Bitcoin Forum

I started my Merit source application (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2851620.0) half a year ago. I want to try something new: I'd like to be a deMerit source (or should this be called a merit sink?).
User cabalism13 reminded (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5033220.msg45927037#msg45927037) me about this:
Just 3 days ago, theymos implemented Enhanced newbie restrictions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.0). Jr. Member status now requires at least 1 Merit point. This has already reduced (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032314.0) the amount of spam, and lead to a Newbie invasion in Meta.
But worse, it lead to massive Merit abuse, like this:
I can't read most of those (Russian) posts, but the fact remains this one guy ranked up a small army of a few dozen Jr. Members, who no doubt will continue spamming later on. There are many users with a large supply of sMerit (only a small fraction of the 600k airdropped sMerit has been used), which means the Jr. Member spam can be sustained for a very long time.

To counter this, I'm applying to be a deMerit source. I don't think this should be used against heavy merit abuse (50 at a time), it could be limited to a maximum of 5 deMerit per user per month. This way it deranks many different users without destroying a large amount of Merit.

More examples
See Users abusing merit to level up their alts to Junior Member (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031341.0) (by o_e_l_e_o (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1188543))

I think there are 3 possible reasons to provide a de-meriting structure.

- Merits awarded by mistake. In ths case the de-merit should be excercised in conjunction with the awarder.
- Deleted posts should have associated merits removed autmatically
- Clear cases of merit abuse. Perhaps a team of 3 could evaluate the awarder, and if found guilty, remove all the merits awarded.

There is a secondary issue involved. What would happen to the generated sMerits that have been awarded. Perhaps those could be retained to avoid an over complicated system.

Interesting, I'm willing to support this idea. Like what I expected, this new requirement to rank up to Jr. Member will surely reduce spam but the possible merit abuse will increase. By looking at that Hero member's merit history, I have doubts that those accounts s/he merited were her/his alt accounts or maybe this Hero member was paid by those spammers. This would really be a serious problem and this deMerit is the possible way to stop these abusers. Well, merit abuse has just getting started, lets expect that there will be more abuse later or sooner.

In the other side, I'm not sure if theymos will approve such idea because having a deMerit source will make the rules too strict, those merit abusers that will be caught can received Negative Trust so they can still received enough punishment. Second, I don't know if this will be implemented immediately, we must wait for a couple of weeks or more before he made a decision about this and apply it, theymos is busy as we can see. But overall, I will provide my support to this idea or else things will get worse, we have now successfully achieved lesser spam forum all that left is those abusers to be gone.

I love this idear!
Normally i'd think about possible abuse (for example, somebody being able to demerit a competitor or somebody that doesn't agree with him/her), but since the new demoted jr. wave, i think the odds of demerit abuse is a lot smaller than the odds of merit abuse itself...

The Merit sender has red trust already, so he doesn't care about more red trust. The Merit receivers can't be blamed, as they can never prove their innocence. That's why I think a demerit is the best solution.

I like this idea as well.
And, maybe you could open a thread somewhere (Once your application is approved) where people can contribute their part in this by posting proofs about users who are abusing the system and deserve to be deMerited. I would probably report anyone receiving Merits without any efforts and then you may take back the Merits and send them back to where they should be.

Anyway, good luck convincing theymos for this.  ;D That seems not to be an easy task in such cases.

Don't worry about it, I'm in no rush, and I have hundreds if not thousands of spammers helping me to convince theymos :D

Not bad, but abuse can also be avoided by raising the merit requirement. Theymos suggested up to 5, but it could be even up to 10, and then change member requirement to 20 or 50.

Massive spamming is created at lower ranks, so it’s sensible to make requirements tougher for them.

Since the introduction of merit system, good posters (not exceptional ones) are taking longer to rank up than before, but juniors can keep spamming and they are only required one merit. Until recently they weren’t even required that. I think it is better to make the 1 merit requirement a tougher one.

I'm not saying yours is a bad idea. Both steps can be taken.

Yes - I want to apply as a deMerit source too. I'm even happy to give some of my own merits back to become one.

You should probably be in no rush because even after having thousands of spammers, it would still take some time to convince theymos to take a step ahead  ;D Be patient, and let the spammers do their convincing work.  ;D



It is already tough for the ones who have no support to push them ahead, and the excessive amount of posts regarding this and the efforts of getting a Merit by creating threads in Meta has already proved that.
It would be too much to ask the genuine users to wait too long to rank up just one step. So it is much better to just keep demoting the one's who don't deserve to rank up and let the ones who deserve it keep going ahead.

