Bitcoin Forum

I think begging for merit is demeaning, and not something that members should do.
I've started to ignore members who beg for merit in a post. This means that I can't see their posts now or in the future, and I will not be able to award them sMerits regardless of the quality of their posting.

I'm sad that I have to do this, but there seems to be a new trend developing - posters cut and paste an article, and then beg for merit for doing it.

I 100% agree. It is something that should not be done.
If people are positive and helpful the merit will come naturally.
It is not something to worry about.

Plagiarism is not acceptable. It's deceiving others that you're making a quality post by grabbing other peoples work. I'm quite happy that people are starting to watch those guys, rewarding them with a sweet permaban.

Begging for merit is not good,but sometimes you sit down and wonder which of your post will actually be merited.I mean,you write something nicely and constructive thinking you will get a merit for it,but end up realizing that it was not even seen or considered by someone who is capable of giving a merit. Looking at this situation at hand,you can just project into the future and realize that it will take you a long way to get enough merits that will help you rank up. One will therefore be forced to devise other means of getting merits when he feels the normal one is not working for him,which may include begging for one. I wont beg for merit,but i know i will get a merit one day when i post one that deserves a merit. One problem with the system is that,giving out merit is subjective.What you feel should be merited,might be ignored by another person.

It can only be subjective in my opinion, and that is why you need many responsible members in the community to award points, they will have different ideas and standards.

I think people should stop posting to gain merits, but should post to enjoy the benefits of being a part of a healthy and helpful forum and community.

I definitely agree that no one user should have to beg for merit but it has came to this scenario because not everyone is awarding the merit they have.  I have seen countless posts go unrewarded that were very deserving, answered the question completely or created a very stimulating topic of conversation.  I have received 2 merit points for 1 post which gave me 1 smerit.  I awarded that on a post that I thought was deserving.  Now we have people with smerit asking users to go back and find what they thought were good "old" posts and link them to a page in order to possibly give merit.  This is a good idea but it also does lead to people further begging for merit.  Sure I wish that I had more merit, not only to rank up but then I would also have more smerit to give to deserving posters. 

I don't believe that merit should be given for old posts. That isn't going to help to build a new vibrant forum.

btw, I gave you a merit for that post, but I think it is sad that many of my sMerits have been given out for posts about the merit system.

It's true dude. Merits should not be begged, it should be earned. If no one  give merits on  your post doesn't mean you will stop posting.
Quality post is depend on the one who read it. It would be quality for you but not for others.

Interesting stat I just found.  Probably found by others and posted before but I think it is beneficial to see who gives out the most smerit. 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat

Begging for merit should actually just be banned outright. In fact, a name and shame thread so others can permablock them also would be something I would check on a regular basis.

For those seeing posts that are going unrewarded - I thought there was a 'merit source' option. Ie if you are constantly seeing unrewarded posts... collect 10 of them and post them into a section on the Meta board. If a mod checks and agrees that you - I think they award those users for you?? That's how I read it anyway.

And my 2 cents again on the whole merit system - for now, if you are dreaming of having merit and you don't have it or can't get it - then the hardship is something you will need to make peace with. Use the forum for its intended purpose of spreading quality information about topics of interest rather than a way to rank up and cream easy crypto from ICO bounties. Because lets face it, no one would be crying this much if its not because you've just seen your golden goose get run over.

At the end of the day - I'm handling it by just assuming ranking has gone Legacy and the achievement is no longer obtainable. My posting frequency or quality isn't going to change because of it. If anything, apart from the merit drama - I probably wouldn't be saying much at all lol.

That's how it works now and we can't stop it but we can ignore. I think Theymos did what he thinks would benefit this forum in getting post that is substantial and avoid non-sense topics, with that I will support this system of merit but IMO posts nowadays are quite heavy and so much like a blog posts because of this or am I wrong.

So looking at the list I posted before of members that have given the top merit, I went and looked at the top profile and found their signature link to reach below.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827596.msg28975211#msg28975211


I am not sure if I really agree with that approach either.  Giving someone merit because they were so close to ranking up but only if you were above Full member status in the beginning.  Just another reason why I am not really found of our new merit system.  To me, this kinda seems like the "good ole boys" network.  Oh well, it is something we have to live with so hopefully it truly works out in the long run the way we all want it to, with better quality posts.

The purpose of merit is good but this purpose was defeated because of members' attitude toward merits. There are higher ranks play on the merits they purposely wants the lower ranks to beg for it.

