Talking about Filipinos on Hive
This post is a comprehensive scribble of my experience within the community and my future plans on building it. Just one of the rare instances when I talk about the community. I temporarily lead the hiveph community until someone wants to step up and take my place just cause there’s no sucker that wants the spot yet.
I got the spot after @romeskie had some real life issues to take care and when she came back the position just stuck with me. It’s not really my show but everyone who pitches in putting in the work that we still manage to keep the community alive.
Outline of the Post:
The timeline
The insights gathered.
What has been done for the community
Future plans
The timeline on how the community shaped my views about Hive:
I joined the old blockchain from a friend’s recommendation right around the prices started to fall. One of the first thing I did was lurk around the ecosystem. Let me tell you about one of the toxic Filipino culture still prevalent on any platform, it’s having a regionalistic bias over the greater community. Think of it as just having selective members who live in the same region being more favored over the others when it comes to promotion and attention. In practice, it would be like:
“@ UShive.[insert state here]” but only on a smaller scale as we live in an archipelago. This way of thinking made it possible for ancestral tribes to be close knit for survival but also hindered unity as a nation when colonialists tried to take over. I’m saying it’s in the culture to have favorites because of living in the same region and this made it difficult for public relations being an anon and a nobody.
So I just ended up not giving fuck and just did my own thing while eventually joining a small group where it preached financial literacy but actually just a shilling practice for new tokens out there. A lot of frictions happened within the community and I’m pretty sure I struck several nerves when I was calling out community plagiarists when most prefer to look away because friendship matters more than integrity. There’s also calling out shitposters that fish for votes by simply using some tags to win an orcas favor (not going to name them but they received a lot of delegations from STINC to make a name for themselves).
There are a lot of initiatives that have been made to keep community engagement going but it is a great wall to overcome the mindset of hand to mouth way of using the platform after rewards have been given, being apathetic to initiatives and simply not caring because people just don’t have a lot of stake to be bothered socializing to. These are the main reasons why I just didn’t have high expectations for the community and wouldn’t mind it reaching a dead end even prior to Hive’s creation. There’s just no point in building in a community that has no long term vision of their use on the platform beyond just accessing the money printer.
So how I ended up with this position is even more of a surprise when @ybanezkim26 can be the figurehead the community needs.
The Insights Gathered
Those days are gone and so are the people that shitposted with the hype. Maybe if Hive comes close to a dollar or more will these people come back again. There would always be pricks that are just self motivated to post and go vote trading, not interacting while passive aggressively comment how the lack of unity deteriorated the community but can’t even be assed to lift a finger trying to give a fuck about others. A lot of Flipino community groups have been created but none lasted this far as HivePH and I just attributed it to quality members still sticking around instead of chasing hype somewhere else.
These are the people I want to invest my time with in the long term as it’s far easier to build on the people that are with you when times are hard. For the folks that are still active on the other chain while silently dissing the Hive community, sometimes it’s tempting to outright just call out the behavior of shitting on the platform that feeds you but then I’m the asshole for bullying the entitled. They still post here and I notice but don’t mind.
I'm working with people that have near 0 returns for their time invested on the community. If I were to count how much time they spent on curating and minding the small background details to keep this community alive, they are at a loss as they could be doing something more lucrative with their time. That in itself gives me more confidence that it's just volunteer service.
We don’t really need a lot of members to be active and I stopped caring about engagement levels or activity on the community page. There’s no point trying to persuade people to care when you don’t have a lot of stake to “support” their wishful lifestyle. Just support those that still bother and the status quo is just a label. If 1 out of 10 people will remain to be active members doing some good for the community long term, then it's worth the bother as this platform requires new blood to continue. There would always be people that would waste your resources and that's just how the social part of the blockchain works.
What has been done for the community
I wasn’t overselling the idea that HivePH still has quality members on its roster. The community can still run with less than ten people on discord while still managing to cover the #philipines and #hiveph tag along with other auxillary functions for community building. The discord server has low traffic but is always open to anyone willing to hang out.
When I asked @jazzhero to make part of the functions automated, it helped make the curation works more efficient. Bless the man for his underpaid and over appreciated work to make it all happen. Even the rewards distribution has been favored to curators as the previous setup was listing featured authors as the recipients of the beneficiary rewards. What changed was my insistence on rewarding more people who keep running the community as it’s a thankless job. It’s not like people can be asked to say thank you if you hand them votes as most just prefer the efforts the community has been doing.
Ever since we had the bot automatically picking up posts with #philippines and #hiveph tags on it, there was no longer any need for people to visit the discord server and drop at post promotion. Naturally, this decreased the activity on the server because lol. We can still mute posts from people abusing the tag.
Future plans
The stake that is being used by the community account is the same stake community members pitched and it snowballed to what is it now. I intend to keep building that stake as it’s a community account. The account’s earnings will be used to onboard new users and continue to support existing active users. It doesn’t matter whether the favor gets returned if people decide to support the account or not, it was created to help new users with whatever vote value it can offer.
Our focus is onboarding new users without giving people false expectations on how the money printer works.
Part of the long term plans was supporting @whoaretheyph, a charity program I recommend you checking out (as soon as it becomes active again). Right now, we have made some onboarding goals to hook players into trying out Hive through the play to earn model using Splinterlands and Dcity (along with other games Hive has to offer). Not everyone can blog and some are just happy with the play to earn model as exhibited by the recent Axie hype.
