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No, these aren't negative merits, but they are sMerits that can be delegated.

I gave seoinc. 10 merits so that he can award some in the Spanish community, and I messed up by giving a couple of merits to a copy paster. It would have been great if I could have delegated the 10 sMerits to seoinc. for him to pass on all 10, and of course no merits would have been added to his personal total.

How about giving some merit sources the ability to delegate the awarding of a limited number of sMerits. It would make the task of merit sources much simpler, and it would act as a form of apprenticeship for future merit sources.

I like the idea, I do, but, cannot become that a way to farm?
Well, maybe it can be implemented just by merit sources and between their "trusted network". Maybe by creating a "Smerit source trust network" , or, "merit source team" we can be able of sparing those Dmerits in local sections, and no new merit sources would be required.
As I told you before, becoming a merit source, to me, is a difficult task, and I don't really desire to become one, but having 10 merits to give away from time to time will be really useful to my local board (Spanish).

Whatever, it seems a really interesting idea. Besides, some of us could be able of wearing your shoes for a while and understand how difficult is your task as a merit source, before even thinking on applying to become one.

PD: I've already spared all the merits you provide me, and also founded a great post with no merits, but I'm out.

It just feeled very promosing suggestion, but it's better to consider about all the scenarios before initiating such kind of radical change.

Let's imagine Merit source can nominate a apperentice and give some Merits for distribution in order to increase the efficiency of Merit distribution without adding those Merits to his(apperentise) personal total. Then what happens if that apperentice sent those Merits to his/her Alts? So the idea is good with some tweaks. If Merit source can monitor those sMerits were distributed actually where it deserved and then only release the next batch of Merits to the apperentice would be great.

Note - I know "seoincorporation" would never do that but we can't say about all the apperentices.

So many people are monitoring merits that any abuse would be seen pretty quickly
Maybe only heroes and legendaries could receive dMerits

Yep, the "Trusted team" may be created, or something similar.
But the idea seems really useful, mostly for the local boards. I've just found one of the most amazing posts (in the Spanish board) and I don't have any merit left  :-\

Maybe, in order to continue awarding deserving ones, you might have a look: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4619526.msg41712365#msg41712365
(It is in spanish, shall we bring that one to the FitToTalk project??). Also, consider that in the Spanish board there wasn't any post related to the quality, to the rank system and about the decay of the board itself. We maybe should ask the user to translate it... or just use Google.

Whatever, this is just an example of what happens whit the local boards. There are good posters in there, but few merit awarders...

We could do a new post for merit on fit to talk

Done.

Regarding the OP, well, I think we must wait and see what other merit source's have to say.
To me, that's a really interesting idea, but I can't fully visualize how to implement this.

Look at following thread promoting some kind of exchange called "Nessie.io" in ANN section. Now it's the most merited recent topic with having 138 Merits (it's more than what "welsh" got for his masterpiece of "[Guide] Reporting effectively". I think now this is the thrend for merit abusers. They use newbie account and doing the free marketing by giving loads of sMerits to a redundent thread to become number 1 in the list of Merit stats. So only members can wait and watch ;D. Is there any actions have been taken to stop this kind of merit abuse?

Link>>>Nessie.io - Exchange with Seamless Access to Digital Wallet & Gaming Services (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4438798.msg39657876#msg39657876)

That doesn't mean that they are the best distributors of Merits. Most of the Merits have been awarded for this kind of ANN threads by "Legendary members" and "Hero members" ( still few demon's out there within the reputed members too)

That would be a great amedment for what "Jet cash" has been proposed.

Would this work?

Selected, or all merit sources have a button to award dMerits, as well as one for sMerits, Awarded dMerits are taken from their sMerit stock. There is a list of authorised receivers of dMerits. This list is made public, and dMerit awards are also published. dMerit activity can be analysed, and the community can report any abuses. The dMerit awarder would need to ensure that he does not make awards to unauthorised recipients.

This would fit into the current merit structure, but Theymos will need to comment on the software changes involved.

In the meantime you can "tap" who ever you trust to find quality posts. Whether they be board specific is between you and them. They can then PM you with a list and amount they feel the post deserves.

This will still require extra effort for you and your Mariners, but would be minimal.

This also ensures the full amount is given, without them being awarded to a middleman, and them only being able to provide half of those. (Not knocking the initial awarding)

About that. Here is another idea. I think there can be a lot of people like you, who browse local boards but don't always have enough sMerits to give and don't really want to be a merit sourse.

A separate thread can be created where trustful users will post topics/posts from local boards, which in their opinion deserve merit and merit sourse will give those merits if they trust that user enough.

I have a one more suggestion for your nice thought regarding dMerit system. Mods/Merit sources need to take strong actions when someone reported a Merit abuse scenario.

P.S.- congratulations "JC" for becoming a Legendary member. Good to see you wearing that honered badge.

Thanks, I missed that. I didn't think I'd get into the lottery until the next activity update, and somehow I felt I'd be one of the last minute jobs.

Re; The meriting of suggested posts. For some reason, I don't feel comfortable with that. It means I'm putting my name on somebody else's choice. I don't mind delegating, because then the award is not my decision.

