Bitcoin Forum

I woke up and I was a little bit upset to find that my most popular thread "sMerit Review" where users submit their posts for criticism, review and the potential to receive merit. I posted a thread to look for some discussion surrounding this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3534421.msg36298687#msg36298687), hilariousandco stepped up and gave me some explanations for why my thread had been moved. I do not feel personally targetted, because there are plenty of more reputable users than myself that were running similar threads that were also moved to Off-Topic. QuestionAuthority had accumulated more Sent Merits than any user through a similar thread.

I had originally held my thread in the Service section, but a valid explanation arose :

 
I then asked if my thread would be more suited for the Meta section to which I received an interesting reply :


That left me with three questions:

Is Meta exclusively for "issues" or is it for "Discussion about the Bitcoin Forum?"
Do spam, posting-behavior and the distribution of merit not count as "issues?"
Does my thread accomplish more than allowing an avenue for users to beg for merit constantly?

I noticed that BTCForJoe's thread was still alive, so I was trying to figure out the new guidelines through using that thread as reference. However, that thread was then moved from the Service board to the "Games & Rounds" board under "Gambling", which seems out of place. Can there be a thread in the marketplace that involves merit/post-quality?

I'm looking for community discussion on whether or not you guys feel the changes to these threads have been helpful or hurtful. I'm also curious to hear more of a discussion about what would be acceptable forms of these threads, and the proper location of Joe's thread as well. This is an important question, because the single most merit to be sent within a thread comes from exactly this template. It has been a very significant portion of merit distribution up to this point, and it has been extremely positively received from most of the community. Please, cast your vote and share your thoughts. Am I too worried about it? My thread was extremely useful for multiple users to track down threads they want to be a part of or even merit that they wouldn't otherwise have come across.

 I don't really get the problem here. I think your questions are valid at the same time you're overthinking this. sMerit Review and Rank-up challenge are prettly helpful for me, i even stepped into member because of it (TMAN's) that's why i admire people who try to help low ranks. But moderators are stepping up, i think threads like these are beginning to multiply and count as spam. And man we can't do anything about that.

Theymos suggested that there could be some kind of monetary payment involved with merits, maybe then merits can be seen as a valid form of payment within the forum. And maybe then they could belong in the service section.
I agree with Hilarious, since there is no payment involved, it does not belong in the service section.

However, on the other hand, it is a chore of a thing to do and you're doing it for free - albeit receiving some merits by other users for your effort. In that instance, it is a service to the community that you're doing for free. I'd much rather see a mod / admin do this instead of any non-staff member of the forum.

Lastly, about meta, nah, I don't think it belongs here because this is a place to discuss, request and report features or issues. Your service may improve posting behaviour but neither are you discussing an issue, nor requesting a feature or reporting a bug.

I'd say even complaining about posting behaviour would fit in meta but not merit reward challenges.

I agree that if the criteria is that the marketplace requires a Bitcoin transaction then my thread doesn't belong in Service. Arguably, I see it fitting within Meta, Beginner's & Help, maybe Games & Rounds. It seems I have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Meta section though, so I'm unsure where that leaves me. I just don't think that a "Service to the community" belongs in Off-Topic. There has to be a better place, because I've had that board on my ignore-list for as long as I can remember. Nothing useful gets done on that board and I'm not interested in being the first attempt at it.


I'd say this is where we may disagree. I see poor posting-behavior as a big issue for the forum currently; discussing with individuals how they can improve their posting behavior would seem the best method that I, as a regular user, can use to discuss and address this issue. So, I do see this as directly addressing an issue that the forum is being overwhelmed by. The implementation of the merit system is proof that this is an issue, but not everyone has the capability for nuance to understand what they are doing wrong simply by not receiving merit.


Have you read my thread?  ;D
It mostly is complaining about their posting behavior, but constructively.

It seems not only you feel entitled to be rewarded for your contribution, you are acting as if you are a merit source, what you and humble Joe and others are getting from your threads is more than what you are giving away. not only you are not satisfied for the merits you have received, you are worried now because you wont get money per post in off topic or games and rounds. but I think everybody would appreciate your efforts. thank you.

I believe we should create a child board in *off topic section and name it merit review, would you keep posting there? because it would be a totally new board with all the exposure you want.

