Bitcoin Forum

This post was mostly drafted on 27 February 2018.  It was delayed by some unlucky drama; I now post it on the negative one-year anniversary of when I can first be activity-eligible for Hero rank.

Starting with 17 merits awarded to some of my old Jr. Member posts by people who remember them, I reached the Hero threshold of 500 merits within 27 days, 8 hours, 16 minutes, 22 seconds of active posting.  All in all, from the moment that theymos announced the merit system, it took me 32 days, 9 hours, 14 minutes, 51 seconds to go from zero to Hero—at least insofar as merit is concerned.  Yet when I received my 500th merit (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2940686.msg31084730#msg31084730), I still had a 98 activity level; the earliest I can reach Hero Member status will be Activity Period 1283, which will start during 12 March 2019.

This is not to brag about myself.  There is already a thread which somebody else started to do that for me (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3009430.0); and anyway, the number below my name speaks for me, in and of myself.  Rather, I am offering an object demonstration in support of my suggestion that merit requirements for the highest ranks are far too easy.

Moreover, from discussions I’ve observed and also from patterns of abuse, I think some small adjustments are needed at the lowest ranks.  I do think that the middle ranks’ thresholds are fairly set for ordinary decent posters.

Here is my concrete suggestion for merit thresholds, with proposed changes set in bold.  Discussion of my reasoning follows.

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I do think that the merit requirements for ranks through Member through Sr. Member are currently optimal.  To rise in rank at the level permitted by activity currently requires earning merit at an average rate of just over +1/day.  I think that’s a reasonable expectation for an ordinary intelligent person who spends a moderate amount of time engaging in generally pleasant forum discussions.

But “Hero” and “Legendary” are such strong words; and the substance of successful ranking systems always holds the highest ranks to standards which not only increase, but accelerate.

Proud, unapologetic elitist though I am, I do not for one moment imagine that I be a superman.  If I can merit zero to Hero in four weeks, then surely any person who wishes to bear a rank and title of honour should be able to earn much more than a measly one merit per day.

Wherefore, I urge that @theymos consider the following adjustments:

• The merit threshold for “Hero Member” should be raised to at least 1000, perhaps 1500.  I don’t really think that earning a bit over +2–3 merit per activity-day (or waiting a very long time) should qualify somebody as a “Hero”; but anything less is an insulting abuse of the term.
• The merit threshold for “Legendary” should be raised to at least 3000, perhaps even 5000.  Likewise:  Can somebody who fails to average less than around +3–5 merit per activity-day be called a “Legend” with a straight face?  I fear my standards are too low here.

Don’t simply be proud of these titles:  Make them signify an achievement to be proud of!

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Of course, I waved my hands past one obvious flaw in premises:  I infer that the system is designed so that good posters “rank up” at about the same rate as before; and I agree with that goal.  But the mechanism does not enforce it.  A system with a “merit velocity” measure would surely be an easy programming task; however, it would be unpredictable and confusing for humans.  On the latter account, I would argue against any such system.  Moreover, I suggest that this “flaw” is unproblematic.

If an ordinary reasonable poster steadily makes decent posts for years, plural, then they will enter the top ranks simply on the basis of seniority, patience, and predictable dependability.  It seems obvious to me that such a person is here for all the “right reasons”, and barely even interested in matters of rank (or its potentially lucrative increase of privileges).  Certainly, I doubt that any spammer or account farmer could keep it up that long without being nuked by mods.

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Final note:  Now is a good time to raise merit thresholds for Hero and Legendary.  I myself am the only person below Hero rank who has thus far passed the Hero threshold; and I hereby waive any complaints I might have if that threshold were suddenly doubled or trebled at this time.  Starting now, I’d have another year to reach the new threshold...

Anybody else who legitimately even comes close to having earned 500 merits is already Hero or Legendary.  Thus at this time, a change in merit rules for the highest ranks would neither have any impact on anybody (except me) who had already passed the higher thresholds, nor create any disparity between accounts which “ranked up” before and after the change of rules.

Changing the rules for Jr. Member and Member would cause some small unfairness.  However, the thresholds in question are trivial; and the unfairness and disparities thus caused would be commensurately insignificant.  It may be understood if somebody who had earned >500 merit were to be upset by a changing of the Hero threshold, especially if anybody else had already ranked up to Hero under the initial merit rules.  But anybody negatively affected by changes in the 10–30 merit range should see the disparity evened out within a very short time, if a good poster.  I’d expect that any complaints over such changes would only come from those who have been whining about the merit system in total, viz., wannabe spammers.

All in all, the time to make changes is when the merit system is still yet young.

I'm not completely opposed to this. There's a huge discrepancy between Member and Full member merit points. I'm not sure about you guys, but it took me over 92 posts, some of which are 300 words long, to get my 11 current merits.

Now, I haven't been here long enough to study the mechanics of merit reception. I'm not sure if, over time, my old posts will gain merits by people happening to read them. If so, then perhaps in 90 days I'll have thrice as many merits without having to post new posts.

But if merits are only given on fresh posts with your highest chances of getting a merit for your post within 3 days of posting, then I'd say that my 11 merits are all I'm going to get for my 92 posts. I'm not complaining as I don't really care too much for merits at this juncture. I'm in this for the long run, perhaps years-long, so I'd rather attain merits naturally, over time.

Now I understand that OP is saying it's far too easy to rank up to Hero. I'm not really sure. I've spent hours on this forum, and not just hours, maybe about 24 or more cumulative hours making long posts. OP is talking about becoming a Hero member when the merit system just came out... that was a long time ago.

The merit atmosphere is now very different. People are more stingy about merits because now they have a better grasp of what they are and what they can do in the wrong hands. They're aware of forum farmers and merit farmers, and etc.

People now understand that awarding someone a merit is almost akin to awarding them a Trust Rating. I've noticed that people with merits are actually looked upon with more respect in the Trading sections.

That said, I myself, have stopped myself from giving a decent post any merits even though I wanted to... simply on the basis that someone was a new member and I was not sure whether they were a scammer or a genuine poster. So I didn't give them a merit. I'm more apt to give someone a merit if they have a decent post history with no negative trust.


