All good things must come to an end. It never had to be this way though. Let me explain.
At one point in my life, years ago, I had a pickup truck that I used for work. I had loads of friends who came by weeks before their move. They would come and visit with me and stop in while I was at work. We would go out for coffee and chat. I would always be surprised when an old acquaintance would suddenly want to see me.
Without fail, almost like clockwork, the topic that they were moving to a new apartment would come up, and I was asked if I could help them move their things. I agreed, of course and my weekend would be filled with several trips and a lot of lifting. I met all his or her friends as they climbed in and out of my truck on each trip from the old place to the new.
That same person would thank me and plan to golfing or fishing before we parted ways. Inevitably, the golf game we had planned would fall through because they were busy organizing the new place. "I understand." I would respond.
Time passed and we never did get to go golfing. What a shame.
I would not see that person for years until another rental contract expired. Problems with the landlord this time...
Have you ever had a fair weather friend?
I know that the close to 800 people do not know me. I was brought onto this platform by a real friend and business associate. We were going to help the Venezuelans who were stuck in a country that inflated their money to oblivion. I remember one woman who wrote about having spent several days to gather something like five million bolivars to buy something small that she needed. There was just no cash available, and when she got the cash she needed, it was not worth enough to get what she had planned to buy.
I invested in this blog based crypto currency and climbed on board. Everything had to be done through translators.
I only asked that the members of the community would vote on each other and not rely on the votes that I would give them. I was one of three who decided to help and I like the idea of this platform. It is not a hand out, but it also allows people to dig their way out of real money problems.
Since then, many of the people in my circles ask about the investment and I tell them things are good. There is a decent return on investment and, at one time, the value of the token rose quite a bit. I think we may have had several dozen others who could have easily joined us to support more communities on the platform. They would have if it were not for the nastiness that arose here and there. People come in and undo my votes. Done handled that and dealt with Jon to tweak the rules about quality and help people understand that they cannot paste things from the internet. I do not know all the details.
The short answer to what would have been is that investors do not want to enter into something that is wrought with problems. Your loss DClub members as well as the platform as a whole, token price, userbase, etc..
Recently, we have stopped voting on the DClub community in order to see what would happen. The result has been disappointing. Members have not been voting on others, especially new members and smaller accounts. The English speakers still support them but not so much the ones who do not need a translation. They have their votes and their 'bots' that they set up years ago. Their votes go to those that are left of the original members. There are less than fifty left in my estimation. New members came on board, friends or family of the active ones? I vote on them but none of the others that we came here to help seem to be actively supporting the new ones who come on board. They are not voting from the DClub list.
The community itself on the platform died long ago due to many who wanted to post to other communities. They cannot send their new posts to DClub and also post it on another one without backlash from those who like to kill activity here.
We decided to test the group to see if they were interested in continuing, or if we should send our votes to users all over the platform. A few of our friends were asked to try it and make posts here. They like the platform and the whole idea of getting paid for content.
What surprised me is that none of the votes our friends received came from the spanish speaking members of the DClub group. They were completely ignored. The new ones were on the same follow list that I use to vote. The curation trail for DClub did not vote during this test. We requested that so that the Latinos and their engagement could be seen more easily. Those members either saw the "new members" on the list and did not vote for them? Or they never used the follow list at all.
The final test was to create an account and post as a new member. It has been four days and there is not one vote or comment. It is on the list that members are supposed to see every day when they vote.
What would you do in my situation? Pull the investment out? Scour the platform to find people that appreciate a decent vote?
Spreading the Wealth
As of now, we hired someone to go through who is - or is not - sharing the wealth as it were. My votes, and those others who invested here, are going to those who truly follow the spirit of the community. Those that acknowledge others on the list will get similar votes to the ones they cast on their fellow man.
The rest of my voting power during the test has gone to the 'trending' list. People who really do not need the money. Our guy is finding the random people who were able to find our test subjects. They can have a decent vote from now on. I do not know them, but their posts are great and nobody is taking their money with negative voting.
I guess this is my first post here. The last one I made was directed at the people who originally joined DClub. This one is directed to any of the community members who are actually involved in the platform. Not so much to those who just need a pickup truck and some muscle for the weekend.