Bitcoin Forum

 I have been visiting the forum as a guest for years, mostly being directed by Google when looking for answers regarding mining gears.

 I was always too lazy to go through the sign-up process , neither i felt the need for being a member.

on April 14, 2018 I "had" to sign-up because I was looking for Bitmain coupons and i had to send PMs to some sellers, that was the only reason I joined the forum " The funny/stupid username explains it" ;D

After looking around the forum specially the mining and technical discussion sections, i thought to myself that this might actually be a good place to hang around and gain some knowledge.

i was not active at all in the beginning, I was mainly making WTB topics, made a few semi-good posts ( just to get some merit so i could send more PMs for trading purposes ;D) so I became a Member and then i was almost not active at all until December 2018.

i started to like the forum, started to share my humble knowledge mainly about mining , technical analysis ,reputation and sometimes DT drama.

on Dec 2018 i started to take the forum a bit more seriously !  8)

From Dec 2018 up to this point  I have received 468 Merit and became 65th most merited member.


Here is an overview of my received merit using DdmrDdmr's dashboard


https://i.imgur.com/RFKBGXg.png



and here is a diagram by LoyceV





I am sure that there are many other members who gained merit in a quicker manner, so this is not even impressive, but to everyone who thinks it's impossible to become a self-made hero /legendary - my story proves you wrong.

The key is to always try to  "help" . every member at some point has a problem that needs solving, you should know your strengths, what you are good at, and help other members accordingly, and most importantly, do not post for the sake of merit only , because you will most likely turn into a shitposter and end up on most member's ignore list - as simple as that.

I would also take this chance to thank all my merit cycles senders for encouraging me to keep up a good quality content.

Congratulations on the merits you have achieved in this short space of time, seeing facts like this gives an incentive to people who think of evolving their rank in the forum. Unfortunately for us who posted more on local boards, the merits are a little slack, but your case gives us encouragement, thanks for sharing.  ;)

Good thing you did, you are a Hero now! Congratulations, that is really a great achievement and an additional proof that it can be done if you apply yourself and give it your all. You got promoted and now a new race is on  ;)

WOW Nice one mate!!!

Yesterday, being very proud of myself i wrote Self made sr. member not being a pro in the cyrpto field ... (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5118879.new#new) but i get only half your merit in duble time ;-(

Unfortunately Your story brought my ego straight to the ground. 

There is nothing more do than to give sincere congratulations and bow down my forehead.

Congrats sir

Instead of saying "congrats" to this post why not send or give this post a sMerit? Me, I might do that but currently, I don't have any sMerit right now.

That's interesting to me that you wrote this, because that pretty accurately describes how I ended up being a member here, except it was a few years before.  Bitcoin had just crashed and the Mt. Gox disaster happened, and I thought bitcoin itself was just a fad that a lot of people were going to get burned on, and that it would go to zero.  Funny how it didn't turn out that way.  But every time I checked up on the price or looked for news, it was bitcointalk that I kept getting referred to by google.

Anyway, good job ranking up.  You do make good posts, which is why you've earned all those merits and were able to rank up.  Though Meta doesn't get as many "how I earn merits?" threads lately, I'm sure the question hasn't been answered to a lot of lower-ranked members' satisfaction.  They see it as almost impossible to earn enough merits to get past Jr. Member, and a rank like Legendary must seem unattainable without buying an account.  Those folks ought to take a look at your post history and take note, because you're one of a few examples of someone being able to earn those merits and achieving a relatively high rank. 

Well, I'd be inclined to agree with you except then we'd probably have everyone who made it to Jr. Member coming to Meta and starting threads.  It's the same reason why state parks don't want you to feed the squirrels.

What a nice journey for you mate! I would like to congratulate you and thank you for this kind of inspiration. Its really worth it if you got your merit in a hard way, ranking up is still possible and a guy who helped many member of the forum will surely enjoy a big reward, and now you enjoyed it! More power to you, and keep up the good job!  :)

Congratulations, mikeywith!
You made it, within four months, and you again demonstrated that merit system does not ruin any forum user.  :P
I added your story into my topic.
However, for now I only added in the Senior Member stories, but I will move your story to Hero Member stories when you promoted, and if you won't get banned before that finish line.
There are some guys got lots of merits, then got banned, perma banned, I don't know why.
So, be careful, fella.
Inspirational stories from self-made promoted users (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5100307.0)

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Who usually comlained about merit system should look at those stories, and shut-off (sorry, it sounds arrogant a little bit), learn more, and improve themselves to promote over time.