Or maybe just let the admin to select merit sources, you know there are still a few good members trying to help if needed a.k.a myself. looks like suchmoon is also tired of being a merit source because of those 5 merits she gave you to support the cause of asking for help from others, maybe you didn't ask to become a source but do you think that you should mention it how hard it is to be a source?  ;)

Looks like you did the right thing resigning as a merit source because you still don't understand that merits are supposed to be sent for good posts and not "to support the cause".

You can already achieve that by giving double the merits to a good post from a consistent good poster that also show a reliable sMerit history.

By giving someone merit you are not only complimenting their post but also their ability to spread cheer.

Especially if they are Legendary already they have nothing to gain by it.

If you make the merit system too complex then it just opens it up for abuse or confusion.

Some good tracking tools are already available to see how the merit spreads.

Merit sources can use those tools to easily track and predict suitable recipients.

I agree. With the potential merit source, we would expect that he would use it to award a high quality poster. Just like passing a batoon to others. Anyone could check those potential merit source merit history base on our data available in the forum if he were distributing also his sMerits wisely.

First of all, I also like the idea Sir Jets but like what other members said, we could still find some disadvantages of this idea. But over all I like it.

Few months ago, iasenko created this thread One (1) Merit point to Rank-up Service, READ THE RULES BEFORE YOU APPLY!! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3108981.msg32121418#msg32121418) and got too many sponsors, lets just think if dMerits is already implemented that time, so that those smerits sponsored by other members wont become half and iasenko can be able to spare much more merits, but of course, if dMerit is already implemented he won't be able to get the 48 Merits in his personal total. What I mean is, this is what the idea all about am I right? To send the exact amount of sMerit to a person without adding it to his/her personal total.

Ps. I missed to give you your 1000th Merit :(
I sent you 2 Merits which means you have 1 sMerit available now, I hope you can give that post a Merit. I would like to give you more merits but that's all I got for now, I also have some responsibility to find good topics to merit :)
By the way, I also gave merit to the thread you were talking about, I can't barely understand spanish but I remember that Google translator will do the job. That Guide deserves more merits in my opinion.

I agree to this. There are enough provisions in current system which allow you this. Making the merit system more complex will result in a lot of problems. It is already very much complicated for a new member to understand. With sMerits and may be negative merits coming in future (which is more important than dmerits you suggest), it will already get very complicated.

Another point I have missed in the first place is if you're nominate a apperentice on behalf of you for giving away few Merits for good quality posters will ultimately redused the amount of posts getting sMerits. That means imagine if you have 30 merits for spending for  good quality posts and you're giving away all of them for actually where it should. If you pass the ball to another apperentice, it would make that 30 sMerits into 15 sMerits. So that means number of posts that are getting Merits will be redused by 50% (if we think about one merit for one post but every case it will reduced). So don't you think passing the ball would accelerate the depletion of Merits with the time.( I'm talking about the scenario which can be happened if every Merit sources are going to nominate their apperentice and distribute Merits for them to fair distribution)

I am not sure how the Merit source sMerits works but till now my understanding it that they have fixed quota and they will be replenished with the  amount that they spent. If they did not use their full quota then it is lapsed.

I will first go in Pros of demerits system:
1. Merits that Merit Source is not able to Merit will be delegating to others so forum has all the source sMerits in circulation.
2. Merit Source is able to take care of those section of forum ,where Merit are scarce and he is lacking the knowledge/language barrier/time barrier to
    evaluate all the post.
3. Burden is somewhat distributed to other, some kind of decentralized Merit distribution.

I will now talk about Cons of the system.
1. Putting a middleman in Merit system, will cause half of Merit lost before reaching to the destination.
2. Theymos already said in initial thread , if some good thread is not receiving enough or no Merits, then they should be bought into his notice. User
    should  apply for Merit Source after collecting these post. Transferring of Merits is a direct blow to this procedure.
3. Giving Merit itself is a very subjective. Now selecting a another person for this job will arise a question like "Why he/she, Why not me ?" I think
    actually  Theymos selected all Merit Sources with some criteria. He can analyse everything for a user being a forum administrator but Merit Source will
    not be  having access to that data.


My Personal Thinking:
Giving up Merit to person A , so that person A  can pass it up to B is a transmission loss of Merit. Might be Theymos can introduce new concept for Merit source to directly transfer the sMerits.  Merit Source should encourage the deserving person to start their Merit Source application and support the application of that user.

When I thought of the system, I wondered if dMerits was a good name. It sounds too much like negative merits.  Maybe 'transferable' or 'assigned' would be a better name. There is already confusion between 'source merits' and 'spendable merits' because they are both considered as sMerits. There are a couple of minor points in your post that are inaccurate. I wrote a description of operation of the merits system, and you can read it on my blog ( which I need to give the kiss of life ). The link is -
https://talkmerit.com/the-source/index.php/articles/the-bitcoin-talk-merit-system

My suggestion does not result in a loss of merits, or a risk of condemnation because one is awarding 'friends', as the transfer is not an 'award' but a simple transfer of awardable merits. Take the case of my 10 merit award to seoinc, that was not for one of his posts, but to allow him to merit some Spanish posts, and many would say that it resulted in the waste of 5 merits. The reality is that those 10 merits will be replaced shortly, so it is a gain of 5 merits to the Spanish community. He is a Legendary, so the 10 merits are not going to affect his ranking, but there seems to be an idea amongst some forum members that they are wasted merits. I think that seoinc is under-merited, and that Heroes and Legendaries should be merited to help them to determine community preferences.

