a way to reach out and share my photography more and become a blog outlet. I've also joined a few other communities like the Black and White, Photofeed, and Nature Lovers communities.
Heres my impressions after a month.
I'll also be throwing some of my images in here - because I think theyre cool.
Day 1
I received a most helpful beginners guide from @kieranstone -[ Hive: A Complete Beginner's Guide (With Fun Doodles) Pt. 1] which I promptly ignored and hopped right in. So my first impressions were basically "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS WHAT DO YOU MEAN I NEED MULTIPLE KEYS!?... Wait I have to pay to signup?... why is this COMPLICATED???
Week 1
On day two I actually read that handy guide and all of a sudden a bunch of light bulbs clicked. For myself, thinking of HIVE as like Reddit with Crypto built in really helped. It made many levels of this place like communities and users much more straight forward. And if I ignored the blockchain stuff it meant I could focus on just exploring and checking out the communities. Week 1 I mostly spend just commenting and discussing with a bunch of communities. Trying to explore all the different places that HIVE may have a place for me and what I enjoy. Although the games didn't interest me, I'm extremely excited to see that blockchain gaming is a thing. I hardly understand it, but the concept sounds amazing and I hope to find a way to enjoy them here with everyone too.
Week 2/3
Week 2 was much better. I'm in a Twitter chat now, and I've been introduced to multiple discord chats. Between all of these I've started to fully grasp HBD, HP, RC, HIVE....etc, oh and all this PIZZA and BEER that I've been receiving. The sub tokens are something I have yet to explore still. But it seems like at the very least its a fun way to give an alternate tip - like buying your buddy a cold one.
I posted a bunch more in week 2, and also started to get more creative with my formatting. @caseygrimley sent me this most helpful formatting guide by @sjarvie5 - [Formatting tips by Sara Jarvie] which has also been extremely helpful. Now I can do things like this!
In week two I also started to better grasp the concept of HP and how it plays into my weight in this community. I've decided that I'll start allocating 100% of my post rewards to HP to further increase this and help share the wealth more. I'm hoping this will both help me boost the awesome content I've been seeing here, and also to help with posts I think deserve some more attention.
I've stuck Week 2 and 3 together because really they were the same. It was over the holiday break and I didn't do anything too extra.
Week 4
Well, we technically are only just finishing week 4 today. And really all I've done this week is further reading and enjoying various posts here. I've participated in two of the #monomad challenges, and placed in both which was great fun. It's always fun seeing who the finalists are and how their work differs so much from my own.
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I'd be lying if I didn't say that I thoroughly enjoyed monochrome photography. So I'm extra pleased to see such a strong community there. Heck, I even think I've met the requirements in this post, so lets make this my #monomad entry for today too!
Some Critiques - Because Not Everything Is Sweet
I'm really excited about HIVE. But I have to say there are some things I've already seen that I'm hoping will be improved with time.
- For one, the signup is so incredibly convoluted and daunting that I see the usership of HIVE being a struggle to increase. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, but it means my ability to convince my friends to use yet ANOTHER social platform will be difficult - let alone the scary buzzwords like "crypto" and "blockchain" that come along with HIVE. And I want my friends to join me here.
- Another tough thing is the whole currencies. The fact that there are three is annoying. I understand how they work for the most part now. But, for a new user that was a task and half trying to understand the differences and how they impacted me. I suppose it was setup that way with intention. But it's definitely a barrier to join because of scariness of money impacting your posts.
- Formatting! This is a tough one. It's functional, and there is a lot here. But its not user friendly. If you look at that formatting post its a bunch of HTML scripts you need to use to center a post, or you cheese it and use a table to insert photos into. It seems like considering the blog style nature of this place some quick key functions would be really helpful. In the same way that you can press ctrl + I and an auto "Italics" option comes up, some quick "three image", or "centered text" options would greatly improve the experience.
I don't even know who to give this feedback to. I've heard of the watchers, but until I figure out how to best give my feedback I'll just leave it here and hope that someone sees it.
Month 1
Its been great overall, and I'm stoked to be here. I have to shoutout @tristan.todd @caseygrimley and @intrepidphotos for encouraging me to signup and walking me through my first month here. I'm still learning lots of stuff which is great, and still diving into the specifics of it too. But I see the potential here, I love the blog style format and for giving me a reason to spill my thoughts out, and I'm excited that I'm rewarded with more than a thumbs up for any effort I put in here.
Looking forward to Year 1 now!
I'll leave you with one of my all time favorite monochrome shots I've taken. The Grand Canyon, AZ
You've achieved so much in a month! When I joined, it took me that long to do a follow up to my 'Introduce Yourself' post. I felt like the new kid at school, but everyone was very nice and kept giving me !PIZZA and I didn't have a clue what it was. :)
Haha I still don't fully understand PIZZA. I need to snoop through that discord some more and get a better understanding of it. I'm still lost as to how it impacts things and what its uses are.
But thank you Cath! I'm pretty happy with how quickly I caught on. There's definitely a lot going on here, but it's exciting to be apart of it all
Yeah neither do I really, other than it's one of the Hive Engine tokens. I figured out how to buy some so that I could tip people, because it's fun, but I don't know too much about it really.