*lol.

You're honestly one of the most foolish members on this entire forum. Where did I imply that I should be rewarded for my contribution? I want my thread to not be overrun by plagiarism and stupidity. I have the Off-Topic board on my Ignore list, and have for years.


How do Merit sources act? You're opinion is beyond worthless if you think being a Merit Source entitles you to a special platform or inflates the value of your opinion. This is what you do, throw around insults and accusations that are more realistically simple projections from yourself that aren't worth entertaining.


Wrong. All I receive in return is people like yourself throwing idiotic and baseless accusations, after putting in hours of review and work.


I honestly do not care to have ever received a single merit. They mean absolutely nothing to me. I specifically put it in BOLD not to merit me for that thread, because I honestly don't want anything in return. It just gives me something to do in my free-time that seems mildly helpful and constructive.


Wrong again, big dog. I know you're offended that I told you that you're no longer funny. It must hurt that the one person that was amused by your antics is no longer entertained by the town fool. I know that it hurts that you've been kicked out of your campaign for being an extortionist scumbag. I know you're a beggar and the money is important to you, but we're not all that low. Some of us have multiple streams of income, we didn't quit our job because a campaign manager decided to take pity on our sense of humor. I was around the forum long before I got paid by any campaign and I will be around long after they have dissipated.


Yes.
I'd apply for Mod of the board, too.

I’m torn here. I can appreciate merit giveaway threads, particularly as I received some of my first merits by participating in one. But on the other hand, such threads have multiplied, and as they tend to be very popular, they are adding to the clutter here. And maybe they also fuel the notion that merit is something that must be asked for.

I assume that the original idea behind merit points was that people would just roam the forum as before and give merit when they happen to stumble upon a merit-worthy post. This seems like the most elegant and low-noise way of distributing one’s smerit.

Edit: And I don’t consider it demeaning that your thread was moved to the off topic board. That doesn’t mean that the thread would be of low quality, just that it doesn’t fit the topic of any of the specific boards. On various forums, some of the most interesting discussions take place in the local misc board :)

Bill,take a chill dude. Digaran is obviously getting into your mind. His posts are totally non-comprehendable in most cases,and he seems to enjoy doing this.

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Discussion about the bitcoin forum,about ranking up(merits), recovering accounts,forum-related discussions.
Not exactly. There is no discussion here,about the forum intact,rather it is about individuals who are only members of the forum.
Yes and no. Most of them who are asking for merits don't know how good their post quality is,they doubt themselves and they are in hunger of merits. Your thread is helping out users and this is both again good and bad.

No worries Pugman, I've got a smile on my face and I'm always taking what he says with a grain of salt. It seems the more the discussion carries on that there is extremely mixed feelings about the subject and that would make these threads controversial at best. I'm going to wait for more feedback before I make any final decisions, but it seems like my Merit review days are over.

I agree with most of you that the threads have multiplied and it has become a part of the problem, rather than the solution as a collective. This is what I was interested in, so thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone. I don't mind going back to having no thread to maintain, maybe this will free me up to jump back into your Q&A thread.

You're right about it being about individuals, rather than the forum, so that's fair. I still can't help but feel like Off-Topic is the incorrect placement for these threads. They should either be disallowed or have a proper home, but that's simply one user's opinion.

NO it has not,don't you worry. Its merit you're giving away. Unfortunately this crap has a lot of worth.
Am waiting for ya..

Nobody asked you to do it, now that you are doing it everybody appreciates your work, you were fine when you were getting merits and money per post, but now that you are not going to get them, you are frustrated. typical reaction of people like you. having members to wear your signature is not enough, now you want special treatment. if you really don't want anything in return then go find constructive posts and put them in a thread then ask people with sMerits to bookmark your thread and check it every few days.


Do you have any proof for your accusation? if I'm suggesting to DT1-2 members to request a fine to remove red tags from garbage posters, the same people who'd take part in bounties with dozens of accounts to make it expensive for them, you call that extortion? I'm stupid and don't know how to perfectly explain it, why are you pretending to be blind to the truth? how is it that you understand when I'm insulting you but when it comes to something with a potential to accuse me of, you'd interpret my post in a way to inflict damage on my reputation and character?


