Bitcoin Forum

Here and there, each and every newbie is worried about the new term "Merits" when it comes to ranking up.
Let me first elaborate it for you that what are merits?

A quote from a thread by theymos over Merits:


Ok, I understood about Merits. But hey, why do we need it?


Oh! That's good. It's in the interest of forum to keep it free from spammers. But who will give us Merits?

Everyone including me are given few sMerits to be able to help each other (considering that the help is actually being provided to those who will try to help the forum by contributing with the best quality posts which really deserve an appreciation in the form of Merits). There are Merit sources too who will be giving sMerits to users whom they think - are delivering quality over quantity. But, as they are too given limited Merits to be served, I believe people like us should also come ahead and help.

Just like TMAN, I am here to share my sMerits with those who literally deserve them as hoarding them with myself won't be benefic both to me and the forum users, as well as a possible injustice to them.

So, my rules are clear:

• Make 30 constructive (high-quality) posts in a 2 week period
• Quote 10 best posts out of those 30 posts (however, I will be watching out for all 30, I want to see that how much knowledge do you possess of your own quality)
• No spamming in any case

I will choose 10 persons who will be entitled with 5 sMerits each and to make it useful for the ones who really need it, I am making this thing limited for up to Jr Member levels only. This means that those who possess Member and above ranks will not be able to be a part of this (will include them later if this one proves to be a successful beginning of an era of high-quality posts).

Good luck, folks!

Finally good explanation and great project. I wish I were Jn already and possessed any valuable knoledge. But for me still too much to learn to participate

Read my explanation about this, once again.
I never said that this is for Jr Members alone, and if any level of Jr Member or below make 50 high-quality posts in 2 weeks period and do according to the rules, they may probably be chosen by me if they really deserve it.
Let me dissolve a myth for you: Your Rank cannot define your knowledge here.
Even Legendaries get confused sometimes and ask for help, so don't feel down and believe in yourself. Unless you do, you won't be able to know your own potential.

yeah bittalk now is better then before with that merit :)
also for bounty hunters will be good with signature they will have more stackes becose all went to social media.

I like this system :) but i loosed chance to get legendary in time :)

yes I totally agree with this new regulation.
we need merit to raise our rank, by making post very useful for others. so with this merit the users of bitcointalk accounts will not make post spam or useless.

It seems a bit difficult for beginners to make high-quality posts, but I think I will try my best!

Great, the forum needs these help to save the new confidence. Higher levels mean that more can be done. But if you just look at the news, comment, and discuss, then the level is less important.

50 constructive posts in two weeks (3-4 posts a day) without spamming? While constructive posts are probably not spamming by definition, it may still be too many, but that's only my opinion. I may try...

Ok it's great..
It means I have to do very hard work for the progress of rank..

Just read this topic. I am a newbie here and merit system is new to this forum right? I'm just new but this topic helped me to understand the merit system concept. Thanks for providig this by the way.

Hey, great idea! I've also been pushing for the newest among us to get merited for the quality posts they make.

For the Newbies & Jr. Members that are considering participating, I started a list of is the best merit worthy posts from the Help & Beginners board. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2852912.0)

They weren't all written by Newbies & Jr. Members, but all are worth of a lot of merit. Good luck to you all!

Define spamming to me in your words if you consider 3 - 4 posts a day as spamming?
If you have something that's worth sharing, would you really wait to share it with everyone?
Or at least with the person who needs to know about it?

I'm taking fixed signature campaigns as an example to reply to your question here:
There are many (fixed-posts) signature campaigns that require you to make at least 25 - 30 posts in a week.
That means, you need to make at least 4 - 5 posts a day to reach that number (if you post for the whole week).
If you think that it's too much for you to make 50 CONSTRUCTIVE POSTS in a 2 week period, better stay away from this as it's not for you. ;)

Personally I prefer to read. I do not mind posting when I have something to say and having a discussion, but writing 4 - 5 quality posts a day consistently, for weeks, may be a challenge. I suppose those signature campaigns are for highest ranks only, so I have a long way before considering them. But I'll try.

You're doing nothing but encouraging spam.

Seriously.

