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I see many Jr. Members easily rank up to Member because the required Merits is only 10. And I can see many merit farming (an example:
 see here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2995962.msg30866501#msg30866501)). We are aware that this is done by some/many bounty hunters out there. This is an obvious abuse and would like to propose some minor changes in the required merit requirement for Members.

Instead of 10 Merits for Members, why don't we increase it to 25 Merits? This way, Jr. Members will have to strive harder in order to rank up to Member. Merit farming will be difficult because their sMerits will diminish fast.

Insights are welcome.

I guess theymos doesn't want to put the limit to high due to the lesser restrictions that come with being a member. Although, I believe he has suggested he's willing to tweak things if people are getting merit to easily, and the other way around. I don't think this is an issue currently though and the 10 merit is probably fine.

That's my point. Account farmers with higher ranks can easily send 10 sMerits to their Jr. Member alt accounts. Thus, making them easy to farm bounties even more. AFAIK, Members are paid more than Jr. Members in Signature Campaigns so if these spam bots could make their alts rank up fast, they could harvest more.


I disapprove this one. What's the point of initiating a merit system if the required merit for a rank will be reduced when they find it difficult to attain the required merit. The user should adjust, not the system.


It's too easy for quality posters. 25 will be a challenge.

This is a good idea to add, but if theymos increase the merit requirement for each rank, then it will be more difficult for members to rank up, even for hard workers (I mean people who write high quality posts). Merit farmers are not longer stay in the forum soon, because they will be all tagged by DT members, it's a matter of time. I don't think there is any issues with the merit requirement for each rank now, maybe there is another idea which theymos think about can improve the merit system in the future.

I guess you are right increasing the number of Merits to rank up isnt so bad. But still many out there are just newbies that doesnt go well with the Merit System, if you'll gonna take a peek on some local threads many of them are already having a problem with just the 10 Merits requirements and as of that they're just begging for those with the higher rank just to give them that while knowing that is really impossible. I find the increasing the number of Merit requirements more helpful for them because with that they wont have a choice but to raise their capability of posting some threads with such a quality.

25 Merits is just fine, even though im still on my way ranking up, I approve this kind of proposal for us in the future wont be having a problem with those who're cheating just to rank up. It's unfair for is who really strive and trying the best of what we can do.

By the way, may I ask for your contributions to help here if you know some other ways to help the newbies THANKS IN ADVANCE! ( not asking to give Merits but a reliable sources will be enough for us.)

 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3021637.0

Demerits could easily be abused, just like what's happening with merit farming right now and alts and so forth, and even just an organised group of people would be able to demerit others maliciously. What we've got with merits is just fine right now IMO. Merit farmers are being caught and red-trusted every single day now, and it seems to be stopping at least some farmers.

Give the system a few months at least. Then we can discuss, when we have enough data to analyse.
No changes are needed at this point.

edit> corrected some typos.

I'd say give us Members the chance to rank up easier by lowering the merits required because there's no way I'm getting to 100 unless I come up with something like "Theory of Relativity Vol. 2"  ;D

This would mean you'd drop down your rank to jr member again. Do you really want that?

Would it work like that, though? I'm just asking. When the merit system started, every member was given merits equal to the rank they held then. Maybe that would happen again.

No, you are wrong.
 I'm no Einstein but I still get merit.
It's not so difficult as it seems. I have put a lot of time reading in order to be able to answer some average questions, but now I understand more so + the Merit you get knowledge which is more valuable.

We all know that merit allocation to rank up is still under experimental stage. I think the mod theymos is aware of this and i am patiently waiting on what would be their action for the proven alt accounts. Lets just wait and see.

P.s. with merit system. Mods can easily track alts / farmer accounts. Its all recorded.

Well, some of the merits you've received seem totally random and by those standards I should have gotten a few more merits for my posts, but sure, if you think so...

It is already hard for a Member to rank up to a Full member as it is, so if they have the quality to acquire 100 merits, a little increase for merit requirement to rank up would not hurt them because they are capable of acquiring it.

Merit farmers will still stay for quite a while in the forum, we have 1,472,528 forum members at the moment and only a handful of members are making an effort to identify merit farmers.