Merit is now becoming a quasi-trust system. And I can safely say that I would never give a merit to someone with negative DT feedback unless the feedback was nonsense (which it rarely is if it's DT feedback). Now, that's unfair for people with negative feedback. There are people who will never give them merits because of their negative feedback (whether it's legit or just a fluffy accusation). They're just going to see the negative red and never click on +Merit. Will these people ever be able to rank up? Yes, but slowly... There will be other people who will give them merit regardless.

That said, I think we should increase and decrease the merit requirements so that it's more realistic. I propose:

Jr. Member = 30 activity AND 1 - 4 merits. Why? Because there's just so much account farming going on nowadays. People are posting just enough to get away with spam, to get their 30 activity, then use that account for some kind of signature campaign or (hopefully not) to go scamming people in Trade. The merit requirement will act as a gatekeeper from potential scammers because most of these scammers probably aren't going to put well-thought posts out enough to get a merit. It won't deter scamming altogether, but it will help significantly, I believe.

Member = 15 merits. Like I said, it was tough for me to get my 11 merits... But I do believe we should increase the Merit thresshold for Member level because I'd like to decrease the threshold for Full Member. This way there isn't such a huge gap that makes no sense.

Full Member = 50 merits. A Full Member is someone who supposedly knows his way around the forum. He's someone who is a full member of bitcointalk.org. He's a regular on the forum. Someone many people will know by name. But making Full Member merit requirement 100 is kind of ridiculous. I believe 50 is a good mark, since Member requirement is 15. In the current merit atmosphere, getting 50 merits is difficult. If you're not joining "merit contests or giveaways," and just getting them naturally by posting, 50 merits is a tough break. People only award posts 1 - 2 merits. Even if you get a meritable post per week, that's max 8 merits per month.

Sr. Member = 150 merits. Once you're a Full Member, you should probably get the gist of how to get merits. You'll know which posts work and which posts don't. You'll know the sections to post in where merits are most awarded. I think, at this point, you'll understand the limits of getting merits naturally. You'll see that it's a little impossible to get like 10 merits for one post. You'll realize that if you want to rank up, you'll have to apply to a merit campaign or some other contest in Meta. That said, I feel as though Sr. Members are people who are either so selfless on the forum that they're just pumping out 1000-word posts everyday without reason or care for merits... or they're people who actively join merit giveaways. In other words, the Sr. Member rank is one of fluff. It's basically there for people who game the system or are tirelessly loyal to bitcointalk.org. That said, I don't mind the merit requirement being 100 more than Full Member.

For Hero and Legendary Member ranks, I agree with your 1000 - 5000 requirement (lol did you know Theymos doesn't even have 3000 merits yet?). I think it's just impossible for Hero and Legendary members to get merits unless they actively join these giveaways. And that's understandable. You can only reach these levels by gaming the system.

That said, I believe we should create a new rank above Legendary for people who are dutiful to Bitcointalk.org. The ones who aren't merit farming or trying to game the merit system by participating in giveaways.

Should be like:

Trusted Member = 7000 merits. This is for people who are in it for the long haul. People who want to be a part of this community earnestly without any hidden agenda to rank up. These are people who will stick with Bitcointalk.org for 4 years straight or longer. The biggest requirement for this rank is that they have no negative trust and never participate in a merit contest / giveaway. These are the true members who post diligently, contributing intellectually to threads everyday without care for merits. They're the ones who organically gain merit until they finally get this rank, which they deserve.

Legendary is the only level that won’t be able to differentiate between history rankers and merit rankers.
 
So, whatever the required merit quantities might be… create a level above Legendary just as there is for all the other ranks.

As it is right now, with limited merits to pass, and no ranking possibilities, giving any merits to legendaries from someone like me (with 5 as a starting point) does not make sense. I’m guessing other people feel the same way.

Which means that nullius is probably not the yardstick, and existing legendaries can’t be used either, as they probably have not been receiving as many as they would if they counted.


Sorry for the short post.   :)

Having spent far too much time reading about merits lately I've noticed a tendency towards suggesting changes that would benefit the person suggesting them rather than benefit the forum overall. Now I'm going to have to try very hard not to argue against change for self interest. If the merit system hadn't been introduced I would automatically have become a Hero tomorrow, but that doesn't bother me at all. Whether anyone believes me or not, I really don't care what my rank is.

The reason I disagree is that I believe the intention of the system is to block the spammers from ranking up and not to cause an obstacle to anyone using the forum as intended. The average of 1 merit a day requirement to keep within the existing activity based schedule seems well chosen to achieve that goal. Now that the initial distribution of sMerit has dried up it has become impossible for shitposters to ever achieve Hero or above (Sr. is probably also beyond their grasp). Anyone who is here for the right reasons should easily outstrip the 1/day requirement and not be affected by it at all.

Your suggestion is rather to change the ranking system to mark out exceptional posters (like yourself). Now that is not a bad objective per se, but not what Merit was meant to be the solution to. It is actually very easy to spot the exceptional posters simply by looking at the actual number of merit they have been awarded. I know this has already been suggested elsewhere but I'd go along with the introduction of a new beyond Legendary rank. That would indeed mark out the exceptional members and also give the existing Legendaries something to aim for.

Hello,

I was just reading this thread... and I was wondering if what you're saying is true? Can someone really get 1 merit per day easily? It seems like a rather difficult goal.

I've perviewed many threads on here and rarely do I see the green italics above a post denoting someone was merited.

The system has only been in place for 44 days and there are hundreds of members that have received more than 44 merits so obviously, that is true.

Oh, what? I had no idea the system was only in place for 44 days... That's amazing. From the way everyone is reacting, I had thought it had been around since last year or something.

This is good news. That means the system is still tweakable. I do honestly believe that we'll see a change in the ranking system such that Jr. Members will have a merit requirement.

In fact, I'm almost certain.

I totally agree. Nullius is probably the best poster nowadays, and rules can’t be made taking what’s exceptional as the norm.

TheQuin is quite a good poster, and the fact that it will take longer for him to get to Hero level shows that the system is not soft.

It's only going to take me longer because my activity was so close to 480 when the system was brought in. It takes 8.5 months to gain the activity to go from Sr. to Hero so it's not surprising I couldn't do it in less than 2. If the system had been introduced on the day I became a Sr. it would have had no effect and that is why I think theymos has got the balance right with the current requirements. It is a barrier to the spammers and shouldn't hold back those who are genuinely here because they are enthusiasts. It might be a little slower for people just starting out as they have to go through learning before they can really make a contribution, but that exactly how I think it should work.