50 - FIFTY! high-quality (who judges this?) posts in TWO WEEKS - i.e. 4 per day - to get 5 miserable sMerit from you? So they have to do that 2 months in a row to get Member status?

Are you fucking JOKING?

I'll just assume you are.

Two things will happen here:
- You'll get spammed with crap, and you'll eventually just hand out the sMerit because you're tired.
- The Newbie forum will get spammed with crap, trying to make you tired. And they will win.

I'd rather be patient and earn it off my own input, tbh.

Are the DTs (particularly DT2, who as we know are very trigger happy indeed) aware of what you are posting here?

Rethink this post, please.

i read all the rules. i just wanna say a big wow for this. 50 high-quality posts in just 2 weeks period? well, it's impossible for someone like me anyway to do that much posts just for getting a few merits. maybe someday i can do it 50 high quality posts in 2 weeks when i reach legendary rank in next 15 years, perhaps. but anyway, thanks for the chance. i'm pass  :(

He decided the rules and you are free to partecipate or not . If you write 50 high-quality posts,will receive 5 Merit from you but,probably, also some merit from other users who read you

I am totally new here, can i participate in this competition? And i am confused, How can you track my posts and how will you choose those members ?

It seems like a very good campain to get merits. Maybe making 10 high quality posts out of 50 seem very difficult but you should deserve it. I can join this campain. It is a good oppotunity for members to rank up.

Have been wondering on how to get a merit for a while, now am enlightened on how merit is being awarded... Now working on my 50 constructive post to get 5 merit award from you...thanks

Elaborate please.
From my end, take an example:
What do you think, that I am going to reward people coming and asking questions like:
What is Bitcoin? How to earn it? Eh!?


Wait, it's my turn now!
Are you ******* educated enough to understand what did I write in the first post? (I'm not in a mood to say or do anything bad to anybody.)
Where did I ask them to post continuously until they get their activity to reach a Member Rank?
I said that those who are interested, can be a part of this and try their luck for some merits that they will need in order to rank up.
I am engouraging "QUALITY OVER QUANTITY" as I've literally said it in the post that I am interested in those who are willing to contribute and will only reward those who really deserve it.
By the way, I didn't give the table limited to Member Rank, but I have shown all the ranks and the amount of Merits that are needed to reach each of them. I believe you may be correct in your words when you said that they can achieve 10 Merits by making high-quality posts already and that I don't need to be a mascot for them, but then, let me make 2 things clear:
- There are merit sources, but they are also having limited merits and so, they also cannot share with each and every member (even if they are the ones who deserve) if the provided merits end up at some point (of course, giving it to people for their constructive posts but this may be like being lucky). So, users like us are taking a stand to help those who are left. Am I doing anything wrong?
- You said that my 5 ^miserable^ merits might be worth nothing to those who will achieve Member rank through their constructive posting, but you forgot one thing that such merits may be useful when you will need them in future to rank up to levels higher than Member, and you can check out the table given in OP.


First read the OP, then assume, as you really need to watch it before shouting over me with your non-sensical accusations.


First, let me know that how many people do you see asking me that they are in for this? Am I really getting spammed and filled with lots of requests? I don't think so! Second, I'm no f**king tired with my merits, but keeping them with me has no sense. You can even watch theymos' post to confirm that hoarding of merits has no sense and spreading it to people who really deserve it - IS WHAT MERIT SYSTEM IS MADE FOR!


Don't know whether I should laugh or cry out loud in joy. What are you upto?


Don't worry, I'm not like you and I believe you are better than many, and can earn a very good amount of merits.
I am saying this after watching some of your posts.


I believe that DT2 members are straight-forward enough and even if I'd have been so lucky (/sarcasm) that they were unable to see this thread, mods already check everything. If there might have been any problems to arise, they wouldn't have let me do this already.


Thanks, but no thanks. I know what I am doing.

Yet another great post of people rewarding the newcomers and spending their time on reading. Thank you and keep up the good work.
So all those complaining, how they gonna rank up have to put some effort because now they have been given a chance to be rewarded.

