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I find that I read such good posts I want to merit either by salty, loceyV, QS, thermos, and plenty of other people that have well over 1500 merit. Should I still merit there posts if I think it is good? I realize merit is meant for good posts, but I am not a merit source and my merit is limited so I am really stingy with merit, escpically when I feel like they don't need the merit, especially staff and admin accounts.

One thing the merit system is supposed to do is highlight good posts. If someone asks a question, there are several bad/poor answers/explanations given, and someone with a lot of existing merit gives a correct/good answer, their post may be deserving of merit. 

We cannot blame people who are meriting posters that have over 1k merit because their post is unquestionably Good, on the other hand, There are only a few posts of people who got under 1k merit which is also good that deserving to get merit. at the end of the day, they are the only one decide whether to give it or not as long as they don't abuse it that'll be fine.

They (Legendary) don't need merits but if you like their posts then you can give up 1-2 merits, and imo they deserve merits for good posts but not because they need it.
It's like appreciating or you agree with their suggestions and opinions.

Sometimes I also feel like to give up 5/10/20 merits to some members but my merits are limited, so I always try not to give more than 1 merit.

In this case (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5114042.msg50709086#msg50709086), I wanted to give the member 10 merits but I only had 2 merits and I gave out all 2.

Now I'm empty and trying to make good posts to earn some merit.  :P

Since different ranks have different expected qualities, I don't treat them the same. If those users post something that I perceived as very-very valuable, then I'd still give them sMerits.

I merit posts regardless of person, rank, merit count, gender, kink, earth shape opinion, etc.

Merits are made as a sort of kudos points for good posts in the first place, not made to help people rank up specifically. I just personally give less merit to these higher ranks, to slightly give more help to the lower ranks who actually contribute well to the forum(slightly biased to the lower ranks, but whatever).

right now.  It depends on if you think our posts are worthy.  In the future, if a new rank is introduced we will need the merit as much as you.  :)

There's one important thing merit those to a post, it highlights that post, make it stand out among it's peers. Forum members gets easily attracted to reading a merited post especially when it's a reply in a thread, so if you find a deserving reply irrespective of what the OP rank is you should merit it. It's your smerits though so you can do as you wish, for higher ranked users I send a maximum of 1smerit and for lower ranked users (that need it more) I send 2 or above when I do have enough Smerit. I prefer meriting higher ranked users reply though more than started topics (I leave that for merit sources).

Regardless if they do not need or need it, the purpose of the merit system is to compliment their contribution in the forum.

Yes, merits are one of the determining factor on why we rank-up but we really need to remove the mindset of meriting a user to help them rank-up. Ranking-up in the forum is the by-product of their good work and contribution and should not be the primary reason on why we send merits.

Basically, those people you have mentioned has a broad knowledge about cryptocurrency events and even on this forum thats why all of their posts are worth giving merits for. Theres no bad thing about it and its just normal since merits are made for this kind of stuffs. You can just merit people because they dont have one. They should have quality posts and knowledgeable comments. If the post is worth merit for, dont hesitate to give one. Thats the rule and that should it be.

Yes, go ahead to merit anything that you think deserves Merit. Circulation of Merit is an important phenomenon , though you can lower the standards for lower rank but giving it to undeserved defeats the purpose.

Let me ask a question to you?

Suppose company A is making good quality  products  and doing well in balance sheet. In other hand product quality of B is inferior and it charges same as company A. Company B is also struggling financially.

Will you now buy the company B products because it is struggling?

To be honest I am not doing it usually. I know they are high quality poster and they really no need merit for rank up. So I avoid sending merit them except obvious case. Because we need to help lower rank as well. But you are free to do it, because merit really deserved by post, not by poster. If post is quality enough then you can spend your merit there. You don't need to think about poster.

But I sent merit very rarely those already have more than 1000 merit. Because lower rank users need more merit than Legendary member. And obviously there are lot of lower rank users are contributing good, so we should help them.

On the other hand, they (high ranked users) are also helping newbie especially those are merit sources. So if you think you don't have enough time to discover good post from lower rank user then you should send your smerit to them. So they would distribute it fairly.

Sure, you should merit it to show that merit system actually serves its orginial pure purposes.
However, the point that you should consider is how many merits you should merit such over-meritted threads?

---

Personally, my chosen figure is 1 merit for such threads.
The fact is most of OPs of such over-meritted threads already Legendaries, admin, or staffs, they don't need more merits, but we should send them at least one merit as small gift and recognition for their good works.
Additionally, other users can look at such threads and stimulated to do their own objective high quality works.

Rule Regarding low-rank members "from Member to newbie," if these members write an acceptable post, you must give some Merits to them.
The rest of the members if they distribute them sMerit to members, you should send what you see acceptable because those members will send that Merits to the other ranks and so on.

