Ask Me Anything - Marky Edition

in AskMe4 years ago

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I did this a few months ago and got a lot of good questions.

Have you always wanted to ask me something?
Now is your chance

Hit me up in the comment section with a question and I will do my best to answer it.

Want to do your own AMA?
There is a community for that™

To get the basics out of the way, I joined July 1st, 2017 but I didn't actually post or do anything until July 22, 2017. I am a Hive witness and developer. I am married and have a son. I enjoy movies, technology, photography, gaming, BBQs, and hanging out in the pool with friends and family.

My first crypto was BTC when it was around $360 and I ran over 50 GPUs mining Ethereum before I discovered Steem. Over 25,000 posts and comments were censored on Steem and 170,000 Steem stolen directly from my wallet by Justin Sun and rogue witnesses. Ever since then I have been 100% focused on Hive.

While a lot of my time is spent on anti-abuse on Hive, my primarily interest these days have been onboarding and engagement. I recently ran a Hive Hackathon raising over 12,000 Hive reward pool to reward cool new projects developed for Hive. I am working on a second Hive Hackathon sometime before the end of the year.

I nominate @enforcer48, @khaleelkazi, and @crimsonclad to do an AMA!

So let's get this shit started!


Securely chat with me on Keybase

Why you should vote me as witness

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What is your dice game algorithm? You said you're counting cards. How do you do that with rng dice? XD

This question was not paid for by @KLYE in any way... maybe...

I was just monkeying around when I say I'm counting cards but there are some tricks I have learned, but in the end it is gambling.

Hi, am new on hive and i love all that's going on.
What's your advice for newbies and how do you feel one can grow consistently on hive because i want to make a post about that for newbies from my country and around the world

See my response here.

Thanks for the prompt response. I learnt a thing or two.

Can i ask why there are comments on your post advising the community to beware of you.
I hope it can be worked on because i didnt see those warnings until later . I was scared but i enjoyed your post and reply.

Thanks again

I am an active abuse fighter on Hive and the user minimalpris has over 500 posting keys for his upvotebank scam. He also self votes his automated posts. He is mad I am flagging it.

He isn't the first, he won't be the last. At one point I had someone posting 3,000 comments with the Jaws theme song on my posts.

What's an activity you miss doing lately, maybe because you've had to stay home more (thanks, Corona!) or just because you've been too involved in 'stuff'?

warning_eq9ky4.pngHi @soyrosa. Please be aware the you have commented on a post from or comment themarkymark.The user have been kicked off other social media platforms and is harassing other users by continually downvoting them. The user also control and use the buildawhale account (An old voting bot) for this and are controlling several self controlled and doubtable blacklists.

We strongly recommend not to upvote and comment this user

(This comment are auto generated)

I am a big fan of our pool and bbq parties and we only just had one recently with close friends. We usually have a few a week.

Pool and bbq parties sound the best! We take a lot for granted until it's suddenly made impossible. Hope you can at least have a few more of them with a close group of friends you feel comfortable having over. I've been selecting who I have over based on how seriously they take social distancing themselves - and meeting outside mostly. Don't really look forward to autumn/winter when meeting outside isn't that much of an option anymore.

warning_eq9ky4.pngHi @soyrosa. Please be aware the you have commented on a post from or comment themarkymark.The user have been kicked off other social media platforms and is harassing other users by continually downvoting them. The user also control and use the buildawhale account (An old voting bot) for this and are controlling several self controlled and doubtable blacklists.

We strongly recommend not to upvote and comment this user

(This comment are auto generated)

What do you think of making curation rewards "linear"? As in, a curator will get 50% of his vote's amount no matter who upvotes the post after him, or even if he upvotes last.

Right now, the algo rewards people for upvoting first in order to encourage finding "undervalued" posts, but I think it is safe to say this has failed.

What it does is just drive people to vote on posts by content creators who usually get lots of upvotes at the 5 minute mark to maximize curation rewards.

What we should strive for is just upvoting for fun, in order to achieve a better PoB. If I would get the same rewards on any post, I would stop chasing returns and instead upvote posts that I enjoyed.

warning_eq9ky4.pngHi @marki99. Please be aware the you have commented on a post from or comment themarkymark.The user have been kicked off other social media platforms and is harassing other users by continually downvoting them. The user also control and use the buildawhale account (An old voting bot) for this and are controlling several self controlled and doubtable blacklists.