Begging for merit should be treated the same as begging for bitcoin and either threads trashed or posts removed, though I suppose in these circumstances the offending begging part could just be edited out by staff. It's only going to get more widespread as people start getting desperate for merit but it's unnecessary as if a post is good then it will naturally receive it. To be honest, I wouldn't even give a post merit regardless of it's 'greatness' if somebody was specifically asking for it.

Begging for merit should be treated as attempting to trust farm. Therefore, those begging for merit should be permanently neg. rated IMO.

Yes I totally agree with you. If they are begging they just want to participate in the signature campaign.
They don't want to learn anything which is not the purpose of this forum.
If they are up to mark, they have to create quality content which worth them the merit.

These upper limits of merit will push people to do that because the main reason for their posts is signature Campaign.
like i say before
The gradual implementation of merit points and the increased activity of mods is the solution

What is merit? ???

Am quite amazed you have a lot of activity but you dont know what merit is.Lol. I will just refer you to this original thread about the merit system to learn more about it.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0

I don't really like the concept of listing your posts for consideration by a merit faucet. If you are making good posts, and they aren't being noticed, then it means one or both of two things. The board or thread is clogged with rubbish, and that means we need more mods, or those who are designated merit faucets aren't reading the threads on the boards - if they stopped scavenging in the dead threads, and looked at the new ones, maybe that would help to solve this problem.

Begging for merit is revolting, reprehensible.  In part, it can be addressed through the forum’s technical features as you just said, or as hilariousetc said:


(Thanks; I will keep that in mind with my trigger finger on the “Report to moderator” button.)  ...or, as Lauda said:


However, begging for merit is a social problem; and social problems need social solutions.  Quoting part of what I myself said on the subject a few days ago:


Thus, I find this idea meritorious (boldface added):


If you find people begging for merit, trading merit, or farming merit, then you should name them, shame them!  Ridicule, insult, and humiliate them!  Make of them an object lesson not only to them, but also for all to see that such disgusting behaviour is NOT WELCOME HERE.

All functioning societies have both positive and negative feedback mechanisms for regulating members’ behaviour.  Here, the merit system itself is a positive feedback mechanism; and I believe it should stay that way.  (Much though I might sometimes wish to issue demerits, I also realize how such a thing would chill the expression of thoughtful but unpopular opinions.)  In the category of negative feedback mechanisms, shame and its sister shunning are the timeless classics which enforce the boundaries of social acceptability.  No community can long live without shame, just as no community can prosper without some basic notions of honour.

In a written medium, the pen is the sword.  Wield it wisely—and where needed, mercilessly.

---

Copypaste is already permaban actionable. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926895.0)  Problem solved!

---

I am strictly opposed to those threads.  I urge the people making those giveaways to reconsider.  Awards of merit should and must be an organic process.

Here and elsewhere, I disagree with you about the question of awarding merit to old posts.  The archives of this forum contain a hidden library of knowledge, especially in the “Development & Technical Discussion” section.  Awarding merit to old posts helps highlight them; where the authors are still active, such belated recognition also has direct utility.  The first merit I awarded to any post older than a month or so was for the post which first brought me to fully realize the problems with DHTs (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=662734.msg7521013#msg7521013), and why Bitcoin does not and will not use a DHT.  I could not exclude such classics from consideration for merit awards.

As an abstract concept, I probably agree with you. However, you have to consider that merits and sMerits were created to solve a current problem, and that is the pollution and deterioration of the forum. To combat that you have to influence new posters to rebuild the forum. The past is the past, but we need to grasp the opportunities in the new future.

The merit system is like an earthquake that shock everybody. Very big surprise this 2018. The result is very amazing. The emotions from everywhere arises that couldn't be stop as in the situation of shock. Begging for merit is a result in the condition as in the present. For me we couldn't blame those people who beg for merit they are just in a hurry to rank up. Probably the begging for merit will continue until everyone immune to this system.

So please give me merit.  :)  :D  ;D

Here you go then.

http://cryptobounty.com/posting-images/lovepale-ignore.jpg

Anyone who gives you merit for this shit needs to be punched in the balls

Cheers, did not really pay much attention to the account details.  ::)

Since the merit system still fresh , it require some time until all of non merit source spend all of this the rest of smerit.
From that moment, the forum will be not the old forum anymore but it has better quality that most of this people looking for

Why are users begging for merit? To look on one side, it seems to look like farming. But there is an other side too. Have a look, most of the people who have high amounts of merits are the ones who are posting in meta, whilst hardly any one is giving merit to those who are posting in other discussions in other boards. Users are impatient on the fact that the merit system has just been introduced and they just want to rank up and repeat the process of signature abusal.

