I miss you. 🥺
I like Hive, but to be honest, it's Bloody hard work. It's OK if you're a school kid or out of work; you're able to devote the levels of commitment it requires to not only build but keep those votes rolling in.
The Promised Land
Hive, certainly to me, was billed as a complete change from the supposed bad old days of STEEM. Witnesses would be replaced in certain instances, no more "Get rich quick schemes", and many of the support groups who pooled their votes done away with. Little did I know that there would be four or five groups who, in some cases, are little more than Freikorp roaming the Blockchain actively looking for people to rough up for, in some cases, the most pathetic excuses I've ever seen.
Jester: "What was your crime?"
Spudbecker: "Whistling on a Tuesday."
Jester: "You bastard!"
Coming from the FOSS community as I do Freedom means a lot to me, so the promise of a free, open-source platform that is decentralised and no censorship was pretty attractive to me. Little did I know how much lip service is paid to those values. For example, I've had the debate about censorship and apparently, hiding posts is not censorship because you can find them if you look or use A-another Dapp. Sounds like censorship to me. Isn't that what happens in wartime? They block foreign radio and news outlets?
Nobodody tells you what the rules are when you sign up!
I'm not sure Hive is all that welcoming tbh. True, everyone encourages folk to join, but it's kinda "Lambs to the slaughter" and "Chucked in at the deep end" all rolled into one. There's no list of Do's, and Dont's nobody tells you that EVERY image you use that's not yours requires a source link or that voting for your mother, brother, aunt, and cousins will be classed as "Vote Farming", so best not to encourage your family to join and then just to add insult to injury lodging an appeal is like wading through a French Foreign Legion assault course. I've told HiveWatchers a couple of times that their site https://hivewatchers.com/ is not fit for purpose. Its only function appears to be for reporting people! No advice on what is the accepted format of a post. There is no list of transgressions you could fall foul of and certainly, most importantly, the steps one needs to appeal their case. Scarily, other groups don't even have anywhere that you can go to ask, "Why?"
What are you?
When I was on STEEM, it was a blogging platform. Sure some folk posted the odd Youtube video, and yes, there was a tonne of memes. Still, ultimately it was a blogging platform where you were rewarded for Good Content Hive apparently is a Media Platform whereby people can create a video on 3speak (Where they get rewards) and post that to Hive with little or no text and get rewarded again! (What happened to the double-dipping I see people get flailed for on blog posts?) Good Content? Who decides what's Good Content because it's not the amount of votes/rewards it gets, especially when there's a Leveling of rewards activity going on.
Rant Over
Come back and post again. I miss some of the old gang.
So many great points here I am going to add on but first:
I agree with you that is not what it promises to be. The reality is that Hive is a dystopia with communistic flairs instead of a decentralized land with no censorship. To be honest, when I was writing the post, the comparisons with communism just came through my mind as I was visualizing what I actually was writing down. Those extreme examples I gave (which have offended a few) never crossed my mind before I wrote my post and saw Hive in a different light.
Exactly, it is censorship. When we look at the blockchain level, there are so many risks for the blockchain to be censored, there are only 21 witnesses, yes "voted" by the people. But many of the % of people are truly voting? And how long are these witnesses in power? In the 4.5 years I have been away the witness list seems to be unchanged, maybe 1 or 2. Power is centralized in a small group. Worse is this small group can implement protocol altering changes with like only 3/4 of them.
This is the worst of the Hive blockchain. Outside Hive blockchains have implemented "Can't do Evil" in their base design. In Hive we rely on social factors who say to you: "Don't do Evil". If a family members can vote on each other they will do so. Ethical or not, the design of Hive allows them to do so. We have to trust people to not do evil, and we all know we can't trust people. The most ethical thing for blockchains is to make the design in such a way that people can't do evil. There will also be bad actors that who fuck everyone over. People in Hive shout: "Community, community, community!!!". "We trust in our community! We have the best community! The power of hive is the community!" or something along those lines. This was a (community) marketing or I dare to even say propaganda, which have misled people to actually think about how to truly create a decentralized environment without censorship. And the answer is: it's a combination of both community and code (to create the right incentives). And most of the people are blind to the latter. There are a lot of smart people that understand this, but they either have been cast away for putting this subject into light, and thus moved to other blockchains where they are heard. Or they simply don't care to contribute because there is no environment nor incentives in place for them. Hive has had a massive brain drain.
Very good point. It was a social experiment to see if good content could be discovered this way. Clearly the experiment failed. Now Hive is trying to become an applications platform, and they are trying to build this upon a blockchain which was designed for blogging. And even worse their more successful DPOS chain brother, as you all might know EOS, have failed to be an enterprise applications platform. And there are up to date no successful DPOS applications blockchains in the top 20 market cap.
And Hivers think they can make it work. Tall ask if you ask me.
If a 'thing' cannot withstand scrutiny or criticism, it doesn't deserve to survive.
They say that the best form of defence is ATTACK! this is why when we highlight failings, inconsistencies or bad practices, those who deep down know we are on the right track will immediately call us TROLLS, FULL OF VENOM, TEARING IT DOWN or in desperation DISLOYAL and just pretending to be part of the community. I never take any notice of anyone who is not willing to debate a topic in a calm, considered matter, and if it ends with both parties still entrenched in their own views and opinions, that's fine by me because at least we explored each others reasoning and beliefs. If it descends into swearing and name-calling, they lose the argument right there!