I'm anti globalisation by the banking elite, and to combat this, sovereign nations need to work together to preserve their independence and their cultures. The deep state has the benefit of members educated in the English public school system ( remember, these are the exclusive expensive ones, not the state funded ones), followed by an OxBridge conditioning, which includes cross-pollenation with other elite schools around the world. We need to build similar friendships and associations, and a forum like Bitcoin Talk is and ideal place for members to exchange ideas. We need to be able to communicate with each other though, and that is why I created the Fit to Talk translation project. It is also important for us to obtain local news, and the brazilian truckers' strike thread is just one example. Consider the proposed Venezuelan Petro, if this suddenly kicked off, the local board merit source may not be able to handle the volume of quality posts that could appear, allowing a temporary increase would create a useful buffer to handle this.

The merit system is under attack. Thank you for the work you are doing to find a lasting solution to keep this novel idea aimed at improving the forum.

I want to suggest that instead of training the merit sources or delegates, we turn them to merit college. The merit college should be the one to reward posts with deserving merits.

That would be an excellent enhancement to the system. Delegation is the key to managing any large organisation and that principle would work equally well here. There's obviously too much work being done by too few sources at the moment and if theymos can't identify enough suitable candidates then delegating that to the existing sources in this way is an ideal solution.

Jat Cash,

This idea seems good, but there are enough people (high ranked members) at this forum who can appreciate any posts or comments.

If a member can/want appreciate anyone for post/comment he must have knowledge, experience and skill on this forum. As far as I know the the overwhelming majority of such people Full Members or higher. They have 100 and more sMerits. What for does someone need more sMerits/dMerits if he has lots of it?

If this person is really active and has no enough Merits for rewards (but lots of high ranked Members complain of lack of good posts/comments) he/she can be Merit source like you. There is a clear rules for this one.


I hope I have clearly expressed my thoughts and misunderstanding of this proposal.

Also I would like to add that it's easier to help this trusted person to write merit scource request and make him/her full-fledged one instead of changing the rules and giving dishonest members additional way to scam and deceive here.

It isn't as simple as that. There are a few members who have received high ranks because of their spamming activities, and one tries to keep sMerits away from them, because they abuse the system. There are also many active members who are beneficial to the forum, but do not have enough sMerits because the are active on minority boards. It would be great if we could benefit from the ideas and discussions that are confined to those communities at the moment. An interesting and helpful member should not be penalised because he is limited to posting in his natural language.

With this statement I absolutely agree with you.

Lots of members don't use SMerits at all and lots of them received merits for long service or spam bounties.

Ofc, local boards have to have several Merit source, and I really don't understand why is it still not so.


But why don't you help these Members to request for merit scource if you are sure of his/her being a useful member with enough skill and experience?

I saw many people support appearing of new Merit source in local boards.



PS: mb better adopted (aMerit) or borrowed (bMerit), cuz letter "d" - usually has negative association  ;) ;D

Lets call the responsible members of community boards 'local supporters'. Most local supporters don't seem to want the responsibility of a constant flow of source merits, and they may not need them. However they would like to reward members of their community on an ad hoc basis. Being able to obtain these sMerits would be a benefit to the community, and the forum in my opinion.

Could this be resolved by posting a list of good posts? Not in my opinion. I don't read those lists, as this seems to be moving me towards my membership here becoming a job. Also, it is unlikely that I will understand a foreign language post. There is another consideration as well, I don't want to accept the responsibility of awarding a post selected by another member. I would be happy to delegate that responsibility if I respected the member.

I appreciate that I have some rather traditional English attitudes and beliefs, and I would be happy to accept the community ( and/or Theymos ) decisions in these matters, but I may be too old to change some of my fundamental ideas.

I see faith in people and a deep conviction that they will be honest. I, too, used to think about the best, and I consider such thoughts a sign of honest people. I hope this correspondence has given us the opportunity to better understand your idea. At least it helps to spread sMerits better/faster (it's a good news for beneficial members). Thanks for the answers and clarifications.

Almost same idea that I posted. I was mention all over forum and you asking only for merit source. Something is better then nothing. It's also great idea. Only for merit source can dmerit i mean same thing source will send 1 and receiver will receive 1 smerit but it will not reflect  his own merit. Sumarry of your post finally, I understand that we need crew of merit source ? Am I right? Same like DT crew. That's fine also. Dmerit = direct merit as per your post. Yes theymos can implement if possible. If not then for me I have another idea. Dmerit= double merit  ;D . Yes it's not joke. Double merit for source. I think currently approx 300 merit receive monthly. Double it. I don't think source are misusing smerit. So I think it's not risk to increase smerit for merit source. At least it will help reduce erosion of merit.

