Thank you @thekittygirl you have echoed much what I was going to say. I saw your post when I was not at my keyboard, @harlowjourney, and am now here. I have read the other comments and endorse many of them.
First, to the elephant in the room: your having been muted in the SBC was a consequence of some pressure on the founder - from other quarters. Least said about that, the better. I am also an admin in that community and didn't know about it, and once our mutual friend, @wesphilbin, reached out, we dealt with it. Please do accept my unreserved apology. As it so happens we also investigated and found other accounts muted and we have no idea why. So, I also need to thank you because you made us revisit a few things. But still, urgh!! And again, I am sorry and lessons learned.
This brings me to what I do want to share: I, too, have been around on this blockchain since mid-2017. My first six months - well they didn't happen - I was too overwhelmed. I returned and at some point also got caught in whale crossfire. There was another incident and about which I was oblivious until it was drawn to my attention, and which I'll not labour. Suffice it to say that all of it was, to put it mildly, horrible and upsetting and very, very stressful. I considered leaving. I received overwhelming support from my blog pals and quietly changed my strategy. For the most part, and until just over a year ago, just really kept my head down and engaged with "my peeps".
By and large, the Hive is a kinder place than S******t. I will say, though, that in the last month or two, there has been a bit of a shift and because I'm involved with an onboarding programme, I see it. This is in the number of scam and puppet and just gamer accounts that are being registered. By the 100s. The quality of writing/post and the amount of plagiarism, well, is of great concern. As a consequence, some folk are hyper vigilant on one hand, and others, have a knee jerk reaction on the other. My sense (and experience tells me) that this will settle again. I also know, that if you allow that, and find your niche, you will flourish.
Again, and on behalf of Silver Bloggers, our unreserved apology an an invitation to join us.
Thank you @fionasfavourites. The way you worded this, it sounds like there was pressure on the founder to mute ME, which seems odd and implausible. I just don't feel like I could be that important to anyone. Lol. So, I think I must have misunderstood. Either that or someone is out to get me and I have not been sufficiently paranoid. (Again, lol.)
I really appreciate your reaching out. I am perhaps oversensitive at times. I try to have a thick skin, but I thought what I wrote was reasonable and it seemed appropriate to the silver bloggers community.
I have tried researching how I can tell whether I have been muted in a community, but I have not found the answer to this yet.
Thanks again for taking the time to set things straight.
You're very welcome and I do hope that we have a clean slate. I do hope that you will join our community. Please feel free to tag me when you next post there :D
I think the more said about this the better. I. The interests of transparency, why are people who create a community being pressurised to censor other members. Who are these other quarters and why this member?
Please read my response explaining the muting @thekittygirl; it certainly was not aimed at the user, but rather the fact that the post in question was a #dreamchallenge meant for another community, the ThoughtfulDailyPost community. Once I realised this was a new user, I immediately unmuted it and in fact promoted it on Twitter, in OCD and on my own personal feed.
Thank you for explaining! It sounds like an unfortunate incident, indeed, and I am glad all is sorted now! 🙂