A relatively new Hiver recently reached out to me, asking how to avoid downvotes. I posted about this once in the past, when I myself was running into this issue - but at the time I was looking for help, not offering it.
Originally I was just going to write a long comment, specifically addressing things I thought this user could change, but in order to make this effort as helpful as possible and to potentially assist a wider audience, I’ve decided to cover a handful of the basic things I’ve learned about the blockchain…I am by no means claiming to be an authority on the matter - just a regular dude who’s hung on for a while and picked up a few things from the generous help of others…and in some cases from the school of hard knocks (aka messing up and having to figure out where I went wrong).
A FEW GUIDELINES TO AVOID DOWNVOTES
1. Try to avoid posting more than once in each 24 hour period
Failure to adhere to this unofficial rule won’t necessarily get you downvoted (unless youre going nuts with it), but it will almost certainly hurt your upvotes. Many people use curation trails or even just hold a personal rule of upvoting only one post per person per day at most, so if you make a post that might normally have yielded $1-2, but its your second post in a 24 hour period, it will likely net only a fraction of that…so timing matters if you care about getting the best possible rewards for your work.
is a place where you can post short one liners as many times in a day as you want, but doing this in posts will likely garner unwanted attention.Since @ecency added the Waves feature, there
2. Less pictures can be fine, but less words can be a stumbling block
Having gotten my start on social media on Reddit, I showed up on Hive dropping short one line posts and/or picture only posts. A good friend helped explain to me that Hive operates a little differently.
At first, I questioned whether these longer post expectations would hinder me from continuing with Hive, but in the long run I have found it creates the opportunity for me to build much more rewarding content, both for me and for those who read it. I’m sure it’s not for everyone, but I can tell you I have found this to be effectively non-negotiable in this ecosystem. I think a good rule of thumb is 500-2000 words for a post, but I just kind of came up with that based on where I seem to get the best responses over the years. You can play with this and see what works for you; I think it's the show of effort that counts more than the word count, although they tend to go hand in hand.
In general, whether it's due to the financial reward system or just the overall sentiment of the collective, Hive tends to offer better rewards for more effort - and there are definitely those who will dish out downvotes for what they deem to be “low effort” posts...however if you’re more of a short-form creator, you will likely find people are far more tolerant of this if you post in Waves…although the rewards for waves tend to be negligible, there is great value in engagement and making friends, which I have found waves can be pretty great for.
This is taking it a bit off-topic, but I think it ties in with effort so I'll share it: Here is a Hive article on some good practices for using Markdown code to make attractive articles. Quality formatting goes a long way with making your posts stand out, so it seems at least worth mentioning here.
3. Elaborate on your point with a personal experience
...or at least elaborate one way or another.
If you’re posting a quote or a short concept/idea, try to use this as the theme for your post as opposed to the entirety of the post. For example, if you want to say that dependence on God is crucial for a quality life experience, say that - but then elaborate by explaining how your relationship with the most high has impacted your life and elevated you beyond the heights you could have reached alone. If you want to say that it’s important to spend time with people who care about you, again, this should be the start if your post, but not the whole thing. What made you decide to say this? How has spending time with people who didn’t value affected you? What prompted you to learn this lesson? ...etc.
Personally, I like to use a few pictures to add to my elaboration and make the post feel more like an article. This is optional, but I believe it does help generate interest.
As a general rule, if you're posts feel like tweets, they should be Waves. Dropping multiple one-line posts in a 24 hour period is almost a surefire way to snag up some downvotes.
4. Avoid using stock/downloaded images
This is not a hard and fast rule, but if you do elect to use stock images, Hive users like to see that proper credit is given to the original source. I’ve seen people downvoted for using stock/downloaded images without providing proper credit to the original source, although I don’t often see people committing this offense.
Crediting the original source is as simple as placing a "source" link beneath the image. When possible, it's best to create and use your own images, but there are articles (such as this one) that you may want to put together quickly, and for which stock images can really do the job just as well or better than original art - so again, in that case just cite the source and you should be fine.
5. Be cautious of groups that provide upvotes
I kind of hate saying this, because groups like this can be really helpful in getting new users started. In truth however, this was what got me into a pretty depressing spiral of downvotes. I’m still not sure if it was because the group had permission to vote on my behalf, or because I was still a member after my HP had grown beyond a certain threshold. If you choose to join a group of this nature, exercise caution, I guess that’s really all I can say on that.
In Conclusion
If you are experiencing regular downvotes and you feel it is unwarranted, there are also discord groups such as ecency and hivewatchers, where you can reach out and inquire as to if/why your account may be blacklisted (which was the case for me). I found these groups to be very reasonable and willing to review my case and remove my name from the blacklist - I also quit the group that was potentially causing me to end up on the blacklist once the people on discord told me about it.
Lastly, there are some really great people on Hive who know a heck of a lot more than me. I’m not terribly well-connected, but these are some of the kind people who have helped me get on my feet here:
@melinda010100 @quochuy @cmplxty @theringmaster
If there is anything to add or correct in this article, I would think these folks might be able/willing to note said corrections in the comments.
…if you’re making the effort to stick around and grow, users with more experience will often be willing to help you on your way, and the longer you stick around the more likely you are to build your own tribe of friends of all experience levels.
I hope this helps!
If you enjoy my content, check out the Albus Index!