This question was going around in my mind right after the merit was introduced and when I got used to the forum. Initially when merit was introduced I was sort of a newbie and doesn't really know how the forum works regarding posting, activity, trust etc! I really feel hesitant in meriting the people who got past 1000 merits or legendary people how good their posting quality is. I guess I have given away less than 5 merits in total to Legendary members till now and I would never really merit them unless the post impresses me to hit the +Merit button. Till now, I have given over 130-140 merits (not really sure of them) in total and the highest for a single post was 5 to Coding Enthusiast for his really outstanding explation on a Technical topic. Other than that, the highest merit I have given over is just 2 on rare cases.

I agree merit was introduced to distinguish quality posts, but constantly meriting a single guy even after they have reached the highest rank is not really good (just MHO). Merits are not just infinite in number to throw away 10-20 for bull shit one liners as like in this topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5134307.0). Here the OP is a newbie when Merit is considered and doesn't really know how the system works.

Another point is that meriting theymos with higher number of merits should be discouraged. We are aware that each of his posts are utmost high quality posts, but if those merits are distributed to lower rank members it could help them in ranking up along with encouraging them to post even more. These are completely based on my opinions and they do vary with each other and how they handle their sMerits. Not all Staffs are Legendary to quit meriting them.

Well, its really up to you if you still want to send them sMerit/s. Meriting a post is base on how quality it is and not only for lower rank members that needs for position ranking up... It seems that you've already got enough answers, you can decide now how you are going to distribute your merits.

Me too, I was a Newbie when merit introduced in 2018 (nearly the end of January that year). By now, it is amazing to see both of us stood at Senior Member rank with our initiatives to move up, and nearly have beaten merit challenges. When we can surpass challenges, big changes will automatically come to us.
As Vod wrote above, Legendary still need merits because who knows that theymos will add new rank (above Legendary) in the next coming months or years. I think we should merit good posts if we see them, and should not care or hesitate when posts' authors are Legendaries.

This is true, but I thought I recall Theymos ruling out creating a rank above Legendary.  I know there was some discussion about it and I think Theymos chimed in and said it wasn't going to happen.

I agree with that, but as a merit source I do try to favor lower-ranked members with merits if there's a choice between giving them to a Jr. Member vs. a Legendary one.  Sometimes that happens when I'm low on sMerits.  The problem is and always has been that excellent contributions from lower-ranked members are like hen's teeth.  Very rare.  Often when I visit a thread linked to in LoyceV's merit referral thread, all the good posts were made by Legendary members--that's happened multiple times.

When Theymos tapped all those new merit sources last September, he sent out a PM to the new sources in which he implied that sources should hand out merits to Newbies pretty liberally.  I just can't find it within myself to lower my standards, though.  If a post by a new member is just average or is written in very broken English, there's no way I'm going to give them merits for it. 

That's just me, though.  There haven't been many complaints in Meta lately about getting that all-important 1 merit to rank up to Jr. Member, so other sources and non-sources are probably taking more pity on the noobs than I am.

It's more than OK to merit people with over 1K merits here are my two reasons

- Appreciation: Its human nature to be appreciated. It makes one feel good to continue doing the good work for the forum.
So even members who have more than 1K merits need that little appreciation. It helps the forum continue growing with quality members still continuing to contribute despite the number of merits they have already gathered.

- Continued Circulation of Merits When you send merit to members with 1K+ merits, it does not mean that they will not distribute it to other members. Chances are very high that members who contribute so much to the forum will circulate the sMerit to other members of the forum. So why not give them some merit even if it's just one?

It doesn’t matter if we’re Legendary. The only posters who earn shit loads of Merit are those who make threads detailing forum stats & data etc.

For people like myself we still like receiving Merit as & where we can. I have to admit I find it tough lately, I’m not receiving that much these days.

I am one of them. I luckily received bunches of merits and promoted to Full Member, then Senior Member. The period I spent between Full Member and Senior Member was nearly 2 or 3 months, it's one of the most amazing period since my first day in the forum.
There has still no new rank, so you should not put pressure on you. Just forget about merits, relax a bit, and see merit circulation operates in the forum.

Indeed I do understand that, but I also do understand the OP with saying its very difficult, to always merit good quality new members as merit good legendary members... I do like some legendary members very much their posting, content as style and good humor spirit... as I do love to merit for example you and BoB and HM or V8 and Globb0 and so on, but some guys also made it possible for me to give some Smerit , still its very hard to reward as Legendary as NEW good members, as what I think is a needed place as well ... some good sr members, Hero members with lot of activity but in need for some merit, I hope my merit source application will be approved so I can send some more merits as well where they are needed.
And its very understandable that when a Legendary as yourself post something good thats it get merit from time to time, very logic you appreciate merit as well....