I keep looking at the other boards, but I'm having trouble finding posts that I like. There isn't really a lot about Bitcoin that is fresh.

I'll start looking at bounties soon, and maybe there will be something there. I've got a fairly broad concept of "crypto bounty". I include the rise in the value of crypto domain names as part of crypto bounty for example.

Because it's hard to find a good post in the garbage can. Start any thread, users start abusing that thread by shitposting random stuff.
To be honest Bounties aren't going to help either. They just make things from bad to worse.

I think these people will soon realize that there is no benefit of such behavior. Instead of begging, they should spend that time creating quality posts or at least learning from other senior members here.

Where do you draw the line on begging? Does someone have to explicitly say "give me merit!" or could they be complaining about the merit system and sharing their "woe is me" story about how they were once so close to the next rank and now have to earn 100s of merit to get there?

Here's an example of what I'm talking about: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2828412.msg29000145#msg29000145 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2828412.msg29000145#msg29000145)

Shouldn't you ignore anyone responding to those requests for merit, be it directly or through as sob story?

I wasn't begging for merit in that post, I was just illustrating the fact that all ranks were affected by the change. If you look at some of my other posts, you will see that I state that there is really no significant difference between Hero and Legendary. Even in the sig programmes that I have looked at, most seem to have the same rate for both ranks. I have been awarded some merit points, and these have generated some sMerit which I try to pass on, but I seem to be spending too much time on this, so I may have to back off for a while.

In some cases users might have given quality posts and being unlucky doesn't get any merit. In such cases if they quote with the particular post through the merit giveaway thread can get few merit. In this case we can't describe it to be begging, it is all about the understanding of user about merit system.

I have also noticed this and I think the admin needs to do something about this. There should be some limit on sending merits for posts in meta.

I think that the problem should be tackled from both ends: moderation and the trust system. Whenever someone begs for merit points, their post should be archived, removed and subsequently they should be tagged. The same should be applied for sales (although disallowed, it is unclear whether and what kind of ban this will result it), and a combination of both measures should be much more effective.

Most boards are mostly filled with shitposts. You are just going to waste your time looking.

However, theymos might have a different perspective regarding asking/begging for merit.


But excessive begging is another thing.

My point is, is it really justifiable to tag people asking/begging for merit when theymos allows this but to the extent of not begging just like a desperate beggar?

There was recently a discussion of how even some Hero Members were newly learning Bitcoin history (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg29310337#msg29310337) due to the awarding of merit to Laszlo (inactive account) for the famous pizza post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.msg1141#msg1141).  Amidst that, and in agreement with it, I made an impassioned plea (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg29314081#msg29314081) to bring all the old technical discussion gems to the surface—and “perhaps even slowly revive the forum to those glory days!”

For my part, those archival posts represent the forum I wish I could now experience.  Seizing the moment when people are fired up about the merit system itself, I thought it might be an opportunity to induce people to read those old posts—to interact with them, in a way—to be inspired by them, as I am.  Broken windows and spammy garbage posts are infectious to neighbourhoods.  I’d hoped that superlative quality would be, too.

Of course, that post of mine seems to have been mostly ignored.  You may be right.  I’ll have to think about it.


Sure there is!  Of course, there’s much difference between Bitcoin having fresh stuff, and the Bitcoin Forum having fresh stuff.

As to the latter, I really think it depends on your interests.  I rarely go anywhere besides Development & Technical Discussion and Meta.  On the development forum, the S/N ratio is disappointing but passable; of course, the real action is on bitcoin-dev (a strictly moderated list) and Github.  I’ve been intending to explore other forums; but last I really tried, I found myself wading from one cesspool to another, and promptly gave up.  I hope the merits system will improve the situation.

---

FOR SHAME.  I actually did once award merit to someone who begged me for it.  That person did not need it, was obviously not really seeking it, pulled it off in a genuinely ironic manner amidst witty discussion—and did it in Latin.  By contrast, you are a pathetic freak.  There’s no room for you here:  This village has enough idiots.  *plonk*


...whilst locked in a pillory, being shamed and pelted with rotten vegetables.

As trust is transitive, so is shame.  Giving merit for utter trash is an antivoucher which should operate as the precise inverse of vouching.

