Yesterday i wrote a post reaching out to everyone including our witnesses to try to gauge our general feelings toward communities on Hive. The main question was whether communities add value to Hive. I asked this question because i had noticed that there seems to be very little support in terms of delegation to most community leaders despite them spending a whole lot of time bringing people together and generally doing what they can to make Hive an even better experience and place to be. I have personally run the ecoTrain community for 4+ years now, but due to the community growing and having so much activity it has become quite hard for me to manage it all.. It is pretty much a full time job with very little recognition, and that is why i wanted to see what we all thought about communities in general, if they are valued.. and then from that decide if i am using my time well, or perhaps should think about giving up.
I must say i was a little surprised to see SO few comments from everyone.. its hard to really understand why that it so, except to say that most of us are very busy here and probably don’t want to start engaging on a topic that has many layers to it.. and many things that we may want to say cannot really be said publicly. Therefore i would like to leave a few last thoughts in point form because i think each of these points is quite important and who knows, maybe will be spotted and help in some way.
- I think its fair to say, but i cannot be sure due to lack of communication with me, that the entire blogging side of Hive is considered to be somewhat of an Achilles heel of the blockchain. It takes a heck of a lot of work to curate, comment, engage. It is also a bit of a minefield to ensure that posts are unique, not plagiarised, and of high quality. Its probably also fair to say that many people consider most of the posts here to be of not much interest.. hence the term 'shit post' has evolved and been used to describe posts that we personally don’t value. I would like to point out that the most popular social network YouTube consists mainly of 'shit posts', as exemplified by the incredible number of views on some of the most boring looking and mundane videos imaginable.. That is just my point of view though, and the reality is that the great majority of people who use YouTUbe LOVE shit posts! They love to see travel blogs, cats and dogs doing silly things, and many other very mundane things. Bottom line is its all about views, and You Tube has not tried to dictate what is valued or not, it has just honoured those videos that get views!
So what i am saying here is that those people who have put all their hopes and dreams of Hive becoming something much bigger and popular due to some new system, game or other developments may be waiting in vein and missing the proverbial 'elephant in the room' as i put it last time.. which is that the blogging side of this place may well still have legs far beyond what you imagine. Let me ask you this.. If one or two big influencers came to this place, people with millions of views, would that suddenly change the way you feel about the blogging side of Hive? If we saw millions of people suddenly show up as a result, would we then suddenly start harping on about how amazing the blogging side of hive is etc.? i can see that happening one day, especially as more influencers are feeling the pinch to their ability to speak freely.
- I would like to ask @smooth what he thinks about this idea.. I can appreciate if the answer is NO, that is not possible or a good idea, but i would like to just put it out there, and if nothing else understand why it is not a good idea. This proposition relates to the @hive.fund account, which currently sits on a rather large amount of liquid Hive and HBD.. to be used to support new projects that could take Hive in any number of directions and hopefully to the next level. I would imagine that ALL of these funds are not going to be donated to new projects any time soon, and that most of it will just sit there doing nothing and slowly distributed until a really amazing project turns up that can use a significant amount of it. SO what i would like to propse is what you think about powering up 10% of this liquid Hive and delegating it to some community leaders. I can see many positives coming from this, not least is helping to decentralise this very large pool of Hive into some good hands that will continue to curate and spread it out to the smallest wallets whilst building up our own community accounts so we can become a bit more self sufficient without even needing to rely on delegations. Then we can reward our communities with bigger up votes. That is a big part of why Hive and its predecessor Steem was created and i think it's a very good use of those funds. What have you got to loose? The delegations are not spent and can be easily withdrawn and used to support projects as and when they arise.
- I would like to finish by saying that in my opinion, community is the most important thing to a successful ecosystem.. It is fostered by interaction, connecting, and by having leaders who set a good example and also inspire and support others. I have seen that to be very much the case for @ecoTrain, and i could name many people who I have supported or brought here who have gone on to be very active and valued. One of these people has gone on to invest many many tens of thousands of dollars in this place, and is now one of the top players on Splinterlands. My point here is that community is not only SO important, but can and does have many unseen and often significant side affects. I believe that great things happen when we bring people together, and i personally think that we should do more to support those people who foster it.
I could go on im sure, but i think those are the most important points to me. I will now have to consider whether i would like to continue running the ecoTrain community or to pull this train to a halt and hang my hat up. It does seem a bit of shame to me that the main reason for doing so is not because the community is not successful, but because it is so successful and active that i can no longer keep up with it on my own without sacrificing way too much time with very little coming back to compensate for the very real opportunity costs of what i would be doing instead. Without the support and backup from the ecosystem as a whole, it is an endeavour that may just not be viable any longer.
It is clear that i made a mistake assuming that running a community here would lead to more support and delegation. Maybe people view me and indeed other community leaders in the wrong way, that is to say people who are really looking out for themselves and just trying to get power and make money. I think that is a misconception and very untrue for many if not most community leaders here. Yes, I will be happy to make some more Hive and generate some more abundance, but that is far from my main mission .. and there are many ways to make much more money far more easily! I am not sure yet if i will stop working on the ecoTrain community because after nearly 5 years it is hard to imagine not leading the QOTW, or curating it. Nevertheless maybe it is time! I have no regrets about what i have done so far, it has been amazing, and the community has been amazing.. i just wish i was able to generate more strength for the @ecoTrain account after so many years of service.
Anyway, if you made it this far, thank you for listening.. and please do drop a comment.. im so interested to hear other peoples opinions on this whatever they may be.