I am sure a lot of people come to Hive in hope of riches for little effort, but it can be a real minefield. It is quite easy to fall victim to some downvotes (previously known as flags). Here are just some of the activities that can attract them.

# Identity theft

The internet is full of fake people pretending to be what they are not. Some suckers will be easily fooled into following, voting or otherwise supporting who they think is their idol. Other platforms have ticks/checks to show you have proven to the powers that be who you are. We do not have anyone with that god-like power on Hive, but we do have @hivewatchers who will kindly ask (?) for some proof of who you are. You can do that [on their site](https://hivewatchers.com/) by [linking to a location](https://peakd.com/hivewatchers/@hivewatchers/the-guide-for-identity-content-verification-reporting-and-lookup) elsewhere that verifies who controls a given Hive account. Others can check the proofs there. It would be great to have some integration with the dapps to do this.

# Plagiarism

Hivewatchers and others will run some checks if the content of a post seems too good to be true. They can be remarkably tenacious at finding original sources even when attepts are made to obscure it, e.g. via translation apps.

There are times when you want to quote some text or use an image that is licenced for re-use. In those cases you need to make it really obvious that you did not create those and provide a source link. Hive is about adding value to earn rewards and 'copy/paste' has little value.

There are some who seem to think any type of artist interpretation of another's work counts as plagiarism, but that is just how art works. Be clear about what you have based your work on and show that you put in some effort and it should be okay. We will have to see if Hive ever gets like Youtube where covering a song can get you strike. I am not sure what form that could take here.

# Spam

When people see they can even make a few cents here it is tempting to pump out masses of low value posts to 'milk' votes, especially if people are good enough to automate their votes for you. Here is an example of this.

![Spam](https://images.ecency.com/DQmUXm6o9b7AzsHEW7SsjRKutdnP8ULH4rt6p5RG83fQ4G3/image.png)

Their case is not helped by some of the posts being duplicated and mentioning 'the other chain' where the same content is also posted.

# Voting circles

The example above is also a case of this where a set of accounts will almost exclusively vote for each other, often with nobody else supporting them. Some people have control of hundreds or even thousands of accounts by stealing or just creating them. This can create the illusion of real engagement, but a lack of comments is a giveaway.

# Self-voting

The smallest type of voting circle can be a controversial topic. The idea of Hive is that the community gets to decide what a post is worth. If you are voting on your own then they had better be really valuable. There have been cases of people trying to be sneaky and creating lots of comments that they vote up. This can be detected, as can using additional accounts you control.

# Trending

It should be a good thing to get on the trending page, but it can attract unwanted attention too. Some may decide your post does not deserve to be there and opt to adjust your rewards.

# Upsetting someone

There are plenty of fragile egos here and it is easy to upset someone even if you only had good intentions. Some potential causes of attacks can be:

* Voting for someone they do not like.
* Downvoting someone they do like.
* Your politics.
* Your general opinions.
* Religion (here be dragons).

Those of us who actively downvote abusers accept the risks. If you are happy to do that then pop into the [Hive-DR Discord](https://discord.com/invite/aXmdXRs) to see how you can help. There are some current cases that need dealing with.

# In conclusion

I am not saying this list is complete and I welcome other suggestions of things to avoid. I think many of us will get downvoted at some point, but if you were abusing Hive then you probably deserved it. If it was through ignorance of the local norms then you can live and learn. If you make an enemy then it could keep happening. I get downvotes from someone I flagged for abusing the platform years ago, but those are so tiny as to cause zero damage. If you upset a big account who holds a grudge then good luck to you.

I always say that Hive is like the wild west. There is no police force, but there are vigilantes. Watch out for the outlaws.