This is impressive.
I recently put effort in merits, got some results, but you are on a different league, possibility another sport (yes, Pulp Fiction reference).
Keep up the good work!
Another merit sent to you (Dear Lord, I am depleting my sMerit stash quickly)

I do agree with you but only partially. Anybody who has good knowledge about crypto and blockchain could earn merit and gain a higher rank on this forum.
But what about those people who are new to crypto as well as this forum. Assuming many people who start as newbie don't have enough knowledge about crypto(which is one of the reasons for them signing up on this forum) find it difficult to earn merit and hence it becomes almost impossible for them to attain a rank like Hero/Legendary.
Though it is not impossible but it sure is difficult as it would require a lot of time, effort and constant passion towards crypto.

Hey look, mikey likes it! 

Congrats on earning all those merit points, good work.  You and I joined the forum right around the same time, but what's funny is you have more activity points than I do, even though I joined 10 days before you did.  I wonder why that is.

PS; two more posts and you'll be one of the eleets. 

Congrats to you mikeywith, you've just ranked up so fast in four months here in the forum, you are the one who proved that merit system will work so fine. I know there's someone like me who admire as what you have done now, great job and keep up the good work.

You know what, frankly speaking, I felt jealous those who had rank up and I make them as an inspiration to become one of them someday.
Heads down on you mate. :) I will give you a reward soon if I have, I really appreciated you.

Wonderful achievement.  Congratulations. 
Motivational story.  Rarely seen on the forum. Because this type of achievement is not common that is why it is Heroic action.
Sharing your success story on this platform is welcome because it motivates others. 

Zero to Hero in such a short amount of time is incredible really, quite some achievement.

Congratulations on that 4 months Journey of yours. You are always active in the mining section which is a good thing. I don't participate in mining so I have nothing to post about but when I check the boards out. Your contribution there does not go unnoticed. keep up the great work.

Thanks everybody, I do hope that I have inspired a few members at least,  the purpose of this thread is to show you that it's very possible to become a self made any rank. I know it sucks to have to do more work than those lucky once who were here early and got their airdropped merit, but this should not stop a newbie from becoming a legendary, it's only a matter of time and effort.

good luck to everyone.

This is clearly not true. You need to wake up and see most "new" members are only interested in the discussion boards or ann boards. It is very strange for a new member to join a board to sit around on the meta section spouting support for clearly broken systems that control the members of that board and those manipulative and proven untrustworthy controllers.

The "lucky" airdropped merit group did a lot more for this board than the "self " cycled merit gang. Some people were clearly shafted by the airdrop when matched to the actual contributions they made here. They still are being shafted because they are primarily working to fill the missing pieces of this end to end trustless decentralised arena and have no interest in the "merit" boards.

Noobs here that have a lot of merits generally follow this pattern

1. highly active in meta (strange)
2. highly supportive of the broken systems of control
3. Never "fall out" with the merit merry go round cyclers, and tend to regurgitate their nonsense repeatedly.
4. Oppose strongly those that
a/ prove how broken the systems are
b/reveal the manipulations and gaming of those systems for selfish gain employed by the "merit merry go round crew"
5. Slap on a gambling/mixing sig and start their own gainZ

Merit is at best misleading and is certainly impinges on free speech. It is the worst thing that happened to bct aside from icos. It would have been okay if it was left as a hurdle for account farmers and bots. Trying to apply any other meaning to it and saying it equates to trust is of course false.

Mikey is more worthy of merit than most of the merit merry go round but still has no real idea of how thing ACTUALLY operate so continues to spout nonsense and runs from any debates that start to lead to the trust in plain sight. He tries to be fair in some cases. However it is annoying to constantly see this merit system fanzine from him. I have taken time to demonstrate how it is broken and abused pal credits that impinges on free speech and yet I see him still blathering on about how great and fair it is.

Stop pushing merit like it is actually "MERIT". It is political pal credits in the vast majority of cases. It is misleading and dangerous junk.

Congrats to you Mikey that is fair enough but stop with the other false and ridiculous assumptions that you seem to KEEP making about the merit system.

TLDR

1. noobs that hang in meta supporting provably broken systems and their abusers = high merit
2. noobs that don't hang in meta supporting provably broken systems and their abusers = low merit
3. noobs that don't know about meta board and just use the discussion/ann boards = low merit
4. noobs that present the truth regarding the systems of control and the abusers of those systems = no merit

@cryptohunter, kuddos to you.
To OP, yes you surely are getting a lot of merit and congrats to that. Yet I would love to agree to that post above. This is not all about merit (merit is just a perks)
That leads to newbie thinking just more on getting a merit lol. It seems that merit system can now be the main reason why you should used this forum.

Funny thing is when some users who don't actually understand tends to post long nonsense post

I had wondered to create same topic after become Hero, but seems you have stolen my topic title idea ;) (fun).