We strongly recommend not to upvote and comment this user

(This comment are auto generated)

< What do you think of making curation rewards "linear"? As in, a curator will get 50% of his vote's amount no matter who upvotes the post after him, or even if he upvotes last.'

I am not a fan of that as there is no incentive to vote quality content over trash.

I will agree the current system isn't perfect but I don't think that will fix the problem.

Yes, but I think that if people find trash valuable and want to upvote it, then we should let them.

The market makes the ultimate choice, allowing the freedom of choice is the job of the algorithm imo.

Whats your thought on @reward.app?

I left a comment on another post, but basically I feel 50/50 is a good distribution. Both Authors and Stakeholders bring value, neither can exist without the other.

The ability to customized curation rewards on your own posts has been discussed and I think it creates a race to the bottom scenario where authors will continually raise the curation percentage to artificially influence more upvotes.

4% isn't the end of the world, but in general, I'd prefer to just have 50/50 and encourage more organic voting.

Muted from the AskMe community.

If you could what one thing would you change about Hive?

I'd make the token HONEY as I originally suggested.

this^^.... and this.^^^
Hive is far too 'collectivist' (commie) word associative- inducing..

It may become a millstone around the ecosystems neck.
The cultural zietgiest is changing, and things associated with leftism, will not be seen as an attractive platform to join.
(except for loser lefties of course, of which we already have far too many. Low IQ is not a strength).

Hey Mark, on those stolen Steem, did you'll not get it back once the entire amount was sent to Bittrex? I know Bittrex had not run the latest Steem fork, but did you'll not approach Bittrex for getting the money back? Or does that money stay gone?

Do you think we're on the right track to be adopted by the masses?
I mean, we already have Dapplr which makes the platform look more like a social app, which I think is great, on the other hand there is still the belief that short content in words is bad, and that long content is better and should be upvoted. Of course quality is important but it doesn't mean quantity, so the question is, Do you think we are losing potentially good content creators by not supporting them because their content is short even though it's creative?

Posted using Dapplr

Do you think we're on the right track to be adopted by the masses?

I think we are a little better shape than we were on Steem and some changes coming soon will help as well but I think we still need a lot of work, especially in terms of marketing, simplifying user experience, and education.

Do you think we are losing potentially good content creators by not supporting them because their content is short even though it's creative?

I think short content is a double edge sword in our current environment as rewards get in the way. Zappl was heavily abused and caused a lot of drama.

I think SMTs can offer a scenario where rewards won't put pressure on Hive and can isolate the rewards for short content.

I didn't know zappl, but I understand that there are always those who want to abuse the platform, I wish we could all change our minds, thanks for being honest 👍

Posted using Dapplr

How do you suggest new people on Hive, is it better to become anonymous or show yourself, based on your experience?

Posted using Dapplr

It's really up to you what you are comfortable with. There are advantages to both.

I only ran 36 GPUs mining Ethereum before joining Steem but I have five kids so we are even. :-)

Question: What should we do about abusive whales (ie Bernie) who drive away good people from Hive and pollute good posts with their hateful bile.

How can we maintain decentralisation and censorship resistance, while mitigating or eliminating the damage and giving users the choice of a Bernie free experience?

Mute him.

There is global mute lists being worked on that allows users to subscribe to public mute lists.

Global mute will be good but I really have to ask why people "producing low effort content" like @fernandosoder are being downvoted for the few cents they earn while someone like Bernie (xxxxxxxxxx & innerhive) are engaging in the most appalling abuse, foul language and spamming of legitimate posts which are driving people away from Hive and are not being blacklisted and downvoted by you.

That's a pretty good question.

I don't really get involved in people saying bad words. That's not what the blacklist is for. Never has been.

Its not just bad words. Its spam because he posts the same abusive comment multiple times.
Its also defamatory (and thus illegal) abuse that harms Hive far more that someone who posts some often interesting memes with a few comments.

 4 years ago (edited) 

Have you used Dapplr yet? and if yes, what did you think?

Good to see you back on AMA!

No, I have not, I thought it was still under development.

It is working great for me, its just like more user friendly for more masses but with less button and features. Which I think is good to new people not to overwhelm them.

Posted using Dapplr

I've suggested to Peakd to have a default normie mode that is more streamlined and easier to use with the current system being the power user mode that can be enabled manually or suggested after 30 days.

default normie mode

This is a better approach, the exchanger like Binance is using a pro and amateur version. We need to have similar to that on peakd

Good idea.

