I have been doing #FollowFriday posts most weeks since joining Steem (long before Hive) nearly four years ago. One of the main reasons for doing this is to help some smaller accounts gain followers who will not only vote on their posts, but also comment and make this a real social platform. It is not just about money and if you are not making much then it has to be fun for people to want to stick around. Like everyone I have limited time to read my feed, so I try to fill it with cool content. That can be music and comics as well as blog posts. Most of my voting is manual and I am likely to give bigger votes to posts that are just making cents than to those what already have many dollars by the time I see them. I know a lot of those votes will be automatic.

I do not check on how my votes are distributed, but @abh12345 produced this chart for me and it shows a pretty good distribution. I would like to be supporting more redfish, but they may not be so prolific in posting.

I started the @tenkminnows project to do more to support the smaller accounts with automatic votes. I delegate to this account and it has become a minnow itself. Here are some of the accounts it supports. Some are already minnows, but are a long way off being dolphins.

• @grindle is really into urbex (urban exploring) and uncovers some fascinating abandoned buildings with cool photography. He only has 73 followers so far. I am sure there are more out there who share his interest.
• @normie.fitness posts about exercise and nutrition. He has had his own issues with his weight and writes about what reall works. He should have far more than 44 followers.
• @biggypauls posts a lot of pictures of fish and motorbikes, but he covers other topics too, including music and travel. He has just 127 followers.
• @rthelly is a UK runner with 26 followers. She may inspire others to get out there and exercise.
• @gtown is a fellow guitarist who joined Hive recently and only has 6 followers so far. He is posting about music theory as he tries to understand it himself.

I review the accounts @tenkminnows votes on periodically and will have spare capacity at times. I want it to be using its votes well. I know some others follow the voting trail.

Of course the witnesses and dapp developers deserve to do well, but let us not forget that we all had to start somewhere. Not everyone has money they can invest in Hive, but if they can be persuaded to stay active their HP can grow and help spread the rewards with their votes.

The doghouse

I want to give a special mention to @fersher (aka @stimialiti, @slowgrow) I was one of those who downvoted their spammy Steem posts a couple of years ago and they have been trying to annoy me every since. Even with with a little delegation from @bullionstackers their downvotes are insignificant and of late the kind @saboin can been countering them so that I actually gain more rewards each time. @fersher seems to be trying to emulate the mysterious @dein-problem who hands out 1% downvotes with even less HP in an effort to troll the community. You really should not worry about downvotes from such fleas. They mean nothing. These people do not post, so you cannot retaliate, but it is hardly worth it anyway. Downvotes are a fact of life on these platforms and necessary to control real abuse. Do not let them get you down.

I had a mass of downvotes this morning from persistent troll @huaren.news who has been downvoted to negative reputation on Hive. He controls dozens of plankton accounts that follow his flags, but they do not bother me at all.

I am fortunate to have made a lot of friends here and they support me. I do not take their support for granted and am quite happy if they choose to vote up redfish and minnows like those I listed above instead. I have done really well so far and will gain a few thousand more HIVE as I sell off the remainder of my Steem over the next few weeks. I hope to get to orca level this year. That will enable to me to help even more people.

Hive is still tiny, so let us do what we can to help it grow. Encourage the new accounts, but do some basic checks to ensure they are genuine. There are some scammers who will take pictures and writing by others that they try to pass off as their own. New accounts should be prepared to provide some evidence of their identity. Good ways to do that are in a video or by posting about Hive on other social media.

If you know anyone who needs a Hive account then I can create them quickly and for free. Just let me know.

Hive five!

The geeky guitarist and facilitator of the 10K Minnows Project.

• I will buy guitar picks for Hive.
• Get a Wirex Debit Card to spend your crypto.
• Get some passive income with Mannabase.
• Get paid to search at Presearch.
• Battle for cards with value on Splinterlands.