It isn't the number of members that is significant, but the number of active members. In fact, if you are considering merit as a competitive reward, it is even fewer than that. It should just be the ones that are capable of constructing a meaningful and informative post that are the competition.

In all honesty, I believe you can easily make 10 merits with a well thought and informative topic. However, you will have a hard time getting merits from only commenting on threads.

100 merits for full member seems difficult but I personally don't need to worry about that for a few more months. I'll complain about not having 100 merits next June.

It's curious how all the hero members want the requirements for sr. members and below to be increased, all the sr. members want the merit requirements for Full Member and below to be increased, etc. If the merit requirements are increased from 10 to 25, it will not stop merit farming, nor will it really even slow it down as 25 merits is really not a hard number to obtain. The major issue isn't the fact that so many people are ranking up to member, it's that people are filling up bounty and signature campaigns with alternate accounts.

I would recommend a more reasonable solution, remove the merit requirements altogether, and only upgrade members who are within a certain percentile of merit received per month. E.g. Only the top 5% of high quality users are eligible to rank up. There should be a leaderboard so that we can check who is currently in the lead, and that way if people are boosting their way to the top they will also be under increased scrutiny. I genuinely think this system will stop the abuse issues, and will result in more high quality members in the upper member levels. You will never stop the Jr. and Newbie members from potentially being low quality, but you can at least stop them benefiting from their spam posting.

I look forward to seeing any responses to my proposal.

I actually think that could work, but there would need to be a moderator or someone checking over the process preventing the same person somehow occupying all of the top slots on alt accounts.


EDIT: Merited your post, but double spent it.  ;D ; is there anyway to get the extra merit points back? only meant to give 6....

Wow, I thought double spends were only possible with bitcoin. Thanks for the 12 merit in any case. I was also thinking that there would need to be an overseer to the list, though I would think being visible to the community would be enough of a deterrent to people trying to manipulate the rankings.

Bro you don't feel our pain!!! how hard is to get even 1merit look at mine, and your saying increase it to 15 more  >:(

Have you seen your posts? Doesn't even look like you've tried to contribute. Whether it's 10, 15 or 100, it doesn't matter in your case as I imagine you'll have 0 for a long time.

I think increasing the merit range to achieve member level will not stop merit farming and will only waist more merits for those looking into farming and increasing their rank. It may seam easy to achieve 10 merits but for us newbies it is truly not. I have been posting quite a lot of comments which in my opinion are quality but I sadly I rarely get merited. We might have an interesting point of view on certain subjects but unfortunately because we are not as experienced we are rarely able to impress or speak of something useful for those who have been in this forum a while, and those are the ones that hold merits to give. I was actually thinking why dont they require less merits to rank up from member. 100 merits is quite a lot given that we rarelly see those given to newbies, junior members and members...

Ten merits to rank up to Member is possible task. I don't see any problem with this requirement. But since that rank, harder to move up to next level, Full Member, because it requires 90 more merits.
However, if users don't pay their attention on how long they will get enough merit points, and mainly focus on composing their threads as high-quality as possible, merits will automatically come to them. Moreover, joining the forum in the approach will make them pressure-free users, who totally don't care about ranking-up progress.

Is there really a fool proof to out smarting people and systems?  If they farm to member level,  will they farm again to Full member? Trying to create a fool proof system is itself a cause for confusion. This merit system as it is,  is good enough. And it is working effectively. The effectiveness is the reason why you can notice these abuses. I am sure the moderators are watching.

I think 10 Merit is a difficult for newbie and Jr. Member because they are new to crypto. So, they don't have enough knowledge and experience to generate a quality post to be given merits by another people.
In my opinion, 10 merits is enough to become Member. If you increase it to 25 Merits, you would change the requirement for all ranks and I think I will never ranked up to Full Members :))))
Remember that merit system is used to respect. However, high requirement will stimulate buy/sell merit and I think theymos don't like this

I agree. 10 merits are really not so hard to achieve, but with higher ranks the mission is getting more and more tough. I think moderators created everything with well thinking and I would not up requirements. There are a lot of people who complain on the current system and with stronger requirements users just would blow up. The forum is nonstop changing and I guess in the future moderators team will create something new to protect the forum from cheaters.