I'm not a source anymore, did that change anything? did I receive any special treatment before and after being a source? when I was a source, people didn't tag me for the same imaginary crime, but after resigning, they did. I haven't changed though, I don't do whatever you guys are doing. everybody is talking shit to me and you all hate me for telling the truth.


That's not a job, however I would gladly do whatever in my power to help, but nobody gives a fuck about my opinions and ideas and suggestions in public but they all are making something useful from them according to their behaviour and actions, that's all I want. take anything useful from me and ignore what is not useful for you. done with humor, now there is only the bitter truth. you got your answer from the authorities (global moderator) what else do you want? you want something to be changed which is in your best interest. having your thread in a section that pays per post. this beggar you call me is trying to help you with that. but you are blind to see it.

All you guys "merit giveaway seniors" have been suggesting us to follow the “rules and policies” of the forum. Right? Now if today these policies are changed and somehow going against your “threads” why are we objecting? Why all this cry and accusations on each other?

Can somebody answer what will be the difference between Merit System haters and Forum Policies haters?

Lets accept it, I guess it should not be a problem if thread is moved to Games and Rounds board. In fact that will be the best place for such threads. I was part of those and I don't mind if these threads are moved there I will still be participating like before.

No doubt you guys were doing some real hard work there but following your footprints many more users started their own giveaway threads. Which almost killed the fun and your own purpose of original giveaways.

Since you wanted us to share our thoughts on this... I agree with the justifications provided by hilarious (G. Mod.) and it is a right step. (I will prefer Games & Rounds board over off-topic discussion board for such giveaway threads)

It shouldn't be in Meta, as it's description indicates, Discussion about the Bitcoin Forum, there isn't discussion in your thread, people only publish their 5 posts and leave it

I think it should be in Beginners & Help, but you can also belong to Services for this:

• Even if it don't have a payment in Bitcoin, it's still a service, or rather a favor for people to know if their posts are helpful, informative, interesting or high-quality content that is undervalued merit-wise (as it says in your thread)
• If we apply what hilariousandco says in marketplace, they'd remove the threads of Free Twitter Audit, Free Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator and other similar threads, since it doesn't involve a bitcoin payment

It shouldn't be moved to "Games & Rounds", because it has a payment in BTC with merits, they can't move it either because it offering merits as ''payment'', since there've Signatures Campaigns that offer payments in BTC + Token, so, where go these threads?, Marketplace (Merged)?


I think i've answered well your questions (i want to apologize for my bad english and hope you understand what i said). For me these threads have been very helpful for the community, i've seen many Jr. Members who already have merits, isn't these what the moderators wanted?, that everyone will improve the quality of their posts?

Honestly I used most of the threads out there, and started my own after thinking a little more about feedback I received from Bill.

I specifically wanted to Merit users who were providing assistance to others, through hardware or technical advice. One of the best things that I think came out of this, was the amount of copy/pasters that have been removed from the forum. Essentially these people thought nothing of showcasing there theft of others ideas and have now been removed. I noticed this also occurred with Bill's thread to answer the question below.


On top of that I think you provided fair and accurate feedback to users which they could either use to better themselves, or accept their rank and fate.


While I don't think they the threads should have been moved to off-topic, I can see why Meta wouldn't be the place either. I would maybe call this thread Volunteer, if people have objections to a board being created specifically for the purpose of Merit.

I've looked at the boards more closely and I can't also figure out where it would be more appropriate if it is not allowed in the marketplace. Surely, the Off-Topic board is a no go because the posts in the merit review are all about bitcoin and technical stuff related to it.

This would be likely the best solution IMO, so users and others alike that don't have any idea that this kind of service exists will know where to go if their posts are meritorious or not.

Sorry to interrupt whales here ;D
I think this kind of thread should be bring up even more as it's encourage good quality posts. We just need some kind of place (maybe child-board), so instead of newbies here lost in bounties campaign. It will be better if they (include me) participate in rank-up/signature-less campaign. Personally i wanna join these signature-less campaign, but too bad i have to finish previous campaign first.

If it were upto me, I wouldn't accept you in any campaign.

It seems like there are more votes for these type of threads being a benefit, rather than a detriment, but this is not enough to convince me that the community has a positive outlook on these kind of threads. It seems like most of the users that are sharing positive feedback about these type of threads are exactly the type of users that are not going to earn any merit and maybe should have their opinions disregarded. I'm not sure if we should care more about the opinion of those we can help improve or worry about the opinion of those that are able to help more, at least in this scenario.

