Bitcoin Forum

Found today such an interesting account:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2080774

Name:   Giratina
Posts:   177
Activity:   126
Merit:   -1926
Position:   Newbie
Date Registered:   May 01, 2018, 05:51:22 PM
Last Active:   January 07, 2019, 07:25:16 PM

https://c.radikal.ru/c36/1902/e9/032b160c5d88.png (https://radikal.ru)

So what did Giratina have to do to get such a minus? ;D

It’s a weird case. I’ve checked on my backups, and on my snapshot from a couple of weeks ago the profile had 2 positive merits. It certainly looks like a bug.

I haven’t seen any other profiles on my DB with a negative merit profile counter, nor is the profile one of those that got negative sMerit TXs last week.

The two received sMerits I mentioned were for this post back in may 2018: re:⚡🚀⚡PRE-ANN: XBrick - World-class crypto currency exchange ⚡🚀⚡ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3120918.msg37282895#msg37282895).

Edit: The profile was a Jr. Member 2 weeks ago, with 2 earned merits. It looks like some backoffice update went wrong somewhere.

@leo, As a question, can your parser parse negative merit? I don't know it would be able too anyway it'll be interesting to see if anyone knows anything about this.
. I can't think it's an old bug, maybe Theymos has given out demerits or made a few sources to even out the field...

I don't think we having demerit options,because I can see only merit button.Even if it is given for selective people we may already had announcement on META so it must be a bug need to sorted out soon.

Obviously a bug, but an interesting account. I checked on BPIP, and the user has been awarded two merits, and with the activity it should not be a newbie account anymore, but it has a signature on. The forum staffs should be able to fix it.

Such case is based on Report to Admin function.

Sample of PM sent by user Giratina and got reported to admin.

When admins found out that it is a valid case, they will undo any merit given to a certain user. There are many reporting functions here in our forum and I manage to experienced using them.

very interesting. somehow I see this bug as a solution for the spammer or plagiarism.

He was buying merits and you reported him... Right?
So that got him demerited?

Not everything is announced to meta though... An alt board mod could be a demerit and hopefully will if it does/has come out.

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Merit isn't moderated unless it's from sources.
Buying and selling merit not from sources is allowed by the forum, somehow...

AFAIK, buying and selling are disallowed.

It is pretty weird to see negative merits on someone's profile. Of course it is a bug as there is nothing like negative merits applied until now by theymos.

Also the user Giratina (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2080774) has not posted anything from Aug 15, 2018, which points that it is nothing intentional or something like a hack, rather a bug for sure.

If that's the case, I'm curious what made Admin take away 1928 Merit from a user who had only 2. And if it's a punishment for spamming, why not just ban the user?

Why wait for theymos when we can experiment on the account and come out with some hypothesis. If this user owns a demerited account that means every merit you send to user gets deducted from what he is owing the forum so lets say you sent him 1 merit (for any quality post he has made before) and the merit number reduced to -1925 that means it's a demerited account but if the merit increase to -1927 it means that's just another bug on forum.

Would had done the experiment myself but don't have smerit to spare. You know, demerit system might contribute even more in the fight against low quality posting. Just saying,,.

That's a bug.

The merit number is a cached value derived from the merit ledger. I think that the number got out of sync and weird here due to a bug which existed for a short time last week. The number would've corrected itself the next time this user received any merit.

So the issue has been manually corrected, and the account displaying correctly. It's surprising the account owner did not make a complaint personally.
This gives an idea of what the admins can actually do with merit and possible demerit features. We would probably never get any of the latter.

Thanks, theymos.

Okay, I'm wrong about the report to admin function, which is unrelated. But, kind of strange coincidence that I reported that PM and he/she is the only user with that kind of –merit.

Thank you for clarification theymos :D

Please can you also solve one more such mystery here. I think its too a bug. But you clarification will matter. (The different thing here is the accounts are registered in 2018)

Theymos, can you solve the mystery? newbies with 2 merit watering avatar? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5102721.msg49444439#msg49444439)

Seeing someone honestly admit s/he is wrong is kind of positive as a person in you @theyoung. You might have triggered the negative merit of Giratina bug. S/he was jr. 2 weeks ago and you got online January 28,2019 which is to weeks ago, assuming you reported it when you got back,  & just a thought theymos, cyrus, hilariuos, mpep & smallrick. one might have click a button on it. Ain't sure though.

Don't get me wrong just a fan. ;D

It looks like the bug has corrected itself,even without any merit received for that user.

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Now the user has 2 merits but still the rank didn't changed to Jr.Member,might be an another bug. ???
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/09/02/multo.png

Upon checking the account on BPIP (https://bpip.org/profile.aspx?p=Giratina) it showed up that he did received merits from this post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3120918.msg37282895#msg37282895) so he is technically a Jr. Member by that point. So if we followed what theymos said maybe sending him a merit would may fix also fix his rank, which I'm not willing to do. Nothing in the account's post history is meritable for me so I am not willing to test my theory out.

Just what we need, more back door shady ways to decimate people's accounts with zero public accountability. I am sure nothing bad will result from this...

This was a bug....and has been corrected. There doesn’t appear to be any policy in place removing merit.

Whenever theymos “demerits” someone, there will be a -X merit comming from “Bitcointalk forum” in the user’s merit history. And he only does that in some specific cases of merit abuse.

Sure about that?

There is a higher standard for merit sources, however it is not unreasonable to put additional (retroactive) rules on merit sources because this merit effectively comes directly from theymos.

Well I am glad I have your assurance it is ok. I am sure this will not be abuse like every other tool he has created relating to trust.