Official #Silvergoldstackers Post: Potential Membership Changes- 13th August 2020

Hello Silver Gold Stackers of Hive!


hive stackers.GIF


So this isn't a normal membership post.

Every year in waves, there are rumblings about our membership list. Who is a member? Who should stay a member? What do members need to do to maintain their membership? These questions are hard. Depending on the decisions we make there is a chance of hurting real people. Plus, folks opinions for how to manage the list vary.

With all of this in mind, I occasionally look at the list. One by one I click on every single profile. I look at your blogs. I look at your comments. I look to see if you are posting about metals or commenting on other peoples posts about metals. I think about if you are in our discord. I think about what I know of your real lives. I remember the contributions you have made in past years.

Today I made a spreadsheet, basically breaking folks down into active, not as active and not active at all lists. Some members are super active. Take @welshstacker. He posts all the time. He runs @ssg-community, he is on discord, he made one of our Steem Rounds. No one would wonder if he is a member of our silver stacking group. Some people post a lot but have completely stopped posting precious metals or even commenting on precious metal posts done by others. (For what it is worth, that is really not the best.) Some people (like me @dfinney) have been a lot less active since the group moved to Hive. Some people haven't posted at all in a year and others have not yet posted to Hive.

After checking this all out, I would like to propose this list below as our new membership list. This list is the easier cut and removes everyone who hasn't posted or commented on Hive. If you are reading this, don't see your name and are gearing up to start posting to Hive, please let me know. We never want to let members go, but if you are gone already removing you from the rolls seems reasonable. Similarly, if your name is on this list, but you are bored with precious metals and not interested in continuing your membership, please also let me know.

As you can see this list is a lot shorter than the last one. I am putting this out there as something to think about and discuss. Things can definitely be tweaked (see what I said above about voluntarily removing yourself or asking not to be taken off). If folks seem generally supportive of this list thinning, we can move forward and build up again from here. Also, if I have stuffed something up completely (like you are posting all the time and I took you off) please let me know. Looking at so many profiles in one day makes me a little loopy. :)

Also, I am very aware this year around the world is unprecedented in so many ways. Between the pandemic, job losses, home schooling kids who you thought would be at school away from home... ALL the things… never getting around to using Hive isn't a total surprise. I know my own life has sucked in 2020 and I hadn't posted from my personal Hive account until just a few days ago. If you are overwhelmed by real life but still want to be in our stacker crew, you are always welcome. Just let us know so we don't lose you in the shuffle.

So you may read this post and have other thoughts.

Perhaps you want a BIGGER cut to the list? Maybe you think the roadmap to membership needs to be revisited? Maybe you think we should cut everyone from this list and all opt in fresh on Hive? We might need to talk about how community upvotes are distributed? If you have thoughts on these things let's discuss them on discord. Changes can be made, but I always feel like tackling one thing at a time works best.

I know there is at least one (maybe two) pending member nominations. I would like to hold on making decisions on those until the current list feels good. I would also like to remind everyone that one or two precious metals posts by someone shouldn't be enough to trigger a nomination. I would hope nominees would show a continued interest in metals and be keen to engage (via comments or on discord) with other community members.

Take care friends.

~ @dfinney

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As long as people aren't just using SGS for the upvote, then I'm supportive of them staying part of it. I don't post much anymore, but I still enjoy reading SGS articles and commenting in Discord from time to time. SGS has some of the best people on this crazy platform!

Glad to see I'm on the list

It's a conversation we definitely need to have as long as we can keep it civil, and this is a good start.

I personally would prefer to see firm "criteria" for what qualifies one as a member and put some governance around that. Ideally that governance would be well understood and decentralised to some extent so we don't get one person in a position of authority using discretionary powers. We were an innovative and model community on STEEM and we can be again on HIVE.

I thought we had an rough outline of criteria to remain a member and it was pretty loose. Posting about PMs (occasionally, at least) or commenting on PM posts or delegating to the bot (even if one is not posting and receiving a vote)...
I think there were more but the jist is that people are involved in one way or another and not abusing the upvote bot.
I tend to hate rules and feel that as long as folks are present on Hive and not abusing the bot by posting memes or some shit then they should still be on the list. That's my 2 Hives-worth, anyhow.

I agree that rules tend to suck but they let you know where you stand and whats expected of you. Unfortunately putting criteria in black and white means it can be gamed, but the alternative is a lot of "discretionary power" in the hands of authority which I think we need to avoid. After all, we are a stacker community but we are a crypto community too that should really value decentralisation if we learnt anything from Justin Sun.

