Bitcoin Forum

I was thinking that a very effective way to reduce the number of cheaters is to put a deadline on merit (x days on unspent sMerit).
The solution for limit the abuse/sell/exchange for those who have a legendary account or hero and pass the sMerit on other alts is to set the deadline, in this way they can not send the sMerit to alts to increase their ranks(more than 1 rank).
You are probably thinking: Yes, but the sMerit after a while will end!
You right, but I will give you an example:

From boss's formula used to calculate the airdrop:



If you were a Legendary who maxed out your activity points in the last year, in which case you would get 1 * 0.4 * 1000 = 400 sMerit.
(Hero 1*0.35*500)=150 sMerit

From here we can make an example for one person with 1 legendary account with the sMerit cap of 400
If they use it all on different accounts, a maximum of 400/2 = 200 sMerits are generated. If they are re-use they will become 200+ (200/2) + (100/2) + (50/2) + (25/2) + ( 12/2) + (6/2) + (3/2) + (2/1) = 403 which are a lot!
In addition to this negative fact of abusing, there are several people who have a Merit / sMerit ration very far from 2 which is the maximum, a lot of them really don't care abount the sMerit.
So if in my opinion if we introduce the deadline for the unused sMerit we also increase the sMerit circulation.
I also remember that we are at a time when about 18k sMerit are generated from the sources and on the forum we have around 22k sMerit montly circulation, very far away from the theoretical maximum!

What do you think about the deadline for sMerit? Good  or Bad idea?

Won't limiting the spending of sMerits in itself cause people to farm their merits.

If someone told so many users that their sMerit will be decaysed by tomorrow, a lot will probably be more inclined to sell their sMerit immediately and get something from it (which is what we are really trying to avoid here).

My idea was to set 2 months for deadline.

I don't think they should decay for two reasons.

- Some members have very focused interests, and they would only reward posts in that interest group. these may be infrequent, but valuable to the community. depriving them of merits would not be beneficial in this case.

- merit sources only use their sMerits when they have run out of source merits. This may take some time when their is a paucity of good posters. Allowing them to keep their sMerits as a reservoir means they can continue to award if some event creates a high volume of great posts.

I don't personally care if merit is "decayed" in some way.  Any system of decay will NOT prompt me personally to send more merit.  I don't have that much left (not a source) but my problem is always finding decent posts (that aren't repetitive).  

I'm not sure decaying them will have the desired result.  I would rather they go back to ground from whence they came then give them to shitposters (this is not an implication that the OP is a shitposter).

Instead of decaying merit, perhaps having sMerit non sources haven't used go towards a pool that the merit sources can draw off of. Seems a shame that sMerit would go to waste when it could be put to good use for those who are willing to award good quality posts.


I have the opposite problem; Too many posts which require merit :D

Decay -> merit pool is just a more complicated way to turn up the tap on source merits IMO.  Might as well just up source merit for guys like you that are running out of it!

Again I don't personally care if they're decayed or not but if they are then I won't have any merit to give in the event I do see a meritorious post, and I've given a little out so far and happily give merit when I see the need.  Decaying it will not force me to spend it.  It may put more into a pool but it would also limit my ability to use it as I see fit.

If I have it I will use it when I can, if I don't well I can't use it.  I say turn up source merit and leave regular users to use it how they see fit!

I think that's fair, and it merit going to waste shouldn't be too much of a problem when there's more merit sources covering different sections, local boards and timezones.
Quite like that perspective.

OP, I think theymos' formula for the initial allocation was off by a factor of 2. I don't think any Legendary got more than 200 sMerits, Hero - 88 or 87, etc.

As to your idea - I'm fine with decay, at least for the initial airdrop. The new hard-earned merits can stay forever or have a long decay period, 6-12 months perhaps.

Was 400 you can read Theymos post here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3342949.msg35131159#msg35131159

Your suggestion is maybe better for the decay for only the initial airdop and maybe EVEN a better solution is to give the decay sMerit at sources in propotion at how much they spent till now.

I'm saying that theymos is wrong (blasphemy, I know) because I've been fully active during the year and only got 200.

Merit source replenishment is already tied to spending, so it's kinda sorta like decay. Merit source gets their sMerits replenished at the same rate they spend them, up to the maximum allocation. E.g. if a source has 100 sMerits per month allocated but spends only 40 sMerits - they will get only 40 back in the next 30 days.

Implementing a consistent decaying system is not trivial. To be fair, it would need to be based on a FIFO algorithm, and although all the data to manage it is available, I don’t quite see the implementation effort taking place.

Perhaps a simple system would be that of reassigning (to other sources) the sMerit balance of accounts that have not had an sMerit transaction (in or out) of at least 1 sMerit in the last x months (2 for example as OP suggests).

It’s a bit like what happens if you leave a bank account or credit card with no movements in a given period of time. Normally these get cancelled. In this case, the sMerit balance would be reassigned to a merit source.

There is no FIFO needed. sMerits are fungible. A simple count over a date range should do it.

decay_smerits = smerits_received_until_2_months_ago - total_smerits_sent

If greater than zero, this would be the number of smerits to subtract from user's balance.

