Bitcoin Forum

I found a strange user, who wear avatar even the account is a Copper Member, but it has temporarily stood at Member rank.
The account has 16 merits in total, so far. 6 of them are earned-merits.
gunungkembar (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1158794)
BPIP (https://bpip.org/profile.aspx?p=gunungkembar)
I want to wear avatar but I can't for now due to my rank.

PM him asking how he did it.

There was a thread like this a few weeks ago where people were questioning why there was a few Newbies/Jr. Members registered this year wearing an avatar. AFAIK, no conclusive answer came from it.

This is a bug indeed or just an early april's fool of theymos? jk lol.

The registered date is not like the other members who got an avatar, I'm referring to those early members who are still newbies wearing avatar.

Never thought there's something like this. Maybe theymos or any mod answer this.

I remembered I read it somewhere, and iasenko asked for answer repeatedly.
The account is obviously  not old hacked account.

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There is an assumption that those ones are forum staffs.
Let's wait me a while, I will search it now.

I'm now getting too curious about it  ::) At first I thought that that account reached Full member before then he/she put an avatar and get de-ranked. But after looking at his/her profile, it seems impossible. Well, it's better to watch this topic for some answers.

First, the account is not an old hacked account, so there is no privilege to wear avatar below Full Member rank.
Secondly, the account has not earned enough 100 merits to rank up to Full Member. But, wait! Even it was a Full Mmber, then deleted bunches of posts and activity count drop to below 100, 100 merits have not disappeared.
Thirdly, the most possible reason, is theymos deactivated merits of the account due to merit abusements like we saw with some cases. (I don't remember where I saw the, but you can find).
However, for some reasons, there is a bug that keep allowing the account to wear avatar, not disabled it.

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You can give me a round of applause if your like my third assumption

Mat be it is  a bug or may be admin eligible this account to wear avatar. Who knows until the owner talks about it.
Or may be he got demoted from full member to member but still can able to wear avatar.

No possibility for this,even if the user who was at full member deleted all his posts anf got demoted in his rank will never lose any merit so this is something strange happening here.

My guess there are possible reasons why he can wear avatar while the account is below full member rank.

- Maybe the owner of the account was full member rank or above before and then while wearing avatar he accidentally deleted old post and lost his rank.
- Another possible reason is that accounts created below the year 2014 can be worn avatar newbie to high rank.

Sample accounts just found while typing.
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=59078
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=65587

Got the source from here A Member rank wearing avatar? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3298708.msg34431565#msg34431565)

But since the account is not created below 2014 I think the account was demoted while wearing avatar.

That is @iasenko, he was created a thread like this a couple of weeks ago ([BUG?]Theymos, can you solve the mystery? newbies with 2 merits watering avatar? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5102721.0)), like you said there is no conclusive answer from there. Everyone still didn't know the truth behind it, just speculate possibility how this mystery could be happened.

The account can delete his posts, and got demotion but can not delete his merits, from 100 merits at least to 19 merits as we saw now.
Only theymos can do it, but if theymos do it, the account is not be able to wear avatar.
As we all witnessed, theymos is not dumb, and I don't think he made such ridiculous mistake.

He doesn't have the merit.

"Date Registered: 18 September 2017"

Both are accounts from 2012. Seems pretty obvious that this is why they have avatars.

That's not how "merit deletion" works. 1) theymos usually don't undo merits; 2) when he does, it doesn't just vanish. It shows as "-X merit from (Bitcoin Forum)" in the user's merit history. And if he had an avatar before the "downgrade", he wouldn't lose it.

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I just PM'ed him. Let's see what he says about it.

I've PMed theymos about this before. Either it went straight into his Spam folder or he simply ignored it.

Sorry if I am saying something arrogant.
You should not do that again, fella.

Reasons:
1. theymos actually read Meta, or even other serious boards.
He actually known what happened in the forum, in Meta, whichever serious issues, questions caught by theymos.
2. It is obviously that theymos's inbox is one of the most interesting place to spam PMs.
Consequently, I don't think theymos will read PMs from strange users, especially he don't known well in the forum.
3. If something seriously happened, global moderators, staffs will contact theymos for sure.
4. Sending theymos PMs like this might be risky for your account.
I am not sure how he will act with you PMs, and such PMs like yours, but I believe he do dislike them definitely.

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TryNinja made more suitable contact, but I doubt that he will get answer.

Most possible explanation:
User registered on Sept 2017 become full Member on January (It is possible also , if he did not missed any activity period.) He put on Avatar after becoming full Member and user got demoted to Member rank because some of post deleted , bringing down the activity.In meantime Theymos implemented Merit system before the user can regain that lost activity.

I guess this user in reality is stuck with unwanted Avatar.

Points noted, I have no bad intention. Just thought it wouldn't hurt to just ask as long as the question wasn't bothersome since many were so curious back then.

If they were got full member rank while the implementation of merit system they got 100 merits no matter of what,and no possible way to demerit the users unless admins did it.