It is not just possible, it is easy to rank up. I do too don't see any problems with this requirement since it is just the first step on ranking up, after that it will be needing some effort and time. 90 merits are needed to be a Full Member, 150 for Sr. Member, 250 for Hero Member and 500 for Legendary, that is not easy. I think that 10 merits is just a jump start for these new members.

The random merit you say were when we discuss the merit system in the begging. I had myself a few suggestions for correction rather than changes but seems that the system is still working without any needs. This was the main topic that time and everyone was exited. Now things are more settled and people are getting more and more familiar with the system. Of course it takes time to be adopted, but as I said 30 points are not so hard to achieve.

If they farm to member and so on, they will gradually run out of the sMerits. All such farmed accounts at one time will run out of the sMerits thus there will be a time in future when this forum will have some Merit sources as the only people who would be able to give merits to others.

Thats pretty effective in my opinion.

Some people may consider one post as constructive while others may not. Its their personal opinion obviously. Obvious random merit - if you feel its questionable then you can report them here. Be sure to explain why you believe that it is abuse of the merit system.

 [ list] Suspected users that are abusing merit 3.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.0)

No use whatever new systems are introduced there are some people who always find a way to bypass it or violate the system and continue their shit work that fills up the forum with spam and these guys just try to get to higher ranks just to earn some dollars. Maybe Theymos would do something about the people who are farming merit or getting merit too easily.

LOL, if you'll think that way then, most probably, you'll end up crazy striving to gain merit  :D
I gained several merits just for this post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2856236.msg29334664#msg29334664


It doesn't bother me at all, TBH. I am aware of that my proposal could affect me. But ranks are just ranks it's not big deal for me


Your proposal is good but you're just making the system complex. The proposal is unfair to those people who post with quality but are often AWOL. If the ranking up depends on how much merit you gained within a specific span of time then your effort helping others before and after that frame will be disregarded. As I've said, it is unfair.


If ranking up is a big deal to you and you are having a hard time doing so then you can always leave. The forum is not in need of spammers so, please, give this forum a favor.


If 10 Merit is difficult then the problem is in you. If you don't have enough knowledge then go out there and read, gain more knowledge and see Merits flowing in.

Based from your post history, you might never ::)

Merit is not a sign of respect, it is just a mere pointing system based from the readers point of view.

Right...
I've had these debates since day one and no one gave me 60 merits. I must be doing it wrong.
Anyway, debating whether getting merits is hard with a person who already has a lot of them is as pointless as a poor person trying to make a person brought up in wealth to understand that making money is not easy.

i want to share my opinion about this .   i think system  is enogh if change needed. i think a little bit. because before the mod announce about this.   they set a discussion many times.  before it finalize the rule about this merit system. this is not an easy task.
 everyone wants to rank up   for their own personal reason..    even its legal or illegal.  they put an effort.   and it depends on the moderator if what way they acknowledge the user.  its pretty hard to stop  some member do cheating.  But if this system change and make more difficult. expect that many illegal happenings will show.. its enough..  about the merits on ranking up to become member..  i think thats fair..    what do expect  from a jr. member.   it says on the title."jr member".   a position next to a newbie.  dont expect too high about them .  a lot of them.even me has. lack of. source,info,skills,EXPERIENCE.  thats why they here.   10merits is enough to become member. to atleast motivate them to strive more.   merit farming is hard to stop now.   but that is Not a reason for me  to make it more difficult because even if you make it more difficultt. merit farming is there.  you cant stop it 100%.  and its really obvious the mod really plan to do this.    to see the result.   they think many time about this. 

After reading this topic and it intrigues me a little, i really think that 10 requirement is achievable for almost all people who wants to improve their self in this forum. So i am one of person that is agree to the proposal, but i suggest it is increased to 20 not 25, because from newbie to member it would takes about 75 days so newbie ranks only need to score 1 merit per 3-4 days.