You seem to have suggested an interesting variation on the theme. The merit system has two levels - Source1 and Source2. Source1 members obtain refreshable merits under the current system. Source2 members don't get any automatic distribution, but obtain their sMerits from Source1 members. This could be a useful improvement, as it keeps control of primary merit distribution within the current administration.

First of all, thanks to all for the trust you have deposited on me. The merits you've given me have been already distributed on the Spanish Local, you can check my merit summary in here: bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=334783
I've chosen to give an important amount to the post I suggested, why? Because the Spanish board is beginning to be invaded, as the English one, by shitposters writing lines like "QUé interesante tu post" (How interesting!!). This post is about the feelings, how you can become a good user and be an important part, so it was necessary, from my point of view.
The others are newbies or members that are truly trying, something more and more difficult to see each day. So I gave them merits to make the point, to make an example. I also gave 2 to a Hero (they need to rank-up too), for he is creating one of the most completes guides to mining, great explained and really detalled.

Also firstly, CONGRATS, JC.


Maybe "Team Merit" should be more accurate, for it implies a teamwork, and also looks "easier to digest".

Well, this is sad to see I've received a lot of merits, but when I give away them they look few. For that reason maybe this is better to wait and see (hopefully your idea will be implemented), in order to be able to exploit them.



I'm from a third world country, many of our beautiful shores have been sold, and even the local cultures are no longer allowed to enjoy their nature. So yes, I feel you at that point.

Besides, on the Spanish Board, I've recently appreciated that many Venezuelans are coming and joining. Many of them are unable to speak English, and their situation is dramatic. I will encourage them to participate in FitToTalk and see what happens. I haven't seen too much interest in joining any conversation, but you know, there are always exceptions.

IN CONCLUSION: Some of you might find that the best way to take is to me and other local users become a Merit Source.
To me, there are enough sources by now, for, all we can see, some of them are really struggling when trying to find meritable posts. That's the reason I don't want to become a source, but maybe a collaborator. I think there are enough merits, and having another source is not going to help. To me, to be a Merit Source seems a lonely work, and I rather prefer to be a diplomatic SOURCE2, as JC pointed previously, so I can manage to spare some in my local (and, of course, other sites if deserved). Even when it can sound absurd, I believe that more merit sources will imply less distribution, for we have many already with tons of merits to award and no one to receive them. If, on the contrary, we spare the merits in between the locals, by creating a team, it will ease the work of the merit sources and, at the same time, we are going to be more relaxed, so more merits will be rewarded. Just like The Quin pointed:

dMerits are a good idea especially in local boards that dont have a merit source. But even if your suggestion is not accepted by the administration this can still be done in a different way with a team of trusted and high ranked members of local boards. Legendary members cant rank up any further so they dont need to have an interest in gaining more merits aside from distributing them further. Many Hero members - who will rank up eventually anyways due to the quality of their posts can also be brought in for this task. Here is my suggestion:

- We create a separate thread and call it Merit Sources for Local Boards (or something along those lines).
- In local boards the members will create a separate thread and suggest the user that will represent their local board and be the Merit Source for that local board. It can be done by voting. The proposed user must get the majority of votes. (70%) The user who gets selected is introduced in the Merit Sources for Local Boards thread as a representative of Local board X with the results of the voting done in the local community as proof that they want and trust him for the task. The local communities know best because they spend most time there and they can see who is doing what.
- The suggested members are than reviewed by the administration, including their sMerit history, existence of potential alt accounts, merit farming, trust etc. and approved if they are clean.
- Once this is done and all potential users are selected there will be a time frame in which users can object the selection of a potential merit source with valid proof of wrongdoings in order to be absolutely transparent. Maybe even a Veto can be used if a proposed user from a local board is absolutely untrustworthy by the community but again proof needs to be shown for all objections. 
- Once the group is selected the merit sources decide how many merits they will distribute to those individuals. Again - legendary members have no use for the merits and Hero members should be trusted enough to do this task as well and even if that leads to them gaining legendary rank wouldn't be an issue since they did it helping the community. 
- The Merit Sources for Local Boards have to post proof of their distribution of the issued merits so everyone can see and make sure everything is being done properly. If member X from Local Language Board X sees an issue with the distribution he reports the Merit Source for his Local Board, he is taken of the list and further sanctions can be imposed by the admins.


In this way the local boards get the attention they deserve, quality posts get rewarded and incentive is created for good quality topics and discussions.
The Merit Sources we have now will have an easier task because they are getting assistance to handle out merits and the occasional Hero member here and there reaches a higher rank maybe by helping out.   


   

 

Isn't all this an unnecessary complication of the Merit system? I too tend to make many suggestions, but realize most of them just add work for the Admins.

Instead of transering sMerits, why not just ask the person you want to send them to for a list of posts, and Merit them directly? I've made that suggestion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4541732.msg40874580#msg40874580), but haven't done it yet.