I don’t have a question. I just wanted to say that shit talking bot that comments after every time you post is funny as hell.

The fact he stole over 500 posting keys is not as funny.

hmm...there is nothing that have been stolen. Just a harrased user, fighting back!
The raspberry pi service stops, when you stop downvoting...otherwises it just keeps commenting and commenting and commenting and ....

After 4 months of Hive, are we on track?

I believe so. It doesn’t look like much is happening but a significant hard fork is around the corner which will start separating us from the dreaded another Steem fork syndrome. The next fork should be even better.

I wish it could move faster but some exciting changes coming. Even more importantly we can influence them greatly.

It feels like SMT’s are becoming less important for our future. What do you think?

I don't think they have the impact they would if they were released in 2016 but I do believe they will open up a lot of opportunities to create projects that give people something to do and care about on Hive.

Great question. I would love to know. Missed the entire SMT episode. I see that it was being planned since 2018!

Yes, it was talked about often back then. While you were on hiatus.

Do you keep the majority of your crypto holdings on or off Hive? Why?

No.
I try to hedge and have some diversity.

You ever gonna do your shows on MSP again?

I’ve been thinking about it. A big part of what made it difficult for me (Steem) is gone. I feel it is more difficult to do a show solo as it isn’t really my strong suit.

I kind of want to do something rather than just talk about Hive but really not sure what that would be. I don’t have the energy and spunk to be a solo dj like Crim, Ron, and Faust unless I have something I really want to say at the moment.

I enjoyed doing it but found it really difficult and stressful unless I was on a roll.

That's fair.

At least, you now know what you are capable of.

Besides crypto, are you doing anything else in your life to hedge against current (and future) disruption in supply lines and systems? Anything you would share?

Crypto is really the biggest thing. I am not a homesteader or a farmer so I don’t have the luxury of being self sufficient.

Last time i asked white or dark chocolate, this time i will ask coca cola or pepsi?

Coke by a long shot. When I hear
“Is Pepsi ok?” I want to head for the door.

Were you a developer always or became one after coming to crypto?

I have been able to code since before I got here although it isn't really what I spend a lot of time on.

I'm new to the platform between four months ago and the week of the fork so I heard a lot of terrible things about Steemit. Do you think all the old vices are really behind us? How hard has it been to switch to manual curation for the whales? And in your experience, what advice do you give to new users who want to grow in Hive?🤔

How hard has it been to switch to manual healing for the whales?

Can you clarify this question, I am not sure I understand it.

Do you think all the old vices are really behind us?

I believe a lot of the core problems with Steem are not here on Hive, but we still have a community of humans with rewards tied to every action, so there will always be issues we have to deal with.

As a whole, I believe Hive has a far better future than Steem from a technical and innovation point of view. Price is a fickle thing and even after stealing over $5M USD directly out of users' wallets, Steem is still listed and still has a fairly stable price.

And in your experience, what advice do you give to new users who want to grow in Hive?

I've mentioned this many times, but my best advice is the three tenants I use myself when posting.

  • Always respect your reader's time & attention
  • Always provide value to your reader
  • Don't focus on you

I am not a blogger, but when I started here in July 2017, I decided I will try to write every day and follow those principals.

I also am a firm believer that no one owes you their time or attention, if you want it you need to earn it.

Finally, social media is hard, less than 0.1% are really successful. Hive is no different than any other social media, but I do believe it is a lot easier due to the lack of competition.

Retro Pi


What are your favorite games for it?

I’m not really a fan of retro games but the ones I do like:

TMNT
Afterburner II
Lemmings
Street Fighter II

🙂 Street Fighter II is an all-time favorite of mine. I used to pump hundreds of quarters into a Street Fighter II cabinet arcade machine at the IGA store down the street. E. Honda is my favorite character. His map is pretty nifty too. The painting on the wall was dynamic and flashy.

If retro games aren't really your jam, what kinds of video games are you into?

One of my earlier satire posts had Honda in it.

https://peakd.com/@themarkymark/how-to-turkish-oil-wrestle-without-getting-your-hands-dirty

I'm a big fan of Dark Souls, Blood Borne, and games that are very difficult and require technique rather than run and gun.

I'm currently playing Hunt: Showdown with my son which I really like.

I also like games with good stories like Farcry and BioShock series.

warning_eq9ky4.pngPlease be aware of @themarkymark. The user have been kicked off other social platforms and is harassing other users by continually downvoting them. The user also control and use the @buildawhale account (An old voting bot) for this and are controlling several self controlled and doubtable blacklists.