I'm saying that the decay sMerit should be distributed on addition to the sMerit charge for one source.
For example if we remove 5000 sMerit for the decay this should be distributed to the sources with a percentage equal to the sMerit distributed up to that moment.
If Source X spends 100 sMerit in one day, after 1 month he has 100 sMerit (those spent) + (total decay/total number of sMerit spent in past for all sources * personal merit spent till that moment).
In this way we don't burn the airdroped sMerit but we have a better and probably a more honest redistribution.

There should be a save side for those who are not active all the time but coming from time to time.
If you have been online total for 14 days /can be in a year time span/ without giving merit then you loose 1 point for example and for every next week you are online and not rewording your smerit you loose X2

It's just an idea, so nobody gets hurt ;)

But why?
Merit sources generate 18500 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources) sMerit per 30 days. In the last week, 155344 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3078328.msg37652845#msg37652845)-150773 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3078328.msg36967936#msg36967936)=4571 sMerit was distributed. That extrapolates to 19590 per 30 days, including sMerit from other users than Merit sources. I think many merit sources don't empty their source.

If the goal is to give a larger supply to Merit sources, it's much easier to just increase their monthly amount.

This has 2 goals

• Increase the merit circulation on the forum, if sMerit will decay users are incentivized to use it, some users got 100 merit and used very close to 0 sMerit
• Reduce the abusing, I've reporterd over 100 people here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.260 and if sMerit will decay it's will be easier to find abusers/alts cheaters cause they need to trade to alts in a shorter amount of time and not only when they need to rank up.(if decay is 2 month they can rank only 1 time cause they need activity)

My data are a little different but similar
https://puu.sh/ApTn6/e16fc28953.png

As you can see we are in one situation where, some merit sourcers doesn't uses the sMerit or users doesn't users the sMerit and the decay can fix this situation when after the airdrop is really hard to get merit for some people.
Consider also that we can could simply lower the level of merit required to advance in rank after the end of the airdop, in my opinion by 20-30%, shitposters will never get, and abusers will always abuses BUT i like more the decay.

Each user has his/ her own favorite boards in the forum to join discussions, and the odds to find favorite, merit-deserved threads totally depend upon three components:
1) The strictness of readers: The stricter they are, the less probability they find threads which make them satisfied, then forcing them to send their sMerits away.
2) The quality of threads: The higher quality they are, the bigger opportunities to catch attention of other members and earn merits.
3) The level of abundant shitty posts in the forum: More shitty posts, less chances for users to find good ones because they simply been covered by shits.
Consequently, I don't see reasons to force users to send or automatically decay their sMerits.

People can be busy or ill for 2 months possibly.   Some people arent free until the summer or vice versa have far more free time in the winter months then otherwise.  Do we really want to penalise on the basis they werent around just now.    Im not sure I really agree with that though trying to increase circulation or value use is a good intention.  

I was immediately thinking of a Chinese currency experiment that was once conducted (if I remembered it right).   Every new note issued was time dated like a cheque and would not be valid like 6 months after, I think it had the effect of decreasing value approaching that deadline.   Merit does circulate here also but its also reducing as its spread so maybe this kind of deadline or time limation as proposed would be overkill and reduction is already built in.

Reason why bitcoin has success I think is its durability, it doesnt need tending to or constant management.  Once its part of the blockchain it can just be left until useful to the owner.  So again time limits would seem to go against that dynamic crypto is part of.

I am not sure if sMerit decay to drive merit circulation in the forum, if the issue is account farming with the sMerit then someone is able to distribute the sMerit into their alt account before the limit time. After that, the sMerit circulation will drop significantly because the remaining sMerit just on merit source.

I agree with what others have said and I personally think that it is a bad idea as well. Your solution of decaying sMerits won't have your intended effect as this will just encourage this higher rank members to distribute their unspent sMerits to their alt accounts, instead of giving to worthy post. Plus this way of encouragement to members won't be as effective as you are just encouraging them to send their merits but not encourage them to send it to quality post. This will just affect the merit system in a bad way.

Exactly the idea won't solve the problem. Yet instead it might just create a bigger problem because in the end cheaters will always be cheaters.

The current process is not perfect tho good thing about it is that it is way more simple than the proposed one. We have to first solved the root cause of the spamming problem which is not easy by the way

It'll also lead to alright posts being merited and that's not what we're after, I want to be able to merit posts that I think stand out and have taken effort to write.

I think it's okay to merit "alright posts". If an "alright poster" ranks up, that's a good thing. I don't think Merit is meant to reject people who are "alright", it's meant to reject people with bad posts.
I'm not saying an "alright" post should get as many Merits as an excellent post, but some encouragement doesn't hurt either.

There are some alright posters not noticeable by the merit source, aside from merit source those high rank must be used their unspent smerit was probably reserving to their alt accounts. So, OP I think was right it should have decaying of smerit if it is unsent. Two months is good enough for them to spread their smerit especially those newbies members here that deserving to have a smerit not for their alt or for forbidding activities.