There are definitely a lot of things happening on Hive, most of which I'm completely oblivious to... :)
Haha I tried to leave the little photo community I know here and was blown away by the blockchain games, the investor circles, these HIVE engine tokens aha... So much happening!
I found this post by @jarvie really helpful when I joined. It slightly blew my mind, but it also painted a very comprehensive picture of how powerful Hive is, when one knows how to navigate it. Which I don't. :)
https://peakd.com/hive-163399/@jarvie/30-different-ways-to-use-your-hive
I will have to check that out I guess! 30 ways seems insanse amount of ways.
I confess that I didn't make it to the end. But I intend to re-visit it at some point, as it contains a lot of useful stuff.
PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
@cathgothard(2/5) tipped @dyptre (x1)
Join us in Discord!
Thanks for the shout out. Glad the formatting tips are helpful. Your post looks great. I am mentioning @asgarth and @jarvie to see your tips and ideas from a new user. They are great at making PeakD better and better all the time.
Thanks so much Sarah! Appreciate you tagging some people that might be able to make some adjustments - as great as that intro guide was, I almost wonder if a "HIVE for Dummies" would be good. Something more laymen and simplified that just gets the onboarding done smoother and skips the technical explanations - then after a week or so the user can hop into the more technical and thorough guides.
Cheers :)
Thanks for your suggestions and thanks to @sjarvie5 for tagging us here ;)
There is for sure a lot of work to do on onboarding. We are going to work on that soon as we plan to make it much easier for new users to join. If you have more suggestions or other feedback to share feel free to join our Discord channels (https://discord.gg/Vrdy7nNkhC) 😊
Awesome! Just joined the server. I'd be happy to pitch some ideas there :)
You're around for only one month but let me tell you something.. You're crushing it!
Hive has a considerable learning curve but it's totally worth it.
We're extremely happy to have a black and white enthusiast like you joining our ranks.
Unfortunately we will have to play the party pooper role now... 😬
You almost met all the requirements with this post, except for a very important one. You didn't post it in the black and white community 😛
No biggie though, I'm sure there will be plenty more opportunities.
Thank you very much for sharing your awesome work with us!
Haha thanks guys! Again, I'm really stoked to see such a good monochrome community here.
Totally forgot about needing to post in the black and white community 🤷♂️ Oh well! Next time... Just means I'll have a reason to share these images again
That's a big no.
Besides all the gazillion of little details that you already nailed there are also some posting etiquette nuances.
Whatever you do, don't repost images/content in Hive. That will get you in trouble pretty fast. It's seen as reward farming.
Oh jeez okay! Thank you for the heads up. Thats really important to know.
overall reposting an image because of a contest or if it makes sense in a post that has totally different text is ok.
but if you post only an image and few lines of text and you repost that image without any other context often it is looked like rewards farming.
Ya thats the impression I've gotten discussing with others now. I generally I don't repost on other social media as it is, so the only time I see myself doing that is for contests or if I write an edit/photo guide where showing that image would once again be of use. I think that would be acceptable
Looking forward to your first year too! You've had an awesome start!
Thanks Keiran! Appreciate all the info and help you've provided too 🙏
Welcome to Hive; it sounds like you are off to a terrific start! Getting involved in a community, or two is an excellent idea. Building followership of friends is important in enjoying everything Hive has to offer.
I especially appreciate the critical feedback you provided. Offering suggestions as to how to improve user experience is important for future iterations of the platform.
Terrific photos! Love the moss-covered branches photo, as well. Such rich colors; and you can just feel the weight of the green growth everywhere.
Thanks for sharing this post and all of your thoughts!
Cheers!
Hey thanks Braveboat for the warm welcome! I've definitely had some amazing pro tips given to me in this first month from the many users I mentioned above. I feel like I'd have been very lost without them! Jarvie already pointed me to the PeakD discord too which I'll have to add some of this feedback to.
Glad you like the photos too :) it's a big reason for why I'm here. A way to show the amazing places I've been lucky enough to explore! I hope to continue to impress
you did good in a month :) it was a different time and more complicated when i joined but i think after a month i was still pretty lost :)
that is the beauty and curse of decentralization :D for some of those front end like peakd can make changes for them, but for some it is the blockchain developers, and kinda everyone can submit code.
on the signup, it was a problem for a long time, and it is not easy to solve. especially because to all this make sense you have to have your keys.
And keys are complicated until you don't discover keychain :) after installing keychain on browser extension it is easy.
on the confusion with all the coins for new people, there is a good thing that in essence you can use just the social app of hive and not really think about all the coins, and learn about it as you go along.
so for a new user an important thing is that you own your account as long you don't lose your keys. no one can take your account from you (and everything that goes with that account), and in the process you can earn some coins :)
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I'm glad my guide was of value to you, and I'm glad you're sharing your content here on hive, and I totally agree it's userbase is hurt by the massively convoluted onboarding process. Fingers-crossed it improves, lol. Wishing you a great day! 🙏
Thanks so much J! And yes, your guide was immensely helpful, I still refer back to it constantly to make sure I'm understanding things right.
#honored 😁🙌🙏
Glad to see your still here; the first month is always the most frustrating while you learning the system.