Introducing a new Community on the HIVE social blockchain, which is for anyone who is diabetic themselves; or who cares for a friend or relative who has diabetes; or who is just curious about what diabetes is, and whether they may have risk factors for the disease.

What is this all about?

Today, the 1st April 2022 (ɴᴢꜱᴛ) is the official launch of a new Community on the HIVE social blockchain, which we are calling the Hive Diabetes Peer Support (HDPS) Community. The community account itself is @hive-141197, with the @diabetes-support account being a utility account of the Community, mainly for curation, and also for Community announcements such as this post.

How did this happen?

The history of the Hive Diabetes Peer Support (HDPS) Community begins in the loins of another Community on the HIVE social blockchain. We were birthed from a discussion (more of a rant, actually) in the Discord server of The Terminal Community.

On 4-Mar-2022 at 03:31 (ɴᴢꜱᴛ), debonair HIVE musician, blogger, and active Termite, @jerrytsuseer bemoaned the lack of any existing Communities in the HIVE ecosystem which would be helpful for referring a diabteic friend to, for peer support.

This rant, aimed at nobody in particular, a cry in the wilderness, raging against the unfairness of the world, fell on fertile soil when it was read by a fellow active Termite, @frittro, who had formerly (be it ever so briefly) been a coordinator of a Diabetes Support Group in his hometown of Henderson, West Auckland. Already feeling the desire to somehow be more engaged on the HIVE social blockchain — and feeling a strong sense of guilt anyway about not using his existing strengths to their fullest potential — this call from a Type diabetic (someone who may not have diabetes themselves, but who cares for a friend or relative who has the disease) really lit a fuse for @frittro!

With the support of @thekittygirl, @brittandjosie, and @wesphilbin — leaders of The Terminal Community — the new Hive Diabetes Peer Support (HDPS) Community was born. But the story doesn't end there, that is only the very early beginnings.

Who would be involved?

Apart from those already named above, we have been reaching out to other like-minded individuals, Communities, and Tribes on the HIVE social blockchain, to forge ties, partnerships, and bonds with, from very early on in the development of this new Community.

One of the first such groups to be approached was the Actifit Tribe. Physical exercise is one of the best tools that any diabetic can use for self-management of their symptoms, so it was a natural "fit" to join forces with the biggest physical exercise Tribe on the social blockchain. Early discussions between @frittro and @mcfarhat of Actifit went very well, and there were some great concepts bandied about; such as potentially extending the existing Actifit front-end to support the recording of diabetes-related data in their Report Card interface. This concept is still in the very early stages of scoping, and might not ever happen, but it is an exciting new avenue for both HDPS and Actifit to pursue.

Another early partnership sought has been with the Hive Pizza Tribe. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, about now, "what does pizza have to do with diabetes?" Well, for one thing, voracious pizza consumers (or recovering addicts) rank highly amongst the diabetic population of the world! 😁 Seriously though, the Hive Pizza Tribe was selected because they are experts in engaging with a community on the HIVE social blockchain. Early discussions between @frittro and @thebeardflex have gone very well, and we hope to learn a lot from our engagement with their Tribe.

Another Tribe that we have been pursuing a relationship with early on are indisputably the leading experts of engagement on the HIVE social blockchain. The Splinterlands Tribe is by far the most well-known — and well organised — Tribe within the whole HIVE ecosystem. We aspire to their example of such community engagement! Early discussions between @frittro, @aggroed, and @chatter (who only seems to post on the social blockhain as @splinterlands) have been progressing well.

There are many other such Communities and Tribes with whom we are seeking partnerships for this new venture, including @luvshares; @beer; @wine-token; @Health & Recovery; @Hive Food; @Foodies Bee Hive; @Mental Health; @HiveGarden; @plantpoweronhive; and many more! We seek to engage with any like-minded; medical/alternative; health, fitness, and exercise; or food related Communities and Tribes on the HIVE social blockchain.

What will involvement look like?

On the HIVE blockchain

There are many ways that you can be involved with the HDPS Community. For a start, if you write anything related to diabetes in a blog post on HIVE, you are welcome to continue adding the #diabetes tag to your post. However, since the inception of HDPS, there will be a higher likelihood that any such tagged posts may now gain an extra upvote from our fledgling curation team! As we grow our new Community, so too will our vote weight, and thus your reward for writing quality posts about diabetes and related subjects. This aspect alone will be a huge motivator for many to get further involved in our new Community.

We will also be keeping a close eye on everyone who upvotes a post that is tagged with #diabetes. Those who show an aptitude for consistently upvoting quality content may be invited to join our curation team, and gain access to the Private Posting Key for the @diabetes-support account, so that you can use the upvote strength of the whole Community to greater effect when upvoting content that meets our collective standards.

From amongst those who have been granted access to our curation account, we will select leaders to become Administrators of the Community itself on the HIVE social blockchain.

On Discord

On the Discord side of things, we invite anyone to join us in our new server. We welcome everyone, especially those with a diagnosis of Type or Type diabetes. Also, anyone who cares for a friend or relative who has diabetes will be known in our Community as an honorary Type diabetic. We also welcome everyone who may not have diabetes themselves, but might be pre-diabetic, or just curious about what this "diabetes" is all about.

