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Twitter report for @dashpay 2022

ErnestoContrerasLatAm

Ernesto Contreras
Dash Core Group
It has been almost our first year managing the Dashpay account, and we are happy to share learnings, and hear from many of you the changes and improvements you see on our voice.

When this team started managing communications for Dashpay in May 2022, we understood as clear opportunities the account’s potential to get into the crypto and Web3 trends, and at the same time cement Dash’s reputation as a long standing member of the crypto world.

Therefore the following growth goals were envisioned for the Dashpay account:

-Provide the Dash brand voice an updated post 2018 voice, and
-Improve engagement into a larger user base of current crypto fanatics.

Please see the report from this year! Also let me know if you have any questions or suggestions in the comments, and I will be happy to address them as soon as possible!

Thanks for reading,

Ernesto

 
Objective Analysis

The key performance indicator for success criteria you have identified is growth as stated in the report you have linked and your message above that you have published in this forum.

Yet, when we analyze Twitter's actual data starting from the time you specified above (May 2022), as when you took over management, we see a decrease in followers in addition to an ongoing continuing downward trend indicating overall poor performance for the whole duration of your tenure managing social media.

This is not an improvement by any measure. You state in your report that when you took over, you removed a substantial number of non-human followers (bots). Unfortunately, there has been little evidence of progress since then, with a consistent continuous turnover rate on the downtrend. As a result, although I might accept a small reduction in followers after first removal as seen in the statistics, a year-long slide indicating poor performance is not a viable cause for an exemption.

According to the analytics, the Dashpay Twitter account saw its best growth rate and continuous rise before you took over, even after factoring non-human followers (bots) that were removed after you took over in proportion to the data presented. According to the content posted during this growth period it was under the management of the Dash Newsroom and Mark Mason.

There is a significant difference between the two periods stated for comparison purposes to evaluate growth performance. Where you have claimed growth in your report, evidently the data doesn't support that conclusion. My judgment is that it is not a favorable result for you in terms of performance, and your social media management and overall strategy should be reconsidered.

Please refer to the chart below of Twitter follower data for the Dashpay account:

dashpay twitter.jpg
 
Could the decline in Twitter followers have anything to do with perhaps a much broader decline in Twitter users since Elon Musk took over Twitter and the desastreus events that followed after that ?

Could Dash Twitter followers simply been switching over to other forms of Social Media ?


Hi Quizzie, thanks for your comments. It is hard to know for sure if people migrated.
What we did actively act upon, was to report users that are obvious bots with fake replies, and reporting them in order to prevent being suspended out of twitter again like in 2021. Also, many of the fake accounts die off naturally as they are turned off and used for a brief period of time.
 
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Objective Analysis

The key performance indicator for success criteria you have identified is growth as stated in the report you have linked and your message above that you have published in this forum.

Yet, when we analyze Twitter's actual data starting from the time you specified above (May 2022), as when you took over management, we see a decrease in followers in addition to an ongoing continuing downward trend indicating overall poor performance for the whole duration of your tenure managing social media.

This is not an improvement by any measure. You state in your report that when you took over, you removed a substantial number of non-human followers (bots). Unfortunately, there has been little evidence of progress since then, with a consistent continuous turnover rate on the downtrend. As a result, although I might accept a small reduction in followers after first removal as seen in the statistics, a year-long slide indicating poor performance is not a viable cause for an exemption.

According to the analytics, the Dashpay Twitter account saw its best growth rate and continuous rise before you took over, even after factoring non-human followers (bots) that were removed after you took over in proportion to the data presented. According to the content posted during this growth period it was under the management of the Dash Newsroom and Mark Mason.

There is a significant difference between the two periods stated for comparison purposes to evaluate growth performance. Where you have claimed growth in your report, evidently the data doesn't support that conclusion. My judgment is that it is not a favorable result for you in terms of performance, and your social media management and overall strategy should be reconsidered.

Please refer to the chart below of Twitter follower data for the Dashpay account:

View attachment 11656


Hi Apoloniusz! As stated on the report we are not measuring growth in terms of followers because Dash is already a rather large account of around 400k by that measure.
We are focusing on engagement and impressions. Which you can see on the graph presented on the report.