In this case, why not to implement a next level (Source 3) for local boards?
These Source 3 members would obtain sMerits from Source 2 members, but only smaller amount, e.g. 20-30 sMerits per month (that could vary based on the post count of the local board, etc...)
If you want to control it, let's make Source 2 members check what happened with the sMerits given in the previous round, and if everything is fine, they can give sMerits again.
In this case, a fraudulent Source 3 member only can give away only 20-30 sMerits, and after there will be no more merits from the Source 2 member.
They can be called local sources or something similar...
I can imageine that if someone wants to give merits in specific boards only (e.g. Technical discussion or other special threads), they can also become Source 3 members, so I wouldn't limit it to local boards only...

I think that just adds extra work for both the merit source and the person nominating posts. Being able to delegate to someone you trust to make good decisions is beneficial in making systems more efficient and decentralised.

Or simply ask people that are eligible to come forward and propose themselves as merit sources. Is well known at the moment there is a lack of merit sources in the local boards.

When is the forum going to move away from merit discussions? Are we going to have an anniversary around it. This is already boring.

When it has been in place so long everyone has forgotten what it was like before. That's pretty much what happened when Activity was first introduced or any other major change over the years. If you find it boring you can simply ignore the threads about it. There's nothing quite as boring as someone only joining a thread to say it is about a subject they are not interested in.

As long as these "trusted team" are humans and dwell among us and have red blood flow in them like any other persons, they too can get corrupted with time and become irrational. We have seen this happen in the past where trusted older members here turned scammers.

I've thought quite a lot about the merit system, and I think it had given Theymos some difficult decisions to make. In many ways it is a form of board moderation, but with positive rewards rather than punishments. At the moment most people use the rewards to expand their bounty hunting and sig spamming, and this contributes to the cluttering of the boards. In many ways it would be better if nobody were to rank up while sig spamming was still rife. The answer would be for the forum to provide alternative benefits for rank, but I can't think of any - flashing avatars would be an annoyance for example.

The other option is to try to avoid scams and HYIP product promotion in signatures, and encourage the promotion of more stable long term products. I don't really approve of mixers for example, but I can see that some people may have a need to use them, and long term advertising runs for such products will encourage the sponsor to ensure that his reputation is not damaged by bad posting habits.

I think the admins are aware of the importance of the merit system, and the way it has improved the boards. Merit sources will be able to help shape the forum for the future, and I hope that sources can be given some guidance on forum policies. I started my chat room to try to obtain some help with this, and I have received some advice, but I still think I'm a bit of a wild canon with my awards. This is the reason that I suggested the Source2 status. It would allow me ( and other sources) to feed merits into areas with which I have no empathy, but are essential to the maintenance of the diverse interests in the forum

Yep, I agree with almost all (I would be a hypocrite about signatures, for if I hadn't one, I would be unable to spend so much time in here).
Maybe the correct way to carry on with it is to create a thread on the New forum software board, with the proposal explained after this good debate. Many of us seem to agree with the point of merit sources having the ability to rely upon others in order to spread the merits in a less centralized way.

Another possible change is to up the posting permission for the serious discussion board. The juniors seem to be the ones that create the lowest level posts ( OK so that's a generalisation). Maybe posting should be for members and above.

Also necessary (urgent, to be more accurate). The Serious Discussion board is starting to be another spam-fest.
I am not sure about how the official request process works. Is that on the new forum software board? Or in meta?

Anyway, recently a lot of proposals have been made in order to help the forum or to clean-up some sections, but nothing is happening. Maybe they are working on the new forum software, maybe admins like the forum the way it is. But, from my point of view, to normalize a bad situation means the beginning of decay.

So where can we just write request?
From the last week we have spoken about several and serious matters:
1.- The meta board being contaminated by banned requests and merit seekers, cryers, et al.
2.- The creation of a new kind of merit source.
3.- The serious discussion matter has been pointed before, if my memory serves me good, by AverageGlabella.
4.- The creation of a childboard to accounts issues (by Silent 26).

I've begun to see that mostly all the new suggestions are lost and quickly forgotten.
How can we avoid that?

With due respect, I admit that there is a lot of low ranked level who are posting junk and non sense post in serious discussion board but i think its not proper to generalise us. Me as a jr. Member already learned a lot in this forum by reading post and topics of not only those high ranking members but also topics coming from newbies. As far as i know, the whole idea of this merit system is to stop spamming and replying irrelevant matters to one topic and basically it really helps a lot of forum members here to research and learn more about crypto and blockchain for them to have knowledge to rank up. Maybe you as a legendary should do your part in this forum to help low ranked level to learn and not to gain merits.

PS: im new here in bitcointalk but started trading crypto since 2014

That's sad, it seems like no one here (even Legendary members ) don't know how the official requests to be made. Can we create a some kind of poll and submit the results to the admins?. I don't know that process is far  complex like rocket science :D

That is the pathetic situation that we all are facing around every corner, every sector wether you like or not. That is what politicians do when they having so many issues to solve for their people. What they do is, first they generalize the problems and then divert the problems in to an another problem saying this will happened if we do this, then finally all the people are going to believed that it's a normal thing so we just ignore and move forward is the best thing, but it isn't. I believed this is not a political arena or admins are not like the politicians. So let's make some noise in order to get changed of some forum rules. Majority of the members( not the underworld bounty freaks or spammers) hoping to see some kind of positive moves towards the betterment of the forum like introduction of Merits, rather saying "today is not the day for a change"

"The small trees will remained even after strong storms due to it's flexibility but the regid ones which didn't want to be flexible will surely get distroyed during a storm"

5.- ANN threads should not be awarded with merits
6.- The posts in the ANN threads should not count as activity
7.- System to be implemented to inquire and take actions against (at least large scale) merit abuse
8.- Merit source applicant should not award any merits for  their thread just for appreciations.
9.- English language posts should not allowed in local boards( may be this is tricky one, but we need to think about why actually admins initiate local boards at the first place)

That's only my suggestions, don't know wether other members are agreed or not.