What exactly is diabetes?

One myth that I'm sure every diabetic would like dispelled, for once and for all, is that diabetes is fully preventable. It is not. It isn't an expected result of a "lack of self discipline" with regards to food intake and exercise output. One of the contributing factors to diabetes is genetics. If you have a family member who has diabetes, then there is a higher chance that you could develop it as well. It is a proven medical fact!

Diabetes is actually two completely different diseases. Type diabetes is more strongly associated with genetics, and mainly presents in childhood. Type diabetes is more stongly associated with lifestyle choices, but still has a genetic component to it. TD mainly presents later in life. There is also a more temporary form of diabetes, known as gestational diabetes, which only occurs in pregnant women, and will normally resolve itself within months after the birth. However, gestational diabetes can contribute to a diagnosis of TD, later.

What is this I hear about a PARTY?

Yes, you heard correctly, we are throwing a 10 day party in our new Discord server, to celebrate the launching of our new Community, and YOU are invited to join with us! Even if you are not interested in diabetes; health and fitness; healthy food; and healthy living, I am sure that we can entice you with the wide range of PRIZES that have already been donated or pledged for the activities happening during the Launch Party. These prizes include...

an (as yet unspecified) number of Chaos Legion Booster Packs, donated by the @splinterlands Team;
1,000× Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) and a selection of 40× Common eward cards, donated by @frittro;
100× $ʟᴜᴠ and 100× $ᴩɪᴍᴩ tokens, donated by @wesphilbin;
400× $ʟᴜᴠ tokens, donated by @crddlx;
$4.000 liquid $ʜɪᴠᴇ, donated by @JARVIE of the @PeakD Team;
$5.000 liquid $ʜɪᴠᴇ, donated by @jerrytsuseer;
2,000× ᴇᴄᴇɴᴄY ᴩᴏɪɴᴛꜱ, donated by @frittro;
500× ᴇᴄᴇɴᴄY ᴩᴏɪɴᴛꜱ, donated by @pravesh0;
150× ᴇᴄᴇɴᴄY ᴩᴏɪɴᴛꜱ, donated by @yaziris;
150× $ᴩɪᴢᴢᴀ, donated by @thekittygirl;
20,000× $ᴀꜰɪᴛ tokens, donated by @mcfarhat of the @actifit Tribe;

How do I win this stuff?

Over the ten days of the Launch Party celebrations, there will be many opportunities for you to win some of the nice prizes listed above. We have all kinds of activites happening in our new Discord server. You don't need to be present for the whole thing, just pick and choose the days with events running that particularly interest you. Unfortunately we can't guarantee a particular prize will be available on a particular day, as some of these prizes will be being handed out directly by their donors, so it will depend on their availability to attend, as well. So take a look at the schedule below, and find an activity (or activities) that interest you, and come join the fun! We would love to see you there.

Image Credits

_{post-head.png – Remix created by @frittro, using an image via Peakpx; and the hdps-divider.png (see below).
Various "fair use" organisation and company logos, including Hive, and various Community and Tribe logos.
Various "fair use" icons from the Splinterlands game interface.
hdps-divider.png – Remix created by @frittro, using File:Blue circle for diabetes.svg. (2021, November 22). Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Retrieved 02:46, March 7, 2022 from Wikimedia Commons, and a generic heart shape.
calendar.png – Remix created by @frittro, using elements from mondaystartcalendar.com; various "fair use" emojis/emotes, mainly sourced from Emojipedia.org; and various other image elements source under Public Domain or other similar Free Cultural Works compatible licenses.
post-footer.png – Remix created by @frittro, using the HDPS title image, a remix by @frittro; a background from rawpixel.com; and File:Flickr - moses namkung - The Crowd For DMB 1.jpg. (2020, September 9). Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Retrieved 10:14, March 25, 2022 from Wikimedia Commons.
50_64px.png, 100_64px.png, 500_64px.png, 1000_64px.png, and 5000_64px.png – Remixes created by @frittro, using Hive physical coin design by @bidesign.}

Font Credits

_{Because I use some display fonts as graphical elements in my remix images, I list their use separately here and credit the fontographer(s) who created them. I prefer to use fonts that are freely licensed for both personal and commercial use.

Tahu!.ttf – Created by Syafrizal (a.k.a. Khurasan) and published on DaFont.com under a permissive license.}

^{This @DiabetesSupport account is not just used for making official announcements from the
Hive Diabetes Peer Support (HDPS) Community (@hive-141197). It is also used by our curation team to upvote quality content that relates in any way to diabetes, including diagnosis; getting support (including mental health); treatments; alternative therapies; equipment; food; exercise; lifestyle; and comorbidities. If you would like to support this effort, please consider delegating to the @DiabetesSupport account. There are some icons below that you can click on to make this process easier.}

^{JOIN US!
You are invited to join the Hive Diabetes Peer Support (HDPS) Community's server on Discord. Here you will find our curation team; our library of diabetes-related, curated posts; our events stage for livestream sessions; and a wide variety of activities, including bot games; competitions; giveaways; polls; quizzes; and surveys. Come join the fun! Click on the invite image here to join the server.}

@frittro HiveBuzz

[//]: # (CCC LINKS PLACEHOLDER, DON'T DELETE THIS TAG)