Good evening buzzers, it's a new month and sloth has the Hive buzz! Yesterday I was resigned to not chasing another Hive monthly posting badge. The Hivebuzz achievement for posting every day in a month! I hit it for the first time last month, and it was great! A real highlight of my Hive experience so far. However the pressure (ok, it's not much but it is when you're a sloth!) of having to post daily meant some of my posts were a little rushed and poorly thought out. Much like this one, I guess!

However, after posting my power-up post yesterday, it's a Hive must for newbies! I love the fact it allows me to track my stats over the month too. Helps give me a little more buzz around Hive. I had resigned my daily writing pencil, and went about some curations! _{I do love adding some manual curations on top of the curation trails I follow! Just over 7% APR with my current mix!}

Where was I, oh yes, I was doing some curating and found a post about a monthly posting challenge on Hive! And it's been gnawing away at me ever since! In a lovely sloth.buzz kind of way! What better excuse to post more? So, Hive Blopomo More info.

This 'Blog Posting Month'(BloPoMo) challenge is brought to us by the awesome traciyork, I'll leave out the tag, I'm sure she has enough to do with all the work she does for Hive power up days and curating awesome content on hive! (amongst a host of other things!)

Like I say, a great excuse for Sloth to try keep his posting streak up! (This might be my next weekly posting badge too if I remember correctly!) Thinking back to my power up post (Link for SEO). My monthly rewards were the best they've been! Earning in a 'massive' 95 HP, and 30 HBD! I thought these numbers were pretty good for a relatively new sloth to the Hive. But wondering what to post tonight, my mind wandered back to a conversation I had the other day.

I was chatting with someone in Hivewatchers discord, it's one I've enjoyed viewing over the last couple of months since discovering it. Gotta love some of the personalities that make their way through there, regardless of your opinion of Hivewatchers themselves. Now, onto the point, someone was querying their Blacklist (or just a couple of downvotes). One of their arguments was they were new and learning Hive.

Now, the fact they were new is not the issue. But, having th conversation did make me 'DYOR' and have a look into the user. Hive is great for keeping track of things! One of the 'flags' I noticed was the number of earnings for a new user in such a short space of time. We all know getting a foothold in Hive is not easy, even with many awesome communities to help support newbies. This is something I'm going to make more posts on in the coming weeks.

The user claimed that $40 earnings were not a large amount for someone in their first month of Hiving. And, normally $40 I'd say wasn't much, however, when I get to thinking, based on my power-up yesterday, $40 is hella a lot for a new user to make! I made just over that by posting daily for a month, with a decent HP stake and voting trails I've managed to gather over the last 8-10 months. For me, it's my 'best' month, however I'd say for my 'potential' earnings, I'm probably on the low end. Time and a lot of mistakes will help me find my way into a better position!

Now, the question isn't about the user and whether they were 'gaming' the system or not. My question is based on earnings, is $40 a lot for a newbie? Let's say they start, with no funds, and post daily with 'average' content. How much should they be able to earn? And, is it enough to keep a 'real' user hooked?

What's the best way to ensure we allow new users to earn and get the best experience from Hive without rewarding too many scammers and 'fake accounts'? A subject I know has been thrown around Hive more times than it's worth mentioning but still an interesting one all the same.

Well, I had a few other points I wanted to raise in this post, a 'Hive Wiki' that I found and want to explore more, and a bunch about sloth.buzz and the associated token (slothbuzz). From tipping, NFT earning, curations and more but for now, the post has gone on long enough! Time to have another read to see how bad my rambling is, add some images then post! Look at the Cormorants making a love heart with their heads!

Happy Sunday, Sloth out!