Maybe the old criteria is a bit loose, maybe it hasn't been enforced. I don't know. We have been through a lot - not just SSG but HIVE and even the whole world - so if we've regressed a bit that's understandable. But the HIVE platform has stablised so it seems a good time to take stock, consolidate and start rebuilding with the lessons we've learnt so we can be ready for the next growth phase.

I don't see Ed's name.... :(

I got you bro!

20200813_164506.jpg

I KNOW!!! I can I tell you leaving your name off was making me VERY SAD. But here you are commenting so.... back on?

I like the idea of culling the Membership List. Folks can always re-join later if they become active again, so I don't see a problem in doing so. Great proposal!

Great work @dfinney! A good start to the culling.
But, oh @plaid,where art thou!?

Maybe this is like a call to action to bring people back?

PS - there are three columns on the member list. As I am looking at this from my phone I only see 2 columns until I flip my phone into landscape mode. 😊

May have another potential member coming along onto Hive soon.

This is quite a delicate subject. Last time we agreed only to take out people who had not posted for a long time and we discovered that some delegated quite some POWER to the community account. They were silent sponsors one could say. We agreed (by voting) not to make it a big issue and occasionally posting about silver is good enough. As only delegators get an upvote I would not call it unfair to get a vote on each post. Whatever we do or not it has to be voted on. First check some reactions ofcourse.

We hypothetically thought some might be delegators. Turns out they weren’t. However, I will double check the names this time. Thank you! 🙂

Also, delegation does not earn or guarantee membership. The reward one receives/shares from delegation is an optional benefit of membership. 🥰

BTW, what's the harm in keeping them all! Of course, the smaller the group, the cosier it is. But we can re-group members in 2-3 clssification/labels according to certain pre-decided criteria and can also assign them different roles on Discord.

Secondly, there is also another issue we need to decide upon. What are we going to do with the bot's holdings on other chains like Steem & Blurt. Should we move everything to Hive or continue on all chains. I see bot's power is lying unused on Blurt. So why not sell all those and move it to Hive instead.

I can answer the first part of your question how I see it.

The list has been cut similarly before. So far none of those folks have reappeared. If they do come back, well yay! Welcome back. If they are gone it seems reasonable for them to be off the list.

I just made a bigger deal of this cut because the state of the world plus Blockchain upheaval.

Some of the people that would come off this time haven’t posted or commented in a year. All of the people who I proposed removing have not used hive. So why inflate our numbers? Also, as we are on a new(ish) blockchain it seems nice to have a fresh start.

Discord has some of the layering you mention. It is a bit of a pain. 1. Not everyone is on discord. 2. Not everyone’s user names match from blockchain to discord. Right now discord has roles for members, admins, mods, VG has a role for putting out the nomination posts.

As for your questions related to the ssg-community account, I appreciate you asking. I don’t have involvement with the bot so don’t have real answers. I am pretty sure for now that the bot is still doing its thing on steem like it does on hive. @welshstacker would have more info. I know Blurt is a whole other crazy beast no one has really figured out yet.

I appreciate your clarity provided in discord and think it is a
reasonable and good thing. Also the fact that you told me all
anyone has to do is say "Hey Guys! I'm Back!!!" lol 👍👍👍

So I went to our Silver Gold Stackers Community page and the photo below is I see.

SGS Community Feed1.jpg

SGS Community Feed2.jpg

While we all use the silvergoldstackers tag (unmoderated page, which is a great venue to learn more about our fellow-stackers not only about metals but other interests as well and thus develop personal connection with each other, while at the same time receive the ssg-community upvotes) in most of our articles, it would be ideal if all precious metals related articles be posted in our Silver Gold Stackers community page which is dedicated to Precious Metals.

It is the Silver Gold Stackers community page that is listed in the Hive Communities section and is a great resource for all of Hive on precious metals

It would be ideal that all precious metals articles were likewise found there, in addition to the unmoderated #silvergoldstackers feed.

Perhaps we (SGS) can provide an incentive for more of us to use the community page and more often. How? Well... ask yourself that question. What would be a great incentive for me to post my precious metals articles from the Silver Gold Stackers frontend? OR... why am I using ANOTHER community frontend in posting my precious metals articles? Is it all upvote and token related?

Other communities insist that one use their front end to get an upvote. Communities compete to have people use their front ends.

They say that the proof is in the pudding... and I personally think that our success as a community, and our presence in the blockchain, will be best served if articles on precious metals are posted from the community front end.

I love this community and each one of you. I hope that each one of you feel that you are well-supported by comments and upvotes. It goes without saying that I personally respect everyone's choice of where to post articles.

It’s a good starting point. But it absolutely needs to be done.

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