I'm not interested in muddying the waters when it comes to proper improvement, suggestions, posting behavior and merit distribution. If I cannot come up with another challenge that has a high approval rating, then I will simply use my sMerit "as originally intended". I find it very difficult to manually find posts that I would merit "as originally intended", but we'll see how things go.

Hilarious isn't wrong in his decision, your topic belong in beginners and help board.
Merit shouldn't be seen as a giveaway imo even if it looks like it, so no, Games and rounds isn't the perfect place for your topic.
Off-topic, definitely no.
Beginners and help, obviously its name is self explanatory.

The only word I have heard from staff is that it doesn't belong in Meta or Marketplace, but maybe Beginner's and Help would actually be a more fitting home. I'm wondering if it would be appropriate for me to move the thread there, but at this point I'm genuinely wondering if I should even want to keep the thread going.

Honestly just leave it on hold until you decide one way or the other.

The thread was useful, and would continue to be helpful to some (my opinion), a volunteer effort on your part, and pointless to those who think smerit will find decent posts without them.

You may wind up with more people not following formatting rules in beginner and help, but it will be a learning lesson for them. It might also cut down on people posting to make their Sig campaign quota.

I personally don't see the difference between where the threads are; their intent and usefulness will be the same. Either way thanks for the reviews in the past.

I was thinking about those threads recently.

They are helpful when a user needs merit. As there are many of them, someone can just make a few good posts and join all these threads to award multiple merits.

This is somehow necessary for now, as Merit Sources are still fewer than necessary and they can't see all posts that should receive merit.

There are still some users who have plenty of "free" smerit, and these kind of threads are a good way to dump these smerits.

So, I think that for now these threads are necessary. But soon they will not be necessary anymore, as we will have more merit sources in future.




This was the best comment by digaran I have ever seen lol. Good idea, you are improving your post quality.

Maybe this is a way to move some interesting discussions to off topic.

Or, create a child board "merittalk" or "talkmerit" whatever, to put all those merit crying and merit giveaway threads.

Merits are kindof an altcoin, you are offering a bounty in exchange for good posts..

Stick it here :)
Bounties (Altcoins) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=238.0)

I've always looked at these threads as being a FREE service provided by users (myself included), so since it's free, I don't see any issues with it being in the marketplace but it's still the moderator's decision in the end.

I want to think that my thread helped with the cleaning of the forums since I made people read the rules, made them avoid posting in useless mega threads and suggested ways in which they could improve their post quality (if only I could reach more people). I have seen a few users that improved the quality of their posts by following the advice I have provided for free.

Just my 2 cents  ::)

It is really time consuming looking around for good posts and you have done a great job running your service for so long, I appreciate it since I also participated once.
Running an almost similar service myself, I found a solution to all the false applications or the lazy once applying without reading the rules, by listing them as a merit beggars and deleting their posts to avoid fake activity.
It helped me, and now almost no spammers applying :) Hope you find a solution. I'll give a hand if you need any help. :)





I guess the most appropriate board should be the beginners and help, since this is mostly what we are doing, helping the beginners. I did't thought about that but if this is the case I should also move mine there.

I think if the MODs says your posts don't belong in a particular section, just move it to its necessary sub forum I'm sure people who the posts is meant for will still find it and get the communicated information from it.

It seems that the voting is starting to go heavily in one direction and that makes me a feel a little bit better about running the thread previously. I was thinking that it's entirely possible that I can continue the idea of my thread without it being a "Merit giveaway". I've come to the conclusion that I will probably open up a thread within the Beginner's & Help board with a more general idea of "Post Review". Since the original idea of the thread was to give a resource for lower ranking members to improve their posting behaviors, formulate their opinions more appropriately and get a better understanding for the rules/guidelines of the forum. I'll probably have the same idea, but give out no merit and simply give my opinion on the posting behavior and habits of whoever applies to hear my opinion.

I'll have people submit their posts, with a maximum of 3-5, and I'll give my opinion the same way that I always have without any promise of merit. If I find an extremely interesting post, or one that I would organically merit, then I won't avoid doing so, but at least it doesn't step on any toes this way. Thoughts?

