tldr; I built our tipping bots like a nightclub bouncer with a PhD. My bots aren’t your average loose cannons, they’re bouncers with attitude. They check IDs, stop flash mobs, keep spammers on ice, and make sure the Hive servers don’t melt when things get busy. Here’s the behind-the-scenes story of how I hardened them against abuse and made them play nice with the network.
How it all started
When I first rolled out tipping bots, together with my partner-in-crime @tydynrain , it felt like throwing free pizza into a festival crowd. People loved it, but the spammers loved it more. Suddenly, we had armies of brand-new accounts showing up like “hey buddy, got another slice?” And if you’ve ever seen a blockchain node scream under load, you know it’s uglier than my first attempts at playing “Smoke on the Water” on bass.
So I had two choices: let chaos reign or build a digital bouncer crew that could sniff out freeloaders, cool down the hyperactive, and keep the infrastructure smiling. Guess which road I took?
How I battle abuse and spam
Community and tag filters
The bots can be scoped to certain communities or tags. If the command drops outside those zones, the bot ignores it. Think of it as “VIP lounge access only.”
Trust gates: account age + reputation
New accounts and low-rep shadows don’t get through the door. If you’re too fresh or your rep stinks, the bot politely says, “Not tonight, champ.”
Swarm shield (aka sybil shutter)
If a post suddenly gets rushed by a flash mob of new accounts, the bot slams the shutters down. Everyone goes home, no farm party on my watch.
Blocklists for the usual suspects
Some names just scream trouble. Those folks are blocked, whether they try to send or receive tips. It’s my version of a permanent “you’re not on the list.”
Cool-downs for overenthusiastic tippers
You can’t just spray tips like you’re making it rain in the club. The bot enforces cool-downs on:
same invoker/recipient pairs
invoker-to-anyone globally
recipients on the same post
Basically: take a breath between sprints, champ.
Post and daily caps
No post becomes a tip piñata and no recipient turns into a black hole of tokens. There are limits. They keep the game fair and the farm rings bored.
How I keep Hive nodes happy instead of screaming
Node rotation with backoff
I don’t hammer one RPC node until it cries uncle. I rotate through nodes and back off when one struggles. Respect the nodes, respect the people running them.
Timeouts everywhere
No endless waiting. If a call drags, the bot cuts it loose. Fail fast, move on.
Jittered retries
Bots retry with random jitter, not all at the same millisecond. That way, we don’t accidentally DDoS the network ourselves.
Adaptive polling and lag clipping
If the bot falls behind, it won’t waste time replaying ancient history. It skips closer to “now,” gets relevant again, and stops clogging pipes.
Hive-Engine friendliness
Queries are clamped, retries are graceful, and rate-limits are respected. The bot doesn’t whine when it gets told to chill.
Caching the important stuff
Account age and rep checks are cached. No reason to ask the chain 50 times a minute about the same guy. Saves calls, saves stress.
Why I did it this way
Because Hive is bigger than me and my bots. If I build sloppy, I trash communities, overload infrastructure, and make life miserable for everyone else. That’s not me. I want Hive to thrive, not choke.
So I built in layers of defense and layers of respect. It’s not just about making bots that “work”, it’s about making bots that work without wrecking the place.
A little ask from me
If you dig this philosophy, if you appreciate the grind of building tools that actually respect the community and the network, then I’ve got one small favor to ask:
👉 Vote for my witness, @botlord.
Every witness vote is like jet fuel. It keeps me building, keeps the bots sharp, and keeps Hive strong. And honestly? It also keeps me smiling, which means I’ll probably build even weirder, cooler stuff down the line.
📸 about my images
All photos are my own, shot on my iPhone and sometimes edited in Lightroom.
AI images? Those are created by me too, using my own prompts.
Explore more: Borniet On Hive
🤖 vote for botlord
Help keep Hive strong and decentralized by supporting my witness node.
Vote for @botlord — one click, big impact!
💡 support my work
Like my tools or photos? Buy me a coffee.
💥 Tipping bots
Bring fun and positivity to Hive with tipping:
!INDEED – reward engagement → learn more
!HOPE – share positivity → learn more
!WEIRD – embrace the quirky → learn more
