A Balance On Hive That Serves Everyone! Feel Good & Optimise Investor ROI Without Crushing Community Sentiment & Good Will.

During the ongoing disagreements on Hive around downvoting and related issues, at least one of the large stakeholders involved was telling people that he disliked seeing posts from, to simply leave Hive. While this clearly goes against the creation of an inclusive culture and social space, it raises other important questions that the Hive community would do well to address as well.

Web 3.0 was born with fanfare and so too was Steem (now Hive) using phrases such as 'code is law', 'trustlessness' and 'decentralised'. These are all interesting and potentially evolutionary concepts for online community based software, but the fine points are not tried and tested, we are the guinea pigs in the experiment of web 3.0 social spaces! We are also the empowered creators, so it behoves us to take time out to reflect, imagine and ask questions about how we need Web 3.0 social systems to function.

Background: Numbers Can Make You Numb. Social Systems Require More Than Just Maths.

During my years as a software developer for pro software companies, it became abundantly obvious to me that the trend I saw at university of coders being overly focused/reliant on mentality and numbers was continuing on into the wider world. I'm sure we are all aware of the idea that it is common for people who are 'very good with numbers' to also not be so 'good' with social skills and empathy. Big businesses recognise this and tend to hire people who are socially adept and empathic for some roles and then completely ignore those skills for roles that require a strong logical focus, such as coding. The space in the middle where logic COULD be used to support (but not contain) really high levels of empathic understanding and wisdom in the more logic oriented workers is typically ignored. I call this 'the gap of heartlessness' and it is the same gap that empowers the wealth gap on our planet, among many other problems.

The culture of a space is created by it's members and either is arrived at by consensus or perhaps involves an interaction of different sub cultures that either work together harmoniously or that may even fight and struggle for dominance. A general community like Hive, which has no real requirements to entry other than having an email/phone and a few dollars, has the potential to be unusually varied and broad in terms of it's culture and the range of types of thinking present. Those who seek to grow Hive and it's market value cannot afford to overlook this point! Any strategy for growing the number of users will fail as long as sub cultures are not respected. In a sense, the domination and intimidation of sub cultures is not really any different to racism or sexism - it's just that it is targeted towards the way people think rather than the way people's bodies are defined.

Optimal Use Of The Hive Author Rewards Pool?

With all this in mind, I want to return to the issues of the ongoing reward pool debate on Layer 1 Hive. The reward pool for post authors is a shared feature of Hive that everyone has access to, regardless of the level of their stake. The system generates inflation and it is awarded to users based on the voting patterns of the community automatically (code is law). As we mostly are aware, this means that Hive token holders will find the value of their tokens decreasing if they don't create content to receive rewards or if demand for Hive doesn't essentially increase in the market. This has led to people 'content farming' and forming 'circle jerks' where stakeholders constantly generate content and upvote each other in order to 'protect their investment' - at the expense of destroying the 'proof of brain' algorithm which has always underpinned Hive and which is intended to help creators to gain exposure for their own greatness, relevance or ingenuity when creating content.

The circle jerking of circular voting of friends has long been frowned upon but is a logical outcome of the design of the network among short term thinkers. It is challenging to focus your time into understanding how to best make decisions to help market and grow such a network as Hive in a way that doesn't override your own needs as an investor. Everyone is always making decisions that lead to trying to find a balance between self interest and not destroying the sentiment/morale in the community space (which ultimately harms self interest too in the long term). In general, the 'watchers' of the community step in and take action to try to stop these things as far as I am aware.

However, there are other even more nefarious ways that stakeholders can use to try to dominate the network for their own personal gain, which arguably should be even more heavily 'policed' (if we are to have policies enforced outside of the code of law at all). One such obvious one is to target highly rewarded accounts and try to get them to leave the network or simply remove their rewards. This has one of the biggest possible 'quick wins' in terms of making more rewards available for the perpetrator and while I haven't calculated the maths of it, the larger stakeholders really can boost their earnings by doing this - provided they have a way to gain rewards from the author rewards pool. Note: just because an account does not make regular posts visibly, does not meant that it isn't using sockpuppet creator accounts that it upvotes covertly (in most cases we won't really know if this is happening).

This, for me, is the most unpleasant aspect to the current 'downvote debate'. While the downvoters choose to present the story that their targets are 'all about the money' and working together to only make posts to try to get as much money as possible (aka a circle jerk), they do everything possible to distract away from the flipside that I have highlighted above. It is arguably likely that users seeking a 'socially acceptable' strategy to maximise their returns may be heavily downvoting in order to remove competition for the rewards pool and to try to boost their own returns in ways that aren't currently frowned upon. Indeed, as long as they and their groups ARE the arbiters of 'correct Hive policy' then they, like the politicians that love to spend your tax money in their OWN ways, can even frame their operation as a 'noble service'!

I am not accusing downvoters of being organised criminal gangs, but it doesn't take much imagination to see how the Mafia operations from the offline world reach into governments and essentially profits along similar lines. So my point here is that it doesn't matter whether you are a downvoter who knows you aren't doing anything nefarious or whether you are an observer who trusts the downvoters - the fact remains that the system is wide open to this kind of attempt to bypass POB and to simply use stake to cream off as much money from the community as possible, while paying zero attention to the real needs of such a potentially diverse social space... and downvoting is just as much a part of that as upvoting is.

