Bitcoin Forum

Welcome all to my topic,

Today, I will tell you my second story and give you some advice (if you not need them, just skip) for your later time spent in the forum.
More than one year ago, I felt like I will never hit the Full Member finish line, but I actually hit that line on December 13, 2018, or even some days sooner, I don't remember.
I felt happily when I hit that line. After that, I move my next finish line to Senior Member rank, and felt that journey will take around one more year.
Amazingly when after around 3 months (a little bit more than 3 months later), I hit the line.
It is important to take a note here, do you see the image below?
https://i.imgur.com/YQfq8S8.png
My activity count is 406, and my merit points is 258.
With the old ranking system, to hit Senior Memer line, you should have 250 activity count.
So, the ratio between  my current activity count / the required activity count of old ranking system for Sr. member is:
~ 1.6, it means that to hit the same line (Sr. member) I need to spend around 60 percent more time.
Personally, it's not too hard, not too long. It's acceptable, I thought.  ::)

To be honest with you all, I did not imagine that I could be promoted to a Senior Member within only three months.
It is a big, very big shocking journey for myself.

Now, my story stopped there, and I will start giving you some advice if you want to move up with merit challenge.

To promote with merit system and new rank requirements, you should do following things.

(1) Never begging for merits
Reasons:
- Doing this will highly result in Red Trust, it is just the matter of time. Sooner or later, if you keep begging for merits, you will get Red Trust, certainly.
- Doing this don't help you to improve yourself. In long-term journey in the forum, it's not good for you, generally.

(2) Spending most of your time to read and learn
Only start composing your posts when you have something extremely constructive to discussions, topics.
Reasons:
- You are noobs, newbies (lack of knowledge, and experience), so what you think are constructive most likely unconstructive in reality.
- When you actually have reasons to start composing your posts, after finishing it, please re-read again and again to check that your posts are good in grammar, vocabularies, and good enough to express most of your ideas. I wrote most of your ideas because sometimes it is difficult for non-native English speakers to write down and completely express ideas by words. It's a challenge for non-native English speakers, who don't have English as their mother tongue.

(3) Never copy and paste without links to sources, or without quotes
Reasons:
- It is plagiarism, and punishments on plagiarism is kind of strictest ones in the forum.
Plagiarists who got permanent bans almost won't be allowed to come back.
There are new changes by @theymos, that allow perma-banned users give proofs, evidence of their contributions to the forum to come back.
But, the probabilty to have second chance is very very low.
You should not expect that chance when perma-banned due to plagiarism.
- How to insert quote, please look at the image. It is very easy, click on the quote button at the upper corner on the right side of each post you want to quote.
You need statistics on perma-banned users due to plagiarisms? There you go:
How many banned users have you merited? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5117564.0) (by LoyceV (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=459836))

(4) Never mind of bounties, campaigns when you are noobs
Reasons:
- Campaigns are there, open then close, then others open and close, from time to time. You should never worry that you miss this chance, that chance, this campaign, that campaign, something like this.
It is the same as merits. Lots of users complain that merits are rare, I can not get merits due to it is rare. Nope, merits (more exactly, sMerits - sendable merits) are available, everywhere in the forum. There are so many merit sources, normal users, who have lots of sMerits readily to send out. They kept them partially due to quality posts are rare, not sMerits.
- Instead of paying too much attention, and time on hunting for bounties, especially bounties that have easy rules and joinable for low rank users; you should start learning, reading, and build up your accounts.
When you hit your finish lines, it's time for you to seriously think of joining bounties.

