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I was bored, so I put together a simple calculator to predict the date of the next Activity milestone for increasing rank.  The spreadsheet assumes consistent activity to the dates it calculates, and your post count is equal to or higher than the required activity.  Of course there are still those pesky merit requirements one must achieve.

To use it, enter the date of your most recent bump in activity score, and your current activity points in the yellow fields.

And, without further ado, the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-QJgAw9oZ0Rf6Y5uE53d3koEbgP4BoZaTsF6toJBAJY/edit?usp=sharing

https://i.imgur.com/p1JhzlB.jpg

Now this is something for the scrapeBots:

Of the space of users that have earned 1 or more merit, what is the average merit earned?

With that metric, divide by the number of days since they earned their first merit and average the totals.

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We could have an estimation for the merit requirements as well. :)

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Definitely not going to be an insane uphill battle considering (with current numbers) each new member would have a little under 34 months to accumulate 0.13975% of all newly-generated merit. This is even discounting any subsequent merit sends (i.e. true sMerit as opposed to source sMerit).

At current rates we can make 62 Legendary members each month (in raw merit value) if we truly wanted to.

Last Friday (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3078328.msg52515049#msg52515049), 30410 users had received at least 1 Merit. In total, 460749 Merit had been sent. That's 15.15 Merit on average.
I don't think this is a very useful number though :P

Every statistic is useful... it's just how you approach it.

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We can probably model a Pareto distribution when it comes to earned merit and despite what people may like to believe, this is not evidence of any circling. Certainly, not everyone will earn as much as Loyce but we can consider the 75^th to 90^th percentile as that's where most of the (non-extreme) high-quality posters should reside. That might bring a better daily merit number.

Even just a guess at 1 merit per day (which is certainly very possible) means that a brand new user will be able to rank up to Legendary by the time they hit the cap.

If the question shifts to, "why such a high requirement," then the answer is clearly: "Legendary status should not be given to everyone. It is for those that deserve it."

I gave it a go trying to forecast the date of ranking for each merited person back in October 2018 (all remaining ranks to Legendary, asuming 775 Activity as the base for the latter to simplify), based on merit per day and posts per day. Although at the time I had the data per person, I only published the aggregates and the forecast for 2019 Legendries.

It’s pretty much nearly impossible to predict with a good rate of (rough) success, since gaining merits is rather variable, and the projection estimated on a linear average based on the previous four months or so. Fun to do at the time though, although lengthly (see  Analysis – Personal merit per day, merit per post and ranking-up projections (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5043074.msg46466864#msg46466864)).

Here's the earned Merit (http://loyce.club/Merit/userID_merit.txt) of each userID (until last Friday). If it's 0, that means the user only sent Merit without receiving any. It's quite easy to make a Pareto chart out of this.

I remember seeing similar activity calculator few years, but now I can't find, maybe it doesn't works anymore. After release of merit system, activity isn't such important thing anymore, but it's still interesting to check estimated date when you can rank up. So, thanks for making it.
One fun thing related to this topic - theymos told that I would have received Legendary status at lowest possible activity. So, I was just one week away from Legendary rank when merit system was released lol.

I remember that conversation a few months back, and remember thinking how you must have felt gypped.  Oh well, water under the bridge.  It is nice to have a goal, and I'm sure you'll make it in due time.

LTU_btc, some users like you did not profit from merit system timing, after years of old system you are pushed back to earn Legendary rank that was at your fingertips. I have reached to Legendary rank before merit system is introduced, but I wait for that moment until I reached 900+ activity.

I believe you will become Legendary sooner or later, it's just a matter of merits, so I suggest you try to give your best and thus get the attention of merit sources, suchmoon has already given you a really nice boost ;)

It seems that no one used this calculator. (View only doc) ;D ;D ;D ;D
When the merit system was established, I still needed 40 days to reach Sr.member rank, but I was able to reach it after 3 months. 90 days.


