RE: Seeking Reform for SSG-Community Voting Service

[buggedout]

Thanks for the well considered reply. I think that you and I both want whats best for the broader community but we have some slightly different ideas on how to move forward.

We both seem to agree that we don't want ssg-community voting on "shitposts". It's a bad look for us all and it puts ssg-community at risk.

We both want the #silvergoldstackers tag to be open to the entire HIVE community, regardless of the front end used. This is important if we ever want to get our message out and grow our membership.

My concern over the community feature is that I find it quite limited while the Tag is open and anyone can use it. The community is effectively owned and controlled by appointed (not elected) mods. Mods have considerable control, they can censor content and silence anything or anyone they dont like. If our mods go inactive or dissappear for any reason there is no recourse if control hasn't been passed on. The ssg-community account was originally created because the guy who created the pre-existing bot at some point decided that he "owned" it after it had accumulated about $7K USD of value and we had no recourse, so I am very wary of repeating that kind of mistake. If there was the ability to do on-chain election of mods in the community feature it'd be a different story. This is no slight on our current mods (whom I greatly respect) it's just the way the feature works.

I also think that the members posting via Leo Finance are still contributing valuable and relevant content for SGS so I don't really want to be telling them that they MUST use the front end we want them to.

We can always use extra tags like #sgslife or #ladiesofsgs4eva for members posting non-metal content.

Comments

[silversaver888]

It goes without saying that we respect all the freedoms of every individual in our community, @buggedout.

Anyone can do whatever they please, post their precious metals articles wherever they want and what they deem best for their stake and that which will benefit them the most.

And where does that leave the Silver Gold Stackers Community page? Answer: It will be in the current state and situation that you have called for action from us to improve in the first place, will it not?

I am here every day. It is my observation that every SGS member who posts about precious metals already uses the #silvergoldstackers tag. The correct question to ask is: how can SGS encourage members to post in our Silver Gold Stackers community page. Isn't this what we want to accomplish? If not then what is the problem that you want to solve? Has @ssg-community ever done curation, other than put in auto-vote at a max of 7 articles a week those articles written by Silver Gold Stackers members who have subscribed to the @ssg-community service by paying into it by delegation or the equivalent in Hive? Whatever topic a subscriber of @ssg-community writes about and voted on by @ssg-community benefits both @ssg-community and the subscriber, even "shit posts".

Are you saying that posting from the Silver Gold Stackers Community is not critical, and it is sufficient to use the #silvergoldstackers tag?

While we agree on many important points in this discussion, I think that you have totally missed my entire point. Perhaps you have misunderstood the use of the Hive-136819 Silver Gold Stackers community and use of the tag #silvergoldstackers . #silvergoldstackers is NOT the community hive. It is just a tag, just like #sgslife and #ladiesogsgs4eva are just tags.

Check this out, @buggedout: https://hive.blog/created/hive-136819 See that your first article and this article which we are having this exchange right now, does not appear in Silver Gold Stackers Community page.

This one here: https://hive.blog/trending/silvergoldstackers is the unmoderated tag. The #silvergoldstackers tag is what we use for every article we write, precious metals or not. It takes keeps us together in one place. With the #silvergoldstackers, there is no need to use the #ssglife tag. The #ssglife tag came into place before the existence of the COMMUNITIES, and it was to keep the #steemsilvergold feed purely about precious metals... which is exactly what the Silver Gold Stackers Community is all about.

The community page is where we encourage, not a demand, precious metals article to be posted from because this is exactly what the community is about: PRECIOUS METALS!

The concept around community hives is that one may join a community as a guest or as a member of that community. These are some of the communities that SGS members use:

Please know that I fully understand your good intentions and where you are coming from. You have saved SteemSilverGold and readily stepped up to the plate to help us survive that turmoil. Without you, perhaps this community would no longer be here. Many of us who are aware of that are very grateful and will never forget. In this discussion, you and I know that there is no intent to disrespect anyone in our dear community, and at the same time, we do not want to marginalize anyone who may be silent in the background. As for myself, I dare will challenge anyone here to question my dedication, commitment, support, and love for this community. I have deliberately and actively inserted myself into this discussion to ensure that we are objective and balanced in our approach to improving this community. Also, I have to state that may not have the full picture of what is happening in the background because as an ordinary member of this community, I am not preview to anything that goes on within the "Leadership" and MODs of this community. I am personally always grateful and appreciative of their voluntary service to our community and realize that it may be a thankless job.