We strongly recommend not to upvote and comment this user

(This comment are auto generated)

Is there someone you’ve treated kinda unfairly on Steem/Hive and have regrets about it? Also...

If for some reason you had to leave Hive once and for all and never look back what do you think you would miss most about you?

Is there someone you’ve treated kinda unfairly on Steem/Hive and have regrets about it?

No, I am pretty fair and straight forward. I have flagged many but I don’t flag emotionally.

Did you have someone in mind?

If for some reason you had to leave Hive once and for all and never look back what do you think you would miss most about you?

Well I wouldn’t miss anything about me, if I left I would still be me.

I suspect you mean what I would miss about Hive. I would miss the challenge and some of the people I have met.

I made a typo there...

What do you think "we" would miss most about you.

Nah...I have no one in mind. I was just curious

Nah...I have no one in mind. I was just curious

I stand behind the downvotes I have made, and I don't go around calling people names so it's really just about the downvotes.

If I feel I have made a mistake, I will do what I can to correct it.

What do you think "we" would miss most about you.

Not sure many would miss much about me, A lot of people dislike me due to the fact I actively flag people doing shitty things. Some might miss my dad jokes, some might be happy they were gone.

I like to tell dad jokes, sometimes he laughs.

One of my main goals, when I got here, was to make Steem Hive better than when I got here. Many will disagree, but I think I have done that.

I think you are doing a great job.

Btw...wtf is this new bot? New troll?

I think you are doing a great job.

Btw...wtf is this new bot? New troll?

It is @minimalpris, he has over 500 posting keys with upvotebank which he uses to self vote on his automated "crypto update" posts via multiple accounts.

Just another day in the life of fighting abuse.

warning_eq9ky4.pngHi @mindtrap.

Please be aware the you have commented on a post from or commontthemarkymark.The user have been kicked off other social platforms and is harassing other users by continually downvoting them. The user also control and use the buildawhale account (An old voting bot) for this and are controlling several self controlled and doubtable blacklists.

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Do you believe HIVE dropping out of the top 100 cryptos is an issue?

I'd like to see it top 10 but I am not overly concerned. I think some of the changes in the next few hard forks will set us apart from Steem and make Hive more attractive.

I like that you mentioned set us apart from Steem. I think this is obvious. Actually, I hear nothing about Steem these days and have no clue what they are up to. Their last fork was such a disasterous failure, however, I think it messed up Hive's reputation too the same way the battles between BTC and BSV don't do anyone no good.

I also care too much about price as nothing has fundamentally changed. Also, if I don't like the price, I simply don't sell my Hive which works out better for me in the long run when things turn around.

Hopefully it inspires people to improve and weeds out the losers.

warning_eq9ky4.pngHi @abitcoinskeptic. Please be aware the you have commented on a post from or comment themarkymark.The user have been kicked off other social media platforms and is harassing other users by continually downvoting them. The user also control and use the buildawhale account (An old voting bot) for this and are controlling several self controlled and doubtable blacklists.

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Do you think quantum computers will become a serious threat to cryptocurrencies in a few years?

Yes I think they will change the game for all encryption but I think it will be longer than a few years.

What are you thing about $hive as something long-term. What do you think should be improved? last month I was thinking about the bigger it gets there will also be more people who impersonate identity just to get rewards

I think the most important things are:

  • simplifying UI and usability
  • marketing
  • onboarding and sign up workflow

Hi, nice to meet you. @themarkymark

A marketing project to spread the word about Hive. What elements should you have in your experience to make it successful?

And what would you consider an acceptable margin of inclusion to consider such a project successful?

warning_eq9ky4.pngHi @soyunasantacruz. Please be aware the you have commented on a post from or comment themarkymark.The user have been kicked off other social media platforms and is harassing other users by continually downvoting them. The user also control and use the buildawhale account (An old voting bot) for this and are controlling several self controlled and doubtable blacklists.

We strongly recommend not to upvote and comment this user

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Since you claim to be fair when flagging a post, could you state the reasons for flagging almost all posts I've been doing the last couple weeks?

I considered the reason for that is that I've posted them on a microblogging DApp, but it doesn't seem to be the case as no one else there is being flagged with the same intensity. Also there's the fact that DApp has a very low maximum limit of rewards and maximum rewarding posts per day, so farming accusations are not the reason.

Just tell me so I can see where can I correct myself.

Great. Another blacklist.