Good afternoon buzzers! Happy May 3rd! It's almost time for star wars day! Star wars day? Yes, May the 4th be with you! Well, that's one for tomorrow!

Happy hump day glorious Hivians! Some interesting topics to cover today!

First up, following on from a conversation in Discord, I wanted to ask about Hive posts, quality and reach! Should we allow/ignore or downvote posts of low quality? How about posts which are low-value and repetitive? Giveaways posts, offering low rewards like 1 game NFT or small token amounts? Should these posts be downvoted? Ignored or outright banned?

Personally, I think the whole giveaway section of crypto is both needed but heavily abused. Giveaways are a great source of reach, especially when they add value. Asking users to create or participate for example can be beneficial to Hive and communities. However, those daily giveaways which stand only to make the author rewards, whilst giving away low-value prizes are a stain on Hive and the wider Crypto space!

This isn't a problem centred only in Hive, although, Hive has a second layer of concern, as these users are earning rewards from the 'combined pot' of rewards for all users. Whilst these posts make up a small portion of the overall Hive earnings, many are flooding communities and tags which overtake any 'real' content.

The conversation on Hive's future has been heating up recently, with more people taking a stand against 'spam and low-value content'. Some communities have implemented a ban or 'whitelist' for giveaway posts, while others are downvoting and muting them. Ai content is still a major talking point, with more users venturing into the Ai space to see what all the fuss is about. There has also been chat of 'spam comments' from tip bots which are undermining the value of Hive.

Whilst we're all free to do as we please, we still have to conform to some basic principles. The main Hive rule is not to plagiarise. We are all earning from the same pot of rewards, but people can be overzealous when it comes to 'crime and punishment'. Using that big downvote button does more than just show displeasure in a post, it removes rewards and possible earnings for others. There's a fine line between 'right and wrong' and most fall within a very grey area!

Combine this with voting tools and curation trails, and we're on a slippery slope to overrunning some of the major communities with 'spam'. Having every post get automatic upvotes although feels good, can have negative consequences, especially if these upvotes are unchecked manually. We've all seen one whale or another earning a massive reward on a low-quality post at some point across our Hive journey, and the same can be said for other low-quality posters earning small rewards.

Do curation trails 'add to' or 'take away' from Hive? I'm rather on the fence on this issue, again I can see the positives and negatives. I have a few 'auto votes' and curation trails that follow me, some times I think they lessen my possible rewards as many of the manual voters will come across my post, see they've already voted and move on. Many of these votes are based on a % of a % so are mainly worthless, so I could be missing out on a 100% upvote and further engagement from users. The same could be applied to curators and community tags. People use/farm content based specifically on certain tags for upvotes.

There are many areas of Hive which can be open to 'abuse'. Be it minor or major. One person's 'abuse' is another way of engaging so it's a fine balancing act for all parties. There are of course some exceptions where 99% will agree things are 'bad'. Plagiarism, for example, is disliked by the majority of the community. Whilst these other topics have a much less black-and-white overview, opinions and discussions are key to finding the balance within Hive.

So, what do you think? Good or bad? Or somewhere in between? (And are there any solutions to combat the negative aspects or how can we build on the positives without 'ruining it' for everyone else?)

• Giveaway posts
• Hive tipping bots/comments
• Curation Trails
• Auto votes
• Low-value comments on posts. 'Good morning' or Tip spamming etc.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and discuss this further!

Sloth out!