That's because there is no official process. What you have to do is convince theymos that it is a good workable idea. I believe he pays attention to what is suggested and discussed in these sort of threads, In fact, he sometimes comments in them.

I've just given you 2 merits, so if they do make that change, you can continue to post there. :)

Adding some kind of pseudo-merit source is entirely not a bad idea but by giving the merit source the power to delegate the sMerits to a "apprentice" could potentially lead to some abuse in the merit system overall. They don't even go through the screening process of a regular merit source in the first place.  But this can be avoided if these apprentices will go through some kind of screening process themselves where the merit source will request for approval of the delegation or transfer of sMerit to an admin.

I think that there is fairly serious consideration before a person is approved as a merit source.  One of the considerations is their record in awarding sMerits. If they don't have any sMerrits to award, then this evaluation becomes difficult. I don't think that sources should be able to appoint secondary sources, but maybe they could suggest potential candidates, as could local communities. Removing a person as a merit source is quite a major decision, and could cause quite a bit of bad feeling, and the loss of a valuable member. Secondary sources would not need to be removed, but if they were not acting responsibly, then they wouldn't receive any merits to award.

Actually we don't know why you create an Bitcointalk account ??? I already report your post and don't ruin the thread.

I did have a similar idea with one of my proposal (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2847182.msg29206071#msg29206071) in this section where the unused sMerits of merit sources would be transferred to another kind of merit source and it didn't get much approval from the other members. But with your idea where they are given the sMerits might work this secondary merit sources just need to be approved or allowed by admins.

Other alternative I see is for you to have some kind of post review where your trusted source sends you links of posts they think is worthy of merits and you yourself decide on how much if any will you give to that post.

I've brought this topic back again, as it would be a great help if there was a way that merit sources could provide support to responsible members who are active on some of the neglected boards.

This is a great idea OP. Also I like this idea more than the "translate for merit one". Keep up your work you are doing so much for this community.

Even among those of the heroes and legendary ranking, there are still many who will abuse the privilege. Let's not forget that the ideal reality for those in those top ranking positions does not in any way imply that they are real 'leaders' in BTT forum.

IMO, the staff of BTT forum can be expanded to include paid whistleblowers, merit monitors, and trust network initiators. I actually like the idea of a trust network of merit sources--> dmerit agents --> smerit sources and any other business related to such ranking and evaluation system. This would most likely improve the performance of the BTT forum activities and the overall public image.

My idea wasn't taken seriously a couple pf posts back so let me try again.
Like another user stated any abuse would be discovered easily. Let the local communities have a vote about which users they can trust to do this task.
If you spend a lot of time in a certain subforum you learn which users distribute merits for quality posts and how they do it.
All the merits allocated for this task would have to be presented to the local communities and it would be transparent for everyone to check.
I dont think you need new moderators or whistle blowers because anyone who discovers an unfair distribution in his local community will find a way to inform the staff and go public about it.

Well, in the case this kind if merit sources are created, it is clear that it is going to be really difficult for them to farm or to abuse, since the merits they will receive are few in comparison with a merit source, and will be under watch from the giver, of course.
I think is far more difficult to cheat by a member of the "team merit" than to a normal merit source.
By building a team also it is going to become more transparent the work of the merit source. Anyway, I don't think any of us is willing to betray or cheat, but to improve the forum.

Alternatively and on a much simpler approach, Seoinc can use the merit review thread that I have setup in the Spanish section so that he/she can help me finding decent posts. The Spanish section of the forum generates little posting activity, and of that little posting activity a large part is merely opinions that are welcome but not "meritable". Believe me, I will be happy if I am ever able to use up all my sMerit.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4315906.msg38727495#msg38727495 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4315906.msg38727495#msg38727495)


Even if you don´t know about cryptos, you can still get merit on the Spanish forum in my "Weekly Merit challenge", an effort to make a more engaged community.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4613016.msg41925587#msg41925587 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4613016.msg41925587#msg41925587)


May I ask which boards are neglected in your view? Do you think that 10 more merits were needed on the Spanish section? For which posts? Notice that giving merit requires certain care and even with that, we all eventually give some to spammers, merit traders, etc...


Note: in the Spanish section there are tools to propose deserving posts for merit and at the moment is far easier to get merit there than in the general sections IMO.

Note II:  Be aware, it is very easy to fall into the same argument that hundreds of threads propose in the meta section -  "merit is difficult to get", "merit is unfair", "there should be more merit",... Just changing into slightly more sophisticated version "the board is neglected", "this post should have merit and it did not receive it ,...

Note III: I am not by default against further decentralising merit: I can´t merit myself for my cool posts in the Spanish forum.