It is impressive to know how many sMerits for this account per month. He has spent more than 18951.

I actually did but thought it must be me or my desktop - impossible noone would have tried it out... and I was scared making a fool of myself!  :D

You need to make a copy of the document so that you can edit it. Obviously, if it wasn't view-only then you'd have the document deleted or strewn with chaos.

Hello everyone.
I am bored as well, so I did a trivial edit to the calculator.
As activity cycles are common to the whole forum I added them into the spreadsheet (credits to Jambola2 spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12saLhlUoqIdairxzuSPu6EYGrt7FN2lOstO1yDjCEbA) found here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2766177.0)).
So it's not needed anymore to input last activity increase then!
Try Now the  Rank Activity Calculator Automated (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jREeHXaM5Qdf2aFj6ujgJ_S4-BS3RWoBwdbWx7aPh6g/edit?usp=sharing) here!

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/16/blob834bddc54ae1e85b.jpeg

I remember the time before the introduction of merit when we just wrote in the forum without burdening ourselves too much with others and what others think of us.
Now it's different, everyone is struggling to get merit and advance in the forum.
I am not sure if this is fair to the younger members since the older members received higher forum ranks much easier.
It is especially difficult to advance for young members who can't write in English and can only participate in the local part of the forum.

It's fair.  Even if it weren't fair, it was the fairest solution to the rampant shitposting problem.  By the beginning of 2018 it was clear to anyone reading posts on this forum that something had to be done--account farming was easy to do and was out of control.  Members came here hoping to rank up and earn big money in signature campaigns, and the result was an onslaught of low-quality posts done for just that purpose. 

If they feel the need to write in a language they don't have a command of, I would question their motive for doing so.  Usually such members have advertising in their signatures, and if that's the case they're probably writing in English because that's what they're getting paid to do.

It's much, much harder to rank up from scratch these days, that is certainly true.  But that's the whole point of the merit system.  It wasn't done maliciously but rather as a protective mechanism for the forum as a whole.  Personally I think it's serving its purpose so far, all complaints aside (and we haven't seen many bitch-fests in Meta lately).

We might be a little OT here, but I think the system is fair.
I racked up a decent amount of merits and just today I ranked up to Hero... just waiting for my lucky day when I will be legendary.

Of course I put a lot of effort in the forum and I got something back.
I am being humble about this: if I did it, i cannot see why other "new era newbies" cannot do the same.

Also I am not angry at oldest members who got their rank based on the fact that they were there.
Firstly being there at that time meant they were intelligent enough to understand the BTC value proposition before many other, secondly they put a lot of effort in the forum as well, without merit system being able to signal it. So no point in thinking they are abusing their status.
So I do agree, the system is not perfect, but it's the fairest.

Exactly and that's why the younger generation are now suffering for the way majority of earlier users treated the forum. Had it been "they" didn't spam the forum, all in the name of they don't care about what other thought of their posts, we won't had been in this situation now (having to require merit to rank up) but still though, kudos to them as due to their abusive ways we got a better system to stop account farming and probably reduce the rate of spamming in the forum.

The quality of post are steadily improving and healthy discussion are been observed in their numbers. Now we just have to get rid of or reduce the rate at which back scratchers are getting rewarded (i.e those posting to impress certain set of users) then the system will become perfect.

the time has come when beginners have to struggle to raise their rankings in the forum. and very sad, the younger members who are now more happy to spam, only a part of the beginner generation who really earnestly struggling to raise rankings without spamming.

actually not understanding English is not an obstacle in this forum, there are many language translator platforms as learning media, maybe it is difficult to learn grammar only. after all we in school must have learned English, of course we master it even though a little.

Low rank members can still receive Merits even though they can't/don't post in English Language. Merit is a reward to be given in a "quality" post and doesn't mean non English posts doesn't deserved it. As long as a post helps other member or can be qualified as quality, no matter what language it is written, it can be merited. I hope that answered your concern.

