Random Spiel, Hive Curation Myth
My old idea about how curation on Hive is ideally supposed to work
is by merit in driving more eyes on the platform. Users are incentivized to make quality content here because that increases the value of the platform and they are tipped in the form of votes. In an ideal Hive world, community curators would be looking out for authors that consistently produce content that has a chance to go viral on other platforms. But in practice, the curation practices that govern community curation and personal curation are just subjective and getting a feel for each other's sense of decent content.
Working hard is producing quality content to get votes, working smart is tailoring your content to what the curators want to see with the least amount of effort possible. The latter is the tendency of authors to produce the same quality and type of content over the years without generating anymore value.
Proof:
Questism Chapter 153 Official Release Date and Updates
Shared previously on my Random Spiels, Have You Heard about the Most Viewed Anime Post on Hive? post when it was at its peak. The post sitting on 150 views up at the time of this writing.
Explaining why these posts work and most posts don't even if they are well rewarded on Hive:
Both posts talk about a trending niche topic that has a wider audience outside the platform especially during the time these were posted. The popular topic, timely content, and maybe some trusted backlinks was all it took to get it rank better at google searches, even if these were beyond the second or third page, there's a group of people out there dedicated to the fandoms.
Personal blogs on Hive where authors share their scribbled thoughts give the platform more soul, but it doesn't drive traffic unless the person posting was someone with already an established following outside Hive driving traffic in here. Nobody cares about my workout routine, that doggo pic I took, my dinner experience at some tourist trap, or how my day went, I'm a nobody and people would never organically search for my posts. But if I talk about a popular topic using the formula that works as mentioned above, I'll generate more outside views and that's the way things work outside Hive.
If I pursue the route that focuses on generating outside views, nobody gets my niche topic here so I end up with more missed opportunities from community curators that don't know what I'm talking about. There is no incentive to go out of my way and change the formula of what works because the smart thing to do if it's for monetary gain alone is making sure the right eyes sees the post and not the eyes that aren't involved with what's going on here.
Assuming that we prioritize getting more organic views from the outside than Hive. The compromise would be promoting posts like @tegoshei because it has all the elements and word count to show effort. The case of @shisuipark is an oddity because less word count but hits all the other right buttons. In Hive's curation cultural sense, the lack of word count would be seen as low effort and that's my initial impression about the post when I passed. But Shisuipark's post really is effective, short content, and probably efficient in the sense of generating outside views than most posts here on Hive. But here's the problem, I'm not sure how the lack of word count posts BUT effective at generating views would really fly by our current norms when it comes to curation. If part of the curation guidelines factored in greater rewards for posts that generated more views, some posts may take more than 24 hours to rake in some numbers. My own posts shared last February 2024 was still hovering around 600+ views last month and it was about tackling on a niche topic like Nikke and Shift Up.
It's just views, so fucking what? I mean, one of the points of creating content was to generate views than toss your creations into the void. I don't think there's really a fix to the curation system we have since everything is just subjective, I see content I like, I press upvote.
This isn't a call to start making changes in people's posting habits to conform to what helps our Hive frontends get more clicks. But it would dispel a lot of confusion for new users if they were told form the start that posting quality content by its own merit, isn't enough as one's social rewards are more influenced by community curator preferences and established social network. How do you define quality content you want to support is up to you. We're operating under the principle of you do you and that goes for what you do with you stake and who you reward with it.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for mentioning.
I will be honest with everyone here; the main purpose of that post [Questism Chapter 153 Official Release Date and Updates] was to check if there any readers of Questism manhwa on hive. But to my surprise this post ranked on the homepage of Google, and the reason was It's a hot topic during that time.
I will focus on creating more high quality content, but when it comes to update or news based post, I will keep it short.
Thanks again...
If it attracts eyes, traffic, engagement then it has some good qualities.
I can't like anime (I have tried). Otherwise, I'd follow you now.
But I would like to encourage you, to blog about what you find important and want to share and not what you think 'curators' might like.
Thanks bro♥️
I hope you continue to do so as the formula works. I can't say for certain that other curators will reward this type of niche content because you might have seen how other people post that tend to be long form. It's not really a problem with the content itself, just the platform's current culture with regards to how tips are given.