Here you’ll find links to various post-groupings, so you can find all posts related to a specific topic quickly. Topics include lists of brewing recipes, flutes, crypto talks, rucking posts and an index of all acoustic covers. The lists are updated as new content is added, so they can always be used to quickly navigate my content.
source
This is getting to be dated, but most of the info is still valid.
https://jryze.me/hive/
Thank you! This will be a helpful reference indeed - I’m sure the basic etiquette hasn’t changed much if at all
Excellent 👌
Did I source this rule of thumb origin properly?
Shit, wasn’t expecting my vitiating skills to be put to the test!
…and I’m not sure if there’s an official “right” answer - if APA or something were the law of the land…I probably wouldn’t be here, so I think this is proper enough for me.
I actually kind of wanted to say something about that in the post, that the citation doesn’t have to directly follow the image - it just needs to be clear what the link or credit is referring to…that’s my take, but whether or not the greater Hive collective would agree…I have no idea…how’d I do!?
Any better would be against the law.
LOL - well then, this is an excellent addition to the reference!
How's it goin over there with the hand off the handle and all that bedazzle?
Decent, but imperfect. I made it that whole first week on virgin drinks, and honestly I loved it. Then on Saturday we went to have burgers and beers with friends.
I told my wife I was thinking I’d just drink water and she was all “two beers won’t kill you!” So I said ok and we had one before we left (we typically deal in IPAs of 7-8%)
…I shouldn’t have had that one before leaving, because when I got there it was like the count started over, and the problem with that is, after three drinks I pretty much go ham. I am always pretty good about stopping after two…if I stop after two…God man, what a dumb fuckin’ equation that is.
Anyway yeah I wound up having like six of those things, pretty much ruined Sunday for me. Been doing decent since then, stuck to just one lighter drink on Monday and steered completely clear yesterday.
It feels a bit like climbing up a crumbling wall, to avoid the cliched (albeit very accurate) slippery slope.
I’ve also cut out weed afterall, even if only temporarily, and still seeing a day-to-day struggle as it pertains to porn…lotta monkeys on my back man, but doing what I can to shake ‘em off.
Although it hasn’t been perfect, I’m reminding myself to stay positive and be proud of my progress.
I appreciate your asking…no one else knows I’m fighting this fight. I never even told my wife I was having virgin drinks because I was afraid she’d say something like “two drinks won’t kill you” lol
Of course. Remember carburetors and how they'd hesitate and sputter out and fire and misfire until you cleaned the jets?
I thought I heard that reading that, probably just me..
And don't plagiarize, especially if it's Hive content from another user.
YES! Good addition, thank you!!!
Nice to see people helping others avoid mistakes. Too bad so many new people don’t ever take the time needed to learn the basics.
I know, it’s true - and I was guilty of it in the beginning myself. Fortunately a few folks helped explain things to me at the time, but I really should have just read up on the basics before jumping in. It took some work getting up to speed on the fly, but now I do understand the etiquette and most of the reasoning behind it…and it honestly does make for a more enjoyable experience, which is why I’m exclusively on Hive :)
You're right, but the excitement of discovery easily leads to basic mistakes. There is a lot of information, like this, but it is scattered. It exists but is difficult to find for those who are new to HIVE and are very excited to get started.
I'm studying a simple solution that I would like to present, but I don't know who and where.
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STOPSome awesome points man, I think these are certainly great rules of thumb for the chain and using these to guide your travels on here certainly helps make this a pretty solid place to be and spend time on! I know we’ve got our challenges, who doesn’t? But we do a pretty good job I think of running a great space for such a big varied community!
Great to see you putting in some work to help others find their way! I know down votes are a little intimidating but often times if it’s a correctable offense, it will go away with addressing the issue at hand.
Amen brother! …at least, I know it was curable in my case - judging off of the profile of the shiver that asked for the advice, I think it’s completely fixable if they’re interested in working towards it.
This type of content is always very rewarding, transmitting their experiences helps newcomers who breathe with a little anxiety to move fast trying not to screw up to not receive a negative vote, so I thank you for your post, because we always find new and important information.
Thank you for this! …and you’re welcome! I’m excited to have been here long enough to be able to help others who are just getting started :)
Excellent article for those just starting out.
Perhaps add the use of inappropriate TAGs (identifications). They can be seen as an appeal to vote. I see that there is a lot of confusion here about what should be done.
I was excited to have discovered HIVE and made a post thanking all the elements of the community. Which earned me a downvote because someone didn't like it. I didn't know I was making a mistake, after all I was genuinely saying thank you. Since then it has served me as a lesson.
Ooh, man, that’s a really good one! I had not even considered that, but there is a whole world of nuance to the application of tags here!
Thank you for this addition!
Thanks for the informative post.
I am on Hive for about 1.5 months, I got downvoted in one of the first posts, maybe the reason was not adding my picture in the post. Bearing inferior complexity, it is hard for me to capture myself, so I avoided posting on that community. 🥲
I avoid some communities as well, particularly those that maintain a difficult set of rules. Most of the time I prefer to post in my own communities for this reason. The rewards are certainly lower, but I don’t have to face that crappy feeling of being downvoted. Still, there are many fun and friendly communities as well - I wish you the best of luck in finding some communities here that really fit your style!
Waoh, this is too helpful to me, I have benefited so much reading it. Thank you sir. All points here are noted and are very important to ponder on.
Thank you for your kind words! I’m glad it was helpful!