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>We all make mistakes, it is how we act after that counts. 

Recently, a long-time Hive user who has got a huge amount of support for near on five years, was caught deceiving the community through the usage of alt accounts to take even more from the reward pool, upvoting himself 6 times a day. In the past, the same user has been caught upvoting his own comments just before payout, as well as being part of vote-trading circles.

![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmTW3VTix9h3gD1vQZfNezkycMnqXeNLiwA4K5qBMhk11w/image.png)

When called out on this and having his current posts zeroed on Hive, he promptly slid the slider to full, clicked the powerdown button and should have his stake out in thirteen weeks. I think this demonstrates pretty nicely what he thinks of the community, since now that he can't extract from the reward pool for himself alone, he is leaving, rather than use the stake to curate the content of others. Fair enough. 

However he got it, it is his stake and he can do with it what he pleases, but this works both ways and other people have stake too, with some earning, some buying and some like me, doing a combination of both. 

I have written about this many times before, but stake isn't a license to extract from the pool, it is the ability to direct the rewards pool toward a wallet, but there is a seven day period of negotiation as to whether it reaches there or not. This negotiation is held between other staked holders of Hive, who can use their own to direct more toward a wallet or, direct it away form a wallet. It is good to remember that post rewards are the blockchain's until they are assigned to an individual wallet after the seven day period. This is the same for curation return, where it will be affected by other up and down voters, but will only be "settled" into a wallet at post payout. 

A lot of people disagree with downvotes as the reasons they are used are very subjective, but this is why it is the responsibility of each individual as to how they use theirs, in the same way it is up to the individual on how they use their upvotes. People generally have the sense that upvotes should be used on what deserves value and downvotes on abusive, but both sides of this are also subjective. It is because of this that there is the opportunity for a seven-day *public* "discussion" through voting behavior, as to how they are used.

But, while people look at posts being "worth it", this is a community and an account is not one post, it is a series of posts and through those, relationships are built, some of them with a lot of social trust included. This means that the *behavior* of an account affects the value of the account alongside the value of the content and regardless of content, if the behavior is not deemed appropriate from some users, they could use their stake to direct their relative portion of the pool away from the wallet. 

There is no police force here, no government, no legislation - but there is a community of users who care about the platform for different reasons. Some users care about it as far as it serves as a cash cow, some users care about the experience and the long-term health of the platform itself, as well as a myriad other personal models as to what Hive means to them. 

Everyone has the power on Hive to make their own decisions on how they behave here and it is an opt-in platform, no one is forced to join, no one is forced to stay. However, all behaviors have consequences and traditionally in a community scenario, the ones who lie, cheat and steal are not welcomes with open arms, which is why they conceal their behaviors from the community as best they can, hoping they don't get caught. 

Some people feel so entitled to some kind of value return, that they believe there is no connection to how they behave and how the community values them and how the community interacts with them. From a community perspective, it is nonsensical to allow behaviors that harm the community to exist and potentially thrive, just because the person doing them feels they are entitled to do so. It is far healthier to incentivize good behavior, but it is also often necessary to disincentive bad behavior. 

![image.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmNnzEGa1dbuFwyv1TAAEQhVR8u5JZhFchkgdkszFGQk64/image.png)

There is currently 861,635 HIVE, and *no one* is entitled to any of it, other than what is attracted to their stake directly, like that of the interest that is paid out to *all* staked users. For the witnesses to get their share, they have to process blocks and have them verified by other witnesses, curators have to vote for theirs, those who add content of some kind need to post. However, when it comes to the posting and curating portions, these are exposed to public judgement, as should all activity of value be, in a self-governing community.

And behavior matters. 

It matters because people have the ability to use their stake as they see fit and most people do not want to reward people who they believe are bad actors, regardless of what value their content may or may not hold. And what defines a "bad actor" is the responsibility of the individual, as is their subsequent behavior once they identify someone as such. This response is also subject to community judgement as well, where for example a person who downvotes what they consider a bad actor, will be judged favorably or unfavorably by the observing community. Those who agree with the downvote will see the activity as positive, those who do not will see it as a negative - this is how a community works. 

Each person can do as they please, but each observed action is going to be subjected to judgement. It is because of this that bad actors will conceal their activity so as not to be judged unfavorably and it is why good actors and the honest will often be open in their activity, as activity seen as positive and value-adding is more likely to get judged positively and get rewarded. However, if there is an actor who is openly acting positively, but concealing their bad actor activity, which is the one that should be judged them? 

Serial killers are often personable and attractive people - but I think most in a community in which they operate, would want them caught and not only held responsible for their actions, but also contained so the side they hid can no longer cause harm. no one says - "they are so pleasant to talk to and good looking, we should let them off with a warning." Especially not the second or third time they have been caught.

While there seem to be many complexities to the debate, it is actually rather simple. 

- We can do as we please
- We will be judged on our behavior
- There will be consequences for our behavior
- Not everyone will agree with the consequences
- The reactions will be judged
- There will be more consequences

Rinse and repeat.

Personally, I would be ashamed at myself if I acted like this person. I would also be ashamed at myself if I didn't speak out and *act out* against this kind of behavior. While I will support people's ability to do as they please, I would be ashamed at myself if I didn't recognize that there are consequences to every action. One thing I am never ashamed of, is standing up for what I believe in and acknowledging when I am wrong and taking responsibility for it. Next time, I would know better.

How we act "post-error" tells a lot about us and in this case and with a person who has been caught in several ways before, their reaction has been to find another avenue to deceive the community in order to get more value from the pool. The level of disdain for the community in all of the behavior up until now is incredible.

There will always be consequences, a reaction to every action.


Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]


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Posted Using [LeoFinance <sup>Beta</sup>](https://leofinance.io/@tarazkp/post-error)