Back to the Garden?

At this point, getting back to the Garden seems unlikely. This will be my one and only post about EdenFantasys, which went from being one of my online sex toy shops, to being my ONE online sex toy shop, to being... I don't know exactly what Eden is to me now. Maybe an old friend who took the wrong track? When I'm there in the forums, I feel paranoid and uneasy.

If I ask them to, they'll look over my points history and if I haven't done anything wrong, they'll let me keep my points. All of them. If I don't do this, I THINK I lose them (but I'm really not clear on this). But if I ask them to look over my points and they decide I did something wrong, I lose all of my points. If I complain about that, they release personal information about me. Yeepers.

I really couldn't care less about the points. We have every sex toy we want, and then some. I should really sell some stuff. I have a lot of stuff to sell. Sterilizable stuff. High dollar, much of it. And more money would be good right now. So I really don't care that I "lost" 66 bucks (or whatever). Because they gave it to me, and tens of thousands of points (hundreds of dollars) before that, which I spent.

I've had fun there, I've learned there. Not just about sex toys and sex, but also about writing, about editing, about schmoozing my way up a hierarchy... I've gotten a good deal. if I don't get another penny / point from them, I'll feel like I got a good deal. I hope they feel the same. I tried to give them a good effort. I did do some things "assembly line" fashion, which to them apparently looks like point farming. It wasn't my intention simply to get points, but to do what Eden wanted me to do to get the points.

I assumed from the beginning that the points program was well thought-out, that the values and limits for points had been carefully crafted, that they wanted me to do X number of this action, and Y number of that action, so that the site would continually improve, and the company's bottom line would get better and better. Looks like that assumption was wrong. I don't think they really knew what effects their incentives were having, and it seems like they didn't track it very well.

The reason I say this is that the program stayed the same for a long time, and then changed — suddenly, without warning, drastically — and then changed twice more, once becoming surprisingly generous and then becoming relatively miserly. Ideally, if you have to make changes, you want to make them in small steps, as openly as possible. That maintains and builds loyalty, and makes the contributors feel like partners. I felt that way about Eden for a few months. But when you make sudden, unexpected, drastic changes, you create fear in your contributors. People go to great lengths to avoid fear, because of fear's unpleasantness. Fear damages health. If an environment makes me fearful, I'm going to avoid it.

I don't want to risk my personal information. The threat creates the fear. And I go away. I may come back. I'm waiting to see what happens tomorrow. If they take away my points and my "gift card", I'll be OK with that. If they leave them and they're still worth 15% an order, I'll be OK with that. If they delete my account, it's their loss. I'll be a little sad, but I'll be OK with that, too. IF they don't delete my account, AND IF they create and maintain an environment that's enjoyable to be in, THEN I'll be an active member again.

I like being a contributor. I liked reading and commenting in the forum, I liked shopping, I liked writing reviews — and I LOVED being an editor. I would like to do those things again.

I think the smartest thing to do would be to outsource everything to the contributors. Well, almost everything. Someone has to have ultimate authority. That someone should be an employee or owner. But almost every function that was being done by an employee could be done by a volunteer. Crowd sourcing. But there's an old saying about getting monkeys if you're offering peanuts: in other words, you get what you pay for.

Like I say, I feel the company has been generous with me. I hope they feel I have been generous with them. If not, so be it. If so, I look forward to contributing in future, to commenting, to shopping, to writing and to editing. Perhaps even to mentoring. Only time will tell...