In my case, I have posted my criteria that I think aligns with the forum rules:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4315906.msg41555048#msg41555048 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4315906.msg41555048#msg41555048)


What is quality

- Help others using a special or uncommon knowledge
- Very relevant news with a good analysis or an important implication to cryptos.
- Occasionally, good humor.
- Personally, if anyone corrects a word in one of my translations I will give merit ("of my own")

What is NOT meritable:
- A long post is not necessarily merit worthy.
- If you plagiarise and I notice it you will be in my ignored list for a year.
- If you have been trading merit with other users and I notice it, you will have a hard time getting merit.

An a later addition: Don´t send me PM asking for merit.

Olumyd, As far as I am concerned, one of the things I do look sometimes before giving merit is the merit history of the member. Typically, I won´t merit users that are meriting others in ANN threads, which in turn are meriting others in ANN threads.

But, that´s just me.

Totally agree with your definition of "quality". But, in this meta board, merits are given as a way of agreement. For example, a babycry topic about merit system shows up, high ranked members come in repressing, insulting and meriting each other. What a waste!

The way I see it dMerits understood as delegate merits could have two non-collisional paths:

1.   Delegate Merit as @Jet Cash suggest, where by a Merit Source transfers some sMerit to person of his choice (with no Merit added to the recipient’s Merit counter).

This would have the advantage of delegating some sMerit to others on a discretionary basis, and may help the Merit Source to distribute his sMerits with less of a burden and over a wider network. This approach does not increase the overall Merit Source monthly allowance, but it could help to empty it out on a monthly basis, thus increasing overall received sMerit by the forum members.

The disadvantage is that, although Merit Sources are trusted by theymos for this task (as they are approved or pre-chosen on a one to one basis), there should be a certain degree of tracking taking place so as to avoid speculation on the sMerit transfers from the Merit Source to the Delegate.
Perhaps the transfer process could create a TX just like every other sMerit transfer, but where the message Id involved would have to be an internal reserved code that indicates “delegate merit transfer” (i.e. User A awarded User B n sMerits for this post: “delegate merit transfer”).


2.   Appoint a "D" Merit Source. Each Merit Source could appoint another person as a "D" Merit Source.
Merit Sources I figure are assigned a monthly allowance after being cleared, and probably classified in some sort of A/B/C category, where the monthly allowance depends on the category.
The idea is that the "D" category would be a Merit Source with less of a sMerit monthly allowance than a regular Merit Source, but that is vouched for by the Merit Source. This only makes sense if Merit Sources are considered scarce, and as a means to speed-up the process of finding trustworthy members for the task.

Now in order to avoid any speculation or foul use (although unlikely to happen with a Merit Source), the "D" source would need to be cleared by theymos just as any other Merit Source, but perhaps at a swifter pace since he would already be backed by a Merit Source that appoints him.
The "D" source should be a reputable member too, and have decent experience at giving merit with a fair criteria that the Merit Source has cleared. It would also probably be better if the Merit Networks of the Merit Source and "D" source do not coincide too much (see image below).

The advantage of this procedure is that, if there is any real intent to add more Merit Sources to the system with a bit of haste, these would be already vouched for by existing Merit Sources, and could be quicker to appoint.

Say for example @Jet Cash considers @Seoincorporation to be a good candidate for being a "D" source. @Seincorporation has previously indicated on the forum that he would like to be able to give out more merits, but perhaps not become a full merit source (correct me if I’m wrong though). In addition, their Merit Networks as sMerit awarders do not coincide too much as can be seen here:

https://i.imgur.com/KCAoxfm.jpg

@Jet Cash has a Merit Network of 270 different members he has sent sMerit to at some point. @Seoincorporation’s Merit Network is of 57 members. @Jet Cash has 18 merited members in common with @Seoincorporation, which is pretty low. Aggregating @Seoincorporation as a “D” source for example could be a win-win: @Seoincorporation, who is already reputable and has awarded quite a lot of sMerits would get an allowance that won’t require excessive attention to award, reaching out to other forum members, while the overall sMerit generated by Merit Sources would increased.

True, I struggle a lot to avoid that. Sometimes is difficult to avoid being judgmental.

I have to insist: less fuss, easier control... Merit review threads. Regarding the user NadiaHel, I have the pleasure of awarding merit quite often to the user. If I miss one post just report in the review thread.

@Dmrdmr - I understand that you have better things to do, but could you consider doing some stats for local boards? (in case you haven't yet)

I would be interested in merit/post awarded in the Spanish section to see if there is less than average, excepting Tokens and Alts sections, which are mostly announcements.


Or alternatively and on a much more direct approach the "D" source can apply to be a merit source. Even could be recommended by some other merit source that feels is not able to distribute all the smerit given to it to take some of the workload.

That's the point. I feel that there are enough merit sources already, that's why I don't think necessary to become one. This idea came under the actual situation some merit sources are living: they find difficult to find meritable posts. So, why to generate more merits if they are enough but the problem is that the deserved users are difficult to reach?

Anyway, I think this is kind of messy, for it would imply some good changes to the code.