Congratulations OP for your achievement. Now a day's it's not very easy to earn merit. Seems you earned merit faster more than me. Keep it up. I will write my story also once I will rank up  ;). Also I wrote my 500 merit achievement story on B&H (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5111296.0)

I will wait for your next story, fella.
Your old story has listed there already, but I will wait for your next one.
Inspirational stories from self-made promoted users (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5100307.0)

Good job OP, keep up the good work :)
Newbies can have a look at your achievement, so they can't say that ranking up is impossible because of the new merit system...
Also, don't forget to spread the love merits whereever you go on the forum to let the others (who deserve it) to rank up too.

Applies to the merit sources as well. ;)

---

I am really not good at creating useful stats or giving technical explanations and no local board which makes hard for me (like persons) to get merits.But not impossible though.

I think the "false and ridiculous assumptions" are rather yours

as we speak I have 529 merit - 113 merit from meta = 416 out side of Meta

https://i.imgur.com/aK0Qrej.png

The merit I got out side of Meta are probably more than what other 500 everyday-meta members combined get.

I am on of the most active members on btc mining board, solved a dozen of issues for a dozen of people, what have you done except for nagging about merit and DT ? nothing personal but i don't accept the fact that you directly or indirectly accusing me for earning my merit by supporting any system, i support people who have problems, help them out, educate them and that's all about it, and i could care less about all the drama they you and some other members enjoy.

look at this newbie > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=1712442  

16 posts > 40 merit . 0% from meta

I have many other examples to show you, many people hang in meta all day long , support the "provably broken systems" and get no merit at all.

TL;DR

get our of the conspiracy theory you live in.



I do i do trust me , i always keep my merit bag near empty. ;D

Mikey Mikey Mikey - please don't fail to over look the praise I have given you already. So it is not like I am having a go at you.

Let's examine your post and take it apart as I have done so with every other post you have made that makes a faux rebuttal of my observably true statements. This all relates back to my thread called the most important thread of the
year. I mean  just trace back through our prior debates. You will notice that you vanish when I start nailing you down to details. You either do not understand how it observably works or you are choosing to ignore it and feign ignorance.


1. you hang in meta = yes or no  

that would be yes.

2. you again try to defend the broken systems of control = yes or no

that would be yes and actually support them

3. you call observable fact relating to how the systems of control DO function and their implications a "conspiracy theory"

again true

4. you continue to use your anecdotal experience as validation for your false claims and general lack of understanding of these abused systems. Even after I have taken time to break it down and explain it to you many times.

again true

5. you claim to not be ass kissing or defending the DT abusers, but yet call accurate descriptions of their abuse and behaviours and its implications " conspiracy theories" therefore seeking to discredit the evidence provided.

again true

6. You see being familiar with other "meta" posters does not mean you will essentially gain their merit favour purely on meta board. Once you are on their merit merry go around ( observably aligned with their agendas) they admit they bookmark their fav posters and just search their post histories to bestow merits.

Merit system is the source of their power to abuse, it is the tool to influence or even crush free speech.

again true

Now let's be sensible.  You helping some new people with some issues resolve them is noble and deserving of merit indeed. However, my quest to bring forth a transparent and fair system ensuring equal treatment for all whilst preserving free speech for no direct personal gain and actually the destruction of my own account  -- well as you can imagine that is equally as noble and has far larger implications. That is without boring you all over again with my prior achievements.

Let's not get up set with each other. As I have said my main beef with you is not that you are a trust abuser, nor seemingly that unfair. It is that you are proliferating false information which is misleading and damaging to the freedom of speech of this board.

Now, I would suggest again that you go and read that thread of the year thread and keep reading it over until you grasp that it is not a debate, it is not an opinion and rather it is an accurate and observably correct presentation of how the systems of control merit and trust operate and the damage they are inflicting on free speech. Not only that, but there is built in motive and financial incentive to abuse the systems.

Now before responding here. Go and respond to one of the other debates we were having until you just vanished or go read the thread of the year and understand the full implications of the merit system "which you are promoting here"

People that keep saying pre merit members were lucky or got easy merit are being disrespectful to those that accomplished many amazing things and made posts that were far far better than the vast majority of "high" merit cyclers are even capable of.  I mean some say "most" pre merit legends are spammers....imagine that kind of crazy allowed to proliferate.

Now again, well done on your merits , but stop making far reaching statements that are simply not true or at best misleading and inaccurate.