Cool concept. I wish somebody did that for people who take part in bounty campaigns (which have a greater impact, like translations, articles, design etc.).
And if those 50 posts can't be high-quality, at least they should be helpful of some sort. Maybe help another user by explaning something. I think you should add that there.

Thanks for doing this. Despite not being able to take part in this, I appreciate the idea.

This explanation gives a lot of idea on how merits collected, well explained post will help getting merits. So this is how merits and Smerits work.

I believe that working and helping out yourself is the first thing you need to do because even God helps those who help themselves (I'm not saying I'm God, just giving an example). You should watch others and learn, you must know what exactly a constructive post is - it has been answered many times. Still if you're unclear, I clear it to you - a constructive post is the one that contains all the information and OP expects when they ask something.

Now, what is spam?
- Insubstantial posts (posts containing nothing but thoughts without facts)
- Repeated posts (saying what's already said before)
- And there are many other considerations that come under the radar of moderators when it comes to spamming as it is not limited to the explanations I gave above.

.
 
    Thank you for sharing your knowledge.it wll encourage more member to think and exert quality and useful thought before posting.not just for the sake of rank but general knowledge for everyone to learn...

Thank you very much for your explanation! Now everything is clear...

I would like to join to your candidates but first i would like to clarify 50 post in just 2 weeks.? Are we not be entitled spammers on that as newbie in this world.?

Great post Sted - I like it when people take the time out to explain to others how a feature works - good job mate ;)

Ummm, I believe NO. Because making 4 - 5 posts a day shouldn't be something to bother you if you are really intended in contributing, that too with something worth attention.

Ok, I'll update the OP with some changes here.
After seeing every newbie's concerns over being called a spammer with the activity I'm asking them to do, I've decided to ease it for them by changing the number of posts from 50 to 30. Now, you need to make 30 high-quality posts.


Glad you liked it. Thanks for the appreciation.

Thanks for your generosity with giving away sMerits, sir. I will come back after one of two weeks with new CV.  ;D

I always try to follow this.But it is so much difficult for newbie. Because we are learning from our elders.we  have little knowledge about cryptocurrency world.how can we get more knowledge ?what topic should i post ?

Hope you won't mind this but I can't help you on this.
You need to do these things yourself as that's what you'll be rewarded for. I have already done everything in you guys' interests and I believe there's nothing more I can do here.
Sorry to say but you're not going to get anything if you expect everything served in your plate. So, no free lunches! You need to work hard to get them.

Awesome post, for helping the community out!
You can check out my activities and I'll try my best to help people on the community with my knowledge, besides my posts you can check out my YouTube channel on my profile if there is something you need me to review I'll do it now bias, many famous YouTubers are just reviewing for referral, and super bias but I honestly think that the community needs none bias reviews of course I place referral link if there is, it's for me to earn micro income for giving free content.

To those who've participated in this, first of all, a very Happy Valentine's Day to all of you. Hope you had a great day with your partner and family and still going on.
As this thread has completed 2 weeks already, I believe that the interested participants should show some confidence and quote the "best 10" of their 30 posts that they made during the given timeline (post only if completed).

This is by far the most informative and helpful post regarding the Merit system. This clearly explain how Merit works and how the Merit system will be able to help us as a community. Also don't forget to share your merits to other people that really deserve them, after all not distributing or sending your "sMerit" to other people does not benefit you.

I'm interested in participating with my posts.. I have been posting for about 4 days total now and should be around 50 posts.. most of my knowledge comes from bitcoin daytrading/altcoin position trading.

I'm not sure if by quote you mean linking to the post itself or quoting the entire post.. so I'll just post the links I guess to my posts that I feel were the best I have offered in the past 50 posts..

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2944431.msg30246763#msg30246763
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2658522.msg30248372#msg30248372
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2945365.msg30249663#msg30249663
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2934028.msg30175221#msg30175221
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2945365.msg30249663#msg30249663
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2546272.msg30106574#msg30106574
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2934741.msg30183033#msg30183033
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2934110.msg30170225#msg30170225
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2934207.msg30162961#msg30162961
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2945597.msg30304956#msg30304956
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2717382.msg30115395#msg30115395

I hope this is what you wanted and in the format you wanted it in, and that I actually understood the instructions.. was hoping I could follow others in the format they were posting but alas, here goes nothing.

