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.