Bitcoin Forum

Merit system is introduced to nullified low quality posts in the forum. but something is going exactly opposite to this.
I am seeing more rubbish posts, as everyone is trying to make more and more posts which shows the insecurity among them.
As they all wants to show on the top of the discussion where they have a little opportunity of getting merit points.
Do merit system really make a difference in this forum?
 

Little by little, yeah. People are starting to post-to-discuss and not just to complete their requirements in campaign. People now are actually interacting and connecting, instead of ignoring the earlier posts. People are now thinking before the post cause they want each post to be meaningful. Because people now, if they want to rank up, need merits.

We can't control people and stop them from making threads (since this is an open forum) and it's not their fault they want to get noticed. But we can remind them not to do this.

Definitely Yes jerry! The hoard behind getting the merit points is very brutal. everyone wants merit points for the higher post on the forum & trying to all  the tactics to get the merit points because something is not going right.
I have seen some posts which are getting merit points for the rubbish. May be some posts have some meaning that describe only by the person. But taunting a person for a post may also give you 8 merit points. I am amazed.
And one post got 18 merit points from 5 person for writing nothing.

Take a positive side,I’m a newbie and i feel merit system can make a difference.i have been following this forum for months and noticed the increase of useless conversations and repeated posts,in a way this can be controlled.coming to merits,the chances can be low (or maybe not) but I think one doesn’t deny appreciating a good post having a chance.

I have noticed people saying it’s injustice to the newbies and high ranked members are benefited,which is absolutely wrong.they are just awarded for their efforts and credibility.injustice is done for newbies who deals with shitposting.in a long run it benefits the forum

Stop critizising a system that did not even have time to create any effect whatsoever, let alone prove whether it actually works or not.

It will make a difference. After a while, shitposters and whiners such as yourself will notice that they efforts are a waste of time and produce nothing. Therefore, they will gradually quit/stop and the place will become better.

Wrong.

Hehh I dont really care about merits i feel. I have accepted the fact that I will probably be stuck as full member for life. This forum really offers lot of information about anything crypto related from mining to airdrop to news and i think having access to all this is a merit in itself as after all, crypto is not the primary focus of my life.

'Merit' is the worst introduced system to this forum. The sooner the admin realise this , the better for the forum. But because of 'Ego' they wont accept the bitter truth that 'Merit' is a crap system and they will try to continue with this system regardless..

Now wait for some high ranked members ( Who actually DID NOT earn the merit, got it by default instead) come here and start bashing the posters who say something against the merit system. They will then start arguing to say how good is this crap system bla bla....

Some newbies will also create some thread praising this crap system. Because they already realised the easiest way to get merit is to praise 'Merit' system Lol... ;D

Do you have a reasonable and understandable post? you should get some merits for it. find a merit source and ask for a review, if they have the time to review your posts, you should get your merits. reasonable and understandable.

I think you are right about the part that people are trying to post more so that they get noticed. This may not give them merit points ( if they are posting rubbish) but it is harming the forum for sure. Another reason in addition to this is that we still have the activity requirement. Suppose  a member gets the desired number of merit points for some posts, he will then add some shit posts to reach the activity required for next level.

Everyone can express his opinion about the new system whether he likes it or not. Regarding changing the system, admin is already making improvements like adding more merit sources.

I think merit system just created a misunderstanding and bad use of this new option. This function exists for some days and already became a reasons of many arguing and complains. My own I think that moderators and managers of the forum who agreed for merit system thought about all possible results of this, so it is just can't be unnecessary thing. I hope with time we will understand it better and will learn to live with that normally without any panic and arguing.

It's not, it makes no sense. They can post 100 posts per day without any of them being constructive or without quality whatsoever, and with all those posts they won't be able to rank up.

Give the new system some time, it will all clear up. Tho spamming is obsolete now, the only thing I see going on will be the account selling prices going up. 

I have discussed about this one in another topic:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2873832.msg29536389#msg29536389

Learn to read.

Yep, in order to have a healthy forum everyone needs to be engaging with each other in a real discussion. There are countless threads out there with 100s of posts that all respond with the exact same message because the person posting on page 30 didn't even bother to read through page 1 to see if there was a similar response. Just a bunch of mindless posts being thrown out there, but now with the merit system we might actually see more people actually engaging with each other.

Time will tell on if the merit system actually works. I believe it will

You are a pajeet poster who is trying to use 20 words when 1 will do.. you won't get any merits

Once they realize that it takes too much effort for such a little payoff, the flood of shitposts (and new shit-topics) will stop, that's my guess.  These pajeets are not hard-working writers, nor are they creative.  There's no way they could earn merit with what they write, so there's no way in hell any of them are going to get any unless they purchase it or have an alt account give it to them.  

The merit system is still very new, and people are still playing around with it.  The pajeets will figure out that it's not the lucrative game it was just a couple weeks ago, where they could post any lazy shitpost and get paid for it.  Just be patient and this will work itself out.
I've noticed a lot of this when I was tagging shitposters.  There were a LOT of padded shitposts, and you could tell after the 5th word that the pajeet had exhausted its vocabulary and was just repeating the word "bitcoin" like a broken record.

The merit system braught many good posts, high quality and helpful. But it seems, there are still not enough sources. Maybe it would be senseful to allocate sources for each section.