To take the view of the heavy downvoters for a moment - assuming they are not of ill intent - it is also valid to say that an inclusive community needs the reward pool to be actively available for a large number of people and it isn't perhaps ideal for groups to consistently receive large payouts, regardless of the quality of their content. This is an interesting point because on the one hand it is correct and on the other hand, the argument of the downvoters that it's their stake and they get to do whatever they want with it, also applies in the favour of those consistently receiving higher rewards. Ultimately, they receive the rewards because stakeholders did what they wanted with their stake and directed the rewards to them. So, these stakeholders are declaring that at the moment, their upvoted content creators are the ones that they subjectively value the most.

Since the valuation of posts is subjective and there is no 'right' or 'wrong' per se, that everyone is meant to agree on - we have to look to other metrics if we are to try to define a best practice that everyone can agree on and to facilitate greater harmony, respect and growth in such communities. I am making a case to say that one of the most important factors is community morale, sentiment and public image in the market place, since these all directly effect Hive's success and it's market value (arguably leading to greater potential gains for stakeholders than could be achieved by micro managing downvotes). More profit can be made from Hodling and from Hive's growth than from a daily battle for the rewards pool.

Remembering that this economic dynamic is part of the justification for the existence of content cops on Hive in the first place, we need to think about ALL of the factors involved in this in order to arrive at best practices and optimised social norms. As long as there is a mechanic that allows downvoters to profit from the squashing of public sentiment on Hive, there will be those who say that this is what is happening. As long as there is the possibility for creators to manipulate upvotes for their own gain then there will be those who say that it is happening. The middle area between these is what emerges as the posts and image that the wider world sees most on Hive.. It's a somewhat messy processes for determining quality and for marketing a product!

My own conclusion to this, taking the position of neutral observer, just as I do when assessing other people's systems professionally, is this:

Hive is both a social community and also an economic/tech system. Focus on both areas are requirements for it to succeed. Failure to nurture either is going to cause systemic problems and stall the token price. It's fine to try to reach community standards that work but it must be done while considering all aspects of the situation and all viewpoints, in order to reach an optimal design/structure that most facilitates growth and most supports inclusivity.

Steem/Hive had a culture from the beginning that emerged based on the law of the code and the sentiment of the community, which involves content being upvoted in ways that take personal preferences into consideration but which also attempt to create a diverse range of content that will interest diverse audiences. This was a sensible strategy to balance personal interest with marketing logic that might grow and expand the network. While some people say that this has been a failed experiment and that the reward pool is a weak point that causes too much tension and loss of investor money - the idea that the network can actually thrive through this model lives on and with tweaks may actually prove successful.

As long as the author reward pool exists as it does, the original vision of using it to reward diverse content still makes sense to me. There are numerous large communities online which are niche and which you or I may have no interest in but which may draw large crowds. For me, Splinterlands is an example since it doesn't interest me personally but obviously does interest many people who are willing to invest/trade. So intelligent content management will take marketing intel and use stake to curate diverse content without seeking to crush certain topics or sub communities (mostly for personal reasons or biases).

At the same time, it is possible for sub communities to dominate the Hive landscape and this needs to be considered too - there has to be a balance. The current world climate, being in an unprecedented level of loss of human rights/freedoms, is understandably going to cause more people than usual to focus into political/freedom/health topics and so naturally we are going to see more posts that focus on these topics. This, though, should not be taken as evidence that groups who produce this content are scammers or overly dominating the community in problematic ways - it's just a natural result of world events that will likely subside as the world recovers. Ordinarily I would be posting recipes and all kinds of interesting content that isn't so focused on helping humanity survive on a daily basis in the face of a huge corporate/government power grab. Attempting to crush content that addresses the most pertinent topic on Earth is going to generate substantial backlash for valid reasons and many people who don't even normally get involved in the area may concur.

When people are physically threatening others and trying to intimidate them to leave the network, I think we can mostly agree that this is a problem and not good for Hive. Anyone doing this is totally denying human decency and the existing good faith culture that exists between many online and which needs to thrive on Hive for Hive to sustainably grow and compete. Walking into a space occupied by large numbers of people, flashing cash around and telling other people to go along with you or get out - is NEVER going to be a good idea for your own investment, wellbeing or community cohesion - unless the receiver of those words is provably nefarious and problematic. The targets in the recent cases are not proven to be such and there really isn't any evidence at all that they are (none has been provided). Arguably, then, if anyone should leave, it should perhaps be the one going against the principle of inclusivity that strengthens communities and which Steem/Hive was essentially founded on!

For the moment, without drastic changes, such as forking or everyone moving into layer 2 communities, perhaps the best that can be done is to clearly expose, debate and discuss the dynamics involved so that everyone feels good about shared agreements that work for everyone. Despite being triggered and angered, I would like to think that most people are open to reaching middle grounds that are productive. If we can do that then we stand a chance of once again optimising the 'human resources' of Hive's membership towards a common goal of mutual success. If we do not do this then we will continue to shoot ourselves in the feet while blaming others!

Your Comments

What are your thoughts on the broader topics being highlighted here? Hive is a complex system but you are a key part of it - so please speak up and be bold! :)

Witnesses For Free Speech

If you have enjoyed reading this and care to take action to balance and grow both social cohesion, inclusivity and economic growth for Hive, then please take a moment to read through my related posts about Hive witness voting as your vote is very important in shaping the issues and topics we are exploring here today. Please note that my posts are still being zeroed on Hive after several months, mostly regardless of how much engagement they generate, how much time/effort goes into them or how significant their content is. This could happen to you too if you say something that a handful of people don't want to propagate for their own reasons.

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Wishing you well,
Ura Soul

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