I have no idea why you are so upset since I said you were likely more deserving for your efforts than most of the cyclers. Certainly though you need to read more before posting on certain aspects of this forum. Experience and knowledge of many members histories and previous events here are paramount really when making a case for certain admin level changes or even commenting on the systems of control. Hence why I think most noobs should not be hanging in meta at all. Most are here to merit up, rank up , sig banner up, spam with impunity. Simple as that. Although that is the same for most of the meta club as we can observe.

if you think that by saying all that shit you going to make me dislike you and start debating with you, then sorry to disappoint you, i just happen to not give a fuck.

I still think you are after a good cause, but with the most stupid tactics, and it will get you no where, but you know what ? suit yourself cryptohunter

good luck fighting everything and everyone  ;D

Why would giving you praise cause you to dislike me?

Not giving a fuck is fine. That is your call.

There is no debate. I am just presenting observable events.

Anyway, I will not contribute further to this thread unless you wish to debate anything I have said or if anyone else does. If you wish to term my prior post as "that shit" then fair enough. However, it does not stop it being the observable truth of how the mechanisms of control operate here currently and the dangerous implications associated with them.

I hope you get more merits or just get made a legend already - if you are really here to help then you are a legend already. I would rather see them go to you than the most serious abusers of the systems whom know full well how they operate and deliberately exploit them.

There are some facts and valid points in your post indeed, but you bury them between a lot of what i think of as " non-sense aka b.s ", sadly i have reached to a point in life where i don't enjoy disagreements.  a few years ago i would have 2-3 debates with my wife alone daily, now i just happen to agree with every point she makes just to avoid debating, so not debating with you does not mean i disrespect you , it does not mean i totally agree/disagree , it just means i do  not feel like it.

Feel free to debate in any of my topics.  ;)

Fair enough. I respect your answer and thanks, the same to you to.

hmm how about 90 merit in 9 days ?   ::)

I have moved a little bit more than half of my run to finish Full Member challenge, so it might be great if I can get 45 (half of yours) in next 9 days.  8)
It is just kidding, I might spend around two or three months to hit Full Member, if I can not do something more constructive, helpful for community.
I stopped here to start reading all your recent meritted posts (your posts that help you received your last 90 merits).

skimmed through your posts, quality and content seem to be improving a lot, and so is your merit score, keep up the good work , you will eventually get there.

Congratulations mate and sorry it's coming late, I didn't notice your self congratulation post of achieving such a milestones in a short period of time. I did achieve similar progress (ranking up twice from member to full and snr member in 2 and half months) but decided not to celebrate the snr member achievement so I won't get distracted. Achieving Hero membership is something to brag about as not all can bust of that as only the well deserve members do achieve it and hopefully I'll celebrate just as you have done when the time comes.
Congratulations once again and keep up your good works.

This is a very inspiring users with good posting skills. There is so much had done in your part and able you to get merits and rank up.  You deserve it likely and in the future you will going to rank up to legendary. There are many likes of.you in the forum lime those users that has receive more merits than their activity. They just wait their activities to fall in into legendary so that they can rank up.

How I wish it would be that easy though we know that it could not be ask rather it should be acquire. Since many are nkw applying to become a merit source. Hoping one day many users will going to rank up. It is a wish of every bounty hunter and somehow turn to be a small scale investors who became an crypto lover and has the endeavor to continue searching for knowledge in cryptocurrency.

It's amazing how far this journey has gone, it's been 8 months and i eared another 1000 merit , seems like my average merit is 500 every 4 months, or 125 merit a month, most certainly not the best out there , but this should prove that ranking up is fairly easy if you actually contribute to the forum.

I am now in top 15 most merited members of all time, in less than a year of actually being active on forum , I do take the forum very seriously , I enjoy teaching other members about the stuff I know the most , and this makes life much more easier for me here, and I see no reason why wouldn't anyone rank to hero or legendary in a year time, really "If I can do it, anyone can".

When I check my infamous merit post, I am always shocked on how much road I have travelled in the forum, and how everything changed with my firs serious post (a guide on running a BTC node, back in Jan 18).
But this is only the result of commitment that users like you, like us, put in the community.
Not everyone can do the same (time is scarce, natural inclinations or other respectable reasons), but It's a nice thing to look back in the path and see how much we have travelled. This is the only way to continue walking in the same direction, as I feel the more I go down that path, the more I want to walk..
 

Both of you are great members on this forum, always ready to help and support others and you can be inspiration for young members that everything is possible even if you joined late.
It really doesn't matter who joined when but what they can provide and give to others.
Mikeywith, if you didn't follow this forum only as a guest in the beginning, you would probably be legendary by now, but you did not let this fact discourage you and you set a great example to others.
If I remember well, fillippone also became merit source recently?
Congratulation to both of you!

Thank you Daniel91,
Yes you remember well!