I made calculator 2 years ago when the activity was the only vector to rank up. You see each date for each period of the 14 days cycles. Logically all this applies if you have the required merit for ranking up.

I understand that your calculator is so much older, but this is superior as it automatically calculates (in the version I posted above) the exact ranking up date, provided you feed your activity cycle correctly and the uniform update cycle in the forum.
You could easily upgrade your own spreadsheet with the official activity cycle.
You can find all the required information in my updated spreadsheet above.

I've noticed that my received merits have tailed off a lot recently, and I'm not sure if that is the result of a change in the community approach to merit awarding, or a reduction in my posting because I felt that I was becoming out of touch with current forum interests. I use merit awards and replies to my posts to judge the value the community places on my posts. A drop in either, or both, means that I have to rethink my posting behaviour. :)

If there is a shift in the awarding of merits, then obviously this will affect the time taken to achieve legendary status.

Nah,
I think you should post what interest you the most. Merit is a nice addendum to that, but in the long run I think sticking what interest you the most, and to what you are better at, benefit the most the community. This is what merit system is about.
Well, this is under the hypothesis you are not a merit farmer, in that case... do the opposite!

Same goes for me, the rate at which I recieved merit has also reduce drastically but In my situation I know the reason why since I'm not that active as before and also spending more time in less merit awareness board due to some specific reasons but when you think about it more lower users are getting merited and ranking up so irrespective of it affecting the time to achieve legendary status atleast more high ranked users will be recorded.

The forum interest right now is the 10 anniversary of the forum which is understandable why decent amount of merit are flowing towards related discussion on that matter. I'll presume your case to be out of touch in forum interest since your post quality hasn't changed.

Well thanks for the kind words. :)
It might be that I'm not pushing any projects at the moment. The photographic project to help people in low income countries is starting to grab me. I thought of Venezuela, but Nigeria might be another country where members could benefit. I think that projects like this to help members to earn Bitcoin could be useful.

I think Legendary is just a matter of pride in here since Here/Legendary gives you almost the same benefits on the forum.

The merit system is problematic for newbies who are struggling to get 1 merit and be able to post images, and here I am not talking about new Newbies, but about the ones that have 2-300 activity and they are still newbies. Not many users gives merit points to newbies just because they are newbies and they know you'll make him/her Jr.Member if you'll give 1 merit.

As for the calculator, is a good tool but for the old system (without merit requirement), with the current one the tool is just for curiosity as you'll get merit points much more harder than the activity required between the ranks time-frame.

That's not a problem, it's exactly why the Merit system was introduced. If someone has 300 Activity without earning a single Merit, I'm pretty sure his posts are worthless.
But by all means, if you find a worthy Newbie with good posts: report them here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0) so I can Merit them!

I don't agree that merit is just a matter of pride for legendaries. The actual count is not important to me, as I will never be able to compete with the stats reporters. However, individual awards are useful, and they give me a feel for the general opinions in the forum, and they help me to "tune" my posts and threads.

I still post like that, and I suspect many of the other top merit earners do too. It is pretty easy to spot people who are posting in topics they have no knowledge or interest in for the sole reason of spamming their signature or phishing for merits. My biggest tip for earning merit has always been to forget merit exists and simply use the forum as it is intended - to learn, read, ask questions, and discuss.

There's actually a fair few of us (myself included) who spend time and go out of our way to track down good newbies to give merit to, which you can see from this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5034141.msg52227889#msg52227889. I have no issues ranking up a newbie to a junior member and giving them signature privileges as long as it is clear to me that they are here primarily for the reason I outlined above - to learn and discuss - and they aren't here solely to abuse that signature. As Loyce says, utilize his thread to report any good posts you think are doing unmerited.

A lot of legendary members haven't earned their first 1000 merit so gives a good idea of a good poster if they have earned more than that. Legendary can also send that earned merit to others so its not like its being completely wasted.

