It's been a week since @pinmapple ended our chapter on Hive. We made our announcement over a month ago and during that time it's been mixed emotion for me. In fact it was mixed emotion even before that, when the discussions started about sunsetting Pinmapple. I have been with Pinmapple since it started in 2017, not long after I joined the chain and it has been my adopted baby ever since (adopted because it's really @martibis's baby). Discussing sunsetting Pinmapple was a very heartbreaking topic for me.
The Good of curating for Pinmapple
I always enjoyed curating for Pinmapple because I get to travel virtually around the world to see so many interesting places. My geography has improved so much over the years without even stepping foot in many places. I've seen a lot of Argentina and Venezuela and Cuba, places very far away from me and on my to go list. There seems to be no end to the beautiful beaches in the Philippines, the tranquil villages in Italy, the stunning mountain regions in India, not to mention the Rockies in Canada. I have followed the footsteps of some of my fellow Hivers when I go on holiday, in particular my recent US trip, and the many European city breaks.
Curating for Pinmapple not only brings me self satisfaction, I enjoy doing it because know I can also contribute to help the travel community. Through the great work we do (and I'm not blowing our own trumpet here, because I'm sure many will agree with me on this) we have gained the support of whale accounts who trust our work and judgement and follow our curation trail. This makes a massive difference to the authors we curate. That, plus vote stacking by other whale accounts who don't officially follow Pinmapple's curation trail means when Pinmapple curates a post, the post can potentially get anything up to $50 or $60 or even more upvotes. To be honest, sometimes it can be quite a pressure to curate, knowing there could be so much riding on my actions. I needed to make sure I stay true to my job, and curate quality original content only.
The Bad of curating for Pinmapple
The potential of high rewards always brings out the opportunists. Abuse and plagiarism have been rife in the Pinmapple community for a long time and dealing with it can be a job in itself. I have personally muted nearly 150 accounts on the Pinmapple community for abuse, and I make no apologies for that. That's what community mods do if you want to manage a good community and for it to stay true to its genre. Funny enough, some say the Pinmapple community is unfriendly because we mute accounts. I guess we all have different standards, I'm not here to support abusers or please those who sympathize them.
In the pre AI days, it was easier to catch abuse, but then it still relied on a a lot of manual work and help from the wider community. Since AI became more widely available about a year ago, things have gotten worse. AI generated content is very difficult to detect, making anti abuse work much harder. For example, would you trust the accounts who post this? You'd be surprised how many did and still curate them.
If you've been a curator for long enough on Hive, you develop your senses to pick up abuse. For myself, the account posting history, or change in writing style, or travel posts that are very well written with professional grade images but no personalisation are all big red flags. Or a brand new user who joins Hive from "watching a YouTube video" or "reading a Tweet" and knows to pin their first post on Pinmapple potentially indicates foul play. Let's be honest, Pinmapple isn't the easiest to use or even grasp, even for some seasoned Hivers let alone a newbie. Spending a few moments to dig deeper will save a lot of hassle in the long run. Nip the bud, as they say.
Do a shit job or not do a job at all?
I can't remember what happened first. Did I get fed up with all the abuse, or did I get burnt out after 7 years? I used to look forward to curating for Pinmapple, but somewhere down the line, it became a chore, a responsibility towards the travel community. And when that happens, it's a bad sign.
I could have taken the easy way out, turn a blind eye to all the shit and curate all the "quality" content. I'd finish curating within an hour instead of spending 2 or 3 hours each time. But then, I'd be doing a shit job. I'd rather not do a job than do a shit one. There was only one alternative.
After speaking to martibis and choogirl, we all felt similar (burnt out) and decided it was best to call it a day. Pinmapple has become one of the most successful, much loved and popular projects on Hive. We've had a good run, and supported the travel community well over the years. We had built up such a good reputation and felt this was the best way to preserve Pinmapple's legacy on Hive. I don't know if I was relieved or sad when we made the decision. Pinmapple has always been such a big part of me on Hive, to sunset it was very painful, but some things had to be done because you love it so much.