And another pajeet trying to hard. Seems like they have all swallowed a thesaurus since the merit system was introduced

Trying out the new system.

So many signature + avatar campaigns that require minimal amount of posts.

Another step would be a Chrome extension to fully hide certain users... Maybe something like this already exists

I don't know how you came to this conclusion, but I'm going to have to completely disagree. The merit system is not meant to do anything to low-quality posts; the merit system is a form of positive reinforcement, because it rewards good behavior, it does not punish bad behavior. Therefore, the merit system is meant to reward quality posts. You say the opposite is happening, so you believe that the merit system is encouraging low-quality posts? I'm not sure how you can say this confidently, there is no evidence for this.


You're saying people are spamming more, as a result of the merit system. Do you have any statistics or information to support this theory or are you just talking out of your ass? I would hate to think you are speaking only off of an anecdote.


Yes. I have seen many spammers run-off crying from the forum already and it has given me new ambition to actually come hangout again. The merit system makes it so ranking up is extremely limited, as it should be, especially when it comes with any sort of perks.

Overall now I have felt the benefits when the system is implemented. Now the spammers are getting less and also alt accounts have started thinking because they can not do it as before and this has started to decrease. The subject matter also has the value of good quality because everyone is motivated to give the best.

We all think that when we can get a merit point then we will have the opportunity to be able to increase incredible and well qualified account we have. This will help us to get some income, this system makes the account that we have will be highly appreciated by others.

The merit System is a good one strategy for everyone who are making and creating posts and replies with a sense, compared to other that just making conversation on the local board (gat curious and open some local board), some just saying I'm from this country, some one will reply 'same here', 'hi', 'helooo', 'how are you!', 'how was your day?', that's the post and replies I saw!
Then compare it to other boards wherein people struggle to make post then both of them gat activities after every update and rank up at the same Time??!!!!

What is this, why not create a chatting discussion outside the furom and they can just chat all day.

I am really confused about this merit system. There are good things about it and there are bad things i don't know i think we need to get used to it.

Yes merit purposes is too get rid of low quality posts in the forum, and it will happen in the future. And you can not judge the system now because it is just only 2 weeks from the update till now, we need time to make it fully functioning.


What you are seeing now is because merit system is forcing people to make posts. It is natural that people join popular thread to get merits. But later on if they only do low quality post, they will realize that it is hard to rank up and eventually they will leave the forum or they will step up their game, and we will only see normal to high quality posts later on the future, but not now. And to make it works, the system need all of the forum member (especially who can give merits) to give merits to people which is worthy of it, it is kinda like encouraging people to do good things, it is a simple things but means a lot to people.

And FYI, there are some low rank members that is happy, agree, and confidence with the merit system even on your thread, and of course in my thread too, i even make infographic for it, feel free to check it at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2822349.0

as a "common people"  what we can do is accept this system and try to addapt or we will be left behind , in my opinion this system requires us to think before we post something good , and yeah mostly do that to get Merit point , and I think that   good to reducing low quality post

We have observe some nonsense post in the forum but people are getting banned for some meaningful post as well which is making  people loose intrest in making comment here..anyways more app are coming up to avert this .. thanks

Was reading one of Naitiks shitposts on another thread and realised he had the cheek to discuss the merit system while passing merit between his naitik account and his jerry29.

Can’t believe you missed this ALT 😀

I think first, you should improve more your posts quality to gain some merit points, and they I think you can answer your question and know if the merit system really make the difference in this forum or not. I think a lot of members with lower ranks will stuck a long time to reach next rank, because they can't make any constructive posts because they are too poor in English.

The merit system launched to reduce or at least minimize number of rubbish posts (as you called). However, Theymos can not control spammers to make their posts. Of course, shitty, one-line threads will be deleted sometimes (hours or days) by the forum (by moderators, or bots - I am not sure about bots for automatically deleting shits).
In contrast, merit system has performed efficiently to enhance the quality of the forum in general, including quality of each users' thread and of the forum (of course, it is only right with construtive, contributive users). The system has also been good in terms of help users to get more knowledge faster, get helps easier because lots of users tried helping others due to effects of merit system.
So, let's think positive; let's change yourself; let's stop thinking about spammers. If they can not rank up with merit system, they will not our problems in the future, for sure.

I think this new merit system provides a new, innovating, and exciting way for us to openly discuss how aweful the merit system is.

Complainment about the nre merit system is full of this board, why not the administrator take a measure to solve this problem? there is no use of this merit system but cause people disappointed to this forum, scam post will forever last if the forum run, stopping user from rank up is not a good idea indeed

I really wonder why those people that dont like the system are still here while they can go away find another forum that suites to what they like or maybe make their own forum and do whatever they want? Gotcha! Its all because of the sig campaign... then why hell are you complaining about the system if you are going to get profit from it. Gotcha! because you are a lazy dumbass who wants to just shitpost and gain profit from your trash!

Move on kid.

That's right, sooner or later those shit posters will eventually give up on making their way up to the rankings and will be forced to join social media campaigns as they will realized that they will not be happy on what they will earn on signature campaigns with their current ranks. The time since the new system has been implemented is not yet enough to eradicate all those members but we can see that it made a change significantly.