👍
Hive incentivizes more on recent posts rather than lasting content. So for any newbie author without not much reach, initial goal is to expand network and visibility for more chances of early upvotes. I guess journaling would be the fit content that Hive can really support. Authors who aim to create lots of articles would only be earning within a limited time. Well, at least Hive is a free platform, so it works as well for non-profits.
Yes, the journaling type of content, personal and easily forgotten is effective at generating posts for tips and hits what the curators would usually pick. There's no real incentive to go niche content and just talk about a topic no other person here relates then forfeit tips one could've gotten if they conformed with the generally hip trend that doesn't even get Hive out there. That's the problem but it's not a problem that can be lightly fixed since it's up to content creators to revisit the topics they want to post or community curators review the way they reward these behaviors.
I made a pass after seeing Shisui's post, I didn't recommend it for OCD nomination since it's not the type of post known to get easily supported and hard to justify by common curation standards here, not my money to say. And I personally don't get subject of the post as it was a manhwa I'm not into.
In an ideal world, the curation would be crowd sourced, not in the hands of a few.
(Like the original whitepaper described it)
In the real world, word count doesn't matter.
I would even argue, that long posts are inferior, caused by lack of skill.
These community curators only appeared, after everyone realized, that the stakes are only in the hands of a few. And that those few were terrible curators.
It was meant as a 'crutch', until the stakes get wider distribution. With the idea, that employed 'curators' would help distribute the rewards better and wider.
I was opposed to that from the beginning. I was verbal about it.
And here we are (8 years later): Today, most people are writing content aimed at those curators.
What the masses, the people outside Hive may think of content, doesn't matter anymore.
8 years in, we still have the same if not a lower user count.
You have come to a very similar conclusion I have.
I come from a different perspective though; I curate content for 8 years, by hand.
I am just one dude, who saved up their rewards and I have a stronger vote than some of these curation circles.
But I also got lazy and greedy and I mostly vote for the people I follow, anyways.
And I stopped voting for people, who don't vote, or who don't accumulate stake.
Yet, I think 100 - 200 people of my weight (.5$ votes) would have a much more positive impact than 1 of the big curation grifter gangs.
Greed is in human nature, the original whitepaper adressed it, but that part was scractched in later revisions.
Originally, the idea was that a large group of greedy people, would be envious enough of each other, that they watch each other and pull anyone back down, who rises above (crabs in a bucket); So we'd end up with a lowest common denominator: quality of content.
Another thing, which comes with the way Hive works (and that's impossible to change), is that the reward-window on Hive is short. There are technical (game theory) considerations...
Anyways, as Hive rewards have a short window of 1 week, this would favor short form, timely content. Which would be the opposite of high effort, high word count posts.
But that also render curation gangs useless, so they don't vote for that.
These curators work hard to make their job harder, while clicky clicky liking a post isn't rocket science, really.
/rant off. (sorry)
Your rant was refreshing and it resonates with how most of the stuff I find it difficult to treat Hive like other social media. People aren't incentivized enough to go outside the box when it comes to content curation because the alternative is choosing an author known to write well and fits well with platform. I saw some niche authors here try for a few weeks talking about niche contents that only they get, it's not entirely their fault, it's just that we don't have enough audience that might be interested in something like visual light novels.
It's far easier to just change our own expectations than swim against the tides. This is the game, either we play it or not participate. @nonameslefttouse dropped a comment that really made me think about improving my stuff, it's a gradual process but I'm working on it.
I tried experimenting with different types of content over the years, changes my tune, style, put in effort on some, got lazy in some, and the only conclusion I got from experimenting is that it's better to be like every generic content creator here talking about their personal lives that matters less instead of topics that matters more from the outside. I still bother to do both because I'm invested in the subject. I know some people built a career as a writer using their blogs here as a portfolio sample then went inactive because their other gig pays well for their time than here, but Hive was a training ground.
As stupid as it sounds, I still dream of getting good at digital illustration do freelance with it, so that's why I struggle with getting art posts since these aren't something I'm good at but I want to be better at content creation.