---

I am a living counterexample to that statement.  The strict majority (78/151 = 51.7%) of the merit I have thus far received was in “Development & Technical Discussion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0)”, plus 1/151 = 0.00662% in “Bitcoin Discussion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=1.0)”.  If you exclude the +50 I got from some whackjob when I insulted him in Meta (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2854290.msg29320411#msg29320411) (an historic forum first!), the current proportion I have received outside Meta rises to 78.2% (78/101).

Those who who complain about the merit system either aren’t smart, or aren’t working hard on their posts—or both.  Some of my best posts take hours to write, edit, proofread, gather links for, etc.  I expended the level of effort in December.  (I will let my post history speak for me as to smarts.)  You will understand if I take a very dim view of the whiners.


...which is why we need the merit system:  Those who are now screaming in pain are precisely those who so should be.

---

Touché.  (Said by me because I gave +1 to that post.)

(Aside, I think that the merit threshold for achieving Legendary status should be drastically raised—at least doubled or trebled.  Some back-of-the-envelope calculations show that reaching the current merit threshold within the time needed to accrue requisite activity is far too easy; whereas attaining the top rank of anything should be disproportionately difficult.  Nevertheless, I tend to sympathize with decent posters who were this close to the lower activity bound.)

---

I like your approach.  Consider report-and-tag to be my new policy.  I’d still suggest also public shaming—but only occasionally, where appropriate.  That generates noise, just as any other reply to spam.  I think that it’s certainly appropriate to make a public example for others, when somebody begs for merit in a thread condemning merit-begging.


Thought I just had:  I sometimes find interesting threads by looking at the post history of someone whose posts I like.  Perhaps it would be wise to keep track of where quality posters spend their time—a sort of benign quasi-stalking.

---

Earlier on this thread, I cut this part of my self-quote for brevity:


I disagree with theymos here.  As I said, asking for merit is akin to a student asking a professor for an A.  Lauda is right:  Begging for merit is inchoate trust farming, by definition.  It is solicitation of corrupted approval.  It poisons the whole system.  It must be condemned unequivocally.

I'm not tagging them, I'm just ignoring them. I'm not a mod, or an admin, or a trust arbiter, or even a merit faucet, so it will probably make little difference to their career on Bitcoin Talk. However, it does make it easier for me to scan threads. :)

And... done!  From the trust page for #1443762 “lovepale”:


Also reported to moderators with the message:  “Ipso facto merit farming:  Begged for merit.  Flagrantly.  Amidst a discussion of why begging for merit is a reprehensible abuse of the system, nuke on sight.”

Let this be made an example.

---

I know my tagging will have little direct effect at present, other than sending a crystal-clear message.  But it’s important to establish the precedent for declaring merit-beggars untrustworthy.  That, they are!  I hope to see DT members doing same, which will really have some bite.

As for moderation, I’m not a mod, either; but hereto (not including this report), I “have reported 158 posts with 100% accuracy”.  Mods need people to help them clean up the garbage.  By making earlier methods of spamming/farming unprofitable and thus stemming the flow of garbage at its source, the merit system should ultimately result in less garbage to begin with.  The merit system must not be corrupted.

Someone pmd me asking me for 10 merit I didn't even entertain them with a reply. I thought best not to shame them.
When people who are genuinely using and not abusing bitcointalk get more used to the merit system it won't be a problem for people to gain merit where deserved.
On the plus side shit posting is at a all time low.

Good. Merit begging is the merit equivalent of asking for trust feedback, which has an equivalence to trust farming (or attempting to buy reputation).

untrustworthy behavior = negative tag
asking for/buying trust/reputation = untrustworthy behavior
buying accounts = trying to buy reputation
begging for merit = trying to ask for reputation

These correspondences should be accepted by all members... but unfortunately, some do not view it this way (typically account traders).

Ok.

But you still haven't answered my questions, which are:

• Where do you draw the line, what's considered begging?
• Will you also ignore anyone rewarding someone for begging?

Another example for you - nullius, who I noticed has given you merit and is a poster on threads you start, has "Tips welcome" in her signature - is that considered begging?

---

And Jet Cash, I noticed you changed your avatar, it no longer says "LAMP - Legendary Awaiting Merit Points", so you must agree with me that it's borderline begging?

Your syllogism is soundly stated.

As for “some do not view it this way”, who cares?  Should the henhouse and its maintainers fret even a whit over the opinions of foxes?  (With apologies to foxes, who may be sly, but were never execrable sub-animals as are spammers and account traders.)

