I have been watching DeepOnion too, and also following it on deep onion.org. It looks to me like the members who are "In" the airdrop try especially hard to not let anyone else in, in order to not share the spoils of their making.
This might be fine, but I think the shortsighted way they are going about this will have a very negative longer term impact on the project as a whole. Not only will there be more limited distribution but there will be a long tail of people who will snipe and badmouth the project every step of the way.
Just my opinion from reading the posts - which by the way is a pay because the project itself could go places if greed wasn't so obvious.
I have joined the official DO forum quite recently so cannot comment on this, but I have been reading each and every post in this thread for more than 1 month and I have not seen such greed in terms of "trying especially hard to not let anyone else in".
One example - some time ago, the decisive date for airdrop eligibility was moved from 12th July (if I remember correctly) to 1st September and the community here much appreciated this. And it is logical, because it is broad adoption which will make the price rise, so it will be a win-win scenario for everyone involved.