The ssg-community account has been in operation for over 2 years now. It was created in March 2018 because the community at the time was going through a major controversy regarding ownership of the pre-existing vote service. With the support and endorsement of some of the heavyweights of the community at that time ssg-community quickly became a valued service that the community was able to truly own and rally behind. We held a number of Monster Raffles of precious metals where community members donated prizes to raise money and build up the service for the good of all. Even though we have been through a savage bear market in crypto, a destabilising blockchain fork and real world catastrophe this year – the community and ssg-community are still here with us. That is testament to how strong this community has been…..but things could always be better.
It seems to me like the community has fallen out of love with ssg-community – once fondly referred to as our “Precious Mermaid”. To me it looks like the service is not really doing the job it was built for. The way I see things there are 2 really important things about the community here on STEEM and HIVE. The People and the Content. I personally think that ssg-community has done a pretty good job supporting the People who are members of the community, but the Content has fallen through the cracks. While the community may be active and vibrant in Discord (which is great) the public facing content and engagement (which was always an important part of the vision for ssg-community) seems to have declined. I’d like to propose some changes to how ssg-community operates to try and restore its original vision and once again prioritise support for the People AND the Content of this great community.
The Tag used by members on STEEM and HIVE has always been a central part of how the community collates its content to promote precious metals and communicate publically. Tag Qualification is about setting up ssg-community to only vote on subscribing members posts which use the #SilverGoldStackers tag. The idea here is to focus the upvotes (and thus financial incentive) on content that is relevant to stacking precious metals and/or the community itself. The Tag Enforcement is about ensuring that only relevant content is posted to the tag. I’m proposing that people who post to the tag with content that is not about precious metals or this community would first have a couple of warnings and then have their ssg-community vote removed, or for repeat offences even be downvoted. This policy would ensure that ssg-community once again promotes and incentivises only the content relevant to the community it was intended to serve.
In the beginning ssg-community gave out a daily vote to subscribers. Now I believe it is 7 votes in 7 days. It still requires (on average) a daily post for subscribers to get a good ROI. What I am proposing here is that instead of getting say a 10% vote every day, if you don’t post for 3 full days then your vote allocation accrues and you will get a 3 x 10% = 30% vote (capped at 100%). This won’t really affect hard core community members who post daily anyways, but some of the less active members will be able to get involved and receive value from subscribing to @ssg-community. Not everyone can write about precious metals or the community every day so this policy will allow a much more flexible post frequency for subscribers and it might help entice a few members back into the fold who we’ve lost over the last 2 years because life has gotten too busy to post daily. The content of those members is still valuable and has been missed.
Obviously, these policy changes need some customisation of the technical code that runs the voting service so it would require some software development and a return to hosting the service on a Virtual Private Server. I am once again putting my hand up to do this work and return to a role alongside @welshstacker as an operator of the ssg-community account. He has done a fantastic job keeping things going over the last 2 years but he is going to need help to get this implemented. So, just like 2 years ago when I handed over the reins to focus on real life issues, I am asking the community to restore me alongside @welshstacker on the same terms. I will once again do all the development and setup work for free, I only ask that the community pay for the VPS (costing $5 USD a month) and give me the same 50% membership discount on the service that was granted to @welshstacker 2 years ago.
Even though I haven’t been very active in the community of late (I was always a bit of an outsider anyway) I have a great relationship with @welshstacker and have kept in touch with him and some of the core community members. I’ve run this proposal past him and he supports it, so I’d like to ask it to be put to a vote by the membership as a Petition For Change in accordance with the Governance Framework for ssg-community. At this stage I am only proposing that we implement this on HIVE. If it works we can look at implementing it on STEEM too if that’s what the members want.
I sincerely believe that these changes will be in the best long term interests of the broader community or I wouldn’t be proposing them. I personally believe the community is ready to really start growing and prospering again so we need to get some solid foundations in place to support that growth and prosperity.
Just out of sheer nosiness, if people are not full members of the community, but happened to make a post about stacking, would they be penalised for using the tag or dropping it in the community?
Definitely, 100%, NOT. If your post is about precious metals in any way, please use the tag and share with the community
As long as its relevant content then its exactly what we want to happen. Its how we have always recruited in the past and will be where our new members come from.
I like the idea of Accrued vote since it is simply impossible for me to post content daily and twice a week at best. I've been content with the current method only that 6 of my 7 vote entitlement never gets used or gifted for anyone to benefit . I assume that the bot benefits from my not using my unused votes.
The other members do benefit from members who delegate but don't post daily, but if you are posting about metals I'd much rather see you benefit than someone posting daily about a subject totally unrelated. You are exactly the sort of member these changes are designed to serve better.
I plonked some of my thoughts into discord. I made your post its own channel. 😊
Thanks for doing that. My timezone has always made it hard to engage in real time conversation via discord but I will have a read through and try to respond there too.
