Hello Silver Gold Stackers of Hive!
It's been MANY moons since we last connected.
Well, the nightmare that was 2020 FINALLY ended. Hopeful for 2021 to be a new beginning verses a dark, brooding sequel.
Before getting into the meat and potatoes of this post, I wanted to remind you of something fun. Most Saturdays at noon (USA Pacific Standard time) @summertooth hosts a community voice chat in our discord. Lots of people come and go during the chat. Some join on voice and some just listen and type. Summer started this early in the pandemic. It has proven to be an enjoyable way to connect each week. Conversations cover everything from crypto, coins, family, gardening, hiking, covid, music, and all the stuff of life. If you are interested in making a more personal connection with your blockchain friends, please join us.
Administrative "Stuff"
This is OLD NEWS, but a reminder if you have forgotten or a refresher if you have been MIA... Late 2020, following a community proposal by @buggedout, there was a vote to change how the @ssg-community account supports our stacking crew on Hive. This vote brought two changes.
- First off, @ssg-community only upvotes the posts of DELEGATING MEMBERS who post about precious metals using the tag #silvergoldstackers. You have to use the tag and your posts need to be about precious metals. As an interest in PM's is the cornerstone of our group's very existence, this requirement isn't unfounded.
- The second change was the introduction of vote accural. Now if you don't post about metals every day, you have the opportunity to accrue a larger upvote. This gives people with less time the ability to still make the most of their delegations to @ssg-community.
These new changes meant fancier coding on the back end. @buggedout did the programing and keeps the @ssg-community account up and running on HIVE. Shortly after making these changes, Bugged and @welshstacker also introduced a new community incentive called Precioius Gems. Read about it HERE. The short story - When a delegating member writes a PM post, they earn one precious gem. These gems (that you may only have one of at a time) earn you the capability to receive a community vote on your next non-PM article.
As a side note, don't forget the tag #sgslife (ha ha, I think only three of us use it, so don't be one of the MANY missing out! ) This handy tag is great to use on non metals posts to make them easier to find for fellow community members. If you are like me and enjoy seeing posts about family, travels, hikes, cooking, gardening, games, etc (all of our community's interests outside of metals) #sgslife is a useful way to make these post easy to discover on the blockchain. :)
Becoming a Member
As you can see, this graphic STILL needs to be updated. However, the path to membership on Hive remains the same as on Steem.
- Post about and be interested in collecting precious metals (silver/gold).
- Comment on pm posts made by other Hive users
- Find current members via our tags, our community page and our discord. Get to know us and we will get to know you.
- Get nominated to the community by a current member.
- Receive a second from another community member.
- Membership nominations are reviewed and either approved or denied by the community mods. (Current mods are @dfinney and @raybrockman.)
- Reap the rewards of community support and friendship.
But maybe it is time for change?...
I have no suggestions. But I do know some things.
- Only a handful of people still post on the regular.
- I am not one of those people.
- Approving or not approving people is stressful, even with a framework to make the decision.
Our number of "active members" is waaaaay down. Even clicking through the "current" list, there are people who have vanished. Some because of their own disinterest in blogging. Some because of life. Some due to the low value of HIVE. Others have been chased back to Steemit due to disagreements surrounding the quality of their content compared to the size of their post reward. So, is our current membership system a viable way to grow the community or is it outdated?
Personally, I find myself torn every time someone is nominated into the community. Do I add someone to our rolls after just a couple of metals posts? Do I make them wait and wait and wait to prove themselves, or make them wait because I have dramatically decreased my time on the platform since early 2020? Do other community members care at all either way?
That being said, if as a current member, you are interested in nominating new members, please be thoughtful in your nominations.
PS - If you were once a member and do not see your name on our member list, you were likely taken off of the rolls due to lack of posts or comments in 6 or MORE months. If you have returned, please let us know. We are happy to have you back.
The first, @fingolfin, falls into the category of someone who has been waiting for ages to join the community. @fingolfin are you still on Hive? For a time he was sharing some fun old coins - DIMES, silver quarters, a Morgan... he also has the CUTEST dog named Jack.
Next to join our community is @scooter77. For some reason I thought @scooter77 had been part of our group before. However, after looking into the archives of old membership posts, I didn't find him on the list. Scooter (aka Scotty) has been on the blockchain since the Steem days. He is an Aussie with collections of bank notes, vinyl records, silver and Australian decimal coins. @scooter77 posts on the regular and is a fan of Splinterlands.
Last but not least, we have @tazi. @tazi is a new stacker and has shared some lovely coins this past month. He is from the Czech Republic, so often shares multilingual posts. His profile also lists that @tazi is a Hive witness.
Community Support
The Silver Gold Stackers community is still committed to providing support to our members through the @ssg-community account. This account is run on both Hive and Steem. If you have questions about delegating, subscriptions via liquid hive or steem or have "missed a vote", please reach out directly to @buggedout or @welshstacker on discord. Again @ssg-community is available to support only the delegating members of #silvergoldstackers.
I wish you all a peaceful, healthy and happy 2021.
Cheers,