Good morning Splinterfriends and Hivers, Soulkeepers and Crownrenders, Golem Overlords and DCrops Farmers, Holozingers and Moonkarters, CryptoShooters and DemoniCore Monks, Rising Stars and WOO Wrestlers :)
Man... look at all those great games here on Hive! I'm sure I missed some, because I all those from memory... and that list keeps growing!!
Even in my short time here, it has grown substantially!
I have been playing Splinterlands for about 3 years. I have dabbled on Peak'd for about the same... but it wasn't until about 6 months ago I got serious about it.
I wanted to help people - that's kinda my purpose in life. It's what I have done for most of my adulthood (Customer Service).
Recently, I have learned a lot about fostering the ecosystem here on Hive and how important it is to become a part of the community here. Looking more into this blockchain and the Tokenomics, there is such a massive potential to help people... but without education, it becomes very easy to see Hive as "Free Money"
I too was part of the "Free Money" crowd until I read a few posts and saw the DHF Proposal Splinterlands put forth... Suddenly, the importance of not just "using" Hive... became apparent.
I mean... I'm Legacy Crypto... one of the greatest "Should be" stories ever. My crypto journey is laughably tragic but who cares!
Life happens, how we respond... determines the outcome.
What's the point to that? Simple: Crypto started as a way to "Decentralize Money".
Understanding more of how Hive worked showed the importance of why Splinterlands Players (more importantly Whales)... should not just invest in the Splinterlands Token... but also pay more attention to the Blockchain.
The old school mentality of "Ehhhhhhhhh... I'll let someone else take care of that"... is how we ended up in this "Modern System" we're in... and how's that going for us?
Money being printed to death, cost of living through the roof... taxes... ohhhhh man... taxes... 😡
Anyways - Hive is an opportunity for US to invest in something WE can use, for fun, profit, sharing, helping and more... but it's not "someone else's" responsibility... it is ours.
Ok... sounds like I drank the Kool-Aid right?
Maybe I did... 🤷♂
So... for the sake of this post... please pause a moment, wipe the bias from your mind...
(Close your eyes and focus for 5 seconds on an imaginary blank sheet of paper in your mind)
When you open them, say to yourself: my mind is blank, I shall not let intrusive thoughts dictate my perspective on this until AFTER I am done reading this.
That helps me tell my ADHD noggin to shut up a bit and don't tell me what to think!
Ok... so... the issue at hand...
Hive Resource Extraction via Community Contests
Something I discovered to my dismay was one of my favorite weekly contests from Splinterlands was creating an opportunity to take a large amount of Curation Rewards out of the Hive ecosystem and this creates Sell Pressure on Binance and other exchanges.
You can read the whole post here... but heads up... it's a long one.
Super Long Post - but a good one!
Synopsis: We created a means for people to Earn Hive by "Doing Activities".
From the outside perspective...
It's basically a sign that says: FREE MONEY!!!
Obviously, this was not the intent... but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right?
One analogy I always try to use when helping people understand why another person is upset because they were attempting to do something "good"...
"I get it, you didn't realize what you were doing was hurtful. That's ok, as long as you understand it now... but you MUST recognize, from this moment forward... even if you didn't MEAN to hurt them...
I mean, if you drop an egg and it breaks... but you didn't MEAN to drop it... it's still broken, yeah? You never intended to be hurtful... but unless you are willing to understand that you ARE being hurtful, things will not improve."
Ok... the point: It doesn't matter the INTENT... What matters are the CONSEQUENCES.
The Intent
"Promote Community Interaction and grow the awareness of Splinterlands via Contest with the promise of Prizes - this will help attract New Players!"
This is a fantastic way to grow Brand Awareness. I used this so much with my Restaurant and I still use it currently at my job selling cars :)
The Consequences
We created a mechanism for people to "Enter Contest, Follow Rules, Win Hive, Ship it to Binance"...
Please understand this KEY CONCEPT: There is NOTHING inherently wrong with this.
Understanding how this happened
Obviously, at this point, you're probably having an intrusive thought or three... something along the lines of "What the hell... that's stupid... you're stupid... there is a LOT wrong with this!"
WIPE THAT BIAS OUT OF YOUR MIND!
Clear mind? Ok good. We continue on our thought journey...
How can there be nothing wrong with what they are doing? They're taking all this Hive and shipping it off... lowering the value of Hive... devaluing our Hive!! This sucks!!
The answer is... well, I've alluded to it... bias. Our familiarity with Hive creates a very false belief that "Well... I know this... everybody should know this."
This is one of the most fundamentally flawed reasonings ever and super common in us humans...
But let's review the rules of most of these contests that are creating the opportunity for this Resource Extraction:
I see... Well... It certainly doesn't provide any suggestions about what we the Community would want or hope our Participants to do... does it?
So... ask yourself... do you know how to rebuild a Diesel Engine? I surely don't... why not? Because we haven't learned...
With that parable... How can we expect people to know what is expected from them (or at least hoped)... How can we expect people to know what we consider "Good Hive Behavior".
WE. CAN'T.
The participants who, for years have extracted all this Hive... Have done NOTHING wrong. Why??? Because they showed up, saw the sign that said: "Do X, Win Hive" and PLAYED BY OUR RULES...