Thanks for your patience.

[dfinney]

@silversaver888 You are no ordinary member! 🤗

As for this:

I am not preview to anything that goes on within the "Leadership" and MODs of this community.

Sure you are. Not much goes on. 😉

But basically:

• Welshie has maintained the bot and kept it working on two platforms. He keeps track of the liquid donations and delegations. Does the math to figure out how much each tier subscription costs. Makes sure the VP of @ssg-community stays in a good range. Organizes leases. Answers everyone’s questions about the bot and missed votes. He and I chat to make sure only members are benefitting from support. Like if a new member joins or a random tries to delegate without being a member. While not technically a mod I am sure he has put in the most work for all us since moving to Hive.
• Ray handled everything to get the steem round sorted. The ordering, the voting, keeping track of design submissions, working with the mint, collecting money and steem and crypto for the payments, sorting and mailing everyone’s orders. When tense situations happen from time to time Ray is always the one to sort it out. And of course he is a very hardcore stacker so is great at promoting the importance of silver and gold stacking. And he has done so many giveaways from his personal stack over the years to keep a community buzz going.
• I do administrative stuff like make discord channels and add roles to folks on discord. And update member lists in all the odd places they exist. Like the community page, the @myprecious following list, the autovote stuff from the @myprecious account before we moved to Hive. When someone nominates a new member I go look at the nominee’s posts (blogs and comments) to see what they are sharing and how they interact on the blockchain and in discord if they are there too. I have been slower with this stuff compared to 2019 just because this year has been a rough one.

That is the gist. 😁 We have each have kind of fallen into our own niche for things. So outside of general banter, we will consult one another mostly if we need help or advice.

😊

[thekittygirl]

And @vgholdingsllc does the Membership posts!

[silversaver888]

Thanks, sis @dfinney!🥰🌺🤙

[buggedout]

I actually agree that ideally we would have members using the community page and front end but I know that if we try and force that with this proposal then it will get even LESS support and will be voted down. That means ZERO reform.

So, I'll take the small improvement and would be happy to help you promote the community page as I still have hope that the community feature will be enhanced eventually to have better governance controls.

[silversaver888]

Less support from WHOM?
VOTED DOWN by WHO?

[buggedout]

By the members. The ssg-community account is an asset owned by the community so I am calling for a vote. If the members don't want these proposed changes then they don't happen.

[dfinney]

Just two clarifications about the community...

I was elected not appointed.
Though An end date for that would probably be a good idea. 😄

I have admin rights to the community but that doesn’t let me do anything. I can update the blurb about the community and assign the role of member. I can see the activity log. I can also add members to the community. I don’t think I can remove anyone. Only change their role.

But to say this:

The community is effectively owned and controlled by appointed (not elected) mods. Mods have considerable control, they can censor content and silence anything or anyone they dont like. If our mods go inactive or dissappear for any reason there is no recourse if control hasn't been passed on.

... is not correct.

Current accounts with access to do this same stuff. ⬇️

I can also see/edit this page but don’t know if others can.

[buggedout]

I mean no disrespect @dfinney - I know there was an election some time ago as I supported you becoming a mod. What I meant is that there is no election mechanism. The "owner" is (I believe) @guiltyparties and the other 3 mods all seem to have stepped away. We very nearly had zero active mods due to your own real life challenges recently, through no fault of your own, so the community could easily have been "lost". Thankfully it hasn't.

I think the communities is the start of a good feature but it is so limited with some central points of failure that I don't think we should put all the SGS eggs in that basket right now.

[summertooth]

The communities "feature" on Hive is garbage.

[silversaver888]

but it is so limited with some central points of failure

I am slow and cannot read in between the lines. Like I said, I may not be understanding well because I lack background info. So please... for my benefit, please be clear and direct:

(1)Name the points of failure.

(2) How does the policy changes you have suggested addresses that failure.

[buggedout]

1. The community hive is "owned" and has "mods" so it is dependant on them remaining active and acting in the best interests of the community. We have direct experience of what can happen when an "owner" of a community asset does not act in the community interest. It cost us many thousands of $$ in early 2018.

2. It does not address the failure. It avoids it by removing the dependency.