Im still a newbie here, but ill try my very best to gain rewards, Good thing we came out to this kind of policy, This is very helpful in developing our posting skills and establish  productive discussion in the forum.  ;)

I came here looking for information about how the forum membership works and a thoroughly agree with this all the way. I will say though I didn't realise that It could take such a long time to acquire great overlord status :P 

I think it would be much easier to write a book... :P

I like what you doing, but I am not 100% sure if you are doing this in the correct manner. We should not encourage people to post within a required post count. The interaction should come naturally, like you would be walking around at a party and joining discussions that spark your interest. <It should not be forced>

The main focus of the merit system, should be to improve the post quality, not the quantity. It also serve as a educational tool for people to see what quality posting looks like. <You examine these merited posts and apply what you have learned on your posts to improve your posting.>

I would remove the minimum post requirement and just concentrate on highlighting the quality posts that adds value to the forum.  ^smile^

Good job doing this, this will help a lot of newbies out there.
I really appreciate your thread and I learn some new things.
Kudos to you dude, would love to give you merit.

Hey, I like your idea of thinking to remove the count that I've mentioned here, but I literally haven't asked anyone to spam (like you're saying - I'm also fully interested in quality over quantity). But as we know, newbies and those with lower ranks mostly try to gain higher ranks and they only post in spam megathreads, which is why I actually thought of giving them a chance this way - give their best in those 30 "better" posts but they should be able to know and pick 10 best out of those 30 confidently. I'll still look for all of the 30, and I've not asked them to make such number in a day or two, but during a period of 2 weeks. I've even decreased my required post count from 50 to 30 and I believe that they can discuss things and making such amount of posts during 2 weeks should not be a burden. I'm not trying to make them spam, but rather involve in discussions itself. ;)



I have just one thing to tell you, and that's - WOW!
There are very few people here on the forum - some who have deep knowledge of things and others who do an in-depth study of things they get involved into. Your posts are an example for those who ask me what should they post in order to contribute. I seriously don't consider quantity but need quality assurance by members here for them to prove that they deserve even 5 merits from me. You're one of them, I've given 5 merits to you for your contributional intentions you've shown in each of your posts (except 2 which I didn't like personally). Enjoy your merits.

I' agree with him.

You're not really helping, tbh.

Newbies or anyone on this forum shouldn't be worried about points??

If you're on bitcointalk, it's because you want to hang out, ask for help, give advice, and maybe buy or sell things.

You don't even need to be beyond noob rank to do any of the above!

The only reason why people would want any kind of significant ranking is most likely for nefarious purposes, like trust scamming. Or commercial signature space.

You're encouraging them....

Everybody likes promotions in their life (and they should get it if they deserve it). I'll most likely be giving points to those who've already reached their minimum mark to become member (in rank) and that's because of their work (here: contribution) that they have shown. I'm not suppressing anybody here to spam, but asking all of them to do it keeping themselves limited under the rules. I don't have anything to prove here, but there's one thing that I'm doing for sure, and that's - appreciating the high-quality performances given by some of the very few people here who deserve to go higher in rankings. It's not necessary that people are here just to scam, as I believe trust and merits are 2 different things and I've already had a thread of my own that clarifies it (here) - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2831070.0
Don't you guys think that we should all get together to make this forum clean and better by supporting those who're giving their best for the betterment of forum itself?

Last but not the least, they're my merits and I can decide who deserve them - and trust me, you will not be dissatisfied from my job as I'll be giving my merits to the best ones only. :)

Someone literally hacked my account and changed my password after the post i made here.

I guess you must have some hacker supporters.

They didn't change my email. So they were just trying to send a message.

I still think what you're doing is not so good. Not changing my mind about that.

Thanks for your kind words, I really appreciate it.

I feel pity for you. And sorry that it happened with you after you posted here. Do you "literally" have a genuine proof to blame me that I or someone who is ^in my support^, did it to your account? Did your post get deleted? No.
Did that so-called hacker supporter posted anything from your account here in my support? No.