But you will be the glaring exception here. In fact, you're probably one in ten thousand or something. I can't really think of another user here who made such an impact in such a short time and for users like you the merit system will work as intended. Great posters will have no issue issue in rising through the ranks so I don't think it should be made more difficult, though the numbers could be adjusted slightly I guess but we'll have to see how things go. Poor posters will get nowhere unless they abuse the merit system but I do have some sympathy with average or even 'good' posters as they could take quite some time to get the merit points they need or deserve. It takes 4.5 months to become a Full Member and nearly one and a half years to become a Hero so lets see how people get on over time because it's certainly too early to say right now.

nullius is always offering a good cause for every member like myself, If I become a Hero with 3000 merit there's a value in it not just the rank itself.

He/She is pushing everyone to achieve something that is extraordinarily exceptional I like this guy I like the idea even if it is unattainable to a few members it is still achievable to a selected member like nullius itself.

Even if the idea is sort of cynical there's no explainable evidence that nullius is getting something in return undoubtedly.

P.S if I myself get to that HERO/Legendary rank every morning I wake up there's something good that happen to my life in this community and everything is priceless.

Only the author of the merit system can make a decision if they increase or decrease the needed merit points before rank up. I think many users were disagree with that suggestion, since most of the participants of this site now are complaining regarding merit system.

However as of now complainant were already lessen maybe because they understand now the good intentions of this new rule. Therefore many bitcointalker are willing to improve and evolve their posts quality.

I think nullius have a a good intention why they can suggest it, but we need also to consider the other people. Almost more of the bitcointalker are not first language the English so we need to understand that it's hard for them to construct a concrete sentences.

Other than that let's also hear first the comments or opinion of many before deciding to change the rule. I hope I cannot offended the others.

Just because you got the merits rapidly doesn't mean that we should declare the standard of average merits to +1 per day. If we had so many talented people around us then im sure that we would create a world full of Einstein.

Everyone's posting habit is different and everyones thinking capacity is different. Many times people want to express themselves but they fail due miscellaneous insufficiency in them. Have you considered that thought while reframing the merit system? The forum is full of multinational crowd and people are coming from the Non English background too. This takes them to the back foot and thus adds up even more challenges while getting the merits. Local boards merit is unaccounted and they are mostly seen as merit farming.

I completely disagree with your views on the merit system and would think about the whole system as common mans perspective.

You are talking like that everyone here is like you and it would be easy to earn merits in so called 32 days, 9 hours, 14 minutes, 51 seconds to go from zero to Hero.

There is no meaning to your theory and it is just coming out of thrilled journey of yours and nothing else.

What the fuck is with these fucking people...  Dude its a fucking web forum.  The rank achieved here is nothing to be proud of...

Holy shit people get a fucking life that isn't tied to this fucking forum...  Go outside take a walk enjoy nature, get a fucking blowy (from a real person not some 15 yr old boy pretending to be a 19 yr old women on the webz), smoke a dube, have a glass of wine.

When you start saying things like"blah blah blah insult to the word hero" and "can you really call someone legendary".  Hey dude it's a forum, guess what those ranks actually mean, NOTHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LOLOLOLOLOLOL

A persons trust, merit, and rank are completely inconsequential because interwebz and also have zero bearing on the content of their posts.

When I said this:


These are the words I was really looking for.

I have about 230 posts currently and let me tell you that achieving 10 merits by far the hardest thing to achieve with all the help in the mining forums I try and do, believe you me.
Like trying to get blood out of a stone.

But I agree on the top end of the rankings as there seems to be a psychological notion to give more merit to people on their rankings than their actual posts.
Not bitter in anyway as I approve of the system but just an observation that is very noticeable.

I'm starting this in a bad mood, because a rapid scroll through the initial long arsed post killed my main computer. Windows had a wobbly, and I'm going to have to pick it to pieces to see what happened.
So my first comment is - for god's sake stop posting books to start a thread. It will probably be quoted in various posts during the thread, and make the whole thing unreadable.

I think the posted suggestion would be bad for the forum. It might be good for self- aggrandisement, but the merit system levels are sufficient to serve their intended purpose, and that is to remove most of the posts that sig spammers make in order to leech minimal income from the forum.

Nullius is fortunate in that he has a number of junior(ish) members who have the same posting skills and obviously have empathy for him, and who are able to award him merits. His initial post was awarded a merit by such a member, despite the fact that the proposition would be a serious disadvantage for him. Most of us don't have this dedicated following.

Isn't it time that we accepted that the merit system seems to be working at a basic level, and we got on with the business of discussing crypto-currencies in a rapidly changing world economy.

https://www.jalilga.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Its-all-about-money-1-min.jpg

Potato.

Slightly bitter!!😁

Relax dude! It was only suggestion, don't worry theymos is the only one who make a decision regarding that matter.

Your implication as to me was not entirely clear; I think you were disclaiming that your words were not self-serving as to yourself, and I don’t wish to cherry-pick a few parts of what you said to turn it backwards.  Nevertheless, for clarity:  I should like to emphasize that my suggestion in OP is strongly against my own interests.  Or at least, it is what most people would consider to be against my interests.

As of now, I could kick back, make one marginal post (barely above the moderators’ deletion threshold) every two weeks, and still be called a “Hero” starting on 12 March 2019.  Also, I am almost two-thirds of the way to Legendary, insofar as merit is concerned.  Yet I am advocating that I should be required to continue working hard here.

That said, I have sufficient pride that I don’t consider a greater challenge to be against my interests.  To the contrary:  As I said in OP, I want for earning Hero rank (and higher) to be something to be proud of.  That means it must be difficult to achieve.

Perspective check:  If the first person below Hero rank to ever reach the Hero rank merit threshold says that the threshold is too low, then I should hope that others would consider that opinion.

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Nailed it.  Poh-tah-toh.

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Thanks, hilarious.  But at the high end, as for what you say, my concern is twofold:

0. Changes will become more difficult to make.  For a hilarious analogy, consider the old Bitcoin blocksize.  Do you want to try to design a Segwit to softfork rank requirements between old and new merit thresholds?  Hahah.  Seriously, we already saw enough strife over the “grandfathering” of merits based on rank at the introduction of the merit system.