(5) Learn from inspirational stories. Learn from merited users, topics, posts
Reading and learning from most merited users, and most merited topics, posts are one of the best way to improve your post quality, coherence and cohesion when you compose your posts, topics.
I have a topic on: Inspirational stories from self-made promoted users (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5100307.0)

(6) Spend your time to improve your English, especially Reading and Writing skills
Reasons:
- If you can not read posts or topic in English well, can not get ideas of posts' / topics' authors, it means that you have nothing to do in the forum.
Remember that you have to get their ideas well enough to not misunderstand their core ideas.
- Next, after reading good enough to catch authors' ideas, it is time for you to express your own ideas in case you have something to ask for help, something to discuss, or something meaningful to help others. This is the time you need to have good enough Writing skill.
This is why I mentioned you should improve your English skills, step by step, from Reading to Writing. Of course, you can improve both skills simultaneously.
The forum is the place almost solely for discussions via Reading and Writing.
You can find available sources for English learning in the References at the end of this OP.


(7) Don't pay your attention on post-length  (Ideas that I took from theymos' Writing a welcome message (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5036308.0))



Remember that promoting with merit system is a challenge, but you can do make it.
And, when got promoted, you are different, different from airdroped users at the same rank.
It means you will become more competitive when applying to join campaigns.

Now, let's get started with your own journey that lead to your finish lines!

---

References:
The most fundamental list of guides, that you should spend most of your time to read.
Those guides are helpful not only for promotions, but also for your crypto lives in general.
GUIDES] on Bitcointalk. Index thread (until there is a dedicated subforum?) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4928968.0) (by LoyceV (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=459836))

Congratulations,it takes a lot of effort and determination to get to senior member ranks, you have to read learn and implement what's learn to achieve such a milestone.
Your 5th point is the one I like the most, when we see inspirational stories such as yours, it gives an extra motivation to continue developing oneself, congratulations.

First of all congratulations, isn't easy to grow accounts nowadays on the forum, and is great to see how people is really growing. keep moving with the good quality posts that will bring you more merits to grow more, and thanks for the recommendations, all those points are so true!

Thanks for your compliments, that give me more motivations, more power to keep going to the next finish line, Hero Member line.

---

Exactly! Let's keep reading, learning from stories, merited posts/ topics, and from celebrities in the forum, then growing up.
Some day you will reach your finish line (Full Member).

Congratulations on ranking up to Snr member, it is a reflection of how the forum rewards quality posts.

This portion does not really increase ones chances of ranking up, it only ensures you do not get banned. Following the rules does not earn you merits.

It might not increase your chances of ranking up (due to low merit) but it can earn you some merit. I have gotten merited severally for providing answer to questions asked and link source of information in the process, also I have personally taken my time to search through user post history to merit their decent post just because they practice decent posting habit like avoiding quote spam or off topic replies and If I  remember clearly, jet cash has merited all those that commented before him on a thread without unnecessary qouting OP.

What I'm trying to say is obeying forum rules can also help you in ranking up as well as avoiding ban.

It is the key point, fella.
Avoiding plagiarism does not help you to earn merits, but it do help you to avoid account ban, especially perma ban.
And, it makes sense.
Why do you have to put massive, continuous efforts over days, months, or years to earn 100, 250, 500, or even higher amount of  merits, and finally got perma ban due to some of your posts are plagiarims?
It sounds like the stupidiest way to do.
This is one of main reasons why we usually see perma bans due to plagiarism on newbies, or lower rank members. Higher rank members known the rules well, and they don't stupid enough to intentionally violate that rule.

Another possibility is that the 'plagiarism' post from those high-ranked users are hard to be found (maybe he did that when he's still newbie). But yeah, it's definitely a waste of time when you finally ranked up but then you got banned because plagiarism when you're still Jr. Member.

This is why I wrote 'intentionally or un-intentionally'.
Sometimes, we did stupid things un-intentionally when we were noobs due to not know forum rules.
Sometimes, we did stupid things but naively thought that we were smart in noobihood or even in higher ranks.

One thing that counted in your favour was your good writing skills in English. A lot of forum members struggle with the communication skills in English and the sub-forums for their language has a much smaller audience.