The solution for this is NOT Punishment... it is NOT SHAME... It is EDUCATION.
Make no mistake, the burden is 100% upon us, as a Community to STATE OUR EXPECTATIONS... and if we do not... we cannot become upset at others who act differently that what we "hoped they would do"... That is 100% our fault.
We broke the egg...
The Solution
Fortunately, there is a rather simple and elegant solution to all of this. We simply need to educate the people who enter these contests on what we believe to be the "Right Way" of doing things.
Unless we CLEARLY state our expectations... and restate them... and restate them... and re... you get it.
Unless we do that... unless we make the effort to educate people... we cannot fault them for not knowing.
But... education really isn't the goal... is it?
So what's the goal?????
The Goal
Unless I am WILDLY mistaken... the goal is not simply to educate people on what we want for a contest or a challenge or a [Insert Reward]...
The Goal, as it has always been, is to WELCOME and ENCOURAGE new people to experience the awesomeness of a Digital Community.
Whether it is Splinterlands, or Holozing or Moonkarts, or Soulkeep or Pinmapple, or Alien Art Hive or... we don't want people to just "show up, enter contest, see ya next week"... right?
We want them to show up... say "woah this is cool... these people are AWESOME... I can earn some money doing this... but if I were to take 10%, 20% 50% of those rewards... and invest them in this community... I could earn EVEN MORE down the road... and BECOME the support for others like me, in the future..."
The Goal is GROWTH. The Goal is to BUILD. The Goal is show people a place on Earth, albeit digital, where they are welcome... and should they choose to stay... have an opportunity to grow personally, professionally and financially.
Now... that's what we want... what we hope... will everyone do it? Nah. That's not how Human's work. Some people are going to say "That's stupid"... a lot of people will... but that's ok. Because those that stay... will help others... and Hive will grow organically.
If we take the opposite approach... sure... some might stay through the punishment or the shame... but they'll have a negative sentiment about Hive and their experience... which means they're less likely to share and if they do share with others... it's probably something along the lines of "Hey man, there's way to earn some cash online but there's a few rules and the people can be jerks... it's worth it though"...
Not really a beacon for growth... is it?
Conclusion
In order to promote a welcoming and healthy environment that encourages participation and growth... we must make our expectations known... but in a positive and encouraging light.
What is the easiest way to educate people about something you want???
Just tell them lol
Ok... so HOW do we tell them - that's actually SUPER EASY!! Not kidding!!
Step 1. Include it in the Rules (this has already been done)
Step 2. Each Community: Hive, Splinterlands, Holozing, Moonkarts, Soulkeep, etc... Should create a Post on Hive titled "Community Values" or something like that.
Each post should CLEARLY state what [Insert Community] deems as "Model Hive Behavior". If we don't tell people what we expect of them... we cannot and I mean CANNOT be upset when they don't do what we think they should be doing. That's ASININE.
Whew LORD... and that ASSATEN!!
Hahahaha buns. Errr puns. DOUBLE PUNS!!!!
Ok enough with that, serious topic... after creating this post, where we CLEARLY STATE what we, "the Community", believe to be "Good Behavior" and expect from our Contestants... we need to LINK IT IN THE RULES as our "Community Guidelines"... but we need to go ONE STEP further...
I don't know about the other projects... but for Splinterlands, when a Curator Upvotes your post... they always post a comment... like this:
How easy would it be to include a line like this, to be saved in the Snippet the Curators use each comment:
"To ensure the continued growth of our Community, we encourage all participants to read our [Community Guidelines] Post to ensure they have the opportunity to earn maximum rewards for their entry to this contest and our future contests!"
That way, when contestants enter and each time they receive an Curation... they are thanked and reminded about the "Community Post" (clickable link, obv)... and that post must be written in a warm, friendly, engaging way about why we believe this to be the best way to do things...
Remember - we don't know what they don't know. They could be Crypto n00bs who stumbled upon Hive... or seasoned vets of multiple Bull Cycles... Regardless... unless we welcome them... encourage them... and continue to uplift them... why on Earth would they stick around??
Which is kinda the opposite of what we want lol...
Step 3. Encourage sharing on other platforms - not just for the "Social Media Posts"... this ensures the participants spread the word about the Community they are in, OUTSIDE of... The community they are in 😐 (super important for growth)!!
Anyways, there you have it folks!! The issue, the cause and the solution. I'm happy to help if I can, you can tag me in any posts on Hive or message me on Discord!!
My Display Name is CaptainDingus or "The guy with llamakron tattoos" but you can search my username too "llamakron" :)
Have a wonderful day and I can't wait to see the discussion in the comments!
That's all I have for you today folks!! Thank you for reading and I would LOVE for you to join me in game!!
Naturally, after everything leading up to this moment, I do think Splinterlands and Soulkeep are some of the BEST web3 games out there!
They bring the #play2earn feature to the forefront of development as well as many opportunities for people to earn rewards - whether Player or Investor!!
If you're interested in the future of gaming, it's worth checking out!
You can sign up here: Splinterlands
Cheers 🍻,
- CaptainDingus