1. As I said, the difficulty of achieving higher rank should not only increase, but accelerate at the top levels.  Consider officer ranks in a military, or executive ranks in a corporation.  Most “users” will never reach the top ranks, or even remotely approach them.  If this forum is now on some level a meritocracy, then it would be sensible for middle ranks to have moderate requirements, and high ranks to have extreme requirements.

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I should hope so!


I like what I’m hearing here.  For my part, I have taken to checking post histories before I award merit to those I’ve never seen before—especially those at the Newbie and Jr. ranks, and those in upper ranks who seem to have earned little or nothing above their “grandfathered” merit.  Not a few times, I have backed away from the merit button after a glance at post history revealed bounty posts or other spammish behaviour.  Also, I have recently developed a policy of never awarding more than +1 per post to a Newbie; since this is unfair, I have a very short list of posts to which I plan to return in a few months and add more merit, if I see evidence that the person still deserves it.

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Length of a post is never a sole criterion of meritoriousness.  I once awarded +5 to a post which contained a single two-letter word “ok” (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2876160.msg29777144#msg29777144), excluding quotations.  (In context, it was a meritorious action:  Contemptuous dismissal of whining by a merit abuser who got red-tagged.)

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It is my fault that your computer is a piece of trash.  I apologize.


And that’s my fault, too.  It is not as if proper trimming of quotes were the responsibility of the person who is quoting another post.  I never gently explain quote-trimming to newbies (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3055616.msg31826239#msg31826239), and certainly never flame non-newbies to a cinder for failure to trim quotes (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2876160.msg30189929#msg30189929).

You’re right:  To avoid injuring you and your “wobbly” computer, or proximately causing hypothetical untrimmed quotes by others, I must desist from making long posts.

(By the way, didn’t you say that you were a speed-reader?)


How, exactly, would it be “good for self-aggrandizement” for me to place myself further away from Hero rank after I’ve already earned it, at least insofar as merit is concerned?  You seem to have not thought this through.


Try checking my merit summary (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=976210) before you say such things.  Yes, you will consider it “long arsed”; but you can’t properly blame me for that.  My very first merit on 2018-01-25 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2664861.msg27181018#msg27181018) was awarded by a forum moderator; and that set the trend.  Most of my merit has come from those with sMerit to give.  Many “junior(ish) members” may like my posts; and merit awarded to me by “junior(ish) members” is all the more significant to me for how dear that sMerit is to them.  But by the numbers, they usually don’t have much sMerit.  Furthermore, I see no evidence that anybody has ever awarded me merit out of empathy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2876160.msg30031564#msg30031564)—a concept I abhor (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2876160.msg30280286#msg30280286).  I’d throw it in their faces!


Like you do?  Oh, right.  Check post history.

Stop preaching to others what you don’t practice—indeed, what they practice more than you do.  And if you care about the merit system’s integrity, by the way, I suggest that you drop the link currently in your signature and instead start red-tagging beggars.  Listing beggars on your website will have zero effect, other than making you feel better.  It does not help the forum.  The same applies as for ignore-listing.  Whereas I’ve hurt merit-beggars sufficiently that I’ve received a hate-PM (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3031129.0) advising me in “fuck you!” terms that I seriously hurt a wannabe spammer.  Check my trust summary page, which is also “long arsed” compared to yours.

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Overall:  Jet Cash, I know that you’re upset over how close you were to the Legendary activity range when the merit system was introduced (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2828412.msg29000145#msg29000145).  But that is no reason to both mischaracterize my posting and merit histories, and blame me for your “wobbly” computer being unable to handle texts longer than a Tweet.  If you dislike my suggestion for any reason other than that it would place you about 2300 merits away from Legendary rank, I suggest that you argue on its merits (so to speak) rather than posting pointless ad hominem drivel.  HTH.

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Flying Hellfish is evidently sore because I calmly rejected his ridiculous high-handed preaching to me of sexual mores which I do not share (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3062006.msg31817506#msg31817506).  Thus, the string of F-bombs and low-brow insults.  This is not an assumption; he underscored his point, “fucking blowy (from a real person”.

As for the advice to “smoke a dube”, no way!  Recreational psychotropic drug use is against my moral values. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1184641.msg26140103#msg26140103)  I am strongly opposed to the use of marijuana, and very judgmental about it.

I was indeed disclaiming self-interest as I'm certain many seeing that I'm approaching 500 merit to rank up to Hero would accuse me of that. The second part of that was to point out you are rather an exceptional case and I don't think we need rank to tell us that.


That's a slightly odd way to look at it, but why not? If you've already done what is required to earn the badge then you deserve it even if you do choose to put your feet up on a tropical beach and sip cocktails from now on.


This is where our perspectives part. I don't see rank on a forum as anything to be proud about. What this is all about is shutting out the influx of spammers. Signatures were tied to rank a very long time ago and this is dealing with the consequence of that. The balance theymos has put in place looks to be effective in stopping shitposters gaining access to valuable signatures and not holding back anyone who is here to learn and participate. I don't feel that there would be any benefit to upping the requirements beyond giving you the challenge you yearn.

I agree with the Jr. Member and Members rank requirements this will help to reduce this farmers in making account until Jr. Member rank just to join signature campaign, Im sure that our community will be full of this ranks after not getting merits because of their shitposting just to fill the requirements of signature campaign.

On the other side I strongly disagree with that hero-legend merit requirement though I know I cant make it anymore to get at least on hero rank (losing hope) because of merit is not that too easy to earn for us like you, but I think that is too much requirements for other that is near to this ranks.

If the purpose of this suggestion is to make an achievement to yourself maybe all of those hero-legendary member will decrease their rank to prove their selves, and i think many high rank members will cry for sure especially those high rank shitposters and farmers.

I will reply to you, and I've only included a partial quote, but there are references elsewhere.

You will have seen from many of my posts that I point out that there no benefit to me in being a Legendary rather than a Hero, but it seems the same is not true for you.

Of course I don't blame you for my computer problem, and I suspect that it needs a bit of dust removal. I mentioned it, because it was during a fast scroll to pass over your monologue that it failed, and it affected my mood.

I think your suggestion is rubbish because it fails to consider the motivation of posters at the various member levels. Obviously this is of no direct concern to me as a Hero, but it is important to me as a supporter of the restoration of the great forum that Bitcoin Talk was a few years ago,

I am a speed reader, and as such the first thing I do is to look at the picture of the post. If it appears to be overly verbose, and far too detailed for the introduction of a concept, then I skip over it, especially if the topic appears to be a variant of one that has appeared numerous times before.