English is also not my first language, but I work very hard on my spelling and grammar and making it easier for other people to understand my posts. <I can speak and write several languages, so it is easier for me to get more information from non-English boards>

So, my advice will be for people to work harder on their writing skills in the most common language that are used on this forum, because it has a much bigger audience. <Hard work, gets rewarded>  ;)

Hi Kakmakar,
Appreciated your good point contributed to my topic, as I saw it shed a light to add new point into the OP.
I will edit OP tomorrow with one additional point on English.
The forum is designed for reading and writing, they are two means for discussions here.
Hence, in general, the ability to join discussion will decrease if users don't have good skills in writing and reading.

---

I am non-native English speaker, too.
So, your compliments motivate me a lot, but I do know that my English is likey come from third world sometimes.
I can not write perfect English as native English speakers, but at least I tried to sharpen it e ouch to express my ideas, almost exactly what I want to describe.

Finished!
Today, I updated the OP with the six point, on English requirements to effectively join the forum.
I think it is one of the first priorities of forum users when they participate the forum.

Nope, you won't if you keep posting bad posts with poor grammar and spelling mistakes like these.
Please come back to improve your English Writing first, before posting again.

There are different ways to describe the process of growth in the forum.
For example:

• grow up
• mature
• promote
• rank up

Choosing one of them for your words, I don't see issues with any of them.

It depends upon your original main purpose when you joined the forum, and your current main purposes. I say past and current purposes because people change over time, me too. Maybe at my first days in the forum, I did not have intention to contribute anything, but over months, especially with merit system, that changed me a lot. I am not proud of myself, but I thought I have changed, and become more constructive over months.

---

For your question on promotions, and money-making, oh, I don't think I can answer this. It's your question, and believe me if you didn't have answer for your question before you raising it here, you would have not raised such question.

---

You have nearly reached your quota today, 15 for now, congrats!

A simple and short explaination on how one will get merit is his/her knowledge and expertise. Thus, the ticket in order for one to receive merits that even if how good one to use the enlish language but still good inputs like quality posting will be the key in getting merits. If one does not have the right qualification, then one can't write quality posts and neither can get merits. It os very simple that most of the users here or the merit source itself will favorable on givimg merits to a post like this one OP that requirez good knowledge about the forum and cryptocurrency.

Congratulations OP in achieving your goal. If you can do it then we can do it too as long as we think positively that we can achieve our goal like you did. I have seen you as full member before until your senior member now. All I can say is that you really deserved on what you have achieved. Your efforts on helping forum users in this forum is fruitful. Congratulations again.

I am thankful to all of your compliments, @jademaxsuy and @nakamura12. In fact, I ranked up to a Senior Member rank months ago, that actually faster than what I expected at the start of 2019, honestly. So, my target for the end of this year changed a little bit, and I moved up my desired rank to Hero Member rank. I hope that I can hit this line before the year of 2020.

There are tips from @mikeywith, that are helpful for newbies, whom still struggle with composing their very first constructive posts in the forum.
Merit System Evaluation - Can You Earn a 1000 Merit in a Year? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5165922.0)

- You are noobs, newbies (lack of knowledge, and experience), so what you think are constructive most likely unconstructive in reality.

Reading back on some of my posts over the years on older blogs - Yeah. Definitely.
Still coming across as more of a student, I'm sure - however, trying. Probably should have been posting back in 2013 instead of lurking.

I updated OP with the point #7, from theymos. Admin clearly emphasize that post quality does not soley depends on your post-length and your English. They are componental factors, but minor ones. Ideas are more important, and writers have to put decent efforts to read, learn, have their own collections of good posts, threads, categorize them for later use. If you see a good posts, threads, but you don't note them down, next time you will have to search and it takes more time to find them (sometimes you don't remember exactly keywords should be used to search)

People don't use the system properly and have dormant merits sitting in their account. The people that do award merits do not get given enough to be rewarded. Look a the very post for example. You got some merit from a few people but nothing substantial. The only one was the 20 merits someone gave you. If you never got that you would only have a few merits. I do not think a post like this deserves only a handful of merits it deserves much more. That is my problem with this system. All you need it to get neg trust once from someone that doesn like you and it all goes to shit. You cant even work your neg trust off or anything. Ridiculous.