You are missing a point!
They won't give up because they don't really have to rank up to higher levels to earn money from the forum with current rules.
Why is that?
If you have experienced enough in the forum, you would realize that signature payments for Member rank usually double of for Junior member rank. Yeah, that's the point, shit-posters don't have to try to rank up, they have another option, which seems to be better, more comfortable for them.
2 Junior member accounts instead of 1 Member account. That's enough. Keep posting shits and get money, instead of putting lots of real efforts to rank up and get the same amount of payments.

Merit system will keep shit-posters stucked at their current ranks. In the future, when more and more campaigns require minimum number of merits to join, shit-posters will be eliminated somehow. When they can not join any campaign in the forum, they might leave and find others better places.

I think it is right time to lock the topic, which seems to be perfect place for spammers to get here and join discussions to increase their post-counts and ask for merits.
Simple and basic principle: Garbage in, garbage out! No need to discuss more. Rubbish was produced by shit-posters (most of the time, equals to spammers).
Merit system has not produced shits, spammers have did produced shits.

I think merit system is good but it cannot be implemented well here. Also i have seen people not so keen in giving merit to others and mostly merits are used for account farmers to help their accounts grow.

Why? Would you mind explaining more about the idea.

In contrast, I have seen lots of meriters who has sent their sMerits away to so many deserved threads which published by different users in the forum.
Of course, there are merit farmers, but they will be punished with really strict punishments like this one:
 More mass merit farming (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3024695.0)

I totally agree with you, with new Merit system nothing new happened, only people are leaving this forum, because it is almost impossible to get higher ranks  :'(

I think that you forgot something in your reply :). It's not almost, it's totally impossible to rank up if you're just a shitposter and don't help anyone in this forum. Merit created to prevent this kind of member and only shitposter are leaving this forum just because of Merit system. If you feel there are no chance for you to rank up, you can cheat the merit system if you want to, but I think you know the consequences of it :)

They are not leaving (I guess), they are trying to cheat the merit system. Small part of them are trying to adapt by improving themselves to be better, more constructive. I think those users who changed this way are good for the forum, though they were spammers, shit-posters in the past. However, if they can change to be constructive users, it's good; then we can call them as ex-shit-posters, lol.

Unfortunately if they ended up on a merit awarder's ignore list, then their change in posting quality will not be noticed. This means that it is still harder for them to gain merit than it is for a new member who starts off the right way.

Before you start polluting the boards, reflect on the long term damage that you are doing to your nice clean account.

The idea behind introducing the merit system was to enforce the users to post quality threads, encouraging them to engage with a conversation rather than making comments here and there for signature bounties.


This was the whole idea.

So, instead of complaining about the system when not post something that will give value to the community.

If you care about the community then someday you will forget about everything and will land your hand for helping others and improving your personal developments. I been there by the way.

So, just chill  :)

Merit system= Rubbish posts = 0 merits

Some users are making long posts but without substance. I think the whole point of the merit system is just to lessen  shitty posts not short posts. A post can be constructive without even being necesserily long.

I agree with you, people on the forum don't want to try, instead of useful information, I see posts that were written a year ago and were copied into a new topic.

It's true. Shit posters will have less chance to receive merits due to their bad post history, but I think that if they keep continue changing their post quality to higher and higher day by day, then merits will come, some day over long period and intensive efforts to adapt to merit system. Finally, they will have almost clean post history like someone else.
No one have enough time to scan all post history to see how good a poster is.

Yeah. Based on your recommendations, if shit-posters follow them, we might see a new waves of newbies which come from spammers with new efforts to spam the forum, one more time.

Looks like that was your exactly target to earn a little bit of merits ::)
I would not say that the number of rubbish post increased, as you say, it is approximately at the same level. But the thing I really see is that the number of quality and helpful post really raised. Time ago I've seen different graphics and pictures with explanation of forum's rules or Blockchain or bitcoin really seldom, but now I see such post maybe every day and such posts really deserve to be merited, cause of they perform some ideas in fun and easy to understand form.

That is the thing that many people have done before in this forum and continues to this day, as the actual calculations have been much reduced. Now shitposting has begun to dwindle and now more and more people are motivated to make quality posts. They are all racing to contribute to the forum because it is one way to get merit. routine contribute will then train someone's ability to be a useful person. I think when we do not make shitposting then it is not a problem. Instinctively I will also do that, I will keep trying and always try to be able to contribute much better again.

Yes, due to merit system, the general quality of threads in the forum rose.

You are wrong! In my point of view, I don't like threads which attach oversized/ annoying images/ infographics. I think those ones are only needed for lazy users, who should not stay in our forum. All necessary stuffs have been presented clearly, transparently in the OP of its ANN (for example, with merit syste, its purposes, its rules, all of them mentioned in topic created by Theymos). I don't see any reason to have infographics to explain what merits are, what sMerits are and which functions they are in the circulation of merit system.

For those lazy users, leaving the forum is the best option, no need to create infographics for them, and invite them to watch.

This Merit system has two sides one bad and second good.

Bad is that, what will happen with the people who are one or two week away from getting next RANK ?


It is the same like Bounty managers asked users to do same tasks again as we lost spreadsheet.


Good is that, forum members will try to increase the quality of post.

Sucks to be them. Merit has hit hard on everyone and nobody is exempted from the effects. So there is nothing you can do about it except moving on.

This mentality of people in the forum needs to change. The sole reason some people come to bitcointalk everyday is to spam for bounties and shitpost. The fact you picked up this a reference shows that you are also one of them.