Well, you were right. So after Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.0), this idea would be somehow the last request we can ask theymos for now as these two will already solve most of the existing problems. Spammer are already decreasing and abusers will be punish  8)


Even though the amount of Merit required on each rank increased, there are still a lot of possible merit abuse out there and there will be more. Can you imagine giving 50 Merits to a garbage post? 50 Merits to a one liner posts? It's a total abuse. So deMerit is the best solution.

Maybe you are right. The difference I see is that LoiceV’s proposal depends on people actively accounts to demerit, whereas raising the requirement is automatic and works for everyone. It can be raised to 5 first. A newbie really interested in the forum shouldn’t have problems to get those 5 merits, because people will qualify his posts taking into account that he is a newbie. Even theymos said that newbies should be merited for good posts, not exceptional ones.


People who send 50 merits for one post get out of merits soon.


That guy probably got out of merits already. If he had sent 50, he would have been able to make just one account to rank up, instead of 48.

Not completely true - the 50 merits would have generted 25 sMerits, and if they were awarded in 2s, then they could be used to generate even more.

Yes but following this hypothetical example, having 25 smerits would be useless because you need 50 to rank up, and you also have almost 50 alts you want to rank up.

I think the point is clear, the higher the requirement, the less cheating the system is possible, because people run out of merits to sent to their alts.

Not really required, IMO.

Jr. Members can't do much. People are focusing a little too much on a ranking system, and concentrating their time on something that's not very important. If I were you, I'd rather go play football or you know...go get yourself wasted.

I'm against deMeriting -- except for clear cases of merit abuse, which of course also leaves room for interpretation unfortunately.

In my opinion further tweaking the merit requirements may make more sense, as even the largest account farmers will run out of sMerits eventually. Maybe something like having hoarded sMerits decay over time could alleviate long term abuse of the airdropped sMerits as mentioned in OP. This would force account farmers out of the shadows, as they can't rely on a long-term supply of sMerits anymore.

I'm against the idea of demerits to be honest. However, the current problem we have is newbies actually making an effort to make 1 good quality post or a few until they receive their merit, and they'll then go back to spamming their bounty shit, and we'll be no better off. I would of personally preferred the merit requirement to be higher.

This is not a good idea. If someone is breaking the rules, then you should report them and a ban will be issued as appropriate.

It would not be appropriate to allow someone to arbitrarily be able to remove certain features granted to users.

1 Merit is so easy to get and not sufficient to remove spammers.  Maybe 5 or 10 is good.

Alternatively, it would be good to require the merit on regular basis to reduce this tendency, e.g. requiring earning 1 Merit/month to stay at the current rank, which shouldn't be an obstacle for those who contribute to the forum regularly.  The opportunity of earning merit is monotonically increasing as time goes by, it would be natural to increase the requirement as time goes by.

Remember , Theymos want to welcoming The Good Newbie so we can't just think in one view but both of view.
Yes, it's become the homework about how to rework the rank without hurt the good one.

I get your idea, but this could be abused easily/misused in many ways. Increasing merit requirement for some ranks, limiting signature features for few ranks and permanent ban for obvious merit abuse are far better and should be easier to be implemented.
Report button on merit page and hidden list of trusted member (which only can be seen by moderator/admin when see reports) should be better.

Merit abuse is pretty damn hard to spot, unless its blatantly obvious. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be finding that many abusers with the low requirement of 1 merit. If we had a 5 merit requirement for Jr member then it would of been easier to identify abusers I think.

Introducing deMerit sources would be a good decision to remove some Merits given to Newbies by mistake, like this one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030749.0

Another idea could be if we increase the rank requirements for Jr. Members later again. Most of them who received 1 Merit now will continue shitposting, not all of them, but most of them. If we wait a few weeks now and then change the rules again that it's necessary to earn 2 Merits to get a Jr. Member we can check their new comments after the account got his 1 Merit. If he didn't change his posting behaviour and continued his shitposting, this second Merit he needs now to be Jr. Member will be refused.

This can be another measure to prevent mistakenly given Merits.

Demerit has its usages, and I'm not saying it's a terrible idea. However, just because a demerit source disagrees with a merit source or someone who rewarded the merit, doesn't mean that they should have the ruling over them. Mistakes happen, and they could perhaps be removed by a global moderator or something, but I guess they have enough on their hands. I don't think giving someone the right to just demerit when they disagree with something is the best solution. Everyone has different opinions on quality of posts from users.