Congratulations for breaking the most difficult barrier in achieving what seems to be impossible but hindsight, but manageable once you get the hang of it.

I actually stumbled upon your profile and there became a point wherein I used your comments history as my reference in-order to gain merits myself. Basically, your account became my point-of-reference in terms of gaining merits! I'm still far in achieving the luxurious Hero Member rank, but I'll get there soon!


Well the beauty behind creating quality threads is that you contribute to the forum while at the same time gaining merits to yourself! There is this relationship that forms that harmonizes the posts you create and the merits you earn. The core of earning merits stems from making quality posts and contributing to the forum. Merits are only the by-product of that contribution or a reward.

There is neither luxurious rank nor expensive account in the forum. Everyone have same rights to make good posts, and contributions, from which they will get what they do deserve. To be honest (as you can see in my story), I only wished that I would be a Full Member when merit system kicked-off, but time passed and I became a Full Member around late of 2018 or early of 2019. Then, my mind changed, I thought as "I will never be a Senior Member". Then, I actually became a Senior member, then a Hero Member. Now, I moved one-fifth of my journey to a Legendary rank.
The beauty is when you contribute, you simultaneously learn lots of good things. You self-learn before finish your topics, then after publishing them in the forum, you will do get help from others, from which you will learn many more things. It's a kinda beautiful mutual contribution.

• Ask others > Learn > Good
• Ask yourself > Self-learn > Compose & publish your topic(s) > Learn from others > Great!

I’m pretty sure the original intention of the Merit System was for it to be more dynamic, with less dependency on Merit Sources for merit distribution in relation to the merits awarded by regular users.

Earning a few merits should not deem difficult. Earning a lot on the other hand is pretty demanding in terms of investing time, and obviously becomes more of a challenge the higher the rank due to the amount required to move on to the next rank.
Nevertheless, doing the maths, you need to consistently manage to earn 1 merit per day (a bit more really) in order to rank-up at the same pace as you would before de Merit System. That is, for merits to pace up at roughly the same rate as activity. OP is currently there, and probably will make it to Legendary without merits being much of an issue (at the expense of time of course). The OPs post has currently only been merited by (now) four people, and the balance for a single posts is pretty much above average.

Note: As to the negative feedback, you can try to PM whom ever gave it to you to see if they would reconsider in light of the changes that tool place a few months ago. The core focus should really be trade related, and I have seen some negative trust removed in light of this in other people’s cases . There is no guarantee though, and some will deem impossible even to revise, since the person who gave the negative trust is not necessarily around anymore.

I agree with all of you, it is currently very difficult to rank up in this forum. Many people cannot increase their accounts even by promoting intellectual property. It is a very difficult and difficult thing, especially in the field of children. Also if you can post good quality then it is possible to increase the rank.

There is no correlations between intellectual property, field of children, post quality, merits and ranks up. If you want to make good posts, you have to prepare enough for it: from knowledge, language (writing, in particular), and time (to read, write and to scan around the forum). It is not easy, and you can not log in your account and spend 5 minutes per day. Such short time is a big barrier if you want to make good posts and contribute something to the community.

I wrote the topic when I was just ranked up to Senior Member. My feeling and experience described in OP can be fitted with Full members who are in-progress to Sr. Member rank.

It is my story and matches with your rank, your current difficulties. So spend some time to read it.  ;)

I totally can relate this story when I am reaching Sf. Member rank that time and this time it is another journey from Sr. Member rank to Hero. I believe that I can do it since I saw it with my own eyes that I achieved this rank through hard work and it bear fruit just like you. I have seen your rank before and this time I am shock to see that you achieved a new milestone not too long. This is inspiring achievement that as long as we care for our posting style and prefer the quality over quantity. WELL DESERVED.  - NAKAMURA12 8)