Keep your password safe first, it should contain at least these 4 things -
An uppercase character
A lowercase character
A number
A special character


I'm happy with whatever you think, and I've already explained it to you why in my previous post. I'm not asking anybody here to "think over" what I'm doing, and seriously - GIVE ME ONE REASON TO HACK YOUR ACCOUNT! Just to support myself? I'm not a paranoid, dude!

---

Don't thank me, you got them because you deserved! :)
I believe you're one of those who do things just for the sake of their own satisfaction and not with the purpose of making money only - others should see and take you as an example in order to start making better posts from now on.
Just as a friendly suggestion, I would ask you to put some more emphasis on few of your mistakes here to make yourself much better:
- Spelling errors (try to commit typo as least as possible)
- Punctuation marks (focus on where you should put which one)

A bump for those who believe they can have some merits for the quality they have (either improved or already possessed). I'm in search of someone like or better than atrocityx, if you think you've got it in your words - shoot the list of your 10 best posts here in the same format as atrocityx did.

So it's mean merit it depend on our activities??I have 112 activities but 0 merit..
And second question is:what is for if we have a merit?

The only downside of merit system I see now is that people are not willing to give those point for whatever reason (probably because they don't know how it works). Maybe they are worried merit points will be gone forever once they use them all... Hope that change after some time.

No, your Rank depends on your merits, and you gain them by making high-quality posts. You've 0 merits because you probably haven't contributed anything that holds a level that could be rewarded through merits.


There are many reasons, 2 of which I'm telling you:
- Merits are given to you to appreciate your (selfless) contribution that you made to the community through your comments.
- They are needed to keep spammers away from the forum and only better quality shall be rewarded.



Don't worry, I'm literally not taking the merit system that way. There are users who have their ways to show support to users who are needed here on the forum for their participation - This is my way of rewarding. :)
I'm not worried about my sMerits being decayed as I know that it won't be happening soon, but all I'm interested in - is giving them to those who are really the best posters on the forum.

Nah, please don't try!!!! Pushing too much on yourself to create constructive post may result into plain spamming, just create and reply to thread you can answers best, keeping yourself to meet their standard and requirements is like begging on your knees to have food from a master.

Just saying.

I'm new here but i love to take challenges and learn. I hope to add value to the community.

Neither am I pushing someone to do it, nor am I asking anybody to be on the forum itself. It's their choice.
Let me make this concept very clear to you and everyone once and forever:
Precisely, making constructive posts doesn't mean that you spew the shit out of your brains everywhere and spam the forum out like hell (that it has already become, due to which this merit system was introduced). But constructive posts means "only" engaging into discussions (by saying that, I mean normal discussions just like you go out and talk with other people like your friends, family, etc. on some topic you already know something about) that you're familiar with. Take an example, someone asks you about Bitcoins and you start telling them about the blockchain technology. What do you think it is?
Spam, honestly. Because the one who asked you about Bitcoins - wants to know about Bitcoins only. You can tell them about the technology afterwards. Asking anything here cannot be marked as spamming (in most cases), but it also cannot be taken as something constructive.
I'm not saying that people need to beg for the food they already have, but they should know that they need to earn money to eat that food forever, right?

Quoting my post from a different thread to make everyone understand better that what exactly do "WE" expect from you guys:

Thanks for the information but I'm  concern by the way it is been done, because posting quality post is not enough to guaranty been merited. I think the best way to do this is to automatically determine a post that can be merited.

Well, pushing people to engage more into actual discussion on the forum is actually a good thing. Don't confuse it with spamming.

I'm not getting the fact that what's the thing you people aren't happy about? Is it me trying to make everyone to push up their limits and try to give their best and get rewarded? Should I stop this? Or is it the limits itself that's making everyone worried about their ranks?