Most possible this is this account maybe under control of admin I guess.

I remember this case.
He requested the admins to remove the avatar but seems like he never got the chance.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2954878.msg30413511#msg30413511

What i think is maybe he was a full member and got some posts deleted and went to member but still wearing his avatar.It was a forum clean up at that time.  Then the Merit came and he never made it to Full Member again.
Just a logical assumption.
He is registers in September, I was registered in November and I needed just 2 weeks to rank up to Full member before the merit came. So technically it's possible.  

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There is another misery, how those accounts got avatars (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5102721.0) since they were created after the merit system.

OP mentioned 19 merits but I see only 16 merits on his profile. @OP was that a typo or do you actually see 19 merits on his account?
The plot thickens...

This happens when the user is demoted like he/she is previously a full member or higher rank, that's why we can still use an avatar.

I remember this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=880238 also a Senior Member but now he is a Full member with a 252 merit.

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OP might not typo this post. The reason why you only see 16 merit is because of the old post the gained merits are deleted.

Merits won't get deleted if the merited posts get deleted by mods or by yourself.

You will see something like "(Deleted/Off-limits/Ignored)".So that user is something special.

There numerous reasons for that newbies wearing avatar I have read a thread with similar question before, this might be a bug or the newbie is a staff member and only the admin can't clarify the situations.

This is certainly not the reason for many cases (e.g the users who were created after the merit system was implemented as linked above); thus, we cannot know for sure if that’s what happened with the user.
Am I missing something? I’m pretty sure merits aren’t “deleted” along with deleted posts. It just shows as “X merit to Y for post (Deleted)”, but they still exist and counts to your total merit.

No, merits are not deleted for deleted posts, and I don't think it will ever happen. On the other hand there was a merit source with reversed (deleted) merits  (102 or so merits were deleted) so I guess this can be the case here. Only theymos can delete merits as per now.

Doesn’t it show as “-X merit sent from (Bitcoin Forum)”? It’s not actually deleted. He (theymos) sends a negative number of merits as a workaround to “delete”/undo the merits.

If that was the case, it would show in the user’s merit history.

So upon browsing the account's posts, seems he was already a full member then, an inactive one, unfortunately, posts were deleted for some reasons (due off-topic posts, or the mass deletion of mega threads way back then, and etc) maybe weeks or days before merit was implemented and was demoted to member rank while the avatar remains but the avatar tab/link was removed, so his permission to upload or edit his avatar was removed as well.

See the user's post here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2909912.msg29928460#msg29928460 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2954878.20

So is it really just a coincidence that someone was demoted from FM wearing an avatar to member then the avatar remains? or just a bug.

The issue with the merits is still puzzling me. The OP says
I see 16 Merits and a total of 6 merits earned. Do you guys see 6 or 9?
https://bpip.org/smerit.aspx?to=gunungkembar

I've PMed the owner of the account and seems like my first thought were correct. It's nice that the guy replied to my message kindly. Now it's all clear that he has been de-ranked to member and the avatar he is wearing are now cannot be changed or removed.

Here's what he said.

Thanks to gunungkembar again.

The mystery is finally solved. Thanks for showing us!

Hi, I know you are very curious why this can happen, now I will explain how this can happen.

it's all about the first time theymos gave the "Merit" system policy

last year's regulation if you want to use an avatar, you must have a Full Member, at least 120 activities / 120 posts

when I became a full member and already used an avatar, the "merit" policy was implemented, a few days later my activity / post was reduced (119/120) that made me trapped here, I should have been a full member and used an avatar.

I have tried to make a thread about the avatar problem that I use, I want to delete the avatar that I am currently using, but there is no serious response from theymos.

this is my thread :
1. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2909925.msg29926783#msg29926783
2. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2954878.msg30325017#msg30325017
3. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2909912.msg29926412#msg29926412

So I was right about it.
Don't give up, you may rank up one day, till then just check again with the admins, now they are not so busty as before, except probably theymos is preparing the 1st of April surprise :D

Well, thank you for giving that encouragement, but I am sure it is indeed very difficult to gather merit to be able to raise rank to full member. I really believe they have prepared a new surprise for next month, only a few weeks left. LOL  ;D

Well, noting is impossible take me as example, you are registered one month before me, and I got til now more than 800 merit and I'm not any GURU guy, just an ordinary guy like everyone else here.
Let me give you a tip, go out of your posting behavior, instead of wringing 1-2 liners, try to make analysis, show your own points of view and avoid using clichés. Think outside the box and be creative.
Change the main question from " What to write to make money" to "What to do to make this place better". This is a way to develop yourself and a way to higher ranks without polluting the forum and taking the chance to be banned for stupid things like plagiarism and spam.
Everyone can do it, just use your head!! (not someone else's head)

Badly.
It's my mistake to make a typo, I saw 16, then thought of something, and typed 19, 6 an 9, LOL.
How careless I was at that point.
Fixed the OP already.
Thank you all for pointed it out.