One alternative solution, or addition can be done to this is to make a merit requirement for some ranks to join a signature campaign (o i believe that many people are here for money, getting money is good, i cant deny it), maybe like making a different payment rates or anything, so it is not an improvement from the admin, but it is an improvement from the community because the impact of merits. I think it is a good addition to the merit system.
 

And i am pretty sure all of the rich people never assume that making money is easy like what you've said. Do you even read some of rich people biography that struggles from nothing and now they have almost everything they want? And please stop comparing yourself with "original poor people" who is born poor because of their parents and conditions. You re not poor, you have smartphone/laptop/pc to access internet that has a lot of information and you can use it as a sources to make a contributive/great posts for this forum. I know it is hard, i am experiencing it too, but its not impossible you know.

You started with this example :https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2995962.msg30866501#msg30866501 . As you found that the member was trying to cheat the system, this merit abuse is very easy to spot. Such members are also getting red trust which will make those accounts useless. And the most important thing to remember here is that most of these  merits that members are abusing will be spent in 2-3 months. When all the merits originate from merit sources every month, we will have less such abuses happening.

Most of my points I got for the activity points calculator I made long before the merit system and I'm keeping it updated. I just felt that this is what was missing here and I had the time to do it.

Every average user could have done this for all these years but I was the first.

I'm helping the newbies with info and guidance and I'm reporting the spammers and rule-breakers.Everyone can do this.

There are still a lot of similar opportunities. You can make a thread collecting stats from a particular signature campaign. This should contain detailed information how many merits members with different ranks got after getting enrolled in that particular campaign. You can make a thread with stats from merits given in official merit announcement thread. One just have to be little creative and post something that a lot of members can relate to.

That is true to some extent. With a new rule, the staff wants to fix the current loopholes. But since no system is perfect, members start looking for ways to bypass that new rule as well. However, overall, this makes things difficult for the spammers. If we keep seeing such changes at regular intervals, a lot of spammers will give up eventually. They will realize that their  tricks will not last very long and it is not thus worth it using here.

I one hundred percent agree with you on this part, just like you said the whole point of the merit system is to stop shitposters and alt accounts farmers, who are doing this to earn more money from signiture campaigns, so setting merit requirments to get into them would solve the whole problem, campaign managers are responsible for keeping the forum clean as much as the moderators, so they should be more restrictive  when accepting applications.

The whole merit system is not actually a solution for spammers, alright i don't deny it is a good step from the moderators to clean up the forum but it is still unfair. A lot of people with Sr.member and under ranks are posting high qualified posts and they don't get merits just because people here don't have the time to read everything or to pay attention to every good post and give merits, so that's why it is unfair. Actually the campaigns managers are the ones to count on to clean up this forum, since they are responsible for hiring, their job is to check posts of everyone applying for a campaign and to pick the high qualified people only.

Ranking up your account isn't a right, its a privilege. Requiring people to post actual constructive and useful posts should be expected, not just encouraged. If only 10% of someone's posts are good posts, they might not be noticed. If nearly 100% of a person's posts are useful, they will be noticed, and they deserve the merits they earn.

In addition, the merit system is still relatively new. A member a year from now that is having an issue may do a search, find a post that helps them, and merits that post. You just shouldn't expect each and every good post you make to earn you merit immediately. Just increase the amount of quality posts you make to increase your odds.

In addition, the sMerits for this month are probably over so here comes a new month and all the sources will be/are refilled with fresh sMerit to give. It is a cycle process but we just made our first turn.

Some post I have seen earning Merit from highly respected members is just one liner, its given merit just because he likes it or he like the person or just returning favors of merit he received earlier on, given that such cases exist and because there is finite amount of sMerit available I think lower limit is much better. Please remember that sMerit is specifically for high quality post only not for exchanging favor. once its abused that way, merit will concentrate between few people only.

If you check the stats that is what happening now, the highest number of merit were exchanging between this few people only, therefore targeting bounty hunters merit farming by setting higher limit will not change anything.

Have you ever wondered why it is hard for you to get just even 1 merit? Look at the way you are posting bro and you'll see my point.