Worldmappin
Travel is a big and popular genre on Hive. In the post Pinmapple world, we now have @worldmappin led by @detlev and his team. I know many from the travel community, myself included are eagerly waiting for them to be up and running so we can continue to share our travels on Hive.
As to the abuse? NMPA. Over to you Worldmappin 😉
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
You might miss it after a break, perhaps you could be a part-timer for @worldmappin? They will need your anti-abuse experience.
Great idea 💡
She might miss it after a while, but I know that burnt out feeling. It's why I don't write so much these days.
See you in Split for a chat with a beer and the world will be a little bit better.
Or I might enjoy my break so much that I become too lazy to do anything 😁
We need more people on anti abuse, that's for sure.
More that have a decent stake, and that's a tough call.
That definitely helps, and a high rep to knock them down
I throw my stake behind y'all for your anti abuse actions, it’s moderate but it all helps keep these assholes at bay! I’m actually surprised I got called out as one of the hive over-rewarded assholes who down votes - but my down vote is 98% of the time full lol.
Gotta clean the streets that’s for sure!
Pinmapple and its community have always been for me a reference to what can be done in Hive and you have always been an inspiration around here.
It must be a hard but necessary decision, so much time with the project and at the same time fighting with the abusers can be exhausting as well as frustrating at times. And sadly there will always be abusers when there are rewards involved.
Thank you for all your work in Pinmapple, it has always been one of my favorite communities in Hive since the beginning, even when I didn't even know how to use the map lol as in my first post in the community.
I hope Worldmappin lives up to the baton it receives. Personally, I think it will, Hive needs it.
And I hope you are enjoying with Snowpea a well-deserved rest. From your last travel blogs, I think so. Hugs!
It has been a pleasure reading your travel posts, I have learnt so much about Venezuela through your, and many others' posts. Thanks for that, and especially thank you for your support for Pinmapple. It's comments like these that has made our work worthwhile over all these years ❤️
Hey @livinguktaiwan first at all
I took over Pinmapple as I love the service from the first minute. Been one the first 10 users who created his own travel map full of memories.
There is a open door for you with @worldmappin for any activities you are looking for. Today or even later after some more rest which you deserve after all that work.
It must be tiring, especially for those who also have their jobs in the real world. Hope Worldmappin team will be as great as Pinmapple
We try our best. We might add a beer here and there. ;-)
Hehe.. that's good then
I take my hat off to those who have a real life job and post consistently every day. I don't work and am lucky if I manage two posts a week.
I'm sure Worldmappin will do a sterling job😀
Thank you so much for all your hard work over the years! I never even got to participate but I loved the content. Hopefully WorldMappin will be able to hold the torch while you all can enjoy their efforts now XD
Not everyone likes to or can travel all the time. Participation through reading and supporting all the awesome content is equally important
Burn out is real and difficult to recover from.
I hope you guys take a well deserved rest.
Pinmapple was a great concept and I'm sorry to see it sunseting especially since I'm about to embark on a European tour in a few weeks.
Will pinmapple still be accessible?
Thanks for your support and service 👍🏼
You can still use Pinmapple now, it's just that we've stopped curating. Worldmappin will continue the project ( it's open source) with a new brand and team and if I understand it correctly when they start all the old Pinmapple pins will be ported over, so nothing is lost.
European tour sounds exciting, where will you be going?
That's great news to hear that pinmapple is still operating and will be ported over to worldmappin.
The tour plans so far include France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Germany. We have set aside 2 months for the trip so it should be quite a leisurely experience. Famous last words lol.
2 months! That's great, you can take your time and experience each country slowly, each of them have so much to offer. Enjoy!
Mate, you did a GREAT job. Your Spidey senses for abuse were amazing. Obviously I feel you on the "curation becoming a chore" thing and I agree. I'd rather not do it at all than lower my standards. I think we made the right decision to end when we did and hand the baton over to a new team.