Part of the reason I started this thread was to (re)start a discussion about deMerit. I see good points, both in favour and against it.
I didn't mention it in the OP, but if deMerits are introduced, it should be a shared responsibility, just like the current Merit sources (and not just me).

Why we always rush to create more solutions without giving time to the current situation and evaluating and thinking about improving it?.

How many accounts will be ranked-up? Hundred thousand? I do not think the number will be significant because of the limited merits.

Let it be as it is and evaluate the solution after some months.

The improvement will be by adding more merits to rank-up "5 for jrmembers", lowering ranks if no one has access to a certain number of merits, restrictions for some boards "newbie can’t post on altcoin boards."

I do not like this solution "deMerit."  :D

The sadist in me would love to see this happening as I can't picture LoyceV abusing this and I'm pretty sure that if he is proven wrong on something he will award back the merit but if we're going to have 10 or 20 sinks (?) around we are going to end with the same controversy we have with the trust system. And we all know how many sides are waging war on that front.

And having a single person with this "power" won't be a much brighter idea either...

Rather than hunting them down, I would really like to see two things implemented:
a) (this was also LoyceV idea, I think!?) an automated system where you either
- lose 1 merit for every 100 or whatever activity if you wear a signature for even a second during an activity period
- you need at least one merit in the last x days to keep your signature active

b) this is going to piss off a lot of people but I would love to see all jr/full/sr/hero or legendary members who haven't earned a single merit since the system was implemented without the possibility of displaying a signature

After all, legendary and heroes were supposed to have earned their rank with the hundreds of worthy posts made before the system was introduced. So what's the difference between a newbie who made 1000 posts and has not earned a single merit and a hero member who has also done 1000 posts in the same timeframe with the same results ;D?


 ;D ;D ;D

Yes, this is not a bit bad, but you have to think about how to improve the current situation for the better

I like and support this idea, great! LoyceV is someone we can trust, especially in this task, this man will be fair and won't abuse anything.
Curious, why theymos didn't think about demerit? Well, not everyone has to be available of it but at least we need another group of people who are fair and wish to so this job like we have merit sources.
In LoyceV We Trust :D

If you think you can trust LoyceV in doing this, you should advocate him becoming a mod, and he can be subject to the forum rules in regards to moderation when handing out bans.

If we allow "normal" users to remove merit from others, then we will eventually have corrupt people such as Lauda handing out negative merit to their enemies, handing out negative trust for giving merit to those he does not agree with and saying that he can leave whatever merit to whoever he wants for any reason he wants.

At the end of the day, I don't think it is a big deal if a small number of people can spam with a paid signature because this will only be a small number of people, and will be easier for the mods to handle, and also because there is a limited number of merits available (to spammers), so they can only rank up a limited number of accounts to spam.

If there is a widespread problem of spammers getting a single merit to wear a paid signature, it would strengthen the argument that you must pay in order to wear a signature (and to rank up above a junior member -- in addition to activity requirements).

To be honest I am not agree with demerit system. I don't believe that merit could be send by mistake. It's not same as Facebook like that could be press by mistake. During meriting time there is new tab, that means you are fully aware that you are going to merit someone. On the other hand once you are meriting someone you are meriting on post, you are not consider a person. Same thing for others people also. Say someone merited me on a post,  but in case after few days if they aren't agree with me for any reason than may be some one will think I will demerit my merit. It's just example, but I think it would be happen. I don't think it will be fair.

If you think for source of demerit like current merit source than also I am not agree. You will se many accusation against them. Adding demerit source means merit will moderated by forum. So it would be easy to question forum. And it's more difficult to identify who are really abusing. Without proper explanation couldn't be demerited. You can see sometimes there is accusation also against merit source regarding merit abuse. So you can imagine how many accusation will be against demerit source.

For me current merit system is working fine. Just we need to follow who are abusing merit system and identify them for tag. I know merit abusing increase after implement new rules. But I don't think it will longer as well they are getting red tag if caught.

I think you are on to something here, OP  ;D

Imagine the red trust (irrelevant of course) and the utter fallout of someone being demoted back to Newbie or Jr. Member that will prevent them to participate in bounties.

I think they will start a vendetta against you, maybe even spam you with loads of PMs  :D

As I was saying.... :D


I think that less than 0.1% of the merit was sent by mistake, usually with that back page bug but the focus of the demeriting should not be on posts that have been merited and did not deserve it.

The main target should be the shitposts, like the ones here: Wall of fame / shame (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4564216.0).

"a" is much better than "b" for reducing spammy posts made by ICO bounties. Say; every 100/75/50 posts(I would prefer 50 posts), 1 merit is reduced. But this kind of method should only be applicable to people who wear "bounty" ICO signatures.