My reference to your merit awards referred to the award for the OP in this thread, and the point that I made was that the awarder appeared to have the same posting style and verbosity as you, and the awarding of the point would appear to be counter-productive. I am sure others have looking into your merit history, and your admitted alts, so I assume there is nothing untoward there.

At the moment you appear to be the Sun God on this forum, but please remember that Huitzilopochtli required human sacrifice on a regular basis. Please encourage newer members and don't belittle them for their efforts to satisfy your own self-aggrandisement ( yes, I am English, so I use the correct spelling). If I misread your claim to the simplicity in acquiring merits, then I apologise, but it did come over as rather self-promoting.

I have a question to you: Do you know more people with approximate results as your own? (i mean newbies, not theymos or Lauda  :))
If you don't know such people (only in that case), that only means that you are exception. In that case all your idea don't have any sense. Because your speach sounds like the speech of sportsmen who want people to do 200 kg chest press just because he can.


At first to do something we must know that amount of merit is not enough. Not just for one or two or three persons.
And why just 1500 for hero? I think 7000 for hero and 70 000 for legendary will be nice. In that case you will be really proud of your rank  ;D

In fact, it's sounds like "I achieved so much, it's to easy for me. So change please it for all"

But i will agree with advanced number of merit for Jr.member and member

Well then I will be sure to let my colleagues know they are working with a true Hero.  Wonder if I will get a parade?  It is kinda Heroic being able to log into here long enough to obtain the rank, just imagine the tales I can regal about the heroic deeds I've accomplished.  Surely I'll be lavished with gold and gems and admired by many!

I totally agree, everyone including OP is following their own interests and not solving the forum's issues like spam, shit posting etc.

The majority of people here use this forum to gain knowledge about the crypto world and make money from either trading or mining or why not, both. Once you get to Full Member or Sr. Member status and you can use all the features of this forum like adding an avatar, linking the signature etc. you should be all set and you shouldn't care about gaining merit or activity anymore.

What everyone should be actively concerned with is helping the community with whatever they can. It's always nice to have someone to ask advice from so, why not help out others when you can? Sadly, I have seen a lot of shit posting rather than help...



Don't believe a word about it... Merit is hard to get if you're a person who doesn't have a lot of time to invests in creating posts. Even if you help out people (which is the purpose of a community) you won't necessarily get merits because usually people asking questions don't have merits to send or don't know how to use them.

OP may be a good poster with a loooot of free time on his hands but he is also a notorious merit "hunter".
If you do not hunt for merit you won't get it as easy as it is advertised by some people.



Yes, you are spot on! Keep in mind that this forum is also very popular between teenagers (and that's perfectly fine) since they have a lot of time on their hands and for some, no social life.

But the truth is people are focusing more on ranks rather than acquiring knowledge about the crypto world and then making money from it.
The sad truth is everyone is trying to rank up to join signature campaigns and make money from it...

That's why this new system is so hype. You have to be a good writer or a very technical support person to get merit and advance.

That means a radical change where only the intelligent will reach legendary.

hahahahaha

I agree with a lot about what you said, Flying Hellfish... but you did seem to take this subject matter to almost the opposite extreme in order to make your point... .. ..

Certainly, rank is important in terms of the forum, incentivizing member contributions, and there are certain potential financial and status benefits with rank.  You know the expression, "rank has its privileges"?

But, yeah, the overall point that you are making and several other posters in this thread are questioning whether rules should be made around exceptional posters, such as nullius.  There is no problem to strive for greatness, but there is also variety in contributions, and some definitely worthy folks are going to get left behind through this new merit system without tweaking. 

Additionally, theymos's decision to start the initial merit distribution of all members with merits at the minimum merit level of their current rank will disparately impact members who had been nearly to rank up under the old system, but based on the new system are now faced with earning merits to catch up to where they would have been.

We cannot become oblivious to some of these disparate impacts and the variation of activities and contributions of members who are worthy to rank up but might get locked out of (or left behind from) ranking up because of these new merit terms. 

By the way, I have also witnessed some members who seem to engage in a kind of subconscious merit beginning earning a lot of merits, and many of those members are going to rank up much easier than some members who might be more worthy, but less capable (or willing) to engage in self-marketing.

Anyhow, I have also read quite a bit of merit posts suggestions in the recent months, and sure there is also a common constructive theme within suggestions that recognizes that this merit system is in its early days and could take a decent 6 to 12 months to verify how matters are playing out and perhaps an equal amount of time, if not longer to reasonably attempt to fix bugs (if there are possible fixes).

I will concede that it could take longer for a newbie or a jr member to garner attention from other members in order to receive merit, but you should also consider some critical self-reflection, as well. 

Look at your post history.   You have a lot of one liners and participation in bounty threads, and this seems to be true of your post history both before and after the implementation of the merit system.  Quantity of one liner posts does not necessarily equal substantive contribution that motivates other members to want to send merit to you because they are inspired or humored by you in some kind of feeling way... They need to get merit sending inspiration from the content of your posts.

Anyhow, if you are currently having trouble getting 10 merits, and you cannot seem to figure out what you are doing wrong, then you are likely going to have even more difficulties learning how to reach the next couple of merit thresholds of 100 and 250 merits.  Of course, if there is some kind of luck that this merit system changes to make earning merits easier for you, then you may benefit from that in order to rank up, but I would not bank on that kind of change happening any time soon.

All these long arguments, that are not interesting given that they have been repeated ad naseum put aside, nullius has one undeniably correct point: The necessity for the merit requirement to reach Jr. Member. It is not uncommon for altcoin campaigns to allow users of these ranks as well. There are huge waves of farmers and bot accounts being enrolled in campaigns[1], and which are therefore spamming the forum.

---

[1] I had someone attempt to enroll ~40 jr. Member accounts in 30 minutes about a week ago.

at last a different discussion about merit system.
not the overall repetitive and redundant hack account and merit shit.

How fastly Jet Cash can read in an overly unreadable trimmed quotes.


P.S Will be following the thread because Eminem said F-bomb.