Agreed and people are also ranking up.

What we can do is that start thread regarding this and ask Theymos to make some reliable rule for who are about to get next rank.


No, i am not one of them, you can check my previous posts.

And you people really think that's good? To drive off, repel some people who are willing to join and work for the world of crypto? Do You really think crypto/blockchain tech have a future without "shit-posters", "rookies", "ignorant people", people who do not speak or write English well? If these people for any reason don't recognize their own interest in the alternative economy system, you'll end up selling pizzas to each other for 50M BTC.

Just try not to forget one thing: these people to whom you're laughing and whom you call "shit-posters" are precisely those who keep marketing wheels of the emerging crypto projects moving. If they didn't work for peanuts, promises of the newly forged coins, and possibilities of eventual payment in some new coins wannabee some very interesting coins would not exist today.

If "ignorant people" don't start to use crypto, there won't be any crypto in the future. You, "masters of the crypto world", will be selling each other worthless bytes in your Kingdom in the clouds.

Mass adoption is the mother of success of every human activity. And that requires masses.

Does anyone dare to publish the list of the members who have advanced to the next rank since the merit system has been introduced? Published or not, look at that list and think about the following: for how long will all the members of the community who are not on that list stick to the idea, talk nicely about the things that are going on here, try to attract new people, new work force, new "nodes", new customers, new users, or they will declare the idea "elitist", and walk away?

Be careful about what you wish for - you may get it. And please, please, be careful not to destroy and suffocate the blooming of the crypto world you've made possible with this forum.

I don't wanna be a jr. Member for life. Can someone please help me with merit to move to the next stage

This topic is about merit system and rubbish posts.

I see a lot of quality posts here. I counted more than 25 good posts and I see no merit awarded to this posts. Only a few on the first page are randomly awarded and there is no one merit given on next 2 pages for good quality content.

I don't think that this is how merit system should work.

There should be always a chance to get few merits of your quality content. I don't know maybe there should be few merit sources to which we can send our links for quality check and merit award or topic where you add your post for check and random or qualified users reconsider award.

The problem lies in your attitude toward this forum.  Bitcointalk is not a "job"; bitcoin is not a "job".  This is a forum, and it doesn't serve its function well if no one is able to understand what's being posted here, or if what's posted is complete shit.  What part of my statement don't you understand so far?  Can you imagine what a discussion forum would look like if people could post as much garbage as they wanted?  It'd be chaos, and eventually it would fail.  

Please realize it was Theymos himself who put the merit in place, so he's obviously sick of idiots posting in a language they can't speak.  This whole argument isn't discriminating against non-English speakers, but if you can't speak it you aren't qualified to do a job that requires posting in English.  End of story.  Too bad, so sad, bye-bye.

Stop posting one-line shitposts and you might have a chance.  But you probably didn't even have to ask this question; you could have read thousands of threads about this.

And that's where I think you're wrong. This forum is much more than "a forum" - it's a place where people can work for crypto currencies. You don't have that opportunity on other forums - this is the place. I guess you guys maybe didn't want that to happen, but it happened - and, don't get me wrong, it's a good thing. I'll explain what I mean by that.

Just remember the "good old times" when Bitcoin was worth 1 USD, and the power consumption has far exceeded any logical an economic reason to mine. Wasn't you thinking then: "This is a good thing, if people can only understand! If we can only convince people that this is future, if only people start to use this technology, their life will be easier, they'll be making money, they'll be pissing on governments and banks and accountants. This will be the future if they can only make a little mental effort and understand the greatness of this, and start participating!"
And they did.

Bitcointalk is not a job, you're right, but it's the place where people can find a job. And because they could do that, the word of crypto industry has spread, other people did find out about a whole new industry that needs free work force for its growth, work force that will not work for money, but for some "money wannabee", some new strange currencies and the promises they offer. And they tried. When they have earned money, they started to buy and invest, and the wheel that was stuck for years, started to move.

Bitcoin is not a job, but without jobs around it, it is worthless. Just think about it and you will see (begin with the graphics cards industry). Without altcoins, bitcoin is nothing more than an interesting "hacker's game" or however they called it in the newspapers just a few years ago. There's no industry without jobs. There's no bitcoin (or any other currency) without people. How many people in the world have USD, and how many of them can speak English? If you try to listen to every man or woman who works for USD, use them, pay bills with them, that would be a chaos - you're right. But it's precisely that chaos what made USD the world currency. If only well educated, eloquent people, economists, and blah, blah, worked for and used Dollars as mean of payment - it would not exist.

Don't get me wrong - I believe that you and everybody here did the great thing for the blockchain technology with Bitcointalk and that tech will do good for the people in return. But the technology HAS TO SPREAD if it wants to live, it's a normal development path. It has to have more currencies, more users, more workers, more marketing, more everything. I'm just afraid that diverting ignorant and low skilled people from the only place where they can earn crypto (at the moment), you're suffocating the development. I can give you the numerous examples of the similar stillborn industries that have died out because their makers were not ready for the thing they have created, tried to make it an elite thing, and blah, blah, but I'm already shitting a lot.

Try not to maltreat people too much, because if they go away, development will stumble (and when it get stuck, it will unfortunately die) and all of us who believe in this thing will have nothing (and I don't speak only about money).

