Hello @blueeyes8960, thanks a lot for your efforts to growing the community. You have always promoted it and it is highly appreciated. Yes, the goal is to get more members so that it increases our SP which in turn makes our VP more rewarding. But the reality is that we have a lot of members on the lower tier membership i.e 100 (20%) and down, while everybody is appreciated in reality the more members we have that are not of higher tier membership 250 SP (35%) and above, the more it becomes a burden on our VP. 10 members on 100 SP delegation contributes 1000 SP, they'll each receive 20% upvote (200%) meaning our VP is reduced by 4% to deliver that while 2 members delegating 500 SP contribute the same 1000 SP, but they'll receive 45% upvote each (90%) and our VP is reduced by 1.8%. As you can see from the analysis, we are growing in numbers but not in SP such that it is sustainable. So, having new members will be great if they are of top level membership because that will build our SP to deliver good returns. But increasing lower level membership is not building our SP in such a way that it can be sustainable at the moment. I honestly do not want to stop anyone from joining because what I desire most is that the community helps us all to grow. But the reality of how Steem works as regards SP and VP is something we have to consider. Pausing of membership or only allowing a certain membership level to join I hope will not be a permanent thing, but an opportunity to let the community grow i.e. via curation received, membership upgrades and probably the Steem curation change to come. I really hope you do understand. Thanks.