The point of adding merit was to prevent spammers from achieving higher ranks, and in doing so incentivize higher quality posting. The current requirements achieve this purpose. There is no way your average low quality bounty spammer will be able to pass above member or so now that the initial supply of sMerit has dried up. Remember that merit is only supposed to be an addition to the activity requirement, not the new threshold. I don't know why you act like the activity requirements are so trivial. Hero still requires more than a year and a half of active participation on the forum, Legendary on average almost three. In my opinion meeting both requirements is more than enough to prove yourself a quality member.

Frankly, the limits you are proposing are arbitrarily high. Even you yourself are receiving less than 1 merit per post, and I think you will agree that your posts are on the higher end of the spectrum in terms of merit per post. Suppose your average high quality poster receives .5 merits per post, which is probably still on the higher end. It is absurd to suggest that they should need 6,000+ posts to achieve Legendary status. After a certain point the only determining factor is how many hours you can sit on your ass posting, which in my opinion is not a very good metric for member quality.

When I joined the forums for the first time, i had 1 dream (<>objectives), i want to become a legendary.
At that time, I was admiring legendary, it is like a challenge to achieve. While ranking up, i didn't mind joining signature campaign, bitmixer mainly, if you can see my records there, I passed months with less than 25% of max posts per week, money...it is secondary, getting more experience, avoid making mistakes/ being scammed was part of the long path.
Finally, after i achieved the required activity for legendary i was waiting my turn, that was the longest waiting time by far, i forgot how long i wait to become member, full, sr then hero member.
Now as a legendary, even if i will lose all my activity and all my merit, I will stay a legendary with a big 0, but who cares. Put 10.000 merit points to become legendary or the king of the jungle rank, i don't care, i will stay legendary.
So nullius, after this long introduction, I would say we shouldn't prevent people from ranking up at all. It's true, the "demography" has changed, priorities has changed, grab cash is attracting tons of bees, lazy ones mostly... Those one had to acquire the basics of the forums rules and cryptocurrencies, they should learn that shit-posting will not help them progressing.
The change should start from the beginning. A jr member will try to find any utility to easily rank up by cheating, begging... 10 smerit isn't that hard to achieve but next, collecting 100 will become way harder especially that most of smerit circulating is hold by sources, same goes to sr members etc...
If we want to cut with the spam, we need to impose rules on bounties, they should recruit only member + (i suggest even sr+). The others have necessary to learn and contribute if they want to progress.
1 month and a half isn't that much to judge. But if a modification needs to be done, it should start from the introduction of the tail.
And this is by far, one of the longest post i made.

Yes, and I am one of those people who prove your point.  The problem is, and always has been, that good posts are immediately swamped in a tidal wave of bullshit--and the number of garbage posts outnumbers the number of good ones by probably a factor of 10.  And excellent posts, such as the ones nullius makes, are rare. 

Frankly I don't think people should have given me merits for my posts.  They should have given them to someone with a lower rank who needs to rank up, but whatever.  It's definitely a lot harder to find a Jr. Member making really good posts than it is a Hero or Legendary member.

There is no need in my opinion to increase the merit requirement.
If someone posts bad replies nothing change, they still receive 0 merit.
If someone posts good replies they will receive some merits, but some users has problems like local board with few merits givers, low visibility on forum (some people simply skips post from newbie jr member etc), and is really hard for them receive merit even if they post good replies.
If someone cheat with merit, nothing change they still abuse the the system.
Your idea in my opinion will icrease the abuse of merit cause it becomes more valueable.

I Agree something can change but in a diffent way from what you propouse, my idea is to create a new merit rank based on earned merit but with the activation only after legendary.
For example:
Newbie 1000 merit earned? still newbie rank
Hero 1000 merit earned? still Hero rank
Legendary 1000 merit earned? new rank

Be proud not of rank
But of your posts and yourself
Then, that is true pride

---

Rank is arbitrary. Despite what some people may do by conflating it with reputation, it's arbitrary all the same. The only incentive one has is to create more elaborate signatures, which tend to be rented on the forum.

I acquiesce that because of the financial incentive, this [rank] should be limited. However, that's an issue that campaign managers should take care of: they should punish poor posting quality. And if they allow spam to manifest on the forum, then they themselves should be punished.

Life of the party, this guy.


Yes. Campaign managers (with a couple exceptions) are part of the problem (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3043748.msg31449825#msg31449825).

Some of the legendary don’t see the need for new ranks, for others, they would like something to work for, and for nullius, well there is… this

Rank              Threshold
Newbie              0
Jr. Member        10
Member            30
Full Member     100
Sr. Member      250
Hero Member   500
Legendary       1000
Mythical          2000
Nullius            7000


So.. why not add a rank or two?  Seriously, who does it hurt?


For nullius to achieve the highest level (Nullius), at the current pace of 12.55/merit per day, it would take 506 days to rank up.  Probably need more time for the activity to catch up.

Going to need more coin… and an average post length line.

https://i.imgur.com/FmEzz43.jpg
https://imgur.com/a/Te9lC



What seems to be missing (a lot) is a sense of humor.

Managers are mostly responsible for such posting. For example, even yahoo, sylon and other worthy managers wants from their bounty members 20+ posts per week. It's not easy to create 20 worthy posts. I don't mean a posts full of so-called "water" (big post with sense but without purpose and usefull information. About nothing in fact). Of course, if you spend most of your time at forum it will not be a problem. But most of "shitposters" have a real life and they isn't interesting in crypto, forum or other.
Bounty managers may decrease needed number of post at first. it will help to reduce the flow of low-informative post (do not confuse with low-quality posts)

If it's difficult, then don't apply. Is that not a simple principle to follow?

It's not easy to be a full-stack developer with minor programming experience. Campaign managers should take responsibility, yes. However, at the end of the day, if the campaign member is not sufficiently qualified then they should be booted out. Furthermore, they shouldn't have applied in the first place. If all that they can output is bad quality work, then that's not something that should be rewarded.

---

TL;DR: You should not be paid for a job you cannot do.

While it may be clear to you that if you cannot post 20 quality posts in a week you should not apply, this is not clear to others. From the point of view of a bounty manager (this is an assumption - I do not know with certainty as I am not one) the more participants and the more posts the better because the signature will be more widespread across the forum.


Again this is not within their incentive, do you really feel that bounty managers are all that much better than the signature spammers that they reward?

