Hello Hivers, I'd like to introduce to you our latest creation “PlanktonSupport”. When new people (plankton) show up on Hive, post something, gain almost no engagement, and get locked in RC jail, they quit. PlanktonSupport is here to help these new Hivers.
This initiative is born out of the Hive Marketing community. A group of passionate volunteers and builders who debate about how to best attract and onboard new users to the Hive community. If you’re interested in this kind of thing you can join our working group Discord: https://discord.gg/njGMHRx. A Hive referral contest in the works, spearheaded by @stellabelle.
Here is a screenshot showing the heart of what PlanktonSupport does;
What does Plankton Support do?
PlanktonSupport diligently scans ever block of the Hive blockchain looking for posts made by recently created accounts which haven’t posted much and don’t have much HP.
If we find quality content matching these parameters, @planktonsupport will upvote. There is a growing hive.vote curation trail behind @@planktonsupport now, multiplying the weight of the upvote. PlanktonSupport will also follow the author’s account, reblog the post, and leave a comment. This is a brand new user and they probably haven’t experienced any of these social mechanics yet. So we show an example of all the types of engagement and people instantly “get it”.
Someone who has 0 HP can maybe post once per day, or make a few comments per day. They get stuck very quickly. PlanktonSupport checks the RC percentage for new accounts publishing posts. If we find someone with less than 25% RC, we help out.
Our partner, GiftGiver provides 7-day HP delegations, and enables these users to get unstuck and continue being active on Hive. After 10 days or upon request, the delegation can be renewed. This service is created and maintained by @rishi556. Anyone can use this, and it also offers a Hive faucet.
The comment left by PlanktonSupport on the post is more than just a welcoming message. It briefly explains what is going on and links to resources where folks can learn more. Currently we link to a Hive noobs post by @hivepeople and also links to https://OpenHive.chat in case someone wants to ask questions to the community.
Aside on OpenHive.chat: if you are a heavy mobile user you can use the Rocket.chat app and connect to openhive.chat. It works smoothly and a better experience than using a mobile browser. OpenHive.chat is neat because it has bridges to several Hive community discord server. So, you can chat with multiple communities all in one place, after signing in with your Hive user name.
The comment also includes an awesome GIF created by one of our talented and creative Hivers: @thepeakstudio, @doze, @sidwrites, @traciyork.
Just yesterday, we also started sharing supported posts on Twitter on the @hivetrending account, to give more attention to these new users and to show the world the Hive community is thriving.
How does PlanktonSupport work?
The core of PlanktonSupport is made up of around 200 lines of python code. It relies heavily on the amazing Beem library created and maintained by @holger80. This code helps us sniff out eligible posts, and we manually review every post to avoid supporting spam and other garbage.
Here are the current configuration parameters for selecting which posts to review:
The account must be 22 days old or younger, have posted less than 5 times. The wallet must have less than around 15 HP. The post must have at least 50 words. And to be eligible for GiftGiver HP delegation, the current RC manabar must be at 25% or less.
The python code also relies on a templating library called jinja2. This makes it very easy to format markdown/HTML content for comments and posts. I would like to translate this template into several languages: español is most urgent. Please let me know if you can help translate.
This is what the Jinja template looks like:
The GIF images are randomly selected from a list of 10, created by 4 different artists.
This is what the result looks like:
Results
PlanktonSupport just launched less than a week ago. So far we upvoted, followed, and reblogged ~43 new Hivers and made 141 comments. We’re just getting started. We have primarily focused on English-language posts and we're looking to change that. Hive is international and many languages are spoken!
Calls to Action
If you like this initiative and you’d like to support us, please consider to:
- Reblog this post
- Follow @PlanktonSupport on Hive
- Follow the @planktonsupport curation trail on Hive.Vote
- Help translate the comment template into new languages
- Help me design a new profile photo
As PlanktonSupport grows we can offer support to even more users and prepare for the upcoming explosion of Hive community growth.
Before signing off, I'd like to give a shout out to @roomservice who has created the remarkable tool HiveOnboard.com. Thank you for the inspiration and motivation to launch PlanktonSupport.
All feedback welcome, please leave us a comment.