I didn't choose "b" because there are people with default merits who wear signature that aren't ICO related like this one:
https://i.imgur.com/oK3iVQR.jpg

IMO, ICO bounties are the reason why people see spamfest posts on every section.

If theymos wants to gamify the new forum software, if ever it comes, method "a" is the best option.

No for deMerits, BTW.

Let theymos decide on this matter since for the time being had no plan for this to create a demerit committee. Besides if a demerit committee is needed theymos should consider also on how it will be used like a protocol before proceeding to demerit a member for it could be subject also for the possible abuse of its use. Let theymos decide on this matter and its consulting team and not just by one or two members here in the forum.

Merit is like doing something useful, positive for the community. DeMerit is like denying that positive? If you find that merit is not worth it, can you give RED TRUST?

P/s : sorry for my bad english.

That would be bad as it can easily be abused. Say user A doesn't like user B. Then user A buys Merit to give to a bad post made by user B. You're saying user B should get red trust, while user B is innocent in this scenario.
A deMerit on the merited bad post would solve this without harming user B.

This would be a much better solution, but I think it's less likely to be implemented. I'd be okay with dropping my LoyceBot (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=949024) from Full Member down to Member, but it won't even happen as long as it doesn't make new posts.
I don't think the complication of checking for a signature is needed though.

I'm not sure how effective this will be.

Now Newbies are complaining that old accounts got their Merit airdrop for spamming. If you have 1000 Merit, but didn't earn anything for the last 100 Activity you gained, I don't think you have any right to be pissed about it.

Nice one,you really cool man. If I have a high rank I will be more focus to work on my bounty task more than complaining about merit.

Agreed with your other reason. But the 2nd one, which I have quoted, isn't a good solution, IMO. I have received 1 merit. Someone posted an article in Beginners and Help, I had read the exact one from a website. Then I shared the link by replying to his article and also mentioned that he had copied the article. SOmeone gave me a merit. Later, the thread was deleted for plagiarism.
I don't know whether my reply would deserve a merit or not. But what if someone gave merit in a post which really deserve merit and the thread got deleted somehow. Willn't it take down the real reward? I think it will not motivate people.

At the end of the day, quality posts can be made, and then deleted after. I say automatically removing the merit once its been deleted isn't exactly the best approach. What I would say is, if the post is deleted directly by a moderator or whatever then it should be removed. However, if you made a reply in a thread which was removed it shouldn't. So, only if directly removed should merit be removed too. Self moderated threads shouldn't count.

At least that's my point of view on the situation.

I'll use an example which I've used before: I merited a scam-warning (because it's worth reading), until the OP got nuked and the scam warning got deleted too. That post deserved it at that time, and a Mod removed the entire thread. I don't think that Merit should be removed.

However, if I look at my full Merit history (http://loycevsbasement.privatedns.org/Merit/history/459836.html), I see about a dozen of deleted posts merited by me, and a few of my merited posts got deleted too. (note: if a post got deleted after I scraped the title, I don't change the label into "deleted" anymore)
Considering this is at most 1-2% of all Merit, I'd say it's totally acceptable to remove all Merit from all deleted posts. For legit users, it will just be like the very small change that happens to your Post Count once in a while.
For abusers on the other hand, the majority or all their Merit can disappear if it's removed once a post gets deleted! This will be well worth the small inconvenience of legit users losing a small fraction of their Merit.
This brings me to the conclusion: I'm in favor of removing Merit once a post gets deleted. This should not be limited to posts deleted by Moderators, since many Merit abusers hide the evidence by deleting their own post.

I think there should be button or system for dislike post. If the post are spamming or irrelevant then people will dislike that post. After getting certain amount of dislike on that post. moderator will review that post. If He finds that post is spamming then the merit on the post will be destroyed. The post should be destroyed or not moderator will take that decision.
 
Example

Let set Min points require for report to moderator say 50 or more
the point system for dislike as per ranking

Newbie :- 0.5
Jr. member :- 1
Member :- 2
Sr. member:- 3
Hero member:4
Legendary member:5

consider post get dislike as below
                                     points              dislike
Newbie :-                         0.5        x         10       =      5
Jr. member :-                     1         x          5        =      5
Member :-                          2         x          10      =     20
Sr. member:-                      3         x         2         =      6
Hero member:                    4         x          1        =      4
Legendary member:            5         x          2        =     10
                                                            
                                                               total     =    50

Now this post report will sent to moderator. Moderator will check the post.If he find the post is spamming. then he can remove that post with warnings to the user. If count of warning exceed more than 5 within a month then the account will ban for a month.