Agreed, it's starting to look more than a little silly.    Of course it's not an easy problem to solve, maybe what you need (other than a software upgrade) is the human touch.

Bitcointalk "masternode" admins, if you will.   


Make a lower level of admin that has time to clean up all the messes and is motivated to do so.       When bitcointalk was at its finest, it's because of the incredible activity and effort from the admins.   Now crypto has grown 100x larger, but same number of admins.   That's the problem.

Two things:

1)  If only everyone wrote like you, there wouldn't be such a problem with post quality.  What I'm fighting are people who post absolute nonsense over and over because they are incentivized to do so by signature campaigns.  They are not qualified to take on a writing job, plain and simple.  Ultimately this is a discussion forum, whatever your thoughts about bitcoin are.  If people are actually going to be given the opportunity to make money by posting, there are (and have to be) minimum standards for quality.  There is a large contingent of members who cannot form proper sentences and who keep repeating the same nonsense repeatedly.  They do not belong here.

2)  Do you really think any of these shitposters care about bitcoin?  Absolutely not!  Do you know how many times I've read "bitcoin is a job, I join bitcoin because we can get profit..."?  That's the continuing mantra of these people, and all bitcoin is to them is a way to earn more fiat.  I have no proof of this, so don't ask me, but I am firmly convinced of this.  To them, bitcoin IS bitcointalk, and my guess is that they just convert btc-->fiat and buy what they need.  They could care less about any other aspect of bitcoin and most know nothing about it.  

So if your argument is that sig campaigns stimulate bitcoiners, I'd have to disagree, but the main point is about this forum and not about bitcoin and how these people are to its community.  You might as well argue that scammers are an important part of the bitcoin economy.  

One question:  Would you endorse people who don't know how to program anything and can only write rudimentary code to get jobs at Konami or Square Enix making video games?  They should be allowed to make games, right?  Konami would be discriminating against them if they weren't hired, right?  Think about it.  It's the same question a lot of us have asked here, and it's what these shitposters don't seem to ever grasp.

Roger that.  The only other option is to give in, but I'm not about to do so.

When I read this, I feel like there is a sense of being overwhelmed.

Like you are getting out-numbered by shitposters.

And now it's impossible not to equate that to the real world.

But this isn't the real world, it is forum software.   Very, very old forum software that doesn't do basic things like recognize spammers on registration.

Why not update it?

The answer to your question: no, I woudn't (plain and simple :)). But that rises another more complex question: Would you endorse people who know how to code to clean offices, corridors and shit from the toilets in Konami? Would you endorse them to set up the network in the offices, repair computer equipment, electric system and chairs? Would you endorse them to make commercials for Konami, catchy slogans, marketing plans, will coders be the one who will pack boxes into trucks, deliver them to the shops, sell game DVDs, represent the company at courts? You think about that, because without these "little" and "unimportant" people, Konami would never be able to make and sell 1 bloody game :). There were little garage companies which functioned like that, but they've never succeeded to grow big, and now you can't even remember their names (I know quite a few of them: Corrosion, Tranxgames, etc.) It's romantic, it's beautiful, but they always eventually die, because - there's no money in romance (sad but true).

And that money thing brings me to your second question, which is even more important:
Absolutely not, and I can give you the theoretical and practical proofs to support that. Why would they? They convert Bitcoins in fiat, because they do buy what they need - you said. And that's the whole trick! THEY BUY WHAT THEY NEED. That's what money's for. They can not yet buy what they need with BTC, but what do you think will happen when they get that chance? How would they think and act in the situation in which it will be cheaper and more convenient for them to buy bread, milk, clothes, books and everything for BTC, instead to convert it to fiat, pay bloodsucking bank fees, taxes and God knows what kind of other concoction that governments can think of. So, the whole trick is to grow big enough - they don't care now, because USD is more convenient as a universal means of exchange, but it won't last forever. They will learn to care, but in order to do that they have to be there and use it.

I don't know Theymos, but I can not stress enough to you (and especially to him) how important it is not to frighten away this still fragile and by no means perfect community. There will be times for drastic measures, but this moment is still premature, the crypto market is still young, cheap and controllable, we all should gather people, new people, rich or poor, educated or simple, not scare them and silence them. I beg you, or anyone who knows Theymos well, to talk to him. The system has to be easier (a bit, not much, just to give some hope to the growing community) for the plumbers and cleaning ladies to earn crypto. If they don't have crypto, they will never start to use it and learn to love it. The system should work in such a manner that they can see people around them advancing in ranks, not being stuck forever. There are other ways, he can lower the crossbar a bit, engage more community members to control posts, control IP addresses for cheaters (who are the part of every system big enough - that's why you have the police :)) or anything else that will result in people advancing in levels. There's no industry without making money, there's no company without employees who hope to advance and who feel themselves part of the whole thing  - it's the simple human logic. Please, be extremely careful.  

I am surprised that people who are running this kind of forum couldn't come up with a more sophisticated system.

This system is random and childish at best. For me, it looks like a way to preserve power for the people on the top, because now no one can reach them because it is next to impossible to get merits if you don't know someone who has lots of sMerits.

The effort is not invested in the ways how to help newcomers. The merits are just the way to slow the progress of the savage postings, nothing else. That's how much people who invented care about the people on forum and quality of posting.