Yep, I beginning to think that this is the easiest way. Maybe the actual merit sources can propose someone become one. It would be really less messy, but the point was to create a sort of "team", with the idea to get all the merits created distributed among some more boards, local included.
You are the merit source on the Spanish board. What is the situation in there, from your point of view? Because I see people earning merits, but one by one (there are some exceptions-deserved), and it is going to be difficult for them to rank-up just earning one merit for each incredible post.
Now, of course, they can come in here, but it will imply centralization of a language, and it is far more difficult to express an idea in a foreign language rather than in your own (I struggle with that every single day, jeje).
So, if the only way to become a Full Member, for instance, is by writing in English, is not a centralized point of view?

Anyway, after reading all the thread, yes, it is kind of messy. A good idea from JC, but messy to implement.

I don't think this whole idea is going to do anything good. There are clearly not enought merit sources as it is and if more sources start this practice the situation will just become worse.

If a merit source doesn't find posts to merit or has no time to do it, the right thing to do is to step down and let somebody else giving it a go, there are plenty of good candidates waiting for months to become a source.

In top of this is not the job of a merit source to nominate any potential one or give similar responsabilities.

Yes, the best approach of all is to go follow the regular path, since that already exists and nothing needs to be done in addition but apply and be appointed at some stage. The D source approach is a kind of "appoint me but not with too much of a burden".

On the  Merit Dashboard (https://public.tableau.com/profile/ddmrddmr#!/vizhome/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/GlobalSummary) we can access some stats on the Local Boards, although they treat each Local Board as a whole (they don’t go and break up the data by Subsubsections within).

From that perspective, the Dashboard gives us access to:
a)   Section/Subsection Tab: Filtering by Subsection on the right (select Spanish only), we get the monthly sMerit distribution on the local board (121 July 2018 so far, 131 June 2018, etc).

b)   Post Summary Tab: Filtering by Subection we get the number of sMerits per TX (79,73% of TX are of 1 sMerit, 11,51% of 2 sMerits and so on). We can also see the number of TXs per post (88,80% of posts receive only 1 TX, and an additional 8,68% receive 2 TXs).

c)   Ranking Section: Filtering by Subsection we get a list of who the top meriters are (Paxmao 404, freemind1 79, and so on), the top merited (120 Gothorum, 83 solonosquedauna, etc), and the top merited threads (105 Nuevo Sistema de méritos en Bitcointalk, etc. – aggregates not by post, but by thread).

d)   TXs: Filter by Subsection to see all TXs in the subsection.

e)   Potential Merit Sources: Filter by Subsection to see how many users a given member has given merit to, how much he sent, number of TXs, average per Tx.

On all these tabs you can also use the Date Range slider to see the data narrow down to a specific date range (use the slider or click on the date to select it from calendar or provide it manually).

If you need it broken down further tell me and we can create a post on the Spanish Local board with the stats, or I could try to bring a third level (section/subsection/subsubsection) on to the dashboard to include/exclude "subsubsections" (I need to cleanse the data though for that level).

Where I came(Sri Lanka) from actually doesn't have any local board. But there is a "sinhala" thread started by our senior members but i didn't feel to post or even read there since almost all of them are talking only about bounties and airdops. So can we go one more step further for "local threads" where actually didn't have any local board.

I'm thinking about how to initiate a good thread(not the Bountytalk) with senior members for our local community where we can share our knowledge with our native language.

So true. Sometimes i feeled I haven't been posted what I actually want to express due to language barrier. However I'm trying my best to learn English everyday and I have learned lot by reading threads made by top English posters. When I reading a thread(especially serious discussion board) I used a online dictionary  to find out English terms which not oftenly used in our society.

At the end of the day if we can't change the rules so we have to be changed in order to gain more from forum.

We'd love to help you with your posting on Fit to Talk English. You can tell us about sea turtles, and tea of course.

I am currently one of the merit sources that can understand / write Spanish, I believe there is at least one other.  The section has low activity, but at the same time the "spam" is relatively low. Some members are really amazing, perhaps a dozen of them. Four of them, I don´t know if they are alts, provide some news daily with more or less fortune. Regarding merit, we are lucky to have some generous members that many times send merit before me.

It is true, I normally give 1 merit at the time... perhaps I should consider rising that a bit for the higher ranking users, since 1 merit for a Junior is really cool but a Senior needs a lot to rank up. I think that I have enough sMerit for the "size" of the section, but nobody stops any other user to apply to be a merit source.

My objective is clear: I want more people engaged on the local section, sharing knowledge, asking intelligent questions and providing information. There are 400 millions of Spanish speakers and we have our own home here in the forum.

Fair enough. Like a mini-source.


Cool, I will tinker around a bit to see if I can make sense of the data. 404 points awarded mostly 1 by 1 ... I am spending too much time in crypto :)

It looks as if I can't delete this pre-bump, sorry guys.

I'm continuing with my alphabet marketing policy for sMerits, and I've just invented hMerits - the first thread about them is on the beginners board here.

- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4811776.0

I'm doing this because I do want to help Juniors and others to gain merits, but I finding that I have to create threads to encourage meritable posts. The introduction of dMerits would make life a lot easier for some merit sources.