Frankly speaking, I felt jealous about Legendary rank before who supposedly rank up 3x base on their merit receive because of their good work and having good stats and reports here. Just like    @LoyceV, The pharma, suchmoon, and other legendary ranks members who easily for them to catch up merit and especially @DdmrDdmr Sr. member rank but potential 2x Legendary rank. I don't know if @DdmrDdmr is a breed of genius human or an AI robot who was here in the forum, they all received more than 1k merit.

I am from a third world country and the English language was not our native language so that is my barrier to getting merit but I make them as an inspirational of having a constructive post and proud that I ranked up even my activity is very ahead to my rank. Those Legendaries that deserving to get merit, so they also deserve as a merit source, so to generate merit they need also to receive merit and distribute to us as a lower rank than them, IMO.

PS: Sorry for my bad English I just want to express my feelings and giving my two cents here. :)

Merit system is developed to prevent spam and also to prevent spammers to rank up. But it is not developed to prevent quality posters imo.
I know there is very less number of quality posters, maybe the ratio is like 5 quality posters out of 1000 total posters.
I also know, to find and merit those 5 gems is not an easy task, but those guys really deserve merits to rank higher.
It's just what I think, and it is not necessary that others have to think the same.  :)


Indeed you need merits at that point. But I think some of you have enough merits as of now to get the new rank instantly. :D No waiting at all!


This is something I was not expecting.  :(
I'd really love to see a new rank, maybe the new rank I'd like most is "Contributor"

2000 Merit + 2000 Activity = Contributor Rank.

i think this isn't fair at all so only old members will get merit points and new members like me still with 0 points even i have 1000 good posts  :'(

I can see only 9 posts of yours... where are your other 991 posts? Does it belong to your main account?

Ask for merits if you really think your QUALITY POSTS haven't got merited. But make sure to post from your main. Good Luck!
[self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0)

Why is it not fair?
They are also human being like you. You should never be discouraged at all. The fact is you can also get merit if you start making good posts and help members. I just made my 101^th Merit today, and I am now a full member. You can also make it from Zero.

Where are the "good posts" you're referring to though. Couldn't find one. 🤔

Same thing I thought, there are tons of members who post good content but I keep seeing merits to members who are already well established here and do not need any further appreciation. If you are not merit source, kindly save it for someone needy.

I don't think that these people are getting a lot of merits because they are very good posters, but i am not denying the fact that there posts are really good. But there are many other good posters of low ranked they are not getting merits. I firmly believe that they are mainly getting a lot of merits because of their position here.

False, both merit sources and other forum members (mostly higher ranked users) with smerits unconsciously are drawn to meriting lower rank users. The problem now is the lower rank users aren't posting what this meriters consider high quality posts because not everyone is LoyceV that might merit you just because your post isn't spam. Most members have strict rules. There was a time almost every merit source & higher ranked user reviewed (posts history) of the user they want to merit before meriting that post, some even check for plagiarism but I believe most of those criteria must have been dropped because we now see high rate of ranking users especially between member-snr member.

My point is, deserving posts gets merited, you should not concentrate on who is recieving more merit or not just concentrate on your account and get the needed merit to rank up by delivery extreme quality post that's the only way you can stand out of the crowd.

I merit legendary members as well as lower rank members. It is not really a coincidence that a member has 1500+ merits. He has that because of his posting abilities. It makes sense meriting those with lower ranks but not if you don't find their posts worth meriting. I wouldn't merit a lower rank over a higher rank if I don't think his post is worth it or is at least nearly as good as that of a legendary member.

I think it is much more important to merit those that use those earned merits to merit others. Those who participate in the merit system and make quality contributions deserve getting merited independent of their rank.

Merit is addictive: I have no use for it, I don't need it, and yet, I've checked every Merit transaction that ever reached me (MSP (Merit Source Problem): that's a long scroll down (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=459836) each time).
Merit shows appreciation, and that's much appreciated.
Admin (theymos) is my favourite profile to send sMerit to (https://bpip.org/profile.aspx?p=loycev). Not because theymos needs it, but because I think many of his posts should be read by many people. And I use it to find back theymos' posts, although the list gets too long already.

However, if you're not loaded with sMerit, by all means, give them to someone else who deserves it. Not because they "need" it to rank up, but because they're good users who aren't spammers and thus shouldn't be restricted on this forum. And helping them Rank up ultimately helps this forum.
I've slightly adjusted my stance on meriting posts in the past year, but this is what I do now. And the lower the rank, the less demanding I am.

I don't really care about broken English, as long as it's a real user who has a real interest (or problem to solve). I'm a bit afraid spammers will copy this to earn Merit on new accounts, so I always check for plagiarism before meriting a Newbie.
Many of the Newbies I merit disappear again, which confirms to me they're real users, not spammers or account farmers. And those are the users this forum needs, if only they'd find the interest to stick around.
Some examples: crossevian (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3140140.msg50713520#msg50713520), superbotolo (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5134102.msg50691351#msg50691351) and Nikaniko319 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5125487.msg50641778#msg50641778).