When one builds on a community, one forfeits resources that could have been used to build on the self in exchange of building on others. I’m not overly optimistic about the results of my efforts but I know what I do has value and it isn’t wrong.
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I'm not really cut to be a figurehead. Last meeting proved that you are fit for the job no matter how you deny it. Just maintaining the status quo is more than enough. It means our survival as a community and that may be what's needed for now. Still optimistic of the future, but I won't invest too much emotion. I guess that toxic Filipino culture will always surface no matter of the generation. I'm not even washing hands because I feel I'm also part of the problem.
We can all play favorites and that's as normal as breathing. What matters more is having integrity to be fair as much as possible. Ngl, the old crowd I was with left with their teachings and the ones that are still here still hustle. I envision a community where any user can just park their post until they find their way across different niches. Sort of an incubation community for Filipinos but that's a long shot as we are all spread thin living our daily lives. Thanks for stopping by!
It's not toxic, it's a natural reaction to thousands of tribes being lumped together as one big country and happens all over.
When I'd land in Manila, friends would be aghast and pity me that I was going to bum around Mindanao. Friends in Davao would question my sanity and the safety of doing a loop around Negro's...don't go to Escalate city, they had a massacre....etc etc
Your country is rich in diversity that makes it incredible but on the flip side, islands are very parochial.
I never visited Cebu, but so many of your crew are from there , the tinge of regret and longing get stronger although it does look a little more sophisticated than my usual travel preferences.
Anyway, all I wanted to say was,; change the word leader, to administrator. Same job, different title, pressure of responsibility removed.
Oh, and don't be so harsh on yourselves! One thing I admire about this young Cebu crew is their pride in their country and Island. 20 years ago, I never felt that from anyone I met which used to sadden me greatly.
Best wishes, it's fun here, it's not a job ;-)
It makes huge difference in terms of connection and core support group on a user experience. And when I say support, it not only means the upvotes but the emotional encouragement to keep bothering when no one else is noticing you, that matters more than the $ on the post but for people that are just in it for the $, then it makes sense to leave the comment section barren and not be bothered. I hardly had that going for me and had to work on my public relations and I'm glad didn't as I wouldn't know what it feels like to start out blind.
I'm not from Cebu and far from the area. But the people from Cebu have been the best examples of what can Filipinos be. I'd try to get more people from my own place if not for the anon status I have going. I need to be selective and level the people I introduce the platform with some realistic expectations. The whole blogging to earn is nice but most aren't really bloggers but just force upon by circumstances to try or miss out on the rewards. So that's why a change in tactics of play to earn may work or at least worth a shot just to get more eyes on the platform.
It's not an understatement that less than ten are active in the server with less than a hundred members. The community hasn't been pushing engagement on the old users here, they're comfortable not being involved because they have made a name for themselves and that's understandable. I can't really push people to contribute when there's no compensation but I appreciate anyone willing to pitch what they got.
Rather than focus on the naysayers, I'd like to build on existing members that do bother with the community. Thanks for stopping by and the input :>
This happens everywhere in the country and it's so sad. Some here are even spreading lies that you're ''bullying'' them (even though you're just calling their shit behavior out) and asking them to remove you from a group cos of it LOLOL.
Thank you for doing so much for the community!
One of the most difficult parts of maintaining that integrity was doubting someone you work with. I think you recall that incident involving curie and Jazz's investigation on a certain someone. I talked to the guy before it blew up, ngl I really did wish it wasn't him but the evidence speaks for itself and in the end we just had a mutual understanding to have them distance away from the project they worked with me.
I did forgive them for the dishonesty and they didn't have the attitude to stick with their guns after. The ones are hard to get along are the righteous ones that are out to argue with belief systems and shilling scams (I think you know who this mystery person is on my downvote list). I can't take all the credit as whatever the community accomplished is a group effort and from the efforts that came before the current admins.
I think of the long term benefits of getting hiveph community account growing and being more than just an account that gives upvotes, but an account that is used for onboarding, for charity, and a means to extend help when real world limitations can be imposing (censorship and transfer of funds when other options are limited). Thanks for stopping by :>
I play Splinterlands, dCity and dCrops. Will focus too to promote Splinterlands as “play-to-earn” model, this school vacation. Just do what you need to do for the HivePh community and its assets. Your doing fine.
I think of Dcity and Dcrops as the most passive way to "play to earn" where you just spend a few clicks daily and be on your merry way. Splinterlands just means more hours spent to grind and if you don't do it you miss out. It's more like a chore but some are willing to burn their time doing it so I guess there's use to build on that route.
I'd put more time brainstorming for the group if it weren't from my regular Job. Lots of stuff to build and so little time to make it happen. Thanks for stopping by.
Sometimes people misunderstood you because they couldn't accept reality. You talked about how Filipinos are and it's true.
Yes, you are fit to lead the community ada.
I'm thankful that I found hiveph and this community that you managed. My first experience in hive isn't toxic at all and to that I am grateful because I probably wouldn't stay in hive this long if joined another social media that is filled with toxicity.
There's toxicity everywhere, you just pick your poison. Having a core group to post on is starting Hive on an easy mode than struggle making yourself visible. Cool, onboard more people that may be interested in crypto, we need more new blood in.
Oh so you're the person in charge of Hive PH now. Fantastic. Looks like you're doing great. :)
I'm one of them and just pointing it out that it's not my show. Wouldn't get anywhere if it was. I attributed it to the collaborative efforts of the members. Thanks for stopping by.:>