Curation
To understand what I believe is the roll of content curators on HIVE, let’s explorer what an art exhibition curator does.
Okwui Enwezor in 2002 as he prepared the exhibition “Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945-1994,” at what is now MoMA PS1. The work of Samuel Fosso is on the wall. source: NY Times
The conceptualization of an art exhibition is not a random thing. He or she doesn’t just grab whatever is trending or whatever new artist is on the scene.
The curator has to develop the theme of the expo as well as select the artists he or she wants to present. The curator also selects the target audience.
It’s the curator’s function to give access to culture and produce art history, so curation must be an activity done with great care, reflection and responsibility.
Curation on HIVE
Doesn’t it make sense that curation on HIVE should carefully seek to promote and give preference to content that elevates visibility, understanding, value, use-cases of our ecosystem?
I’m not saying that content about a meal I ate today or a random thought that popped into my head shouldn’t be upvoted. There’s also value in that because it helps content creators see that there is a way of earning cryptocurrency with activities they are already doing for free on web2 platforms like X, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook or Tik Tok. Please give an upvote to these types of posts too.
But in my eyes, there’s a little bit more value when a shop owner makes a step-by-step guide on how to create a HIVE account for his clients, followed by instructions on how to by items at his shop using $HBD they’ve earned from posting and then showing how he’s spending $HBD on salaries or supplies for his shop at other businesses that also accept $HBD.
I think this type of content elevates visibility, understanding, and use-cases of our ecosystem, and this should have a little bit higher vote from curators.
Dan calls it
Incentivized coin distribution.
This, in my opinion, is the kind of content we should be incentivizing folks to create and curators to upvote.
I personally give preference to these types of posts:
Curating for businesses
I Promote content that shows businesses the benefits of using a KYC-less method of receiving a stable coin such as $HBD. Show them how they can spend their $HBD and also how they can build a HIVE-hub like those in Cumaná, Venezuela by showing their customers and suppliers the value of $HBD.
Check out this video by @manuphotos (edited by @crptogeek) at a restaurant in Cuba called La Flor de Zapata who he's taught how easy it is to accept payments in $HBD using the @keychain dapp:
https://twitter.com/CrptoGeek/status/1725925398834213121
- CrptoGeek
Here's another beautifully produced video showing someone paying at Cafe de la Fonda in Rosarito, Mexico:
https://twitter.com/CrptoGeek/status/1725317251522347262
- CrptoGeek
And yet another one me and @starkerz filmed while in Guatemala, showing how easy it is to use the Keychain dapp along with @v4vapp to pay at shops that already accept #Bitcoin over Lightning:
Curating for developers
I Promote content like the hackathon that happened for Crypto Blockchain Week in Caracas, Venezuela on October 24th. En event that not only connects various web3 projects, it allows developers to use and get familiar with the tech and maybe they’ll see the value in using the framework to develop new solutions.
Look at these guys' faces. Not only are they stoked to be on stage like a team of rockstars, they also had an opportunity to play with the SPK Network testnet and resolve bugs, make security and infrastructure improvements and understand mining.
This to me is the definition of "Value for value". I couldn't have come up with a better term.
Up-voting for the sake of extracting value for yourself
Up-voting can also bee seen as a source of semi-passive income to some. After all, you can easily earn an easy 8% APR (or more) on your Hive Power just by casting an upvote on whatever shows up on your trending or hot feed.
Easy as pie, right?
But is that adding value to our ecosystem?
You could argue that it’s helping spread the token far and wide. fair enough.
But is it really extending Hive culture or educating potential projects or individual users on the available technology on the HIVE blockchain? I have my doubts.
I'm of the opinion that this is a less valuable form of curation that is even used by well-known self-voting abusers from the past to keep earning $HIVE to dump on the market at whatever price.
Could there be a way of incentivizing creators to make more content that is valuable to the ecosystem and curators to give priority to this type of content?
It's probably not a priority to further align incentives so that valuable content receives more rewards than less valuable content.
Maybe I’m just talking crazy talk. It’s not uncommon for me to do that. But I do think there's a difference.
I'd love to read what you think.