BACKGROUND: The inception of communities is precisely to emphasize the VALUE of the community. It is apparent that some have not fully transitioned to the concept of communities versus tags. Using the tag #silvergoldstackers doesn't mean that the article is posted on the Silver Gold Stackers community frontend, and vice-versa.
- This is well and good. But where is the incentive for those who post daily about precious metals. Some members do not find it necessary to post from the Silver Gold Stackers community frontend because by using just the tag #silvergoldstackers accords subscribing members the upvote from @ssg-community. And so they seek additional votes (and there is nothing wrong with this. I'd do the same except that my sense of community-spirit prevents me) by posting from other front-ends, specifically LeoFinance. Daily, our Silver Gold Stackers community lose precious metals related articles to the LeoFinance community frontend authored by SGS members that are not documented in our Silver Gold Stackers community. Incidentally, LeoFinance and other communities will consider upvoting only those articles that use their community frontends, and not the tag. - Downvotes almost always carry with it a very negative effect. Some communities will just block an article from appearing on their feed.People become members of the Silver Gold Stackers community firstly because of their interest in precious metals. Members of the Silver Gold Stackers community receive the upvotes from @ssg-community not because of their interest in precious metals but because they have delegated Hive Power or paid the equivalent in Hive to @ssg-community for the subscription.
The upvote is given to any article authored by the subscriber. The upvote is no way related to the subject matter of the article or the quality of the content (that is why "shit post" are voted on. And I may add that an @ssg-community upvote on "shit post" articles give a message that the Silver Gold Stackers community condones shit post. by upvoting such articles. I am sure that I am not the only one who thinks that these are certainly the type of articles that calls for downvotes!).
CONSIDERATIONS:
The use of the #silvergoldstackers tag be open to the entire HIVE COMMUNITY. We welcome and encourage anyone to use that tag, just like all other communities #GEMS, #OCD, #LEOFINANCE, #NEOXIAN, etc. Members of the Silver Gold Stackers must always use this tag for any and all of their articles, precious metals related or not. After all... we are a community of persons and not a community of articles. It is in the use of this tag that we learn about each other and the many interests in our lives that we want to share with the community. TAGS are usually unmoderated. @ssg-community does not have to worry about monitoring the use of this tag because it only upvotes subscribing members anyways. Members who paid for the subscription will receive the upvote regardless of content.
I propose an additional upvote be accorded to members who post precious metals articles from the Silver Gold Stackers frontend. This is to maintain the presence of the Silver Gold Stackers community in this blockchain and entice members to use the Silver Gold Stackers frontend. To further encourage members to write daily articles on precious metals using the community frontend (versus rewarding infrequent users), the incentive % upvote increases from article 1 through article7.
If @ssg-community means to use its downvote, I suggest that downvotes be given to members who post shit articles to receive upvotes from the @ssg-commuity, which is clearly an abuse of the bot. @ssg-community
This may necessitate another bot programmed to vote on any article written from the community frontend, unless curation is done manually.
My 2 cents worth.I agree with @silversaver888, I think the use of an ADDITIONAL upvote would encourage members to post to the"Community" frontend." The #silvergoldstackers tag should continue to be used for all post, plus all non precious metal post with the regular upvote.
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👍
(1)If we are to reward those who post about precious metals with less frequency by accumulating the %upvotes, then we should provide a likewise provide an equal incentive to those who post daily by a graduating % for every successive articles on precious metals posted daily.
(2) Why penalize the majority who are doing their best to post quality precious metals articles for the shit post articles of the few. What must be done is to penalize hard the chit posters, with a downvote that is higher in % than what the @ssg-community auto upvoted the shit post.
(3)Spare those who do good for this community. We all need encouragement from this community.
Thanks, @silvertop 🥰🌺🤙
Thank you my friend, I think to put out a simple post/ a shit post sends a message to everyone that all I want is an upvote.
We all want that upvote, but it's more than that....The people that I have met here, from around the world make staying up late worthwhile.
I think this is going to tear our community apart if it doesn't stop soon. I remember a couple of Month ago you said no one was posting or commenting, and you were afraid the community was dying. Now prices have risen, and people are coming out of the woodwork that haven't said or posted anything in Month....some six Month!
They want change........Have a good night my friend!!😍😍😀
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.
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.
@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:
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.
😊
And @vgholdingsllc does the Membership posts!
Thanks, sis @dfinney!🥰🌺🤙
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.
Less support from WHOM?
VOTED DOWN by WHO?
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.
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:
... 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.
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.
The communities "feature" on Hive is garbage.
(1)Name the points of failure.
(2) How does the policy changes you have suggested addresses that failure.
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.
It does not address the failure. It avoids it by removing the dependency.
