Bitcoin Forum

The user vizsafe (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1593656) (Still Jr. Member) received 50 merits on March 13 from Cassius (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=211531) (Legendary member) for a post talking about an ICO which is Vizsafe.com (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3090104.msg31880984#msg31880984) (archive (http://archive.is/MjCjv#selection-499.0-525.96)). The post eventually reference to a medium post at the end.

If you visit the post page (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1593656;sa=showPosts) (archive (http://archive.is/7k5N6)) of the user vizsafe then its crystal clear that the use is spamming the forum only for Vizsafe ICO. Now I do not care if the ICO is legit or not but my question is receiving 50 merit from user Cassius legit or not.

User Cassius must be related to user Vizsafe and favoured Vizsafe with that 50 merits however the evidence is very weak IMO.

I would love to hear your feedback on this topic and based on your (around 100 votes) feedback I will add both users in my TAGGING MERIT FARMERS (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3168616.0) topic and eventually I will red tag these users.

PS: I will urge some DT members to have a look on these accounts.

Merit summary for vizsafe (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1593656)

https://i.imgur.com/1Dfj26P.png
^{Click here if unable to see image} (https://i.imgur.com/1Dfj26P.png)

Merit summary for Cassius (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=211531)

https://i.imgur.com/7r3eVlc.png
^{Click here if unable to see image} (https://i.imgur.com/7r3eVlc.png)

indeed very munciragan so quickly he get a lot of merit .. but it is true evidence must be found first new moderators can take a response from this problem

Yes..my fat fingers clicked no in error.. sorry op my own fault for being on mobile.. merit abuse is not cool

I’ve seen multiple posters receiving 20+ sMerit for one post from one poster. There’s so much Merit manipulation it’s terrible. It is pretty obvious to spot though I suppose.

So there is the need for an 'Executive mechanism' in another situation it doesn't matter is there or not merit system.There are too many people which can not receive even 1 merit,they are trying to write very meaningful posts,help others and read a lot in order to improve their knowledge/experience,therefore ranks.Its not a rule violation when they are trying to rank up(even for signature campaigns),but when there,We see too many merit abusers it seems a little bit unjustly...I don't speak about this concrete situation(because we don't have evidences) and I don't have problems with him,But I just want to  express my opinion.

Every +10 smerit (or every +3 smerit that allows a newbie junior member to become a junior member) needs to be investigated imo.
Manipulation, cheating, trading of smerit exist unfortunately but it should decreases at some point. I prefer neutral trust since theymos doesn't really agree with the negative one, however, imo every schizophrenic person using several alts to merit his accounts should be negged.

Edit : made a mistake, thanks digaran for mentioning it. (+1 virtual smerit)

Edit : @theymos : i like the idea of virtual smerit, can you think about it? Useless vmerit sent between members =~ like button

I think it will probably happen less & less due to how difficult the new Merit system makes it to rank up. Sure they can probably keep under the radar moving up the lower ranks but it’s going to be pretty obvious as they get to anything over Full Member simply due to how much Merit they need to acquire those positions.

I think here we have a simple case of Merit trading and if you people wish to change the situation you need to create something as controlling system which will get notifications about all high number of merit deposit automatically or something. Well, at least we have such careful users as the OP who reported about the case, but I am sure that not every merit trading case can be noticed.

Who should do the investigation? you don't need any merits to become a Jr member.


Are you doing this red tagging, to be included on DT2? your negative trust has no impact on their accounts. they never scammed anybody.

Alt-accounts busters (AAB) and anti-cheat squad (ACS) ;)

Yes, but jr needs 10 to have a bigger signature & more signature rewards which is legitimate but without cheating the merit system.
(ok, i made a typo mistake when writing the previous post and I wasn't aware of it until this point lol, thanks, will be corrected)

- Does it matter?

Honestly speaking I still not clear how the DT things work. I only assume DT members mean the member who have a default setting by the system. The advantage is if they tag someone then it shows as trusted feedback. Thats all.