The point here is, it is really hard to get merit unless you put effort and thought in your posts that is why even if you are a newbie or a jr. member and don't have enough knowledge about crypto, the merit system will obliged you more to do some research first and learn the know-hows of cryptocurrencies rather than spamming useless thread and posts throughout the forum.

Merit system started only one month ago. All Members and higher ranks got free merit, so it seems like too easy to get 10 merits. Because a big number of merits was free. I think we have to wait some time yet and only then decide about merit requirements for ranks.

Easy ?? im personally to earn single merit its not an easy . its need more effort . Time and Posting something usefull and constructive post to get CHANCE for single merit.
if you worried about them trying abuse bounty campaign . better suggest to remove Member to join any bounty campaign .
and im already see for some bounty manager already do that .
hopes it will implement so you need 80 merit away to participate . and i can learn from you " how to earn 10 Merit Easily "

It doesn't have sense at all. We know that there's multiple person struggling in the present merit system then you will add a new one? Maybe we consider the feelings of other not ourself only. I like your point but as new and striving to learn it is hard.

Precisely! Most members here don't realize that because when they try to make a really good post and put a lot of effort in it, they expect their post to get merited in no time, not thinking that there are a lot of factors why his/her post would not get any. There is a big possibility that their post got flooded by new replies and people that might find it helpful and merit worthy missed it. So, for better chances of posts getting merited, increase the amount of that kind.

I think 10 merits for a beginner to rank up is very suitable, Jr members are willing to learn and they are trying to work hard and increase their posts qualities to rank up, a lot of low rank users here are capable to write competent posts and yet they don't get attention, it could be because of their weak and small rank or maybe this forum is unfair and you need to be famous to get merits.

So did you think that getting 10 merit points is easy? People spend hours and hours to read carefully and build their knowledge related to the field of cryptocurrencies to be able to get some merit points when they post anything. That's right, that 10 points is too low compared to 150 for Full member or 250 for Sr member to rank up, but to get these points you should improve too much the quality posts including the ideas.

Did both of you read the OP? Or did you comprehend the point of the OP? I guess not.

Earning Merit is easy to those Newbie/Jr. Member who is/are alt/s of someone who has accounts with high ranks. I did not generalized that earning Merit is easy. I am quite aware many are struggling but that's their fault in the first place. I hope you know what's their fault.


It's only 100. Adding 50 more, ey? lol.

Yes, not sure that 10 merits are easy by a large number of members from the community. How many high ranking members are interested in donating merits? It is clear that this can increase inflation from the consequences that the effects of merits cause over time.

For low member, IMO 10 merit should enough to test out someone compatibility because it's difficult to earn merit except you're great poster like Danny H

Let say if member need 100 or 1000 merit, are you capable to earn it in short time ?

All members who have previous ranks and are not merit sources got a pre-determined number of Merits and sMerits. Of which the Merit amount was given on the basis of the rank they already had. Please read the topics more carefully before commenting on such - theymos clearly mentioned how much each rank got when the merits system started.

*facepalm*

This has also been declared by theymos. Do something for yourself - stop shitposting and expecting to get merit for now.


What does not make sense? Care to explain your concern and not be so vague. The system is working fine if you ask me. Pajeets everywhere are crying aloud for merits and it really makes me feel satisfied that the account farming rings have been put at at sort of restriction ..as of now.

Hmm, I was wrong. I mean sMerits was given free. So it needs time, because:

Topic starter asked why so easy to get enough merits for Member, I answered. What the problem?

ps English isn't my native language. And I just want to improve it. That's why I post in English threads. I'm not interested in merits here :/

Well that raises an interesrting possibility. How about an english training board? If membersare going to use the general boards to improve their english, then it would be better to have a special interest board where english speaking members could help them.

I saw them (only allow Sr and above to join).
Then after restrict Member rank to join campaigns, what is next step after 3 or 6 months later?
Restrict Full Member to join, then over time (one year or more), only Hero can join and at the end only Ledgendary can join campaigns.

Ridiculous ideas!

Merit system has changed the forum, and will continue to show its magic impacts on users (especially spammers, part of them).