Let me be very frank here about one thing:
A SPAMMER will spam without giving a fuck to his/her quality in the post, but those who are seriously interested in the betterment of forum will surely watch out for their posts at least 10 times before posting it, as it'll be a selfless contribution. Those who are seriously interested in contributing WON'T BE WORRIED ABOUT MERITS OR RANKS, BUT WILL KEEP DOING THEIR "GOOD WORK" AND GIVE IT TO THE COMMUNITY WITHOUT ANY SELFISH INTENTIONS (here: EXPECTATIONS) BUT WILL SURELY BE REWARDED FOR THEIR EFFORTS, BY ANYONE IF NOT ME. This is what I'm looking for, high quality posts are selfless. Try to understand it. We are nobody to set limits, you're the one to set it for yourself.

Newbies or rookies in this forum are in the learning stage with regards to cryptocurrency. Reading around the forum help me a lot to understand what is going on around here. With newbies including myself, i don't expect them to post the so-called high quality post because they are still learning. I am in favor of this merit system but i don't expect to get merit on my post and i don't complain either because it will not help me.

This quit a challange for us newbie to learn and read more here.  But as i can see all the questions have been answered by our leaders. All we have to do is to discover more ideas to get what we aim for. Thank you for the guidelines sir.

Thanks for sharing such a knowledgeable post, I had zero knowledge about the merit system and now it is clear.

It takes nearly 2 and half months to gain a Member Rank here, don't you think that's enough for Newbies to learn at least something about Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies?


I'm seriously impressed by your selflessness that you're not interested in merits but learning and making this forum a beautiful place by contributing in a much better way than others. I'm not telling anyone to write something super-spectacular in order to receive merits, even NORMAL DISCUSSIONS can get you some, but discussing something that's needed, something that's expected at that place is what we want you to do. I'm not even asking you to make those healthy huge paragraphs when you can make a precis of the same and tell everything in short, but meaningful. Whether you expect or not, if you deserve a "LIKE" for your post, you will get it for sure. Merits are just like "LIKES" to those posts that people believe - have given some contribution to the debate.

Hi, as I'm not seeing too much progress of what I thought, could turn out to be a game changer for a few ones - I'll now be adopting a few users' styles in order to give merits for some helpful posts on the forum.

Currently adopting this -
sMerit Post-Review by bill gator - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2819141.0

Send me links to your posts in the format as shown in the above-mentioned post, I'll review your post and if it deserves a merit, you will surely get 1 (or more) from me! Amount of merits will depend on the quality of post.
One rule that I would like to apply here - those who've already received 1 or more merits on the posts they'll send here will not receive anything from me. So, be careful before giving those posts here.

Helpful thread - sMerit for art ! by snipie - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2957836.0

thanks for the explanation! I would love to make 30 high quality posts but I think I need to learn more first!

One thing wasn't clear... What is the difference between sMerit, fMerit, and Merit? Sorry if thats been asked before.

Cheers

I think it should not be because the reward is sure if we help people with a sincere foundation because all can definitely reply

I'll do my best!! I will just contribute to the community and hopefully in a few years I'll be able to level up :)

I need to expand my education first! Unless you have any suggestions for a new newbie to write helpful things. Maybe I could create a guide for other newbies??

Anyway, thx for the explanation!

This is interesting. By “posts” do you mean creating a new thread or commenting on existing thread? Because I’ve been wondering if I have to create an entirely new thread before I can have any hope of receiving Merits.

Hello, I want to join your merit giveaways but can you just please check those bct profiles that will satisfy your standards in posting and give ua a merit instead of quoting 10 best posts..can you please?? THANKK YOU :D

Not all the time since i have also seen replies to posts that are given merit by others. That's because it depends on the quality of how good and constructive your post is. But it makes sense too because when you are creating a new topic or post, of course, everybody has the chance to see the topic on the board.

30 post in two weeks? Guess that's more likely we are in a signature campaign, don't you think Sir? More likely in order for us to have merit and create quantity of post you want will make others just to spam.

For someone who worry about merit system.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3232693.0
They should worry about new new rank requiremens, too.
Good luck, merit-worrying users.

Hehe I thought there are some kind of merit contest here, but thanks to the info.
You may include or can you include also threads concerning merit give away if you saw one, it is much appreciated.

Awesome! There's no need to be in a hurry to earn Merits I believe. I'll just keep learning as much as I can (there's so much to learn) and whenever I have something to share or talk about, I'll create a thread. Thanks for your reply 😁