Just voted - @bill , I think it’s a really good idea. Anything that encourages people to post constructively, clearly & concisely is a good idea. I know how difficult it looks for new members to rank up & have a chance of becoming somewhat respected here now so yeah, thumbs up from me.

Will leave you 1 Merit point now.

Edit - Surprised nobody else has.

Personally, i would say that kind of thread you have made is a great thing and gives a lot of benefit to other people, and if i remember it correctly, i joined your service back then. I  voted for "it gives benefit" in this thread., but for this conflict, i think it is better if you still running your kind of thread in a suitable board like moderator said like Beginners and Help.

Last, sane people doesnt react to insane people talks. So let that digaran talks.

My thoughts on this is that threads like this are actually beneficial to the community because I have read about people exclaiming on how the merit system have been disadvantageous some classes of ranks but with threads like yours, it can bridge that gap by assigning merit to posts that would have gone unnoticed.
On the right category, I somehow agree with the moderator on the response he gave but the way people are tending towards beginners and help does not help either because it makes it as if it meant for newbies alone which is not the case. I think a sub forum should be created under the bitcoin discussion "merit evaluation or something" related to that.

So far there still is no solid agreement on whether or not it belongs in which board. It seems to be boiled down to mostly Beginner's & Help, Off-Topic, or some kind of new board. I have no clue how this would get brought to resolution. From the votes it seems that there is a strong majority of people that believe these threads are in some way beneficial for our community. I imagine that most of the people in disagreement with the concept would be brought on board with a few minor adjustments or tweaks.

As I said, probably tonight I will make an attempt at creating a new board in the Beginner's and Help section, with some changes in priorities, terms and rewards. It'll be a reformed version, mostly just for evaluation and not for merit distribution.

Do you mean a thread?

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Bill, which thread is making you confused, about it belonging to a specific section?
If it's your smerit review, it belongs in Off-topic.
If it's general post review without the involvement of merit, it belongs in Beginner's and Help.

Yes. I do. Good eye.


I'm trying to consolidate the opinions of everyone that has chipped in thus far. Primarily though, you've summed it up nicely. From what I've heard from staff, it would seem that sMerit review belongs in Off-Topic (where it cannot properly operate). Therefore, so I can keep the flame alive I will remake my thread in Beginner's and Help with some tweaks to it. There will not be merit being distributed, only posting behavior, quality and the contributions being brought forward are going to be subjectively judged on their value and if need be, redirected towards a more productive way of being.

I'll probably be locking this thread up tonight, unless someone has anything else to add that is going to be a game changer. Mostly got all of the information and input that I needed to move forward. Now it's been clarified adequately, and I have a solution to my own predicament. I appreciate the input and votes from everyone. Going to leave this open, so that I can post a link to my new thread and you guys can give me critique or whatever is necessary.

  I think it would be great if this forum had a section for long reads. An area where we could put long thoughts and ideas that could allow more serious discussions to flourish. And in a section like this, topics that were meant to distribute sMerits would fit well. Since many of the topics of this type had a requirement that the post in question was long and of great quality.

There is the Serious discussion board, and within that the Ivory tower.
These are sections that allow for that type of discussion. Some are longer reads some are just a short starter topic with longer responses depending on the respondent and their knowledge of the subject.

I don't recall any of the Merit review topics requiring a long post just one of quality. Sometimes that is a few words others it is a paragraph or more depending on the topic.

You don't have to close down your sMerit thread you know.. You can use it as a bait for bots and report them :D. And the topic you made is self moderated,so you can chose to delete the unwanted shitposts whenever you like.

I'm aware that I don't need to close it down, but I allowed it to run within the Off-Topic board for only a few hours and it accumulated an impressive amount of spam, plagiarism, nonsense and rule-breaking. It just seems like it wouldn't be worth it for me to sift through a sea of BS. I'm not sure who I would be helping by fighting my way through the Off-Topic section. I might use it as a way to report bots, as you've suggested though. That's really the only use for that thread at this point, being where it is.


Not a single one of the review topics had a requirement on length, to my knowledge.

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New thread started here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3771870.msg37146114#msg37146114 , let me know what you think of the changes.