No, I am not doing this things (tagging) to become a DT (DT1, DT2... DTn etc) member. I am doing this by being a dutiful member of this forum, hoping some day a DT member or a group of DT member will see my TAGGING MERIT FARMERS (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3168616.0) topic. They will then realise that all these abusers in my list are really abusing the merit system, they are really taking disadvantages from the system and doing something wrong which is not acceptable by the community. I am also hoping someday a DT member or a group of DT member will go to my trust page (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1432468) and they will surprise seeing all the negative feedback I have sent to all these merit abusers has valid reference. They will then become shocked with an emotion of "What the hack is this guy smoking(me)", then they will discover my work and may be red tag all these merit abusers, eventually may be they will ban some of these abusers. May be the forum will be saved from at least some of these rapist.

Hope now you understand, I am doing all these based on a MAY BE and being dutiful to the community. I do not see anything wrong in giving something voluntarily.

Maybe this is time to introduce a "report possible merit abuse" on each profile merit's section, so you can just report this kind of activities to mods. It is incredible how many people are abusing of the merit system, I've seen many many cases of people receiving merits from other accounts, 20 each time, by post of the type "I love eating sandwiches" (not literally, but you get my point).
The merit abuse is happening every day, and to report each case in a new thread can be exhausting and difficult to organize. Just this bottom and I truly believe it is going to mean a great change, for the merit abusers will be immediately detected, and can be investigated by mods.

I like this idea. The ultimate punishment may be a permanent ban. This way the abusers will have fear to abuse the merit system.

The merit system were introduced without any prior notice. Once merit system introduced on the last January 25th we have seem members (even DT members, it was not their fault) were sending merits to each others just to see how the system works. This way a lot of merits were wasted but the people who got merited in that period they still having the benefit (helping on ranking).

IMO before adding "report to possible merit abuser" if possible then reset the entire merits to the initial setting and start over again. Or may be just start over the entire merit system again without even adding any new feature like you suggested.

Members are now more familiar with the entire merit system so there will be less mistakes (may be a very small percentage) if we start over again.

Agree, but I don't believe the mistakes were too much. Ok, there were common mistakes by people picking the wrong bottom (I have sent merits by mistake one or two times), but it can't be compared to the merit abusers. You can make a mistake once, but then you realize you were wrong and you try to not fall again into the same error.
To me, a reporting button is more than enough. The merit system is already working (despite the beggers), you can see not only less spamming on some boards, but also new users trying hard and sharing amazing content. With the merit-report button, I think the merit abusers will go away for good, as well as their s**ty posts.

why can, he already has 50 merit but rank still Jr.Member?
is this a cheating? or system failure?
the first time I've also seen not even 50 merits, but 100 merit as I recall

The reason is the user still does not have enough activity to rank up. It's only 50 now. (https://prnt.sc/j8j67z) To become a member you need 60 activities.

You missed reading this...

PS: I see you are lacking the basic info of the forum. I hope you would not mind to read the first 6 sticky posts of meta board (Click here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0)). It really will help you a lot to understand the forum and will solve a lot of any other possible question that you have in your mind related to the forum.

Bump for adding two images for better reading and understanding also I believe 11 decisions (vote) are not much.

One thing we can do as rank and file members is to add these cheaters to our ignore lists. This means that we won't give them sMerits by accident. If I get chance, I'll make my ignore list public. I've already set up a ticketing system for appeals. :)

I do not have the luxury to make mistakes when sending sMerits. I have very limited number of sMerits to send. It's an advantage for me I guess.

Before sending sMerits I do a lot of research on the member. I have a sMerit sending waiting list (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3167880.0). Whenever I see a post looks good to me I add it to my list. Then I do some research on the member (no rush when I get time), if I see the member is really doing good job for the forum then I award him/her my sMerits.

The perimeters I consider:
1. Plagarism free
2. Constructive and related to the topic
3. Not a merit seeking post
4. Previous post history
5. Previous merit history (mostly to avoid merit abusers)
etc

I said it before somewhere and saying it again, I wonder how you guys deal with sending sMerits. Sending sMerits seems a hard job to me. Sometimes I even forget that I need to send sMerits in some posts.

PS: It will be interesting to see your ignore list  :)