The easiest solution to kill another big chunk of the spam (which I've seen banded around a few times) would be either to make Jr. Member have a merit requirement or to make it so Jr. Members cannot have signatures at all. At least 50% of the accounts in signature campaigns are junior members. We cannot rely on managers to change their rules to only allow members plus because they've had a month and a half to do that and I think I've only seen 1 who has done that.

Disclaimer: I am talking about alt-coin campaigns, I have seen that many bitcoin campaigns are using merit to identify better quality posters.

I don't think campaign managers should get into trouble unless they specifically ask users to spam. If a manager says, "make 20 posts, sone with generic one-liners in multiple threads," then they should get inew trouble.

Otherwise if they simply omit "no spam" in their campaign rules, then it shouldn't be counted against them as per forum rules. It should be the individual posters' responsibility to abide by forum rules when participating in bounties.

As soon as campaign managerso are forced to add posting rules mandated by the forum, then it is bitcointalk itself that now has minimum signature campaign rules.

The problem with your proposal is that you're comparing the ability of other members, to you. You are quite clearly the exception when it comes to earning merit points, and I think we all know you never use an exception to create a rule. I personally think the thresholds are fine where they are, perhaps increasing HERO to 750 might be a useful change, but I doubt it would have much effect on the forum as most sr's and above tend to have grown out of shitposting anyway.

i'd echo the general consensus that this rank stuff shouldn't matter this much. as far as theymos' intentions with merit go, the simplest short-term solution, as rlim475 points out, is to remove all signature capability for jr members or establish a merit requirement.

or just remove signatures entirely so we can end this stupid drama. and call us all "members."


that's not actually rational. it doesn't matter to spammers whether it's difficult to write 20+ good posts. they'll apply and write 20+ posts regardless. at the end of the day, these people are getting into campaigns. over and over and over. there has never been any action (formal or informal/community-based) against any campaign managers, so that's unlikely to change.

the "minimum posts required" custom is part of it. it's not getting paid for something you ordinarily do anymore. it literally makes it a job to spam---one where you don't get paid if you don't meet the spam quota. that spam quota exists whether or not there are enough interesting (non spam megathread) discussions happening on the forum, or whether you are capable of engaging in higher level technical discussion.

that is to say, the incentive for "post padding" is much, much higher when you threaten not to pay participants for their posts.

why do campaign managers require a spam quota? it's to make their job easy and please advertisers at the expense of the forum's quality. that's their prerogative. can't blame managers for that. but instead of people acknowledging the reality and establishing new community standards, they'd rather go around hurling racial epithets and blaming "third worlders" and "Indonesian shitposters" and "pajeets" for ruining the forum. yet---somebody is paying all these shitposters. are they not?

We really need to get back on topic here,

Like: Some of you have already called him this, but did anyone notice that nullius is 'officially' a full member..... ;D

AIGHT WHAT UP GUYS.

I JUST GOT ONE MERIT TODAY.

That means I can do this! One merit per day! Let's see if we can all be as good as Nullius' says we can be!

I'm going to try for 1 merit per day without spending like 10 hours on bitcointalk posting it up.

If i can get one merit per day, then Nullius is right.

I think having higher merit requirements would make sense for legendary. Make it an actual very hard thing to obtain.

My issue with it from a selfish point of view is all of my old posts that are really great will probably never received any merit. Look how many spammers I found with alt account to in the past. I don't think anyone will ever give me that sweet sweet merit for them so I can see why this would be hard to implement for people that have already been around for a long time.

But I don't understand why that would matter for you? You have enough Merit for Legendary. After Legendary, you have no need for merit at all.

Ranks and merits are highly overrated.

January 25, 2018
Meta Board: (Merit Threads)

• Members: This sucks, I'm 5-days away to rank up.
• Legendaries: Live with it, it's for the benefit of the forum.
• Members: Okay :-\
• Spammers: Hell no, merit is not working :'(

March 13, 2018
Meta Board: Raise merit requirements at the lower and highest ranks (@theymos)

• Legendaries: Ranks don't matter (Please don't)

hahah, I see what you did there.

---

I agree to increase the Merit requirement for the lower ranks but the higher ranks are partly debatable.
Once I said:
Click the quoted message to view the whole post.

The Idea of increasing the requirement merit for Jr. Member and Member rank is too good to benefit the forum, it can eliminate those farmers that stacked on Jr. Member and Newbies but in the other side I think there's no need in crease the merit requirement for those hero and legendary its useless now because those rank's will just get an additional merit, It can only cause lack of merit supply because of those high merit requirements.

I am sure that even 10 of these will not be members or below. I just remember one member doing this and he got lucky with one of his posts where merits were poured for praising the merit system when it was introduced. At time other members were complaining about the merit system and got negative replies from other members. That new member did the exact opposite and it worked. That pistt was not helpful to anyone , it was merited because senior members agreed to what he was saying.

In my part, there is nothing wrong with the merit calculation of Mr. Theymos but one thing that concern me is the part where we can have merits, if there's events for newbies to Jr. Member to join wherein we can earn them as rewards or something for winning or for the hardwork.

I am not against in merit system created by theymos and for me it is already fair enough and as we can see many members are struggling to gain merit me also, honestly i am not too good in english that is my main reason but for @nullius since he/she is one of the best poster in this forum he/she can get merit easily and not all people are like him/her and i am not agree for the suggestion to increase the required merit to rank up.

For Christ sake the thread was leading nowhere now.
Open a new thread for signature campaign and posting quality this is not the purpose of this thread.

Signature ad is not a problem in meta section holly molly, at the end of the day we all still talk about getting paid in posting and camp manager is incompetent there's no way it is a problem of this community.

but actmyname is correct they shouldn't be paid for a job they can't suffice/handle.

I've seen more than about 20+ complains about the merit feature, saying that it's too difficult to receive one even thou He/she make a very constructive and quality post, HAHA, what i do, when I want their eyes to be open, is i explain that this merit is for the benefit of the forum and it's members, I challenge them to Search about Nullius, if they Do post Like nullius then complaining is worth of. Maybe they'll get shocked, OH WHAT THE F, Nullius a member before and now a full member and is ripe to be  a senior and  a Hero. HAHA

theymos is a genius. He covertly created the most precious forum currency ever. I wonder how much time it would take for merit to get pegged to the Bitcoin value. Inb4 we get a thriving merit market ;D Wooooohooooo guys remember I said it first  ;D

I agree there should be a change, I don't personally care what it goes to as I don't struggle to gain merits as I am rather controversial in my posts.. others who don't have a niche IE - controversial, great poster or generally popular people may struggle to get to the levels you have suggested.

