Bitcoin Forum

Current issue

Currently you can check your sMerit balance only when you try to send sMerit to someone's post by clicking the +Merit link for the post.
Another issue for small-number sMerit holder is the sMerit balance is rounded off and you can't check if you have 0.5 sMerit.
Furthermore, it does not seem to be well-recognized in the community that the minimum unit for sMerit is 0.5 [EDIT: while sendable minimum unit is 1], or even the difference between Merit and sMerit.

[EDIT:
Another point is that in the current system +Merit link doesn't appear if you have 0 Merit and 0 sMerit, which makes Newbies and Jr. Members a little bit hard to know the existence of sMerit.
Of course if people read the theymos' post carefully they understand the system, but it's also true that some people are confusing, so I tried to think about how the interface could be improved.]

These issues prevent smooth Merit/sMerit circulation.

Proposal

I think one can solve these issues by improving the interface, specifically, by

1) introducing sMerit balance to Profile page and under the name at one's post,
2) making 0.5 sMerit visible there.

The new interface requires minimal effort to implement, resolves the above issues, and also answers repeated questions such as "how to check my sMerit", "why I can't send sMerit", "why I have 0 sMerit when I received 1 Merit" etc.

Of course a user's sMerit balance should be visible only by him/herself, otherwise people might rush to people who have a large number of sMerits.
[EDIT: so sMerit balance should be still hidden from other accounts just like email address.]

The following images are what I have in mind, the left one is the current interface, the right one is my proposal:
[EDIT: highlighted in images that only the account holder can check the sMerit balance]

Profile page
https://i.imgur.com/DEXVxNH
https://i.imgur.com/DEXVxNH.png (https://imgur.com/DEXVxNH)

Each post
https://i.imgur.com/5DZ7nwN
https://i.imgur.com/5DZ7nwN.png (https://imgur.com/5DZ7nwN)

Nice suggestion you got there. I like the most is the fact that you can now see how much sMerit you can spend without leaving the thread or opening another tab.

Although the "why do i have 0 sMerit when i received 1 merit" is (i'm sorry to say this) common sense, they're the kind of people who do not read and think or too lazy to think and read. These are the very reason why merit system was implemented.

For those people, try and think for a moment, the minimum sMerit you can give is 1 (have anyone tried giving 0.5? If so please correct me) and 0.5 is not 1, therefore i cannot give 1 sMerit if i have only 1 Merit. Same goes with every other odd numbers(1,3,5,7,9, and so on).

I don't think this will happen, for two reasons:
1. The number of sMerits someone has isn't supposed to be public information, as it will lead to begging.
2. sMerit stands for "spendable Merit". 0.5 sMerit isn't spendable, so it shouldn't be shown.

You could show it just to the account holder, like email address.

I don't have a problem with the current merit button. It seems to work for me. At the moment, merit is the big obsession on Bitcoin Talk, hpefully that will die down soon, and we can get on with talking about Bitcoin. Merit points are changing things here, lets see what it is like in a week or so.

Thanks, I think the above interface would make the Merit system more accessible and easy to use.

I think no one tries to give 0.5 sMerit, but what I was trying to say was that some people confuse when they click +Merit link and see 0 sMerit, when they actually have 0.5 sMerit, while as you say some people already understand the system.

Another point is that in the current system +Merit link doesn't appear if you have 0 Merit and 0 sMerit. 
So it is a little bit hard for Newbies to know the existence of sMerit.
[I will add this point in the OP.]

Right, that's what I was trying to say in the OP, but maybe it was not written in a sufficiently clear manner.
Will edit a bit.

I would like to hear from developer team what they think, should I just wait for them to find my post or could I contact someone responsible for this stuff directly?
Since there are many Merit posts recently, I was afraid they couldn't have time to check my post.

well, it's a pretty clean interface, I like it...
but I still hope Merits will no longer be in bitcointalk in few weeks...

I agree to this showing spendable merit to the public might lead to begging which is kinda unethical in this forum better enhance the profile feature that when we click the "merit" icon it will show the remaining spendable merit at least it is not publicly shown and owner can check it right away.

Right, I suggested sMerit balance should be only visible for the account holder, not for public, see OP:


and see also the above posts by Vod and me after the one you quoted.

I updated images a bit to highlight that only the account holder can check the sMerit, which is what I had in mind originally as mentioned above.

Some people seem to start to get used to the Merit system, but everyday I still see a certain number of people are confusing about the system.
The new interface would make the system much easier.
Also I noted that this thread is introduced in LoyceV's Merit source application (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2851620.0) as one of the useful posts he selected.

Hope devlopper team finds my proposal and provides some feedback.

Related to checking sMerit balance like the OP, another possible change which I think would be useful is a slight modification of "Enhanced merit UI" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2833350.msg29048068) by grue as depicted below.
I hope dev implements this kind of changes.

Ideally, this can make things visible to others. Since many people are still confused about the Merit System, and obviously those are the newbie ~ jr. member bracket. And he has a point about these new members as these things should be in their concern and as close as possible since they needed it to rank up.

To us who already know about the system could only make this a nuisance and could just irritate us, like 'hey another person who wants change about the system'. So yeah it is irritating, why people have to complain so much about everything. But all we could do is read theymos' post and will be able to familiarize it easily. I'm sure it was on the obvious section that everyone could notice, right?

What if take off the merit and back from normal way. Implement merit to all by starting 0 base. This case can solve the rumors coz we can witness if all legendaries, hero, sr, full, member, jr and newbie will do quality post. Seems fair if we disregard the time and effort.

i think its a nice suggestion,  we must update the merit sistem, maybe moderators can consider this idea.

Update or upgrade? Moderators can consider this idea, but they can't do any changes. Only admin theymos (and maybe Cyrus) can edit Merit system.
But I don't think that changes are really needed.

This may be one the first merit talk threads i liked. The changes looks good. You can say it should not be necesary, but it does not affect anyone in a negative way and makes it easier for us. The images looked good and hopefully theymos will see this. Maybe of a long standing member tip him about the thread he will notice it?