Bitcoin Forum

In December 2018 I created a thread in the B&H board titled: Giving 26 Newbie/Jr. Members a Chance to Rank Up.
In the beginning I had a limited amount of merits allocated to Newbies and Jr. Members but seeing that I got awarded a lot of merits in the thread I decided to reserve the corresponding number of sMerits to Newbies/Jr. Members who show me quality posts.

I am now in a dilemma. Several members who sent me merits for that thread posted that they expect me to distribute these merits to Newbies. But I have not seen any good applicants for a long time, nobody is applying. Quality Newbies and Jr. Members acquire merits in the standard way so they don't need my thread for that.  

I currently find myself in a situation where I have 28 sMerits to give out but I have reserved 26 of those for my mentioned thread. Some say that my rules are too strict, that might be the case but I believe that because of these rules my thread 'survived' for so long and wasn't moved to Off topic or locked. Several months ago I even PMed theymos regarding the thread and he said that "the thread is good as it is". I have a screenshot of that PM posted somewhere in the merit thread.

Just for reference here are the rules for the mentioned thread:




And this is the reason why I am creating this poll. I think I need to honor the wishes of those who gave me merits in my thread but on the other hand I often find myself in a situation where I can't merit a good post because of those reserved merits.

Looking for suggestions from the community.  

EDIT: I forgot to include a link to the thread in question > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5085605.0

It's your thread, your sMerits, you are free to decide anything that suits you better. There are no point to take stress for all these.

I bet no one is expecting anything from there.

Take it easy. No need to bump. Let those Newbies or Jrs to post the link of any post they think worth getting merit. Review them whenever you have sMerits and if they deserve then merit them. You do not need to reserve any sMerit for this purpose. Empty your bag. I think no one will have anything to say.

Edit:
By the way, my vote was for Nobody cares. and I think it really is. As I said it's your merit, your thread, you are free to decide anything you feel that suits you better.

Good luck

As a person who thinks the best thing about merit scores is the fact they can be unified and mined in a set, I'll give a couple of thoughts.

You may as well keep trying to distribute merit. Those people who gave you merits to hand put should've instead asked you to send them a list of users to merit instead... Its not exactly up to you to do that and why not become a source?

You could try meriting members too as they're still low ranked. I don't normally notice usernames until someone is a full member so even if they make quality posts, I personally am unlikely to merit them.

It is better for Pmalek if he gives his sMerits away if he occasionally see good posts. Merits are for good posts, so why not spreading merits through sMerits by chance.

Merits born originally for this purpose and should be used for this, whenever merits still exist in the forum.

Joining or not joining your contest or other contests, good posts are still good posts. And good posters can be verified easily by looking at their post histories.

That's not a dilemma, it's entirely up to you how you spend your sMerit, and the user who merited you doesn't get a say in it.

I have a similar but much bigger "problem": 476 of "my own" sMerit and 26 source sMerit to go :D The source sMerit stash got bigger recently during my family road trip.

Long story short: just Merit posts that deserve it :)

I would take LoyceV's advice of meriting posts that deserve it literally. I know its always nice to give the opportunity to users that are of low rank, but I don't take that into consideration when I send merit. I have no criteria whatsoever when it comes to activity, and rank. If suchmoon or LoyceV make yet another good post I'm going to send merit their way, because they don't deserve it any less than a newbie making their sort of posts. At the end of the day though its your merit, and you get to decide.

Completely up to you of course. If you considered that there are not enough candidates to go by after a prolonged period of time, you’ve kept your part of the deal, and the issue is the lack of (suitable) candidates. You can simply use them in another context as you browse through the forum.

In my personal case, if I have a nice sum of personal merits that is just piling up, rather than just watching them pile up a bit more (not that much lately), every now and then I redistribute (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5105622.0) a few amongst previously merited posts by me, bringing by backlog of personal merits to just few leftovers after the event.

As a Merit source, I completely agree. However, I can think of a reason to send it to lower ranks if you're not loaded in sMerits: you're helping the forum more by highlighting the (quite rare) new users who aren't spammers or shitposters. I Merit a lot of Newbies who just make a decent real post, doesn't matter what the subject is, and it doesn't matter that they're not here to post a lot. Those real users are what this forum and Bitcoin need to grow in the right direction.
Of course that doesn't mean I don't appreciate getting merited.

I also do this, and I have a text document somewhere with a list of threads that needed merit when I didn't have any. You'll often see me revisiting threads, and posts that I have previously merited. Especially, since my merit allocation has increased, I believe previous posts I may have merited wasn't enough as I usually send around 5-10 merits now. I'd rather merit posts that have a tonne of merit which are of good quality than to have them waste away. I guess its a little different for merit sources though, and those who have sMerit can hoard it for a little longer than usual.

If I may say what you are doing is quite good and noble.

Topic: Giving 26 Newbie/Jr. Members a Chance to Rank Up (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5085605.0)

But there is no such thing as a perfect human being, what is expected is exactly the opposite.

Deficiency:
You want to see Newbei or Jr., who are achievers, to get your sMerit from, of course.
precisely, that happens on your topic is not Newbei and Jr., who comment, but high ranking members, you serve.
I see there are some Newbei who post on your topic but you don't give sMerit, maybe for some reason. Very understandable.

If I can suggest you try to take a few examples of the local Indonesian forum.
Maybe it can help the way and the system.

Topic: [HELP]Bantuan untuk menaikkan Rank (Jr. Member s.d Hero)[UPDATE] (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2840438.0)

For me you continue your good intentions, which you are developing right now.

Your rules are quite fair, I think. A few days ago, I saw a similar merit give away topic and the OP required posts in Development & Technical Discussion and Bitcoin Technical Support from newbies to receive his merits (I don't find the topic anymore). Sometimes posts from new members are easily overlooked, so I really appreciate topics like yours (though I don't meet the requirements to join), it helps a lot of newbies and encourage them sticking around the forum. Keep up your good work and make your topic lively (I'll come back to it some day ;D).

I considered applying but I rarely have enough time to visit the forum to search for additional merit worthy posts besides those I see in the boards and threads that I frequent. 

@hd49728
Most posts that I merited are not connected to my thread. The thread is only for the two lowest ranks.

I know, I think I was on the receiving end a few times.


Thanks YOSHIE!

I turned down some users because they obviously didn't read the rules or they don't understand what kind of posts are worth meriting.
I had a few users submitting posts where they were asking questions or asking for help. Other users even submitted bounty reports or confirmations of fulfilled bounty requirements.

Thanks for the link to the Indonesian thread, I will check it out and see what it is about.