I've seen some good projects just fizzle out and whoever is left with the keys just go round upvoting shit, would hate for Pinmapple to be like that down the road. Pulling the plug at the right time was definitely the right thing to do, and I'm glad a good team has surfaced to continue supporting the travel community.
And I hope we get to meet up sometime. Maybe we go and gate crash Tib's 😁
Your efforts have been greatly appreciated. I've had just a small taste of the abusers, AI attempts and other from maintaining our little drone group. Even that feels like a chore at times when work and life get busy. I can only imagine the level of effort to manage such a larger and more popular group.
Thanks again to all that have been involved and that are stepping up to give you a well deserved break.
If only all curators and community leaders are as diligent as you, then it wouldn't be so easy for abusers to survive on Hive. Sadly a lot still don't care and even continue by to upvote them.
Thanks for by your kind words, I'm just doing what as should be done.
So true, self-managing still means managing!
I totally get it I did abuse fighting in the sports community for a while and it was horrible. That is cool that detlev is going to spin something up!
You still a mod in sports now? I think sports is another one that can be abused easily. I remember one time reading a post about a major football match that had literally just finished and thought that was quick to do such a comprehensive review
No, they stopped with that a long time ago. The community is basically defunct now.
Good curation is not an easy job for sure, but it's crystal clear the great work you and the team members done. Some things have their time, and we all have to be grateful for having pinmapple all these years. Let's see how the new project will play out! For niw, relax... and have a !BEER 😉
Definitely will relax, that's for sure. Am enjoying the free evenings binge watching TV at the moment 😁
Sounds a pretty decent plan! ;)
View or trade
BEER.Hey @livinguktaiwan, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @pardinus for you. Enjoy it!Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your
BEER.I can't believe it, Pinmapple no longer exists?
For me, finding out about this is hard, I don't usually publish regularly on it, but it is one of the biggest references on hive regarding travel and places. And honestly, it seems like one of the user-friendly communities to me.
I don't want them to leave :(
Pinmapple just got a new team and a new name. We continue as @worldmappin and the service plus will start soon after moving and updating the code to a new infrastructure.
The curation will be back and many users already send some delegation to @worldmappin to support the new curation. @lizanomadsoul will lead that team.
Have a look to the intro post and stay tuned for more.
Thank for the information!
I imagine that the job of curating content is very difficult and exhausting. Besides, when something becomes just a responsibility and the enjoyment disappears, it is a sign that something is wrong. Nothing lasts forever and even if it hurts when something ends, you are left with the peace of mind of having done things right. Thank you as far as I'm concerned I've been with Hive for a very short time but I loved it @pinmapple. Several times I received support from you and my posts came up in your honorable mentions. May the uiverse put on your path new projects that will bring you much happiness. 🤗
I'll still be around on Hive, just stepping away from regular curation and relaxing. Maybe I will focus more on my own communities now, they have been be neglected for too long.
Thanks tyiury lovely comment
Rest is always necessary. Many good vibes in any project you propose in this new stage in Hive, I will visit your communities, hugs 🤗.
Haha they really used those pictures for their posts?! Unbelieveble. Oh dear, yes its so frustrating to see abuse and fake all around and even more when one is curating and trying to give his best. As I am no big traveller, wasnt that active there, but its very sad that such a great project ended. Hopefully the new Version by Detlev will have a good start.
!HUG
No kidding!! Good old Lili, she lasted for quite a long time till she gave up and started a new account which is more refined. No stupid AI photos by this time, just AI generated post which gets decent upvotes.
Thanks for stopping by @beeber ❤️
So understandable.
You all did a great job. Loved the community 🥰
Looking forward where worldmappin will take us.
Those photos are hilarious… ai is damaging a lot.
Lili was certainly hilarious, her photos were so fake but the annoying thing was that people still fell for it 😔
It is a shame some fall for it 😖
Even though it's hard to know what was "behind the scenes" I sort of have an idea of how tiring such projects can become at one point. And thinking about how large Pinmapple project went and that there were tens of posts each hour.. makes me see you, along with the other curators, as real heroes. No joking.