Even raising the required merits by 20% would be enough to fuck every pajeet shitposter in the arse.. no need to go further than that - 100 extra for hero and 200 for legendary would 100% turn Pajeets into full on monkey spaz merit hate.

QFT(lack thereof)


I will try to remember that you are coming off as a deceptive exaggeration of an idiot who wants to proclaim doom and gloom while hoping to be correction and failing to recognize value.

Nice Pajeet's level of grammar skills dude  ;D Suits you very well!  ;)

Before I typed my above response to your nonsensical earlier post, I quickly glanced at your post history, and I kind of anticipated that you would have the capabilities of a reptile in your non-sequitur...

Oh gosh, my prediction skills are getting better and better.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hNTx38RAAzk/WeVgiFi8UHI/AAAAAAAAB0o/Wa0f19xsAdoiwrjO27mT68xjSyBpZLm6wCLcBGAs/s320/pat%2Bon%2Bthe%2Bback.jpg

I didn't read the entire content of the thread since I understand you main intention. You want to raised the required merits of Hero to Legendary members and even Jr. Members and Members rank. I understand what goal you are willing to achieve but it will not be that easy. I fully disagree to this one. I think you can just say such things because you are extraordinary, unlike other members  you can get merits per day and as a result, your merits describes that you deserved to be a Hero member now. Gaining merits are very difficult for other members (like me) , we need to give our full effort to conduct research about our desired Topic before we make topics/threads, and that is very difficult for non-crypto-professionals like us, Unlike you with a crypto professionalism.

All I'm trying to say is, It is unfair for lower members and also for Sr. Members and Hero to implement this proposal/idea of yours. We all know that gaining merits is not as easy as gaining likes from facebook and twitter. This is somehow making hard to harder. You are lucky that you are now famous here because of your big contributions to this forum and it is easy for you to get merits. You are already making good suggestions and proposals for the improvement of the forum and seems like looking now for power but sometimes, not being content can lead to bad/negative result.  Please don't make it harder for other members to rank if they really deserve it. Please learn to satisfied to Mr. Theymos's rules about Merits . I know there are still some issues in the forum which we need to improve but. I highly doubt that this one is not included.

A little deviation since Theymos can easily be reached here. Please don't see it as a complete off track.

I think there should be a deviced way the sMerit can be reversed (undone) if given in error. Let's say double clicked or sent twice without realizing it actually went through the first time or when refreshing/reloading one's browser after sending the merit - doing this tends to send our more merit even without the benefactor's knowledge. Can Theymos please fix this?

I am not sure anyone has brought this issue up but I don't want to pile up on the Merit system this and that by starting a thread on this.

src: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3124852.msg32316923#msg32316923

"One way you can prevent this problem is by limiting "merit send" requests for a given post to 1 per 5 minutes (or some arbitrary time). That would prevent most of the problems, kind of similar to the anti-spam posting/PM/report/feedback restrictions." - actmyname

Some user agree with the OP and some are not. but i notice that some user here agreed that create a level above legendary.  But what about make the higher rank like HERO and Legendary like this.  add another system to that specific rank  like adding  a "Premium merit" that only the mods and theymos can give them. because being a hero and legendary is a proof that your performance is beyond to other user's and your experience is well enough to say that your position is suit to you.  I think the OP wants to say that show and prove the other user that  your worthy enough to that position..

But i think its not necessary and i do believe the main reason of this merit is to reduce spammer,alt accounts or to slow them down. to become more informative forum and to grow more in the future do you imagine when you browse this forum  and you want know something about bitcoin or search for specific topic. make some clicks then you got it. so easy to get info, so many recommendations you dont need to ask for it, to become like GOOGLE or YAHOO but for bitcoin and altcoins only. if that happen i think no spam and no alt accounts.  even your a junior member and you join a campaign the rate is fairly enough or much higher than today. because any or what kind of rank you have it doesn't matter as long as you contribute a quality informative post. unlike today even your a member rank in a campaign its not enough because even some high rank is spammers and have  alt accounts.

Nullius is really unique member by the speed of Merit making, but I doubt the forum is going to be changed just for him  :D
But the point about new rank is still open. The only change that we really need is "Banned" rank or some mark in profiles of those users who have temporary or permanent ban. This topic was discussed for several times already and I think this change would improve work of the forum indeed.

@nullius

I would like to start by saying that maybe you should read (this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2843315.0)), where I expressed my thoughts about the new merit system. This way you should have a clear view on what I think about the system.

As for your suggestion, I don't really have anything against it, because as you will understand after reading the above mentioned thread, I'm not concerned about my rank anymore, and I think this system is a good thing. The only thing I don't agree after reading your post, is when you say that getting merit is easy, and for that reason the merit requirements should increase.

I don't have access to statistics, but if from all hero members when this system started, 50% or more already got the requirements to get to Legendary, then I would agree with you, but if the % is bellow 10% or 5%, then I would say that the requirements are fine. If you don't have access to that information, then maybe you can't say it's easy to rank.

This is me speculating now, but I do believe that if there were any statistics showing the % of users that were able to cross from hero to legendary, they would be quite low. This probably means that you are the exception to this system and not the rule, so the requirements are probably fine.

The majority of people here use this forum to gain knowledge about the crypto world and make money from either trading or mining or why not, both. Once you get to Full Member or Sr. Member status and you can use all the features of this forum like adding an avatar, linking the signature etc. you should be all set and you shouldn't care about gaining merit or activity anymore.

Ohhhh man, by reading the OP and the first pages of the thread I've understood that you have a kind perfectionism. But I want to tell you - you can already be proud of yourself and your merit amount! Because merit in my native language is also translated as honored. You are the only who is able to achieve this enormous amount of merits in a short time. By the 2019 you will get more than 5k merits, but you still won't be satisfied, I'm almost sure. Just enjoy that every top ranked member knows you by nickname, so you are already honored member of this forum.
As for me guys with merits are more honored than guys that were just registered couple years ago without earning any merit, so if your purpose is not earning money with your rank, just dont mind about it, and enjoy the forum atmosphere.