Lol :D Let me explain again why I do this: Merit was meant to stop account farmers from ranking up their farmed spam accounts. If a user isn't a spammer, that's a win for the forum and he can turn into an asset. Or maybe my expectations have been lowered after seeing too much spam :P
A Newbie making one "not spam post" won't earn him many Merits, but if he continues like that and makes hundreds of posts that are more or less decent, he'll get there eventually. That's also why I usually give only 1 Merit per post.

I (and several other sources) would love to merit these good posts which are going unmerited! Please direct me/us to them by linking them in this thread: [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0).


I have a very limited supply of source sMerits, and so I have to be selective in who I send merits to. I often find myself skipping good posts by Hero and Legendary members which I would like to send merit to so I still have a couple of merits to send to more junior members. However, I have much less strict criteria for meriting Newbies compared to meriting Legendaries. A newbie who is demonstrating a willingness to read, learn, and contribute, and not just spam, beg, or complain, is worthy of ranking up in my opinion, even if their posts aren't that good.

no need to be a jew when u already stacked hard with dem 1k merits, give the lil guys a lil taste for gods sake

I think 'Continued Circulation of Merits' is the key to keep the merit system going. People over 1K merit are usually used to also give out the merits, not only receiving them...
Also, if someone has gathered 1K merit (and I'm not talking about those Legendary accounts who have 1K merits but 0 earned merits over the 1K), so those who managed to get the 1K merit from various people in the forum, those members can usually decide if a post deserves a merit or not...
If you give a merit (or more merits) to shitposter or account farmer, they will merit shitposts or they will sell the merits and merit won't accomplish it's task anymore...

So don't be afraid to merit users with 1K merit, it will help the merit system to do it's job

You have a good point but it still depends on the situtation. I see no problem on giving merits to those "lil guys" you are pertaining as long as they are good and really a good quality poster but if they are not deserving to receive one then it's fair enough if others won't give them, right? Because if they will then it looks like that they (we) are tolerating them for doing poor deeds (you realized now?). Remember, privilege of receiving merit do not depends on whether you are a Newbie or a Staff, it depends on the contribution you made here.

I have only one merit so i do not send merit as i can't, but i agree that merit should be for rewarding good post no matter they already have a lot.

Maybe good post that is worth +1 merit should be more highlighted. for excl. with a star. so it stands above the other answers.

Now you are actually sending merit to a person so only he knows he got one for one post instead of sending merit for a post itself.
If i got merit today i don't know for which post i got that exact one merit.

like: https://imgur.com/a/BZiTSKO

Everyone here deserves a merit if you think their post is good enough to earn one, or two, or even more. And you should expect that those have 1K merits are the one who do really have good posts and the ones that are posting good stuff here that explaining everything that someone wants to know.



You don't have to worry about this, even if you spent all of your smerits, you will have another smerits after 120 days(correct me if I'm wrong), so you just have to be wise where you want to sent those smerits of yours for you not to regret anything at the end.

You are wrong. :P

The only people who get more sMerits automatically are merit sources. There are currently 123 merit sources (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources), with various allocations of sMerits, which are replenished 30 days after being sent.

For all other users, the only way you get sMerits to send is by earning merits yourself. For every 2 merit you earn, you also gain 1 sMerit you can send to someone else.

You seem to have two now, so now you have your first sMerit to award …

In a sense, merited posts already “stand out” by the list of meriters and amounts merited. That information is visible above the merited post itself.

Yes you can. Just check your merit summary: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=1977670 (go to your profile and click the Merit link in your summary).

I don't usually give a merit to this users especially if their posts are already merited by someone else. Tho, the main purpose of having a merit system is to give credits to a well efforted post of that user. So there is nothing wrong about it give it to whoever you thinks deserves to have it.


Tho, if you do care about some users ranking up then saving those SMerits can also be worth it.

Exactly my point, so the problem isn't from the meriters but them. They just have to learn how to capitalize on this opportunities. When you don't spam, you might get merit and when you do delivery high quality post you'll get merited too case closed. It's a win win for them but they didn't get it.


That's why I say the higher ranked users even merit sources too are draw towards the lower rank intending to merit them more but they aren't impressing them in regrads to their attempts at quality contribution. I did rank up twice recently and I did receive merit just for trying on numerous occasions. I know of post I made back then (lower rank user) if I was to do the same now it won't be considered merit worthy due to my rank that's why you have to improve more in the type of quality you delivery as you increase in ranks. The higher your rank, the higher your post quality should be.

Back to the topic at hand, if you can't find deserving lower rank user to award more merits to, merit higher ranked users more, irrespective of whether they need it or not. Choose quality over needs.