Tarnished Gold

It was an idea whose time had come. New Triond members helping other Triond members to improve their writing by viewing articles, making comments, and offering support. Though this idea had been tried countless times and failed this time it was beginning to take hold and showed every sign of succeeding.

People were actually faithfully taking the time to read one another’s articles and although not all the comments made were helpful or “golden” they were words of encouragement to those just starting out.

There were also helpful comments and private messages geared to helping one another improve their writing.

For some of these people they had the delight of seeing their views increase and even make a few pennies on an article here and there. Some found themselves on the Hot Content list for the first time.

Despite all the nay sayers the entire plan was working and better than some of us had expected or hoped.

Then it all went terribly wrong.

The gild “Triond Gold” which I had hoped would become a thriving and useful part of the Triond community was moved to a website supposedly to help manage the growing gild. The only problem was it was now mandatory for all those who had helped the fledging gild get its start as well as new members to join the website to remain or become part of the gild.

Once the website was up and running, those of us, who had reservations about going outside the Triond community and did not publish our articles on the website saw a distinct drop in Triond views even from many who we had previously added as friends.

While some of us remained faithful to the original agreement and continued to read the articles of every one on our friends list when they appeared others began only read those articles posted on the website.

As of today when I visited the forum I saw a post by the originator of the gild who was telling new members that they no longer needed to add friends from the Triond community, they simply could post an article that they had published on Triond to the website and it would be viewed when people had time.

Triond Gold is in effect no longer part of the Triond community but a separate entity using the Triond site and it’s members for it’s own purpose.

This both angers and saddens me, as the gild could have provided a real service to the triond members while helping new members to improve their writing skills as well as the views for those who really needed that kind of help.

The anger extends to myself since I truly believed this was a great idea and I gave it my whole hearted support.

I have relearned a valuable lesson today. All that glitters certainly isn’t gold and a golden idea once tarnished may never regain the luster it once had.