Bitcoin Forum

There have been some mixed comments about my philosophy in awarding sMerit points.
I'd be grateful if a couple of members could have a quick scan of my awards, and let me know if I am on the right lines. It isn't easy for me to find posts, and I only award one point at a time. It seems that some members think that this approach is merit hoarding, I think it is responsible use of the new system.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=698159

really i do not know how can i catch merit but i work hard to write high-quality posts. but there is no anyone decides to upgrade my merits, could you please guide me? what is the main post properties, to reach this?

I work hard to write good posts.

Merits are like cats. If you chase after them, they will run away and hide from you. If you ignore them, then they will come to you and accept you as a friend.

Don't chase merits here. Chase information, and help others by sharing your knowledge.

yes, I agree with you. I will share some critical information about trading after this. thanks for your response. I forgot it and only write usfule posts

Nice to see that you have become careful while awarding merits and are given 1 merit per post only. Hope others also follow this.

Well.. you're the one that should be able to tell if it's merit hording or not  ;D
If your sMerits are increasing then you're hording them, if you're spending as much as you're getting then you're doing the right thing!
And you can always go from giving 1 merit at a time to giving 2 which would double the amount spent if you ever see that you've hoarded so many merits.

I took a look at your merit history and IMO you're doing a great job in giving them away!

I'll check the sMerit you gave on February 6 and 7 (in my time zone), and give you my opinion:

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A Newbie making a helpful contribution, that's exactly what the Merit system is supposed to reward. +1 from me too. Your own post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2882101.msg29806412#msg29806412) on the other hand is completely off-topic and irrelevant.

An okay post.

I don't think this deserves Merit. I would classify this as a "dear diary"-post, it's not worth reading for anybody else.

An okay post.

Excellent post, +1 from me. Although it will be very difficult for a non-native English speaker to make "elegant sentences", I'm trying my best.

An okay post, it's always nice to see a Newbie who posts useful information.

I wouldn't have rewarded this post, it's kinda trivial to me.

I wouldn't have rewarded this. It's impossible to make warning threads for all possible phishing sites, and it won't stop people from falling for it. If anything, it adds another link to the site, which may increase it's pagerank in Google.
I do understand why you rewarded it though.

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I'd say their opinion is irrelevant. It's entirely up to you whether or not you reward posts with sMerit. I wouldn't worry about it, I'm pretty sure the Merit system is designed to "average out"  individual Merit contributions. On average, the best posts will get the most points.

Why do you say that? My post served two purposes. It bumped the thread, and the new user received a better welcome instead of being ignored. Also, it was a justification, and I hope I encouraged new members to make similar posts.

Okay, my opinion once more: the OP could bump the thread on his own if he wants to. If every Merit gets a post added to it, it defeats the purpose to improve post quality. New members can see which post earns Merits, which should encourage them to post quality already.

But this one line wasn't the most important part of my post, in fact, you can just ignore it. I didn't Report the post either, just my 2 Satoshis.

I thought that as a brand new member, he might be cautious about bumping threads, but I take your point. My intention was to encourage a promising looking member to feel comfortable and continue to visit the forum

To all those asking for a guide on how to get merit, it is really as simple as producing high quality content. Of course, what people deem as high quality varies from person to person, you can write a very high quality post on why bitcoin is going to die, but chances are you wont receive merit as it doesn't agree with the opinion of the vast majority. I would say that there is a clear correlation between length and complexity of a post and the odds of it receiving merit. Do not expect to receive merit from a 1 liner, unless there is some wisdom in those few words.

I like that you only send one merit per post. The quality of each post you're meriting is your scale to set, how can any of us fault you for what you've decided is valuable to you? This is particularly true since you are giving 1 merit per post.

I'd consider you one of the more frequent spenders/senders in the forum. You won't reach the "highest senders" list because you're not sending 10s of merit per post. Getting on those lists is likely a big motivation for some of the higher ranking folks among us to dole out so much for so little.

You're definitely not a hoarder! Hoarders are spending/sending NO merit.

Thanks HabBear.

I hope I can make a small contribution to restoring the forum to the helpful resource it was when I joined.

I've been enthusiastic about Bitcoin since I first read about it, but I've only made limited use of its potential. Thisyear I need to expand my use, and maybe I'll pick up some of the alts that are waiting for me as a result of the arrival of the parallel chain coins like Bitcoin Cash. The tech boards seem to be much cleaner, and that is great news for me.

I do feel a bit of responsibility as a holder of sMerit, and that has led me into some threads that otherwise I would have skipped. One such is the request for a board for Ukrainian members, and I found the comments interesting, and it gave me a bit of perspective about the use of Bitcoin in that country. I even awarded a merit to a post that I thought was well reasoned, and it persuaded me that there should be such a board. Of course I know nothing about Ukraine and the local use of Bitcoin, so maybe I should have kept my nose out of their thread. :)

http://bigsig.com/s/jet-sig.png

Just stick with whatever you want.  I see no problem awarding merit for short on topic posts if they are good.

I can understand that to a certain extent. It is often quite difficult for me to find posts that I like. For example, I've started a couple of threads in the Frog Pond, but they still die in the swamp of the trivial and useless post and threads about Bitcoin becoming the major world currency ( it won't ). Bitcoin killing banks ( how stupid is that idea? ), and all the other similar and pretty worthless, imho, threads. I've now decided that I will give up completely on the Frog Pond, which is a shame, because it really ought to be the most interesting board. The two tech boards have become interesting, and there are some good threads there, and the beginners board seems to be a bit cleaner, but I think it could do with the moving out of the altcoin and bounty threads.

I don't think it would be a good idea to give prizes to merit awarders, it ought to be something that we do automatically when we spot a good post whilst reading the boards. A better idea would be to remove sMerits from the promo managers who are using points to rank up their affiliates and alts.

http://bigsig.com/s/jet-sig.png

Andrew "achow101" plays a great role there and some users earn many merits makes those boards attractive.
Personally, I see that this will increase the burden on managers and I do not recommend many comments in those boards "These boards are considered a reference for everyone who wants to learn so all posts must be 100% correct"