Sadly, I am afraid Pinmapple or whatever is left of it will never find a better home than you and the others went for it, but we are humans before everything and constantly dealing with all kinds of situations might damage you mentally pretty badly.
All that is left is to thank one more time for everything you and Pinmapple did for me and the others on here. I still posted my travel article last night within Pinmapple community in the memory of what that place represented for me, but I'm really in doubt of what I should do next with my travel articles as I can't see a better home for them than how Pinmapple was.
Gabby, you have always been one of Pinmapple's best and most consistent author, setting the bar for the community and we're glad that Pinmapple played a part in your Hive journey and growth. I did consider that the end of Pinmapple would mean quality genuine authors would get less support and exposure, but then I figured these authors, yourself included, have established themselves so well on Hive, that their contribution be will continue be valued and supported by Worldmappin and other curation guilds.
Thanks for being with the map all along ❤️
This was so emotional that left me speechless 🥺 Thank you for everything!
You did such a great job and the @worldmappin team has always a place for you to stay / work / party / discuss with us.
We have the idea and the fresh power to develop the service into a new level and love to have your knowledge and spirit - whenever you decide to be ready.
Even a not so time eating role or just a konwledge sharing one might be available.
Or a beer, or two 😀
Look forward to seeing the new team at HF!
NMPA
The first time I realized that my English is good was when I found out what this abbreviation was without checking it on the internet XD
7 years is a very, very long time and you have done a really excellent job Pauline. Thank you very, very much for everything you have done. Hive is grateful to you!
I always said your English is good!! I made this up, not sure if it's on internet, but it proves that your thinking is becoming more English based now. YDAGJ😉
I checked it online and didn't find it too 😂😂
TYSM 😅
What’s does NMPA means please?😃
Not My Problem Anymore
Ohhh I see, thank you!
Burnout is a bitch. Take your time, as much as it may sadden us all that Pinmapple is no longer a thing. Seven years is a long run, something to be proud of. And who knows, maybe indeed you miss it after enough time has passed and return to travel curating in some form :) Love this. Feels very intimate.
I know many people was surprised we sunset Pinmapple when things were going so well, and I thought it was only fair to let people know the reasons, or at least mine, behind the decision so they didn't feel Pinmapple was abandoning them for no good reason.
Sorry to see the end of Pinmapple. Thank you for curating my occasional posts about Japan, I appreciate the boost you gave each of them. :)
!ALIVE
!BBH
You're welcome @hirohurl, it was great than Pinmapple was able be to curate so many users including those who may not pin to the map that often, truly a global community
I think you have done well. It is better to preserve what has been and what is before annoyance tarnishes the great history of Pinmapple.
It is a necessary pain to then be able to look at the whole scenario with satisfaction. The Universe always has new doors and paths waiting to be opened to be traveled.
😉
That's the best way to look at things, you never know what's in store for you in the future
I hear you about burn out. After curating and managing Blockchain Poets for the past 4 years, I'm also feeling it. I haven't had nearly as much success there as Pinmapple did, which while disappointing, does mean I have never dealt with the same amount of abuse you had to deal with. Which is good, because even without it I am burning out a little.
Anyway, you did a great job while there. I never participated as much as I wanted. I have lots of travel photos of places to share, but whenever I got up to do a pinmapple post I wanted it to be a super comprehensive view of a place, so that high bar meant those posts never got finished (within my drafts folder, I have many pinmapple post drafts). Oh well. I always did enjoy reading anyway.
I got loads of travel by drafts in my folder as well, including a trip to Petra, one of my all time favourite trip. I started the post in 2021 but could never write something good enough to do the trip justice.
Managing a community takes a lot of energy, I keep on opening them then abandon them. Maybe now I will have a bit more time to bring them back to life
Thanks so much for everything you've done for Hive :) AI has definitely made curation harder. Thankfully the free checker still does well for fiction, but I have a feeling people might eventually learn how to bypass that one day 😢 We need to use common sense in addition to anti abuse tech.