I think this can be reduce the spamming post not only from Newbie or Jr. account but also from member and other higher accounts.

This forum really needs some sort of dMerit or "idiot" button. This way, we can tag idiots effectively, so the general public doesn't actually think they represent this community.

No need for an "idiot" button for it is only an idiotic thing to have here. We already have an "Ignore" button for these spambies, just like what Jet Cash usually do. This is some kind of proposal of the spambie rank which can't be possibly be granted.

---

As for the OP, I doubt that you can do that all by yourself, perhaps you only intend to moderate some sections that really needs to be watched. Although we all know that there are only 3-5 boards here that we only have to clean and those places where the members that has to be demerited stays a lot.

(I think I should be merited for the reason I was able to remind you something ;D jk) ;D

I think you're better as a Merit source rather than deMerit source. I also against the deMerit concept. In some merit abuse cases, I have seen that we exactly couldn't find the distinguishing difference whether that post to be merited or not. Giving away your sMerits to a post that you think deserved to be merited can be seen as a non-worthy post to be merited by another member. Choosing a post to award merit is subjective by each members opinions even though theymos mentioned merit only the quality posts. So how a single user can identify whether that post to be a deMerited one while we are not knowing the intention of the merit sender who merited that post at the first place.

If we can start a child board or sub-board under Meta for Merit abuse cases would be great rather going complicated concepts. This is just an idea, how about consensus process before deMeriting?

If its clear-cut case where we all can agree that post is not a merit worthy one, then its ok to be deMerit (if deMerit concept accept).    

I find that Google translate is good enough tool for evaluating the qaulity of posts.


The thing is that in case of small merit abuse transacations as 1 merit ,Negative trust is good enough, it would not allow them to particpate in sign campaigns which would stop their spam.
But in cases of bigger merit abuse transactions negative trust is not enoug to stop the damage, as you can see that there are several puppet master which had already gotten negative trust but had the chance to do a lot of damage by ranking up 10s of spambots.
Those who have gotten negative trust for merit abuse should be stripped of their smerit for good.

In general i support the idea but only if the demeirting sources are only the most trusted memebers in forum to avoid more trouble with possible confilct resolution.

While I do not agree we need a deMerit source, LoyceV would be the best choice.

Congrats on being the first non-founding member to reach 1,000 merited points!  :)

Receiving Merit on a low quality post is not a valid reason to for red trust. That could easily be abused to target a certain user.

Thanks :D

Precisely because I so same want to exclude from forum such users as: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=218947 I created this theme https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5035554.msg46038294#msg46038294 hoping to find support from old users but have not yet received any positive response to my suggestion. Unless these users are worthy to wear the title of senior members, members, if you distribute your points of merits to waste or selling them. Offer LoyceV brilliant, would merit..+1

Look at this post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5036807.0  User Insculpt give the 1 merit to uyysidmc. But the post is posted in bounty section in which uyysidmc asking  for reserving translation campaign. Is this post should be rewarded? That means there are many user who are misusing merit model.

Bumping for DiamondCardz (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=55122) who created ive moderators the option to demerit when a post is deleted (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5196236.0).

My opinion here is similar to Quickseller's.


The difference for me is that I don't believe that no-one should be able to demerit at all (which can result in loss of access to certain features), I just think it should be limited to staff and be something that happens alongside post deletion. (you'd be a pretty good patroller imo!)

So yeah, unfortunately I can't support this in full, sorry :)

while your intentions are good,it can be used by the others for their own benefit for ex..the mafia here will try to use this one to control the DT hierarchy it will be madness like the trust system.

Unfortunately, I will have to disagree here. Giving the users power to demerit other users is a bit too powerful and can be misused. I think I can say not even "can be misused" it will be misused. It is no news that there are circles in this forum, whether it be local or global categories that there are people who support each other (and only each other) and introducing any demerit system manipulated by users might heat up things a bit. DiamondCardz's suggestion regarding the moderators, however, is a very good one.

I also disagree that non-mods should be able to remove merit. If anyone deserved to, Loyce is def worthy..but most members aren't anywhere near Loyce in terms of integrity, hard working, fair, etc. This is also why I believe this forum would be significantly better off if he were to be given a Mod position. I don't know if there are mods that don't have a sub section, but if there's no mods needed for any of the subs, Loyce would be a great "rogue" Mod..if you will. Maybe this already exists.  Sorry if a tad off topic.

It sounds badass, I like it!