I like the idea of accruing votes but the bot is still used by many who busted a nut to join and never posted about precious metals again and just use it as a voting bot.
This is what this is hoping to address. A community bot, for the community, promoting the community.
Hi. When you were away you could not see that within Hive the use of upvote bots was punished by some whales. People like silverstackeruk can tell you more. I believe his bot votes were countervoted by some whales with equal size downvotes takin him out of business. We kept low profile for this reason. Therefore discord is more suitable to discuss.
Bro, my bot is still going. That never happened where people/whales counteracted the upvote. You're maybe thinking of someone else.
SUre? Now I have to search back in discord when we talked about it. I thought someone complained he had been downvoted after receiving the cryptosicko upvote.
I am aware and also concerned about the risks to ssg-community and that is also one of the reasons why I want to reform it, lift the standards and return some focus to the content that it supports.
I liked it just the way it is, I'm not seeing the problem but I don't know what all is going on in the background.
Posted Using LeoFinance
I'm not really aware of anything going on in the background either, but I did do some analysis for ssg-community when I had my HiveSQL access this week which picked up some of the issues I'm trying to address here.
In your analysis, you should combine numbers of the #silvergolddtackers and the Hive-136819 numbers.
Many posts would have contained both tags so it's not as simple as adding those numbers together, but I am not talking about the analysis I posted about tag usage.
I did additional analysis of the ssg-community account voting and the content of the posts it was voting on, which I did not publish.
I totally agree with your two policies and that the $5 each month and the 50% discount should be made true.
Posted Using LeoFinance
I have no idea what you're talking about... You haven't run this by me at all!!
LOL. They can't tell you are joking man. Not even a single emoji!
I never joke!! Just like I never use sarcasm as a self defense mechanism...
C'mon, give me an eggplant at least :p
DISCLAIMER - 🍆
Don't take this personally (or do if that's your thing) but I'm not certain I understand.. you quit. Quit posting... commenting.. discord.. for 2 years... 2 years. And you just wanna waltz back into being in charge...? On the same level as @welshstacker? Oh wait... more.. you want them to pay your $5/ month fees? You must think you're the Jesus Christ of precious metals. I'll upvote your post.. but as far as putting you in charge.. 👎
I handed over the reins after it was set up 2 years ago so I could focus on some real life issues. I did not quit the community and I was still involved in the monster raffles and still contributed content over that 2 years. This year has been tough for me and I'm not alone there. I won't go into it because frankly its none of your business.
You can attack my character with name calling and such and that might work to sway some of the newer members against this proposal. I would hope that some of the older members who remember what I've done might defend my character, but I am a big boy - I could see this kind of slur coming and I do not expect to be defended.
For the record, I did all the initial work on ssg-community for free and ran it for 3 months for zero personal gain. When I handed it off I did not receive a single penny or vote from ssg-community over all this time, nor did I ask or expect one. The core guys who were around me insisted on paying my expenses for the VPS that I had set up, but I did not ask for that as at the time I was happy to wear the cost.
The VPS cost is an expense incurred. It does not go to me, it goes to the company that hosts the server.
How is handing over the reins different from quitting?
It certainly IS my business. I'm a SSG member just like everyone else in the group. You wanna be in charge when it convenient for you.. otherwise you quit. I hate when the leader quits. It looks bad.
Also your last content was 6 months ago. 12 months for anything precious metal related.
I didn't attack your character.. not did I use any slur... I believe I compared you to Jesus Christ.. that's only a attack if you're athiest.. are you?
Btw.. EVERYBODY has real life issues.. #yourenotspecial
Maybe I'm outta line. IDGAF. But I still vote against you being in charge.. how long till you "hand over the reins" and disappear again? Maybe had you started actually communicating with the community I would feel differently. But you just walking in trying to do things your way is bullshit.
I can vouch for @buggedout refusing to take any payment. We offered and he refused. The $5 is to pay for server the bot operates on.
My personal business is my own, not yours. I don't owe you a fucking thing and I make no apology for needing to take time out. That does not invalidate the contribution I have made to this community in the past.
I never saw myself as a leader. I was a custodian for a while. I stepped up and offered my skills and time to solve a problem and then handed it off when the problem was solved. Truth be told I will probably do it again. The community has always been bigger than me and I sure as shit don't need to do any of this.
Right now I am stepping up and trying to solve a problem that I see and offering my skills once again. I know this puts me in the firing line for some people because money is involved. For me it's never been about being popular or going with the flow. If I have to stand up get some shit thrown at me because I'm trying to make things better, I will. If the community wants to tell me to fuck off then I'm gone.
Sigh... That reminds me that I used the wrong tag for my post!
Lol I noticed that and wondered if that was why no one saw your sweet GOLD! 🤗
Yeah, I should have posted straight to the right hive community rather than using the tag!