To do that, we started with the basics

1) Content creation, which was not done constantly before we started to work as you can see on the increase on tweet count from 50 (and even 20 units per month) before we started
2) Improve the quality of content: Which you can see as an example of the comparable posts; and is a continuous work.

This can be done by using measurement tools, which is why my first action was to implement tools and start measuring our actions and experiments.

Please remember the Dashpay account was suspended from being used by twitter, in 2021, right after that spike in not organic followers. My research and conversations with social media agencies and friends who worked in twitter leads me to presume the account was blocked because somebody was purchasing non human followers. And it does not matter who did this, but it hurted the account.
And that is the reason why we focus now on more engagement and content, and not followers.

Thanks for your comments
 
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Could Dash Twitter followers simply been switching over to other forms of Social Media ?

Good question.

In a word no, in fact it is the very opposite.

Please see: Twitter user growth is at “all-time highs” under Elon Musk

Please see: Musk completes his $44 billion purchase of Twitter on October 27, 2022

Twitter has grown under Elon Musk — mainly in the U.S., data shows Twitter downloads have increased especially in the U.S., according to independent analysts

"According to Apptopia, downloads of Twitter in the U.S. averaged about 125,000 a day during a recent 31-day period — a figure that’s 23% higher than during the previous month and 42% higher than in a similar period last year."

If we compare the Twitter follower growth of other crypto projects (I picked 6 random projects), we can clearly identity that the downtrend is unique to Dash.

ernie stats.png
 
It has been almost our first year managing the Dashpay account, and we are happy to share learnings, and hear from many of you the changes and improvements you see on our voice.

When this team started managing communications for Dashpay in May 2022, we understood as clear opportunities the account’s potential to get into the crypto and Web3 trends, and at the same time cement Dash’s reputation as a long standing member of the crypto world.

Therefore the following growth goals were envisioned for the Dashpay account:

-Provide the Dash brand voice an updated post 2018 voice, and
-Improve engagement into a larger user base of current crypto fanatics.

Please see the report from this year! Also let me know if you have any questions or suggestions in the comments, and I will be happy to address them as soon as possible!

Thanks for reading,

Ernesto


Hi Ernesto,

If the growth goals envisioned for https://twitter.com/Dashpay were to update brand voice and improve engagement, the uptick you're sharing here is 137 likes from 419k followers.

That's 0.0326% engagement, right?

https://www.dash.org/blog/twitter-report-dashpay-2022/
 

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Hi Apoloniusz! As stated on the report we are not measuring growth in terms of followers because Dash is already a rather large account of around 400k by that measure.

1) Content creation, which was not done constantly before we started to work as you can see on the increase on tweet count from 50 (and even 20 units per month) before we started
2) Improve the quality of content: Which you can see as an example of the comparable posts; and is a continuous work.

Let's approach this logically.

You claim that an increase in content creation and an improvement in content quality has resulted in a favorable outcome for growth. But if a decline in followers is the direct result of such adjustments, then that implies a negative growth result.

There should be a clear correlation between improved interaction and content quality that should directly result in an increase in reach and exposure, which you would expect would lead to attracting more followers. The analytics, however, indicates a steady decline in followers rather than any rise. The data strongly implies that the quantity and quality has been detrimental regardless of any impression metrics as you are failing to convert and onboard new users.

The number of followers is lower than it was previously, and the influence of better-quality content and increasing quantity has negatively impacted the number of followers. Here, you've lost supporters rather than gained any. A growth strategy's main goal should be to attract new users, with audience growth serving as the major performance indicator.

Hence, the best definition of the aim of your approach that you have given is not to increase the number of followers, but to attempt to retain and not lose followers. This is not growth. A decrease in existing following would imply that the quality of these tweets has not been enhanced, and that they are really of lesser quality despite an increase in frequency. Instead of user growth, it has had the opposite effect.

Can you envision a mobile app, for example, prioritizing usage for its growth plan above new user app installs? Although you explicitly state that the goal of this strategy is to increase impressions and engagement, the success criteria from these actions if positive should directly result in an increase in users following the Twitter account. However, you state that you are not measuring the performance of this strategy in terms of follower growth because the Twitter account is already large enough at 400K?

we are not measuring growth in terms of followers because Dash is already a rather large account of around 400k

This is a bizarre and unsatisfactory response that is both perplexing and worrisome. If Dash's long-term outlook as a project in terms of success criteria is evaluated by its adoption, price appreciation and market capitalization, then acquiring more users should be the primary aim without question.