In my view, the merit system is a good development. But to limit the abuse, all smerit points should be withdrawn for everyone and handed to a selected and dedicated persons whose duty is to carry out the award of merits to deserving posts. In so far as merit remains in the hands of every member, there must be cheats. People must craft out a way to cheat.

You make it sound as if theymos can't just change the allocations of merit sources. If he particularly wanted to double source merits for sources, I doubt it'd take a lot of effort.

Why take some 100-300 smerits and centralise the system to a few merit sources, in my view that's a backwards step and exactly what we don't want? I doubt every merit source runs dry at the end of the month (some will, but others)...

Merit sources in the forum should be expanded to make a decentralized merit sources.
The most important reason is owners of those merit sources are human. Therefore, they need to take a rest and won't be able to join the forum 24/7.
And, decentralized merit sources also helpful in terms of allocated merits to different sources which located at different time zones globally.

But don't you think that giving "alright post" posters more merits will lead them to sending their earned merits to crappy posters? I mean if they noticed that getting more merits with their kinds of posts is now easy it will lead them to literally donating all of their merits so that it won't be wasted with the decay system, it can even give them the idea to create their own alt accounts in the process as ranking up won't be so hard now.

Happy that someone thinks like me.
Two months is the time to prevent for a legendary to pass the merit on an account alt (when needed) to climb up to senior rank, I can post tens of examples of this kind of abusing.
Certainly they can do it in a shorter time, but certainly with the decay the thing is easily noticeable.

Maybe. But it's not something I consider when I merit a post.

I think it would be better to punish the irresponsible and fraudulent awarders of sMerit, than to confiscate sMerit from the prudent with high standards, and give it to the profligate or irresponsible.

There is plenty of sMerit around, but very few members are prepared to do anything to collect it, all most people seem to do is to complain, and to try to change a system that is of obvious benefit to the forum. Take my translation initiative as an example. I've got loads of merit available for this, and I hoped that some of it would go to the under-merited posters on the local boards. Many members have been encouraging about this project, but what has happened in reality. We have two or three threads that are possibilities, and those were found by me and seoincorporation. Where are all the posters who complain that they aren't getting merits, when so many are avilable to be picked up for a small amount of work?

I have another question relating to decaying merit.

How do I know that my smerit has decayed? I don't remember what my smerit was but now when I see I feel it has reduced as compared to what it should have been.

Where do I see a recorded of my decayed smerit?

Currently and in the past, Theymos stated that he have not had plans for automatically destroying unused sMerits.
In addition, I don't see reasons to destroying sMerits. Each user has own right to do with his/ her sMerits.
Nevertheless, forum users should send their sMerits away to deserved threads as one of ways to stimulate others to become more constructive. The reason is they will feel satisfied when good threads which they spend time to compose got merits from others users as rewards for their good works.
This is one of basic original objectives of merit system, that Theymos also stated too.
Rubbish threads will never get merits.

There is no sMerit decay in place. This thread is about ideas on the matter, which may go no further than the lifespan of the thread.
You have sent 31 sMerits and received 20 sMerits + initial airdrop.

I don't know if there is a track of what the initial sMerit airdrop was on a personal scale, since I was not an sMerit Airdrop candidate, so I'm not sure how it reflects in the personal merit log.

It was calculated from rank and activity, and Theymos did post the formula.

That will be a good idea but it seems that there are weak points like decaying merit will result such a rush giving merits without thinking.

I think my recommendation can help to yours. You can set a time frame every merits you will give like you need to give atleast 1 merit per 2 weeks.

In my opinion the merit will just disappear. People won't hurry up spending it, most members don't care about the Merit and they won't use it with the deadline or without

This is another point, if people don't care about the merit (cause you know, they can be already legendary) isn't better redistribuite it to sources so the ecosystem can grow a little?

There is a difference between not caring about receiving it, and not caring about giving it.

In view of the fact that there is no shortage of merit to award, why does everybody want to re-allocate the sMerits that the careful awarders are keeping for posts that they consider to be worthwhile.

Forcing me to shift through a mountain of pajeet garbage within 2 months in order to not lose the sMerit that I have? What an absolutely great idea![1] How about a better one? I don't give out a single merit to anyone who needs it, only to qualifying posts from users that don't need it? ::)

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[1] Luckily you aren't a regulator of any kind, anywhere.

In my opinion, if users can not find interesting, deserved threads to give their sMerits away. They should have rights to keep their sMerits forever.
In the forum, there are lots of active members who readily to give their sMerits away for deserved threads. So, the current mechanisms of merit system will not affect negatively on the motivations of lower-ranked members.

Another day, and I'm still having to lug a bag of merits around. Come on guys, get posting those high quality messages, and find those Italian  and Spanish posts to translate. I don't want to fall out with Donald Trump by having to look at the Russian boards for quality GM-free posts.

In case you don't know - GM means Google modified. :)

Yes, but that has downsides as well. Maybe there should be a difference between when they expire on a active vs. inactive account. However, they must never be redistributed in any way or form (as some shitposters suggested in the past).

Welcome to the club. My pet's yawns are more worthy of meriting than the posts that I've been reading here.