In my opinion, "sMerit Post-Review" could be placed in META since the topic is all about the forum itself. But it is more appropriate to be placed in SERVICES since it provide review for a quality post and award the poster. I have a thread in services which awards merit to those user that can decode a given puzzle and name it Bitcoin Forum Puzzle (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3103583.msg32048143#msg32048143). I can't imagine a topic that started last January 25 were just recently moved in another board.

I have a problem in replying to this question. I don't believe that the merit 'soup kitchen' threads are a good idea, but it seems that they are a requirement in the current forum. I think this indicates a deeper malaise which should be addressed. It should be possible to visit a board such as the Beginners, and to look through a number of threads in the hope of finding meritable posts. Unfortunately this isn't possible, and I think that this is the fault of the moderation policy on that board. I have a similar problem with my translation project, and I don't know where I should post suggestions about that. Perhaps we should have a board dedicated to merit and activity for a few months. Having to create threads to ask for members to submit posts for review is indicative of a serious problem in my opinion. The merit system ws designed to address this, but it seems to have created additional difficulties.

I've had to create a number of off-site resources to move forward on some of these projects, and these include a chat room for senior members, and a language training site. I think they should be part of Bitcoin Talk, but it is difficult to see how they can be included in the existing structure.

sMerit for review was a great idea, which is why so many people copied it.

I don't understand why it would be considered a determent or a problem. Even if you may have received merit for your topic, if someone doesn't want to be involved in giving merit and agrees with your distribution and review methods, why is it a problem to forward you the merit to pass onto others? It's not like people can opt out of the system and not everyone wants to participate in board politics. Those who are holding are creating a bottleneck and you allowed them the opportunity to contribute without the required time commitment in reviewing posts. It's a shame to hear your service isn't considered valid.

I agree that a child board should be implemented to help members gain recognition in a wave of shit posters to support quality post growth. I understand there is a beginners forum already, but it seems to be mostly geared towards newbie questions. The review board should be a distinct category for people trying to increase their post quality.

On a more personal note, you were providing the board with a service that will be missed. Your thread jump started me into the 'member' rank on a post that might not have been noticed otherwise. I really appreciate your efforts, even though they seem to have been disregarded by mods. You were actively trying to make the forum a better place, and it's disappointing to see that the thread was moved to a board where you need to work much harder to accomplish the same result. I'd think it'd be in the forum's best interest to keep threads like these active since it helps promote awareness and quality but I can only speculate admin motivation.

No it doesn't belong in meta. Meta is for forum related issues. sMerit reviews are not forum related issues. They are for its users. Hence it belongs in off-topic/beginners and help.
 
And threads in services should only be related to services offered by members involving bitcoin payment.

That's why my thread has been reformed and found a new home for itself within the Beginners and Help board. No more merit, just looking to help those that are interested and willing to ask for it. It gets a lot less attention, but I imagine the attention that it will receive will come with much better intentions and connotations.


When I heard that it made a lot of sense, but then I thought to myself that there is a lot of cleaning up to do within that section with that being the case.


Neither do I, which is exactly why I have made the changes I feel make my thread step away from the "soup kitchen" concept. I'm genuinely more interested in helping people improve their posting habits, behavior, formulating their thoughts more clearly and expressing themselves in a way that is conducive to whatever discussion they're operating within. That being said, it seems these people are much more interested in receiving merit than actually improving themselves. This is evident through the lack of attention my new thread in getting in comparison to the old thread, with the only significant changes being the section and the lack of merit being offered as a possibility. I never gave out merit to undeserving posts, so there was no chance of my thread becoming a "soup kitchen", although there certainly was a lot of users that thought it would happen.


I think the merit system is a slowly trickling solution that is killing our illness patiently. I have certainly noticed an improvement over the past few months in terms of the amount of spam threads, crap posts and irrelevant nonsense. The merit system was certainly a net-positive and it is getting better each day. We can improve upon it, but I think it's getting the job done.

It's hard to strike a perfect balance when giving out merits. There will always be people complaining about it. It's true that the most established members post the most quality content, but low rank members should also be motivated every now and then by receiving merits for quality content. Quality posts keep this forum alive, but if only high-rank members are rewarded with merits, fewer and fewer members will be motivated to post quality content because they don't get anything in return (aside from the satisfaction of helping fellow members).