Bitcoin Forum

Since getting upranked here is quite an achievement and requires a lot of work and dedication, it maybe should be more visible for everyone to check in a fast way, where certain users come from ranking-wise since the merit system was introduced.

I'll visualize my thoughts a bit:

https://i.ibb.co/x1xTFcC/tmtmtm.jpg

This user for example at first glance only got a few merits. But it could very well be, that actually he got a lot of merits already, but it's just not visible without some further investigation. He might have ranked up coming all the way from Member for example though. So lets assume he indeed did that. What I would like to see, is this (no graphic designer here as you might notice):

https://i.ibb.co/WWYrSS7/tmtmtm.jpg

Make all those badges he got for upranking in a (slightly) different colour. He had two yellow badges being a Member before merit system. Putting in a lot of work, he managed to rank up to Hero Member and got three additional badges, these should be in another colour.

You can more easily see and recognize the achievements and, by that, the average post-quality of certain users.

OP, you'll probably get a lot of people pooh-pooh'ing this idea, but I don't think it's a bad one at all.  There probably should be some sort of visible recognition for users who've ranked up since the beginning of the merit system, because it's definitely an achievement.

However, Theymos has yet to act on any suggestion like this, and I've seen quite a few.  The only changes he seems to make are ones that solve problems, like the recent thread bumping thing.  I'm not so sure he cares much about achievement badges or anything like that, so unfortunately I don't think it's likely this is going to get implemented.  Good idea, though.

In the past, months ago, I suggested New collection of badges for self-made users (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5113796.0), but now, when I have more matured in the forum, my perspective on ranks, badges, merits changed.
I don't think we need to have different badges for different stories of users.

(1) We will need so many kinds of badges who began at different ranks with merit system.

• Grandfather users: ranked up to Legendary members before merit system began.
• Old users: who were only Members, Full Members, Senior Members, Hero Members before merit system began.
• New-era users: who started as Brandnew / newbie with merit system.

(2) Merits or badges or ranks neither determine the quality of users nor disclose who they are.
In contrast, users' posts, topics, contributions show their values in the forum.
There are different ways to earn merits, and yes, due to that total earned merits is just one of indicators to verify user's posting quality.

(3) Post history, feedback history, reputation history are more important.
If you spend a couple of minutes to scan post history of one user, you will fastly have an overview on that user quality, maybe not exactly. To have better assessments, you must investigate further. Glancing at the rank, badge, merit earned might result in incorrect impression.

(4) Forum is not a kindergarten, and I think we have enough colors, and don't need more.
The forum already has different colors for badges (developers, staffs, global moderators, admin, founders, legendary, etc.).
Then:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1195988#msg1195988
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg1584088#msg1584088
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg4295782#msg4295782 (disabled)

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Instead of badges, users suggested and more prefer this style:

I’d prefer simply to be able to visualize the number of earned merits over the total amounts of merits (i.e. Merit: 9/509). Seems simpler that having a range of different representations for each rank, and pretty explicit of what normally one may be interested to see.

Right ... perhaps Bold instead of green, or just bold, or not even bold. Just being able to see both numbers would be easy to interpret. 

Yes, I am pretty much agree with your idea. It would be better instead of badge. But color should not be green at all since trust feedback's is visible with green color. I don't admin will implement badge system for merit earner since he had not implement even reporter badge. But there should be something for good contributors, because without contribution no one could earn merit. So if there is any symbol for earned merit at least other user will know about it and they might encourage to earn merit as well.

https://i.postimg.cc/tCkK9L4y/image.png
badge location idea for new upranked member. maybe it can be limited for one week to show up, after that this badge will be gone.

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But, i think, before badges for this, the best badges to show for short-terms is badge for "patrol" member. for people who reports more than 1.000 spams/oot with acuracy more than 90% got patrol badges

Thanks for all your input guys.

The visualization besides the total # of merits should be suffice and is actually a better idea than mine.

Merit: 1020 [1000]
Merit: 1020/1000

Something like that would be nice, but I am aware, that there is next to zero chance of this being implemented. It probably downgrades the pre-merit-era high ranks a bit, but since it was so easy to rank up in the past compared to how hard it is now, some credit should be due to those who manage to crawl up the ranks with lots of work.

The forum is not created as place for ranking-up racing intially and might never been a place for that purpose, so I don't think we need such shortly existed badge for newly ranked up users.

The idea to display two figures in user merit stat: earned merits/ total merits or vice versa, looks good.
However, it still cost a little space under each username, and makes the forum looks less clean. Below usernames, we already have lots of figures for Trust.

Additionally, for normal users (non-campaign managers), I don't think there are too many users will care about earned-merits/ total merits of other users. Stats of earned merits is just one of indicators for post quality and user contribution. Another minus point is that there is at least one site to check those statistics, BPIP. So if users or managers want to check those stats, BPIP can give them helpful stats.

I like both the ideas of OP and DdmrDdmr but I think that DdmrDdmr's is easier to implement and doesn't create a big circus show with different colors, badges etc.
Seeing a 1142/642  next to my name would be a nice addition. But it is not something that improves the usability or experience on the forum so I doubt it will have much of a priority.

Even if DdmrDdmr's suggestion was implemented on the "backend" within the merit page rather than having a ugly "xxxx / xxxx" which would likely cause confusion to those that aren't familiar with the forum, and be a whole new boat load of questions in Meta asking what it is for the next 10 years.

So where "merit" is displayed on a users merit page you could also have "merit earned". If anyone knows what I'm talking, and can whip up a visual representation that would be great ;)

While I like your idea, I'd prefer it implemented in another way. And I'll give as example my account.
I was already Legendary when Merit system has been implemented. Lucky me.
With your system I'd get nothing new.

But how about counting the earned merit like badges from zero?
This would translate into the first badges as a different color. I have only 311 earned merit, that would mean the first 4 badges on a different color (like for Sr. Member).