People on the top of this forum are clever for sure, if they really want to make a better system they just need to think for a few hours. But they obviously don't care. Fools day was more important than the real working system.

At times we all feel overwhelmed at the forum in front of some shitposting threads which never stop and even forum administration does not do anything to auto-lock threads after "x" number of replies. Also the OPs being shitposters themselves never lock the threads even after getting an answer because they want shitposting.

In real world some people have authority. Not so in the internet.

Or should we say forum administration is having their hands full already?

Why dont you create a new forum? ::)

Its slowly reducing a bit. We could see lot many quality posts being contributed now and it became a habit now. Shit posting has been reduced with the help of this new merit system. Long way to go. A wonderful step has been taken. Though there are alts giving merits to one another, we have accounts which really need merits and we need to look at meriting them.

Spammers have to adapt to and rank up with merit system. To do this, they have to improve themselves to be more constructive over time. If they do it, they actually contribute to the general quality of the forum. It is good for all members in the forum. For some spammers who don't change, don't contribute anything after the launch of day of merit syste,m. It's good too, they can keep spamming and stuck at their current ranks forever.
They can exchange merits to rank up, but using that way, they will be banned permanently sooner or later.

Merit system is a value to appreciate the quality of a post, so to get a merit then someone should do a quality post and have a good value, I think merit system is not rubbish posts, because I see a lot of quality posts and spread the diverse knowledge in the forum bitcointalk.org especially for beginners like me, many posts that give me more insight into bitcoin.

The topic author simply started this one for complaining, crying, trying to discuss for non-sense. Non-sense because this topic is for nothing. Merit has been here, to help all of us, to help the forum, to help wipe spammers (like this guy) out, to make this place become cleaner, better one for all of us.

Agree with this point.

Generally, I don't think you give your recommendations at the right place, for the right guy. This topic don't need such recommendations. So I consider your threads like off-topic ones. (Hate to say this, but it really is).

It's already been done and we already use it, you know the one :)

But I would much prefer to see this site kept up.

I would also love to see key people on here more receptive to constructive criticism to make things better :)

What if Konami hires 10 of these little and unimportant fellas to clean their toilets but only one of them did the cleaning while the rest of them made more mess? they are doing that in this forum. one person would register 20-40 accounts and starts to post garbage. would you endorse 2000 people shitting in Konami's toilets and even get paid a salary and Konami's coders and real employers would have to waste their time to find a place to work on their great games?


If theymos wont do it, I will. I am begging those people to leave and let this revolution to have a chance in development. every time I go to Bitcoin section, I can only see generic and garbage topics with hundreds of garbage replies. I'm a nobody but if I'm not finding any fine quality discussions, I would be forced to leave this forum. what this forum does for me and people like me is what I really need if I'm going to help the movement of decentralization of currency.


How many people do you think crypto can support?


It has spread, news about earning money to the wrong people. while the work force is busy doing something nobody wants, all the coders are self entitled to launching ICOs and sell something every other coder could develop. there are even some of the Konami's plumbers impersonating coders and selling Konami's games as their own, people only see Konami's name and would buy them.


Crypto industry is an industry because of this forum and it's founder and then administration keeping it alive for years. this industry has been sucking the life out of this forum. admins are trying to keep it that way, they would rather slow down it's growth and keep it free. 2 admins are not enough for 2 Million registered forum accounts. 20 new moderators are needed for this forum but the policy to keep it free doesn't allow them to keep it free and let it grow.


I was an ignorant when I came here, they were the same to me as they are now to newbies. they have trust issues. I'm a low(life) skilled member and I'm not trusted after 2 years of expressing my generic opinions. lol.

Let's talk about habit. In order to change someone, particularly spammers, they have to do the following steps orderly.
Improving Knowledge, Changing Attitude, Keep Practicing continuously.
Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice.

Learn more knowledge to have deeper understanding about the forum, the crypto ecosystem, the blockchain technology; Changing attitude (merit system, which main objectives to join bitcointalk forum - money or knowledge, discussions, etc.); Praticing (keep trying to compose higher quality threads and topics over time).

Follow those steps, keep doing regularly; merits will come naturally.

Good luck.

I must disagree with that notion: Bitcointalk don't hire people for the bounty campaigns - the new emerging companies do that. And that's the problem: in the real life Konami can choose among thousands available and jobless cleaning ladies, pick few of them for the job, and if they lie around whole day doing nothing they can fire them and employ others that will do the job properly. But consider the following situation: there are only 100 cleaning ladies on the market and we have 1000 new companies that need their toilets cleaned? The best companies took the best workers, and coders in the other companies can not piss or shit at work, because they faint every time they approach the toilet. In that situation these companies have to do what they can in order to survive and continue with their business: Konami has to approach a garbage man, a housewife or a mason, to offer them lots of money and to hope for the best.
Of course it's not me who invented that, it's called the labor market theory  :). So it's very important (and natural) to have big supply of laborers (of the different quality levels) when the demand for them is high. You shouldn't think of the Bitcointalk as an employer, but as a government. ICO projects are employers and they will take what they need from the labor market in order to satisfy their needs. That's why I'm talking about "stumbling" or "dying" - if they don't have enough labor for their marketing efforts, they will not succeed, and that's bad because of the reasons I've mentioned in the previous posts.

