Hive community spotlight #12: Interview with @livinguktaiwan

Welcome guys to yet another edition of hive community Spotlight, today I'm so excited about whom we have as our guest and glad to let you know more of her!

Meet Hive account@livinguktaiwan, a prominent figure in the Hive community. In this interview with her, we get to know her background, her journey on the platform, and the meaningful projects she's involved in. We'll also explore what motivates her and how she's shaping the Hive landscape.
Newbies also have a lot to learn from her!

Stay tuned and keep reading!

° Can you tell us about yourself and how you got started on the platform?

Livinguktaiwan: Many people get confused when they see my username livinguktaiwan because it's quite long. In fact if you break it down it's Living-UK-Taiwan which represents my background. I am from UK and 2016 I moved to Taiwan. That was when I started blogging to keep my friends and family in the UK up to date with my new life in Taiwan.

One day in 2017, my husband came across a new blogging platform that pays crypto currency. That was the previous chain and I joined immediately even though I knew nothing about crypto, I still don't to be honest.

° What inspired you to become an active contributor and curator on Hive, and how has your experience evolved over time?

Livinguktaiwan: I became a curator for Pinmapple a couple months after I joined the chain. It was called Steemitworldmap back then. The project was new and was looking for team members. I jumped on board immediately as most of my content was about travel. Compared to today, we weren't so organised and couldn't offer so much support to users in those days, but it was a great way to give a home to the travel community. Since then we've grown to become the most popular travel community on Hive. I certainly have learnt a lot during the process, both in terms of virtual visits to many places around the world (I go through between 30 - 60 posts a day when I curate), how to be a curator, and more importantly how to identify abuse on Hive.

I'm also a curator for OCD, one of the largest curation guild on Hive. That gives me a chance to curate non travel content making my curation more varied. Sometimes I come across content that I probably wouldn't choose to read and it's surprising how interesting they are.

I didn't have any aspiration when I became a curator, it sort of evolved. But now I like the feeling of knowing I can help to make a difference to good quality content and that's what matters to me.

° You're known for your involvement in various community posting initiatives and projects. Can you share some of the most memorable ones you've been a part of and the impact they've had on the Hive community?

Livinguktaiwan: I think I have this addiction for creating communities. Apart from Pinmapple and OCD which I'm actively involved in but don't own, I also have a few of my own communities. So far I have Toys on Hive, Train Spotting, The Loo Loo, Three Challenges, WorkLife (which I co own with some else) and Hi from Hive. The Hi from Hive one I actually like very much. It's an initiative to get users to write one post about their experience on Hive and they pin it on Pinmapple. The idea is that when users onboard people on Hive, they can show them the Hi from Hive map (which is based on Pinmapple) and see where Hive users are based around the world. Maybe they might find someone nearby and read about their experience on Hive and decide to join Hive. And even existing users may find someone else in their city or province and hold meetups.

The other initiative I have is Hive account@newbies-guide. This is a depository of good post useful posts written by people on Hive. Having all these posts in one place makes it easier for newbies to find them and learn about Hive. I like to think this has helped them with their journey.

° Pinmapple is a popular project you're involved in. Could you tell us more about it and how it benefits Hive users?

Livinguktaiwan: Pinmapple is unique on Hive as it's not just a curation guild, it's also a virtual personalised travel map. When you write a travel post, you go to the Pinmapple website (it's like Google map), find the location of your post to get a unique bit of code and add it to your Hive post. Pinmapple will pin your post onto the Pinmapple map, and you will start to grow your own virtual personalised travel map. It's a great way to see where you've traveled, it's easy to find your travel posts (you don't need to scroll down pages and pages on your blog), and you can even share it with friends and family so they can read it.

When users travel, they can search on Pinmapple to see where fellow Hivers have been and maybe follow their recommendations. If you search on internet, you end up with the top ranking posts which are normally the tourist hot spots. Whereas Pinmapple will give you a lot of localised off the beat interesting places visited by real people. I always use Pinmapple when I travel and have discovered a lot of unique interesting places to add to my itinerary.

For the authors, Pinmapple always upvote the posts we curate, as does Blocktrades, and also OCD if the post is still under rewarded. Through our curation effort, Pinmapple has built up a very good reputation on Hive and I know that quite often after we curate a post, other big accounts may pile on their support. I've seen a $5 post go up to $60+ or even over $100 after we curated, and that's happened often. I don't believe any other travel community can do that.

° Can you share a memorable moment or achievement you've experienced during your time on Hive?

Livinguktaiwan: This is a tricky one. There's been so many.

Maybe the very first meetup I attended three months after I joined in 2017. It was in Taiwan and there were about 10 of us. I've never meet people online before and it was so weird. But it was also a very warming experience and the start of my online presence.

The memorable achievement is probably when I achieved 100k HP last July. I know I would get there soon, but it's the actual moment of seeing my stake tick over from 5 to 6 digits that made it so special. There's less than 200 people on Hive who's achieved that so I'm pretty chuffed with it.

° Are there any upcoming projects or initiatives you're excited about, either your own or within the broader Hive community?

Livinguktaiwan: Not at this stage. I've dropped the ball on a lot of the projects I'm involved in because I think I've spread myself too thin. I'd like to restart the Hi from Hive initiative because we've had so many new users since I started it 2 years ago. And the Hive account@newbies-guide needs updating as well. Too many things to do but not enough time!!

° What advice would you give to newcomers joining Hive who want to make a positive impact and contribute to the community?

Livinguktaiwan: I'm glad you asked.

Good newbies are pretty hard to come by nowadays in my opinion, but maybe I'm being cynical, because I have seen too many bad apples. I see a lot of newbies come on Hive thinking they can make a quick buck, it's all take and no give. They come with the wrong mentality and it's so sad.

For those who genuinely want to make a positive impact and contribute to Hive, and I hope there are more out there, my advice is you need to be persistent and never take short cuts in your initial journey. You need to gain people's trust first, don't expect it on day 1. Expand your network, get to know people from all corners of Hive. Be genuine, it's not a big ask from the community to be honest. It's never easy breaking into an existing community that people have worked hard to build up, so you need to work on it. Once you get past the first stage of gaining people's trust it gets easier to start contributing to Hive and make a positive impact in your own way.

° Any positive message for the hive community in general?

Livinguktaiwan: Hive is like a mini version of the real world. It may not be perfect, but it definitely can change people's lives to make them better, financially, socially and even psychologically. Personally I think there's a lot of mileage in Hive as a community and there's potential to make even bigger impact. The platform is based on proof of stake, so you'll only benefit by growing your stake. The worse case, if Hive flops you haven't lost anything as you came with nothing (that applies to the majority of users who has never invested fiat into Hive)

° Finally, is there anyone else you suggest should be interviewed for our Hive community spotlight, and why?

Livinguktaiwan: There are many 'makers' on Hive who I respect a lot. They bring a lot to Hive by being active, building communities and are very good curators. These are the type of users we need more of on Hive. Hive account@mipiano and Hive account@millycf1976 are two very good examples.

Thank you so much, Hive account@livinguktaiwan, for sharing your journey and experiences on the platform in such depth. Your dedication to curating quality content and building communities are truly inspiring. I loved learning about the newbies guide and all the other projects.

Your advice to newcomers is invaluable, and your positive outlook on the potential of the Hive community is uplifting. Keep being and thank you for all you do to make hive a better place for everyone

Oh and thank you for clearing us on your username hehe, I admit I was also confused the first time I saw it ti you explained it 🤗

Thank you Hive account@dfinney for the suggestion. Thanks to Hive account@thekittygirl for all her support and to everyone who has supported me as well 🙏