This post has been manually curated by the VYB curation project
AI detector can be a hit and miss sometimes, that's when one has to rely on their own judgement. Like the Woddy Allen guy, all his photos look so fake
Thanks for the curation!
That might not necessarily be AI text, rather someone actually writing but lying about having been there. Still fraud but of a different type. Fraud is fraud no matter how it's done, I'm glad you caught them 👍
!LUV
I'm not surprised people get burnt out. Running any Hive project can be hard work and the rewards are likely to be less than some may think. We do need people who will step up, but it sounds like you need a break. Enjoy it and maybe you will find new challenges.
Don't even get me started on the rewards. We are rewarded with the liquid rewards which is less than 10 HBD per day, but smooth still feels the need to drop by sometimes. Money isn't my objective for curation, but seriously?!!
I don't think there will be a break from anti abuse work hive, now I have plenty of time for the jekki farm 👿
There's no shortage of opinions on Hive. I've been accused of a few things and I'm not surprised that some people stay anonymous to protect themselves. I still believe in what Hive can be and will fight to protect it.
I hear you! And it’s as well sad to see the Pinmaple concept retire I do understand it though. It’s a lot of work that’s for sure and with the chat bots, people are able to generate a lot of shit easily. It’s unfortunate but a testament to having a great and successful community when people try to invade and game it!
It’s on a far smaller scale and more personal.. but I myself got sick of posting LPUD and HPUD posts - I just wasn’t feeling it anymore. I had a good streak going for 3 years or so and forgot one, then just said screw it. It feels a little liberating being able to take a step back from something we’ve done for so long. We move onto the next chapters, wherever those may lie!
Thanks for choosing to drop this in my little corner of hive :D when I saw it I thought it was another failed tradesman at your place haha
Luckily no more bad tradesman!!! The last one, a gardener, I employed after he stuck a promo leaflet through my post box. He did a great honest job, am getting him to come back and do more work for me.
I felt a bit like that for HPUD. I been running my HPUD Guessing Contest for years and had some great engagement and found a lot of good authors through that. But I noticed there were a lot of milkers who only dropped by with their two word entry coz I upvoted the comments and that was worth more than the 0.00001c they got from posting. Then some of them occasionally were lucky enough to win but all they did was to transfer all the funds out, which defeats the whole point of HPUD. There're just too many bad eggs around that add zero value to Hive. That's part of the reason I paused it recently
Cheers Pauline for all your efforts and hard work it was appreciate....but being slightly naive I did not realise there were so many fakes fools and twats on here, so well done for that. hope @worldmappin does as good a job.
We will try and we are open for any comments or advice
cheers @worldmappin as a clueless technophobe, I am not the best person to offer anyone advice lol
Thanks Stephen
The morons are everywhere, I think they've graced Urbex as well. I'm currently dealing with an Indonesia farm, this is just a handful of the same post that has cropped up since this post
https://peakd.com/@fhanencarry/so-beautiful-wow
LOL, I looked at one and well it is laughable mind you with a minus rep they wont be doing much harm?
Some people don't care what shit they upvote, so a farm spams out loads of post they may get lucky with a few of them and pick up a few cents to make it worthwhile
Ah! got ya
This is a very sincere post full of mixed feelings, I am living something similar and I have a bitter taste in my mouth, giving 3 chances and after that goodbye to the abusers.
You needed to rest you are one of the best content creators in hive, curator now it's your turn to enjoy what you sowed. @livinguktaiwan 😘
You're so kind to give them three chances!! If they don't listen after the first warning, then they're not going to listen
Thanks for your lovely comment 💕
Fairplay - I think you did an awesome job there, and to do it for so long as well. Great job.
And heres looking forward to worldmapping getting up and running - its great that they will continue the legacy !
That's sad. I hope you'll be fine soon.
Your work on this project was outstanding and I think without you the project would have died years ago! Thanks a lot for keeping the quality and your engagement that high all this time! We will try our best to keep your legacy alive and as @detlev already said, the door is always open for you to come back <3 looking forward to seeing you again at Hivefest :)
@tipu curate
Sorry, please curate posts not older than 1 day.