And now about the greatest mistake of it all when it comes to the survival and the development of the blockchain technology - and I see that many of the senior members here are repeating almost the same words as a kind of a mantra, over and over again. I don't want to sound like a grumbling old professor, but I'm in love with this stuff, and I wouldn't like to see it ruined because of this naive incorrect assesment, and not to try everything that is in my power to prevent this. So, that romantic mantra sounds more or less like this:


If you give me one example of a revolution that took place and had success without people, I'll send 1 BTC to your address :). The whole trick with economy - and first of all with currencies - is something that is called "acceptance". It's a kind of a chanted circle: if more people accept something, more people will accept the same thing.
If I have pockets full of CNY and walk into a grocery store in Berlin I wouldn't be able to buy anything, because the owner of that store recognize no value in these paper bills: he can't take these bills and buy theater tickets for him and his wife because he knows that the lady at the box office won't accepted these bills for the same reason he didn't do that in the first place - she won't be able to buy groceries for CNY in his store. People in Berlin work for Euros, there are lots of them and all of the stores there accept them.

One of the things Bitcoin misses today is precisely that: people don't have faith (yet) that other people will accept it.

How do you cure that? If the owner of the grocery store every day faces people who come into his store trying to buy something for Bitcoins, talking about the other grocery stores where they could by products for Bitcoins, if he hears that his neighbor bought the theater tickets for Bitcoins, and his best friend payed for his vacation in Bitcoins, he will try once to sell groceries for Bitcoins - just to test how it goes. But, if enough people don't walk into his grocery stores with Bitcoins, and his neighbor doesn't have them, believe me, there will be no revolution.

So you have to supply people with Bitcoins and make a pressure on the poor grocery owner. Or even supply him. How do you do that?

Bitcoin is much like gold - you can invest your own work (which will pay for the equipment and for the electricity) and mine it. But cleaning lady who needs bread and milk can't earn enough to buy equipment and pay enormous electricity bills in Berlin. She doesn't have chance to make pressure on the grocery owner. But, that's what labor market is for! She can earn crypto. The more people have it, more people will accept it (again - it wasn't me, it's an old theory, proved to be right many, many times). That's why you, me and the makers of this forum need people more than they need us, actually. They can continue to work for Euros, US Dollars, or any other government controlled currency and f.ck off the whole revolution story - it's much easier. And nothing will happen then.


You're not able to find any quality discussion on this forum? Than I must be blind and very stupid.


It has to be able to support at least billions, or nothing will happen (but I'm sure you already know that).


Well, there's no help with that, that's called "industry" :) If their ICO employers are satisfied why that bothers you? But if you look at it more carefully, you will see that Apple alone (and several other companies) has larger Market capitalization than the whole blockchain industry, and that's why I think that this moment is a tricky one to apply some drastic measures. I believe some new forums and platforms for the labor force will soon emerge, and you'll be finally left alone - but is it a good thing?

I agree. But it has to be a way other than suffocating the whole thing and maintaining the satus quo. The forum creators must find a way to control the quality of the labor force which will not scare them off. Maybe they can start a competition for the community to find the best solution(s). I believe that the coders from the community can help with some "linguistic crawler" that can detect low quality posts and give them some kind of bad "marks", there must be a way to control IP addresses and at least partially prevent account farming, I believe many members of the community have access to various AI technologies that can be used for that purpose. After all I think all of the seniors will be glad to help with the moderation. Every solution is better than repression.

Don't tell me this forum is like a government, I have already appointed myself as the lawmaker, I have been proposing major policy changes. no government can survive without the tax money. people say that forum has money. it's just not for spending.

It can't live on with trust system and merit system. it needs money. people say that if you are going to charge members with money, what you will have to charge them with, is what they need to survive. for how long this forum could support starving people for free? they wouldn't stop farming accounts and posting garbage. they are not paying any tax. I would love to stop repeating myself. if there was any better solution other than taxing people.

Konami should close it's toilets doors to the public because people are moving in to live nearby just to use Konami's resources. their excuse? a man has got to shit right? in forum, a man is shitting like 10 people. merit is going to force them out. don't expect any good result after 3 months.

Yes, thats my words, there are people who dont care about merit and will get stuck on junior member for the whole life. If they are banned for spam - they will create a new account.

thank you, everyone, who is on this topic.
I can learn about merit.
what it means, functions, and how to get a merit.
I just understood.

They actually have their own interests, so let's them free and focus on what they aim at when joining the forum.
I guess their main objectives to join this place are for earning 'free - almost free' money and sell them all to get fiats.
Free money because we can see dozens of shitty campaigns which don't have strict rules on the participants or supporters.

If they don't need to rank up, let them stuck at their current ranks. Some abusers can keep ranking up through merit exchanges. Nevertheless, this approach will lead to serious punishments on them in the future because the forum moderators are extremely strict. Be careful when you have intention to do merit abusements.

From number post view, probably your saying is right. But it will be better to show data rather than assumption, hope the data to be verified and validated. Just to respond your assumption that now people is posting as many as possible just to get merit, I disagree with that because it will be useless. I think more people now leave unmeaning post and tend to meaningful even not in high quality and constructive.   

Do you understand Hurry.... that Jerry29 is exactly right and your post only confirms this theory 100%. Jerry writes that now spammers are climbing to the heights of their intelligence in order to write a post of at least one hundred signs and not deviating from the subject too much. Only to bump to the top of the thread and hopefully receive merit. You are doing exactly what Jerry is writing about. Responding to his earlier post with completely pointless and nonsense conclusions in broken English this is new kind of sophisticated spam and the peak of perfidy.