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
WITNESSES DO A GOOD AND VITAL JOB! (better get that out the way before I say any more. 🤦♂️)
I've never seen a Code of Conduct for witnesses, is there such a beast? See, for me, Witnesses should be setting the benchmark for us all in terms of behaviour to one another and yet I've seen a couple of them do things which I think is outrageous for a member, let alone a witness.
I've voted for a few, but I don't really know them. It just seemed like the thing to do, which is how I suspect a good 90% of the voter's vote. When a Hard Fork is announced, there is a proposal, but does everyone have a say? I doubt it? It seems to me most if not all proposals go through on a nod and a wink.
Circle of Trust
This has got to be the only 'Community' that I've been a member of, whereby I'm told it is freedom-loving and I "Cannot be silenced." and then I see groups using their power and influence to do that very thing. I'm truly petrified with every post I make that I may have fallen foul of some unwritten rule. For example, on Thursday, I failed to decline rewards on what some would call "Low-Quality Content." and with the amount of Bounty Hunters stalking the Blockchain (Did you know people can be rewarded for reporting wrongdoers?) I started to worry that I might be downvoted. Will I end up on some groups Blacklist? I've seen people blacklisted simply for buying Hive off another member. It's my Hive. I should be able to do what I like with it! So what we actually have is groups of people enforcing their concept of freedom and their vision of how Hive should evolve rather than a membership-led journey.
The moment someone says: "We need a Moderator", you need to say to yourself: "There goes my freedom!" 🤣
I think there is a place for the likes of HiveWatchers. They do an excellent job of playing Whack-A-Mole with some of the low-lives that try to fleece Hive, but sometimes there is the odd case that makes want to scream, "THAT'S NOT RIGHT!" 😱
Personally, I think Hive is Schizophrenic.
THANK YOU! I keep saying this over and over again "I thought this was a blogging platform?" isn't it why it was billed as rewarding "Good Quality Content"? It seems to me that in desperation to gain more members and make Hive attractive, the likes of Splinterlands and Vlogging was ushered in, much to the consternation of bloggers such as you and me. And it's got feck all to do with "You just don't like change." and everything to do with concept.
I don't know why, but I enjoy reading your comments, it's a freshness to them, like you write as you talk?
Your honesty is really a gem (I hope, I am not wrong here :-D) lol
I've talked much about the topic, so once in a while I become a bit tired. But still, I could not go past this comment of yours and just wanted to let you know, that I, as a plain blogger, of course agree with what you said about blogging. Maybe, there are too many of us, just babbling along. Don't know. Sometimes I cannot even take myself serious. HaHa!
Greetings!
I'm so used to being moaned at or insulted; your comment took me by surprise!
I have no reason to tell Porkie Pies and I have no hidden agenda. I'm not like those folks who hide behind their keyboard. If I think something is wrong I'll say it's wrong regardless of who gets upset.
THANK YOU
I have two issues when I write on Social Media, and I class Hive as Social Media
1. I can never seem to get my thoughts down quick enough as if I will lose them out my head if I don't complete the text a.s.a.p. which then lets mistakes in.
2. I do write as I speak (How very observant of you.), which sometimes means people need to use Urban Dictionary to find out what on earth I'm saying. LOL
I don't want to sound like a broken record but seeing as some of the issues keep occurring repeatedly, it seems that the only way to make a change is to keep talking about it even if someone screams, "NOT THAT AGAIN!."
Happy to have caught you in Surprise. :D
Surprise is the sister of disturbance. Both are, for me, valued family members, which I appreciate in communicating.
I think it was Alan Watts who once said that the stylistic device of exaggeration (which I have not used here) is basically a must for either one or the other to happen: to be surprised or disturbed. Since I take "disturbance" in a positive way, in addition to what annoys me because of it, I took this sentence to my chest because I find it extremely intelligent.
Transferred to a walking person, it is like stumbling and waking up from a daydream, for example, or being jolted out of the habitual pattern of automatic action. The reason why we react more aggressively to some than to others is probably because we can recognise human patterns very well.
What do you think of these statements?
To make it a bit more complicated, I say that each one of us has a hidden agenda, named sub-conscious, that devilish thing which is also known as "blind spot". If I could see it, I wouldn't be blind to it. A hidden thing that I do not hide from others with malicious intent, but that I simply do not see myself. So I depend on others to point that out to me. When they can do it in a skillful spontaneity, the highest art of communication is completed. HaHa!
But of course, I don't want to sound stupid and I believe you that you write like you talk. It's such a rare thing, that I want to hug you right away.
I agree on one side, to keep talking has an effect. Even though one feels sad or mad about it. On the other hand, I have heard a wise man saying: "Avoid topics about your neighbor, politics and religion". ;-)
Is this you on the picture? Sympathy!
THANK YOU TOO!
Ahaha. Yes, it is me.
!LUV
<><
@erh.germany, you've been given LUV from @dickturpin.
Check the LUV in your H-E wallet. (1/1)
Same brother! Hive will always be something special to me.
I intend to keep posting, but not as much as this post haha.
My intend to share everything I have learned, and to engage with people who enjoy to nerd out about decentralization and awesome blockchain designs. People like you who are both open to the good and the bad in this ecosystem.
Thanks for commenting on my post, appreciate you brother!
I always have and always will enjoy conversations with you.
!LUV
<><
@futurethinker, you've been given LUV from @dickturpin.
Check the LUV in your H-E wallet. (1/1)