Unlike other social media platforms, Hive is decentralized. Nobody owns it. You can't really be completely censored on it. Like other social media platforms, you can create posts, comment on others' posts, upvote and downvote. With Hive, however, you can actually get paid for posting, interacting and upvoting content.
Communities/Tags
Within Hive there are communities that focus on specific topics, such as finance, photography, skateboarding, etc. Posting in appropriate communities and using their tags will make your content more likely to be noticed and upvoted.
Posting
When you create a post, people can upvote it, downvote it and comment on it. Downvoting a post is typically frowned upon, unless the person posting is spamming, using AI to generate their content, buying votes, etc.
When people upvote your posts, you'll see the value of the post increase. Half of this amount is paid out as "curation" rewards to those who upvote your post. The other half is paid to you in Hive Power and Hive Based Dollars (HBD). These terms will be covered in later sections.
Upvoting/Downvoting
You can upvote or downvote anything posts and comments. Again, it's frowned upon to downvote comments. Even if someone is saying something accusatory or insulting, it's best just to not vote on their comment and take the high road.
For any posts you leave an upvote on, you will get a portion of the rewards paid out to you in Hive Power, which go towards increasing the amount you can upvote a comment or post.
Ecency Points
Ecency is an app/website you can use as an interface to post, comment, upvote and downvote posts, manage your wallet, etc.
Here is the points breakdown:
0.25 points for signing into the app
0.01.- 15 points for posting
0.001 - 5 points for commenting
~0.04 - 0.09 points for upvoting
~0.9 points for reblogging a post
If you earn enough points, you can redeem them to have your post upvoted by a certain amount or promoted for a certain period of time. It typically costs 150 points for a $1 upvote or 1 day of post promotion.