You are right developer should approve some quality test before entering the forum so that the fake crypto bots can be prevented

I can see it made some difference. For instance in my behavior. Now I'm trying to stay away from topics with more than 10 pages, with obvious replies. Crap like "Is it too late to invest in bitcoin" or "Next altcoin which makes you a millionaire". Now I'm out of bounties, which only counted post in Altcoins section (like Credits.com despite it was my best bounty so far).

You don't have to exit bounties altogether.  Since posting in that section only takes very short replies, you ought to be able to post interesting stuff and still be able to do them--at least I'd hope so.

Not posting in those spam threads is definitely a good idea, though.  No one reads crap like "Buy or sell" or "Bitcoin vs. gold".  The only reason I ever visit such nonsense threads is to report shitposters, as Bitcoin Discussion and Economics are full of them.  You'd think people would have figured out by now that there's nothing to be gained in terms of earning merit or ranking up by writing crap one-liners in those sections, but nope.  As long as these altcoin bounties keep taking Jr. Members and don't put any kind of restrictions on them, it's going to keep happening.

The real problem is that the spamming has creeped into Meta in threads about merit, and that's really unfortunate.

Why dont you create some bot for countering these bots and then we can all be happy? The forum has some bounty managers who check posts/tweets using bots. I dont know if its ethical or if it reduced labour at all but its there. Then we have bot-posting shitposters - they quickly get nuked though.

A lot of things have been thought out by many people in the forum for its development. Have you seen the beta.bitcointalk - I believe that is the correct link, where a lot of changes have been done since epochtalk migration will happen - but nobody knows the ETA.

Yes it makes difference by hardening the task for the newbies to get promoted to higher user level

But you missed the point atlast those fake guys are getting banned only and that's good

I can will agree only that Merit - the system removing superfluous.

I think this is absolutely true! the more people who pursue merit, the more shitposter that makes the posts not qualified. This will only make the forum dirty. Although the merit system encourages users to become more enthusiastic to perform quality posts. Because of the excessive spirit that arose post that I think less qualified.

I  am also coming up with same observations. Ppl in the forum are creating unnecessary posts. Being over helpful to get merits.
This merit system is destroying the actual meaning and existence of the forum.

The reason why they get merit even though their post is rubbish is because they abuse merit system. Some members in this forum won't give merit even they have lots of smerits they won't just merit someone that has reasonable and understandable high quality post that deserves a merit instead they sell their smerits or exchange smerit to smerit.

There will come a point, probably when Jr. Member accounts start having 600 activity but still with 15 merits, that these shitposters will throw in the towel.  They will realize then that they've put in so much "effort" (they're deluding themselves) and haven't gotten anywhere.  And then they'll finally say forget it and give up their dreams of having a stay-at-home writing job that takes zero effort.

They'll ultimately realize where zero effort gets you on bitcointalk.  It'll take some time, because the spammers are stubborn and ignorant, but it's a realization that will have to happen.

Garbleflargee-wha?

others are doing mistakes and sufferings are caused by the newbies like us :(

As i know a lot of member at bitcointalk only do their task for join bounty, such as: Facebook, Twitter, Make Videos, Articles and they using multi account to join it. I have manage one campaign which have over 70% is Newbie and JR.Member; they post report day by day and increasing their activity obviously. Do you think they deserve to receive merits with only report post? I think Merits System is fairly for everyone, but it should be have limited on some subjects such as: Reputation, Speculator, Bounty Thread (Alts or BTC) instead of at all subjects like now.

I do not see how you've built a reasoning for that claim.

Honestly, if you see to happenings in a relatively close time period, that doesn't mean that they a related at all. There always was a ton of low-quality posts a with poor grammar. missing punctuation or an absent text structure. You have no case, unless you can provide some verifiable statistics, where it is clearly shown, that the average quality of text among all posts have risen or the share of post with no point is skyrocketing. or whatever else property you want would pick as a rubbish post characteristics.

There is very low if no correlation between the number of rubbish posts and an earned merit. Why would anyone give a merit for a rubbish post? People won;t give it away easily, if it was earned hard way. That's a simple logic, it actually works for the majority.

See people who come to this forum to do only bounties and airdrops are always looked down upon as the bottomfeeder shitposter squad. Now if they eually contribute to discussions and they also do some bounties, it shows that they are not some beggar sort of shitposter and in the long run will able to earn some merits if they make quality posts.

Its not a question of being fair or not. In my opinion it is unfair and this is a good thing for the forum. People here hardly interact in their posts even if someone replies them in the Bitcoin Discussion and Economics, Altcoin Discussion sections. Let alone the ANN sections which is full of shitposters. The merit sources will have a sort of "favoritism" and this is good for the forum.

Shitposters should be eliminated totally out of the forum.

It's one of the good, amazing effects of merit system on forum users, particularly shitposters. Some of them have changed, and will keep changing to adapt to the merit system in positively directions.

Life is unfair for everyone. Each person has his/her own starting point, background (merit points in the case of bitcointalk forum members); but over long period of time, they can reach to the same targets if they tried to do it. Just set up your targets, work hard, you will reach to your targets someday.