I am sure a lot of people come to Hive in hope of riches for little effort, but it can be a real minefield. It is quite easy to fall victim to some downvotes (previously known as flags). Here are just some of the activities that can attract them.
Identity theft
The internet is full of fake people pretending to be what they are not. Some suckers will be easily fooled into following, voting or otherwise supporting who they think is their idol. Other platforms have ticks/checks to show you have proven to the powers that be who you are. We do not have anyone with that god-like power on Hive, but we do have @hivewatchers who will kindly ask (?) for some proof of who you are. You can do that on their site by linking to a location elsewhere that verifies who controls a given Hive account. Others can check the proofs there. It would be great to have some integration with the dapps to do this.
Plagiarism
Hivewatchers and others will run some checks if the content of a post seems too good to be true. They can be remarkably tenacious at finding original sources even when attepts are made to obscure it, e.g. via translation apps.
There are times when you want to quote some text or use an image that is licenced for re-use. In those cases you need to make it really obvious that you did not create those and provide a source link. Hive is about adding value to earn rewards and 'copy/paste' has little value.
There are some who seem to think any type of artist interpretation of another's work counts as plagiarism, but that is just how art works. Be clear about what you have based your work on and show that you put in some effort and it should be okay. We will have to see if Hive ever gets like Youtube where covering a song can get you strike. I am not sure what form that could take here.
Spam
When people see they can even make a few cents here it is tempting to pump out masses of low value posts to 'milk' votes, especially if people are good enough to automate their votes for you. Here is an example of this.
Their case is not helped by some of the posts being duplicated and mentioning 'the other chain' where the same content is also posted.
Voting circles
The example above is also a case of this where a set of accounts will almost exclusively vote for each other, often with nobody else supporting them. Some people have control of hundreds or even thousands of accounts by stealing or just creating them. This can create the illusion of real engagement, but a lack of comments is a giveaway.
Self-voting
The smallest type of voting circle can be a controversial topic. The idea of Hive is that the community gets to decide what a post is worth. If you are voting on your own then they had better be really valuable. There have been cases of people trying to be sneaky and creating lots of comments that they vote up. This can be detected, as can using additional accounts you control.
Trending
It should be a good thing to get on the trending page, but it can attract unwanted attention too. Some may decide your post does not deserve to be there and opt to adjust your rewards.
Upsetting someone
There are plenty of fragile egos here and it is easy to upset someone even if you only had good intentions. Some potential causes of attacks can be:
- Voting for someone they do not like.
- Downvoting someone they do like.
- Your politics.
- Your general opinions.
- Religion (here be dragons).
Those of us who actively downvote abusers accept the risks. If you are happy to do that then pop into the Hive-DR Discord to see how you can help. There are some current cases that need dealing with.
In conclusion
I am not saying this list is complete and I welcome other suggestions of things to avoid. I think many of us will get downvoted at some point, but if you were abusing Hive then you probably deserved it. If it was through ignorance of the local norms then you can live and learn. If you make an enemy then it could keep happening. I get downvotes from someone I flagged for abusing the platform years ago, but those are so tiny as to cause zero damage. If you upset a big account who holds a grudge then good luck to you.
I always say that Hive is like the wild west. There is no police force, but there are vigilantes. Watch out for the outlaws.
Well said! Bozz has told me some of the things to be aware of and some things that can get posts downvoted, and this explains that and more. I really hope that none of my posts get some unwanted attention at any point, I would hate to be stuck in a petty vote war over personal thoughts and beliefs.
Whether it turns into a 'war' is partly down to you. I try to get along with people even if we disagree on some things. You have to remember it's a person at the other end. Just try and make things fun.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.Thanks for this post @steevc, it is really helpful. I am pretty much against self-voting even on other social media platforms, I don't like liking my own posts.
There are disagreements about self-voting. I stopped doing it ages ago and it would feel strange to do it now.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.I mistakenly down voted someone one time, I hope they don't hate me
That depends on who it is. Most people will understand if it was a mistake. I don't have time to waste on hating people.
hahha that's the worst and quite immature as you said as well.
i think that's the most controversial subject of all. I totally agree with everything else but i think we still haven't figured what is valuable and what isn't.
Something that may be deemed valuable from you maybe worthless to me and vice versa. Also, there are many other factors as well for example how much your vote worths. I don't think it's the same for someone that has 50$ upvote worth with someone that has 5 cents.
Add to that the interaction levels. Someone may create valuable posts but because he doesn't have time or he doesn't like to interact with others he may be undiscovered. Thus, he upvotes himself
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It is all a matter of opinion. If you are just giving yourself one vote per day then you can still give others plenty. For smaller accounts I am not so bothered as they may struggle to make anything.
As for the last one, if your valuable posts are not being discovered then they do not deserve your votes as they help nobody. You have to put some effort in to build a following. If you have the time to create valuable posts you can do the other stuff.
I judge each case on its own merits.
!ENGAGE 20
Although i agree with everything else i slightly disagree on this
To tell you the truth i used to have the same opinion and partly i still have it. I realized though that there are so many different cases.
So i managed to bring a friend over back in the Steemit days. I told him what he should do and what he shouldn't and such and let him start his journey.
Now that guy worked so much in his day job and had other responsibilities as well that his free time was literally less than 2 hours. Imagine that he worked everyday around 12 hours sometimes even 15
So he tried and created some posts which took over an hour because he searched for some words in English as it wasn't his native language and published them. The vast majority of them went unnoticed.