When we compare Twitter follower counts for other blockchain platforms it reveals that Dash has a great deal of opportunity for growth in terms of market share and follower count. Dash does not have a large Twitter account following in relation to other blockchain projects. Please keep in mind that Dash launched before many of the projects listed below, so neither I nor the data support your claim.

Bitcoin = 5.7 Million Followers
Ethereum = 3 Million Followers
BNB Chain = 2.9 Million Followers
Cardano = 1.3 Million Followers
Polygon = 1.8 Million Followers
Solana = 2.2 Million Followers
Polkadot = 1.4 Million Followers
NEAR = 1.4 Million Followers

In your first comment in this thread, you referenced "Web3 trends" and "to Improve engagement into a larger user base of current crypto fanatics."

I believe attracting more users to Dash should be the ultimate priority.

Negative user growth would not be tolerated by any traditional corporate board and would be met with swift corrective action. Imagine using network funds to pay an external entity to manage our social media. These results would be deemed unacceptable for a paid service, and immediate action would be necessary.

Because of this, I'm unsatisfied with the outcomes, and the evidence is clear. Others are free to disagree. I don't believe any small, medium, or large business would accept or be happy with these results as their success criteria; rather, I think they would be presented as an example of what they don't want.
 
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Let's approach this logically.

You claim that an increase in content creation and an improvement in content quality has resulted in a favorable outcome for growth. But if a decline in followers is the direct result of such adjustments, then that implies a negative growth result.

There should be a clear correlation between improved interaction and content quality that should directly result in an increase in reach and exposure, which you would expect would lead to attracting more followers. The analytics, however, indicates a steady decline in followers rather than any rise. The data strongly implies that the quantity and quality has been detrimental regardless of any impression metrics as you are failing to convert and onboard new users.

The number of followers is lower than it was previously, and the influence of better-quality content and increasing quantity has negatively impacted the number of followers. Here, you've lost supporters rather than gained any. A growth strategy's main goal should be to attract new users, with audience growth serving as the major performance indicator.

Hence, the best definition of the aim of your approach that you have given is not to increase the number of followers, but to attempt to retain and not lose followers. This is not growth. A decrease in existing following would imply that the quality of these tweets has not been enhanced, and that they are really of lesser quality despite an increase in frequency. Instead of user growth, it has had the opposite effect.

Can you envision a mobile app, for example, prioritizing usage for its growth plan above new user app installs? Although you explicitly state that the goal of this strategy is to increase impressions and engagement, the success criteria from these actions if positive should directly result in an increase in users following the Twitter account. However, you state that you are not measuring the performance of this strategy in terms of follower growth because the Twitter account is already large enough at 400K?



This is a bizarre and unsatisfactory response that is both perplexing and worrisome. If Dash's long-term outlook as a project in terms of success criteria is evaluated by its adoption, price appreciation and market capitalization, then acquiring more users should be the primary aim without question.

When we compare Twitter follower counts for other blockchain platforms it reveals that Dash has a great deal of opportunity for growth in terms of market share and follower count. Dash does not have a large Twitter account following in relation to other blockchain projects. Please keep in mind that Dash launched before many of the projects listed below, so neither I nor the data support your claim.

Bitcoin = 5.7 Million Followers
Ethereum = 3 Million Followers
BNB Chain = 2.9 Million Followers
Cardano = 1.3 Million Followers
Polygon = 1.8 Million Followers
Solana = 2.2 Million Followers
Polkadot = 1.4 Million Followers
NEAR = 1.4 Million Followers

In your first comment in this thread, you referenced "Web3 trends" and "to Improve engagement into a larger user base of current crypto fanatics."

I believe attracting more users to Dash should be the ultimate priority.

Negative user growth would not be tolerated by any traditional corporate board and would be met with swift corrective action. Imagine using network funds to pay an external entity to manage our social media. These results would be deemed unacceptable for a paid service, and immediate action would be necessary.