---

s/her/his/  (Note:  I did not fill out the “Gender” field in my forum profile, because I have a sex, not a “gender”.  I have now filled it out anyway.)

Jet Cash is not responsible for my behaviour.  Whyever would you ask the recipient of merit and replies to answer for their author?

I should have stopped right there.  But in case you don’t understand the difference between begging for merit/trust/reputation and the socially innocuous, long-established custom of a tipjar for voluntary recompense of those who give freely, I began to spell it out for you.  It started something like this:  “Social rules and the like are neither mechanistic nor oversimplified in their derivations; and working backwards from a single disconnected abstraction never produces good results for anything....”  Then, it got long—very long.  At some point, it crossed paths with actmyname’s syllogism on untrustworthy behaviour, as quoted above; go reread that, then try to explain how a tipjar demonstrates untrustworthiness.

Whereas I am neglecting replies to other people, and I also doubt the productiveness of explaining the aforestated difference to someone who does not get it, or pretends not to.

I think that people have been scared by new rang system and the are trying to do something with this in the most easy way.

The only people who could possibly be scared by this new rating system are illiterate one-line spam junk posters who have been treating this forum as their personal free money machine.  Of course they will want “the most easy way [sic]”!  Worthless parasites always do.  Nobody who gives value to receive value would ever be scared by (of all things) a merit system.

As I’ve mentioned in another thread, the word “merit” is derived from the Latin root meaning “to earn”.  The merit system requires that you earn your keep.  Earn your merit, and don’t beg for it; otherwise, in the end, you will beg on the street.  I hope the “scared” people understand that.

That looks like a Bitcoin address to me. There is a long tradition on this forum of rewarding posters who provide detailed technical information and help with Bitcoin. This has nothing to do with the merit system.

No - I changed it because you pointed out that it could be misunderstood. The first mention of it was "Legendary Awarded Merit |Points", but obviously that was incorrect. I invented it as a result of several threads that suggested there should be a level above legendary for posters who had been awarded points for posting, and I agree with this. I've seen posts from some legendaries which should have been in the newbie forum, and there are legendaries who are truly legends with a great store of knowledge and experience. It would be good if this difference could be recognised.

Begging someone to give you merit is so unpleasant. Especially to those who actually working hard to get a merit by posting a constructive and useful posts for the other members.

Ouchy!!! Now that wouldn't feel pleasant at all!

I detest these merit beggars! They may be too full of themselves that they think they are worthy to be merited due to their assumed good work! It is true that getting noticed may shy away from us. But it is not at all a valid reason to deliberately ask for them. SHAME ON YOU!

And by TMAN saying that those who give merit to beggars should be punched in the balls, is quite modest in its sense. They should be yanked out and fed to their owner!!!

This is one of the weird aspects of the merit implementation - in this first phase only posts speaking about merits are eventually getting rewarded with merit. This, of course, is producing an increase of posting in threads dedicated to merits.

As for merit to the old posts, I'd distinguish between merit to old posts of currently active people and "necro-merit" to posts of people who are unlikely to even notice they have been merited - for example Satoshi, who has already received a lot of merits which now are totally lost. Currently active members would notice they have been merited for old posts and they would use the additional sMerit they would get.

Of course begging for merit is too low and weak. This new system has place to be for 10 days on the forum and I actually didn't see anyone who would beg for a merit. Well, I was predicting that as normal phenomen, it is like to ask for a like in a social network. Creators should to do something with such people indeed.

This post covers two of the points that I have made in the past. Merits don't really do much for Hero members and above when it comes to earnings potential, I've looked at this, as I'm getting tempted into renting my signature. It seems that is a major function of this forum. So for me merits donated to me serve two functions. One is that they give me sMerit to give away, but I'm finding this difficult to do for reasons that I've already mentioned. The other use is that merit awards help me to gauge the interests of forum members, and their opinions of my posts ( pretty low by the look of it :) ). It's a bit of a virtuous circle though, because I get awarded points for posting in Merit threads, then I assume that is what members want, so I post more, and thus get more points. I have tried breaking this circle, but at the moment, that doesn't seem to get any results.

Whilst I agree in principle with the second paragraph, I believe that the merit points system is intended to improve the quality of posting, and thus it should be used to encourage new posts with benefits to the community.

I'm going to close this thread as I think everybody gets the point, and there are many other similar threads.
I am putting together a gallery of members I've put on ignore, and I'll post that link in my sig when it is presentable.

Many thanks to all my readers ( well most of them :) ), and please keep making those quality posts on the Bitcoin topic boards.