I told them to try and interact which he did to only 2-3 authors given his time but failed. We even did an experiment, in which he wrote a post and i published it from my account and had my usual rewards.
So your phrase above literally is off in that case. I know what you mean and i believe most of the posts that earn nothing or peanuts are either abusers or people that write 50 words but there are always exceptions to the rule. In his case i think we had a responsibility because there was less manual curation and way more autovoting services
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I am happy to be wrong a fair bit of the time. But if someone has limited time to give to Hive then they have to decide how to allocate it in productive ways. Success is a combination of factors.
I still say that posts nobody sees do not really deserve rewards.
I know of one account that creates elaborate videos and posts them via 3speak, but hardly interacts. That is because they post the same videos on Youtube where they will get far more interaction as they have thousands of followers there. It is good that they post to Hive, but the few dollars they make are not enough for them to spend much time here. So that is a slightly different problem. I keep saying they need to get more of their Youtube followers here, especially as they may get demonetised over there. They care more about the audience than the rewards and Hive is just too small.
true and that's a bit funny because a lot of Youtubers are saying that the worst about Youtube, how they demonetize them and how they get censored but still they are there, cause even then they earn way more money than by being here for example.
Youtube will continue to be stricter and pay less i think and what those youtubers don't get is that if they come here and bring their audience as well the value of Hive will increase a lot, so they will a decent amount!
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ENGAGEtokens.Great tips and good advice for sure.
!BEER
I've seen some newbies getting downvotes, so maybe I can point them at this in future.
I don't personally self vote on my main account, but I think it can be done as long as you are spreading your vote out to others as well. There was a recent uproar about someone who was 100% upvoting themselves and never upvoting anyone else. I can totally see how that would be frowned upon. It is fine line and if you upset the wrong person you might find yourself with a lot of explaining to do!
It is a personal choice and others may judge you on it. For what extra I could make I don't consider it worth the risks. I see people who can make a good amount on their posts anyway, but still self-vote. That may make me give them less of a vote than I would otherwise.
I think voting in general is pretty odd I got in a discussion the other day about what is considered valuable and what merits an upvote. It is kind of a mind numbing maze at times.
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The joy of Hive is that we get to decide what has value for the creator and/or for us as curators. There are no rules, but if you don't like what others are doing then downvotes are an option. Without those the abuse would be so much worse.
Yes, for sure!
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apparently also for simply cross-posting to other crypto platforms
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I know some do it just to milk more rewards. I don't have the time for that and profit is not my only motivation. I did try posting on one of the others, but there was no real engagement.
I usually do it to buy more hive
I think, that's unfortunate - if it happens for a long time. One can be upset and just downvote few times though.
Hive is a rich mix of people, some of them a bit unstable. A bit of anonymity can make them braver and more vindictive. It is a price we pay for the freedom we enjoy here.
The most bonkers reason for getting a downvote? Coz I never downvote anyone 😂😂🤣
Lol I remember that one. And then someone suggested that you upvote more when they are two different voting pools.
Some people will always find a reason.
Those are some good tips for new comers and heck, old members alike!
I've seen it all :)
Is there an appeals process for users who are getting downvoted? Who watches the watchers?
With things like Hivewatchers you can appeal. If you really were caught out for abuse then you have to do an apology. They need to be accountable if they want to be respected. Otherwise it depends on who it is. Some will downvote just because they can and they can stay fairly anonymous. There is no overall 'authority' on Hive, but that is one of the freedoms we have.
Read this @jazzresin , and the other comment I just tagged you in. Thank you for your response @steevc
Looks like that account may have been compromised as it voted for known spammers. May be worth changing the keys.
I had to come here and read this after going over the recent post.
I must have gotten the wrong orientation when I came onboard, and having to see some of the things I need to adjust makes all these valuable the more.
A colleague and friend taught me that self vote, I never knew it carried a bad tag doing such.
Thank you for all these
You have to think about how others will see your actions. If they are seen as selfish then it can have negative effects. I choose not to self-vote, but it can be okay in moderation. Once per day is not too bad, but some vote more for themselves than for others. You still earn if you vote for someone else.
I will rather not self vote henceforth. I feel uncomfortable doing such. I will be at peace without it then.
Thanks for prompt reply.
I really appreciate all that I have learnt.
It's important to be happy with your own actions. I did self-vote when I had hardly any power, but I do okay without it and it just feels wrong now. If I see big accounts do it then they will get less votes from me.
😂😁
Saw 2 comment spammers today. Was ready to hit the Flag but then remembered some downvote wars in the past. It's really problematic for some users to flag spam and plagiarism when the abuser has a high level account.
It's a personal choice whether to downvote, but it needs doing. 'downvote wars' is a term from those who do the abusing. I am just curating. Just removed rewards from a copy/paste post.
Well, here is an unofficial report.
There is not much we can do about this except to not reward it. You can mute them if you like. If they have no power then downvoting is fairly safe. They are not making anything so maybe they will give up.
Sorry to bother you again @steevec but is it safe to use d.buzz and dlike.io? Are there any penalties or something else I should know?
It is entirely down to others to decide. If your content is good then you may be fine, but if you are seen as spamming for rewards then people may take action. It's not so much about the dapps you use.
We may be flagged for many reasons. Wow
You can be voted for different reasons too. Each person gets to decide how to use their votes.
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How to unlock a spaminator?
Have to talk to them about that.