Because of this, I'm unsatisfied with the outcomes, and the evidence is clear. Others are free to disagree. I don't believe any small, medium, or large business would accept or be happy with these results as their success criteria; rather, I think they would be presented as an example of what they don't want.





Hi Apoloniuz,

Let me start by agreeing with you: Negative growth should never be the objective, as Growth is the base for life itself.

That is the approach that I have taken in all my professional career, and the reason I’ve accomplished major goals at Dash and before then. We are aligned on this point!

The issue at hand with the Dashpay account is quite different, though; and to put it very clearly: someone used funds in 2021 to buy fake followers and deceive the Dash network into believing there was account growth!

One of the first things I learned in marketing is identifying what is known as “Vanity metrics”, Vanity metrics are metrics that make you appear good to others but do not help understand your own performance in a way that improves marketing performance.

As you can see on the Sparktoro tool; today, even after we have worked on getting rid of bots, the Dash account still has more than 190 thousand unreal followers, and this creates a big reach problem. It is not coincidental that the amount of fake followers is similar to the increase you shown in the Santiment graph.
FYI: it is considered "normal" to have single digit, or low double digit amount of unreal followers, but once we are above 30% it starts creating problems. (Different fake follower tools usually show different results, so these should be taken as a reference and not a definitive number)

Screenshot 2023-03-12 at 13.54.04.png


The fake followers situation was clear to me last year based on my previous marketing expertise managing social media for high growth brands. I confirmed this, even before using any tool, after seeing the Dash account get suspended, and considering the inorganic spike in follower count, with the addition of decrease in general engagement.

This is why I have mentioned that last year after checking out the account state and data it was clear to me someone had used funds to acquire unreal followers; and this data suggests this was done in 2021 right before the Dashpay account suspension. Even though the specific author of this action cannot be identified, it is clear it happened, and this is a problem.

I want to highlight that it is not uncommon to find people with little marketing experience who confuse vanity metrics with real results, so I presume, this action was probably done by someone with no marketing expertise, with the intention to show growth. But regardless of who did this, or why he did it, it is a problem that we still drag, and will hold onto for some time.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fake followers problem is a problem that hinders twitter performance up to today because of the way most social media algorithm’s work:

Real followers and engagement
Post content -> content shown to % of followers —-> Engagement —-> more content exposure to larger % of followers ---->More engagement--> Viral post

But when there is a significant amount of fake followers, these do not react and hurt long term performance.

Fake followers and low engagement
Post content -> content shown to % of followers —-> no Engagement —-> Low reach posts
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But don't worry, as I have mentioned on the report and my previous interactions; this is a problem that is being solved, and because of my approach to work you have not seen me casting blame on others, or going on conspiracy actions. My focus is, and has always been on solving problems while moving forward.

Our path to get out of this situation is to significantly enhance engagement with the 60%+ audience in the account that are real followers, and work to engage them so they react and comment to the topics that most interest them; and that is why we have doubled down on topics we have found that the Dashpay account receives the most interest in twitter:

  • Dash payments,
  • Dash Hodling, and
  • Crypto investings and price topics.

I’d also like to add that social media marketing for businesses is a tool to support growth, and not an end in itself. So yes, while I do agree with you that it will be great to go beyond a 1MM follower mark or more, like some of the projects you mentioned, the way to get to this will be with a structured process. One where we leverage on the art and science of marketing:

The art consists of creative content creation; and the science consists on using tools to constantly measure and improve results!

As I've mentioned several times, my professional recommendation is the Dash network should at all times avoid engaging in fake vanity metric activities in order to try to cut corners, as we have very explicit experience that supports how this does not work, and hurts our reach beyond the really bad suspension itself.

More engagement, will enable a wider reach for the Dash account, and that will maximize our brand voice. In my personal account, despite having only around 7k real, engaged followers, I have had messages reach around 500k twitter users! And this is just another example that validates my statement that is better to have an account with 200k real, engaged followers; that an account with 1MM followers where 60% are fake and most messages get filtered by the algorithm.

Also I'd like to share that our actions are driving real growth to offset this cleasing of bots, and it is driving a fairly good amount of new followers. So much that we are almost compensating the fake ones.
I estimate that when we achieve good engagement and participate on twitter activities, we acquire up to a couple hundred new followers per day, adding to around four thousand new real followers per month despite the bear market.
This will increase a lot more once we have more, and bigger Dash news, such as product launches, or price appreciations:

Screenshot 2023-03-12 at 14.42.49.png


The actions we are performing will also prepare the way and improve our twiter community for when the new bull market returns; we launch Dash Platform, or both happen at the same time, and then we can be more aggressive in terms of investment into social growth.

Finally, I want to share that we are in agreement that Dash's long-term outlook as a project in terms of success criteria is evaluated by its adoption, price appreciation and market capitalization, and that is why acquiring more REAL users shall the primary aim!

And to do that, we must work on acquiring REAL followers, then turn them into REAL interactions, and then turn those into REAL users.

Thank you for your questions,

Ernesto
 
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I appreciate the reply, but I don't agree with your analysis or conclusion at all.

Ernesto, the main problem is that you're skewing past events and data to fit a false narrative as a justification for your poor performance and a change in strategy.

Let me explain.

The results of this report presented to the network as success criteria, is quite deceptive as your fixation and primary focus on fake follower growth with regard to the Dash Twitter account is invalid because that was not what caused the suspension of the account. Therefore, your misunderstanding of the symptom and your solution is invalid. You have presented a biased and distorted report that is inaccurate, unfair, and misleading.

This is also known as Information bias. Information bias (also called observation bias or measurement bias) happens when key information is either measured, collected, or interpreted inaccurately.

Confounding bias is a distortion (inaccuracy) in the estimated measure of association that occurs when the primary exposure of interest is mixed up and distorted with some other factor (risk) that is associated with the outcome.

Your claim that the Twitter account suspension was directly correlated with fake follower account growth as the main cause is inaccurate. With that misunderstanding on that mistaken assumption you have made an argument as a justification for taking certain action to remedy this. However, this is actually a distortion of the true relationship (events) that caused the suspension of the account in the first place.

This is where I take issue with what you have presented to the network.

To be clear, the Twitter account was suspended in 2021, and was reactivated in May 2021, 1 year before you began to manage social media. During that 1-year period before you took over there wasn't any further account suspensions or drop in followers.

mrs dash.png


The Twitter account suspension was previously confirmed by DCG to not be the result of its own actions or the content it posted, but rather as a direct result of third-party accounts with fake followers that were retweeting content from the main Dash Twitter account, which was flagged by Twitter as suspicious activity and led to the simultaneous banning of a number of other Dash-related Twitter accounts.

Ironically, this also included Dash Help, and your personal Twitter profile, and a few others. Since you were also directly impacted by this, it wasn't an isolated problem, and you ought to be fully informed of the details as you were directly affected by these actions. As you stated on Reddit. The bot/s were retweeting content from several accounts. The suspension of these accounts was not due to fake follower account growth, it was due to a volitation of Twitter's terms of service from the use of retweeting bots, that were retweeting from accounts with non-human activity. If it wasn't fake follower growth alone that served as the main culprit otherwise these other Twitter accounts including yours would have been unaffected. I'm confident you are fully aware of this already.

ernesto fake bots.png


As a result, contrary to what you claimed, Twitter did not suspend the main Dash Twitter account or your personal account for an increase in non-human follower account growth. Continued attempts to use this as justification for altering your content strategy and how you gauge growth are a total fabrication.

The account suspension had absolutely nothing to do with the caliber or frequency of the content posted on the main account, nor was it connected to the account's increase in followers. This evidently also applies to your own personal account.

To summarize, the account suspension was not the result of any mistakes made in how the main Dash account was managed in the past. Therefore, there is no excuse for failing to use follower growth as the primary performance success metric or for pretending to use a different strategy that is not based on follower growth but instead is based on a misinterpretation of the past. Regardless of whether this was done on purpose or not, saying otherwise after the fact is misleading.

Objectively, the surge in followers that occurred in 2021 perfectly coincides with a price increase of Dash. It is utterly false to assert that the increase in followers was entirely caused by bots. On the chart I previously posted that compares other cryptocurrency projects, it is also clear that they all experienced follower account growth during the year 2021, with no subsequent downtrend. To make matters worse, some of the projects I mentioned are only a few years old and have a much higher follower count than Dash did at the time of its growth.

chart dash followers dash price 2021.png


Therefore, this entire fake follower growth narrative surrounding the account suspension as a justification for subpar performance during your year of management by distorting the truth about what actually led to the account suspension in the first place to fit your narrative is quite shameful.

To be clear, I am not denying the existence of bots and non-human followers on the Twitter platform; on the contrary, this is a well-known issue that Elon Musk has stated he wishes to address. However, Dash is not the only account experiencing this issue. It is a systemic problem affecting the vast majority of accounts on the platform.

Almost exactly like the findings of your report, there is too much hot air and not enough substance. I'm only calling out your BS because you published this report while fully aware that it contains numerous errors that are being used as a justification to hide your subpar performance from the network. This is coming from a paid network representative, and I won't take it.

As a result, I will now challenge all of your network-published findings because it is obvious that you are willing to retract the truth in order to make results appear better than they are.

You also mention an improvement in the level of quality of the content posted on the Twitter account, but I can see from the community Discord server that there have been a lot of complaints over the past year about content that was posted while you were in charge, and that your audience had flagged as being unsuitable for our audience.

For instance:

dashpay 1.png


dashpay 2.png


dashpay 3.png


Since these actions were carried out under your supervision, only you and no one else can be held accountable for them. It also demonstrates why you are not qualified to oversee Dash's social media strategy or business development because you obviously lack the knowledge and common sense to realize that the content was inappropriate when it was startlingly obvious to everyone else.

I see that these key insights in your report results and comments in this forum were also obfuscated, making it impossible for others to know about them to establish an informed opinion about the findings. However, those who follow the account, like myself, are fully aware of this. I concur with everyone on Discord who raised the flags to express their displeasure.

This is deceptive behavior, and full of partial truths.

I would advise sticking with business development, but even that has seemed to suffer significantly over the past year or so. For instance, you were caught trying to pass off an old integration as a new one just last week and were caught red-handed.

epayments.png


It's clear that you have a habit of withholding crucial information for your own gain to warp and overstate your performance to the network, which is detrimental to the community and network you're supposed to be serving. It is obvious that this is not an isolated incident. Since the network has also participated in this journey as bystanders, it is easy to see and openly acknowledge a consistent pattern of events. In what you present as truth, you are dishonest in your failure to communicate by distorting the facts and are guilty of information and confounding bias. You simply cannot be trusted in your current role as a result. You are unethical and unprofessional in how you conduct and report your work to the network to review. Since you are unable to tell the truth, you should not be praised but rather exposed so that others can draw their own educated and informed conclusions about what really happened.

My motivation for taking the time to write this is to do what is best for Dash in the long run. I have a vested interest in the success of the Dash project. Your misguided 5-year multi-year failure to focus efforts on Venezuela has harmed the project, we have missed opportunities and fell behind as a project due to misdirection with a failure to objectively adapt and revise our strategy where needed. I want Dash to achieve real growth, which necessitates the hiring of a true expert capable of measuring performance and delivering real results. I don't see any improvement in your performance or results with each passing year.

Rather than wasting time bandaging the problem in order to conceal the main problem, I'd focus on building a long-term solution that is suitable for purpose to address the underlying issue highlighted.

There is obviously a lack of general knowledge and common sense, as well as a comprehension of what the project actually represents and needs. Everything is clarified by earlier quotes, which include people like George Soros and others who are completely inappropriate for this project.

In the end, the solution is that we require good leadership in order to end the loop of subpar hiring choices and measure performance accurately.

This is what I would do in this situation:

Rather than taking a chance and recruiting a new person as a direct replacement in the desperate hope that they will perform better on social media / growth / business development. I would welcome the benefits that our DAO's performance-based incentives provide. DCG might, for instance, repurpose the funds it was using to pay for a managed social media solution and establish a DMH Trello bounty specifying goals with distinct deliverables as it ought to be. I'm sure there are people in our community that are capable, have a clear knowledge of the project, and would prefer to be paid in "Dash" rather than fiat. These resources are at our disposal, so we ought to use them in the manner in which they were designed.
 
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