Signatures should be something to reward already good and established members instead of being something people aim for. I don't change my behavior when in a signature campaign and despite being in one of the highest paying campaigns you will see that I haven't posted for a couple of days. My posting habits haven't changed just because I'm earning money from posting and I think looking at the before and after statistics when accepting members and moderating a campaign that should be taken into consideration.

You're welcome. I'm always on a look at for such opportunity so don't hesitate to alert me the moment you come across any. I'm always open to learn. I prefer working smarter to harder that's why I don't engage in an opportunity that'll require me to work twice as hard than I'm currently doing instead of encouraging me to work smarter. Bitcoin has been a major blessing to we from this part of the world, you just have to be in our shoes to understand the feeling we get from been enthusiasts especially as our economy and currency value is depreciating constantly.

Any legitimate opportunity to earn some bitcoin is always welcomed 🤑.

Not the merit points are a matter of pride for users (maybe for some... I don't know), the Legendary rank is (this is what I've said) :P


Will do it for sure, I actually say some good posts (from newbies) who deserved some merit but I didn't had anything at that time left to give it.

Thanks for the tip!

As of last Friday, there are 10.952 Jr. Members (that therefore required receiving at least 1 sMerit). It’s true though that if I narrow down on those whose account was created in 2019, the toll goes down to 476 Jr Members, which isn’t a large amount for 2019 created accounts.
(see https://public.tableau.com/shared/23435KRGF?:display_count=yes&:origin=viz_share_link)

On the other hand, I do believe that getting that one merit is a piece of cake if one applies himself to the task. It may take a month or two of perseverance (as was my case), but that is probably it.

If one wants to keep up the pace with the time required to rank-up as it did before the Merit System, you’ll need to gain a rough average of one merit per day (and that's when @DireWolfM14’s calculator comes in handy). That is pretty tough to achieve nowadays, but 1 Merit .. not really.

Call me "merit farmer", call me "example of survivorship bias" (I dismiss both those statement, but who cares), but I can confirm it is doable.
Without bending your own way of posting to better fit the merit system.

Here you have a point, and 1 merit/day sounds like easy task at first glance but you need to do this day after day for the next 3 years. :D

@DireWolfM14’s calculator is no doubt a good tool, but is handy for the few, good posters active in here daily.

As for the 476 Jr.Members in 2019, I wonder how much is the percentage of total registered users to make the ratio.

To be newbie with 300 activity you have to be really dedicated to shitposting.

I don't agree that high ranked members avoid giving merit to newbies. Being relatively new member here I spent a lot of time in newbie&help subforum and I saw many newbies getting merit from  high rank members after few dozens posts.

From my 0 to 1000 merit experience, honestly, I stop caring about receiving merit after about 700 or so, after my merit count way ahead of my activity.

While the activity is predictable, the merit is not. Don't overthink it and keep posting whatever and whenever interest you the most. It's not a race, and you receive almost no benefit from being a top merited member. Last, if you think 1K is not doable, then you can count how many members who have done it.

I don't want to brag too much, so I will post here. I'm Legendary finally - it was nice surprise for me when I checked profile today which made my day better. Yeah, it took a while to rank up, but I'm finally here. I don't pretend to be best poster here, I'm just average guy here. So, I can tell from my experience that merit system works
I just want to say thanks to everyone who thought that my posts is merit worthy and merited me. It means a lot for me

LTU_btc, congratulations on your promotion, it was also time for you to become Legendary because I have to admit you were one of the few who were close to that rank before merits were introduced. I'm not a merit source, so I couldn't push you towards the goal more than I did - but I gave you support in this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5206035.msg56209918#msg56209918). I hope that this helped you at least a little ;)

https://i.imgur.com/EOEWKf7.gif
Source (https://vstbuzz.com/the-vault/legendary/attachment/legendary-kontakt-gif/)

Thanks for support, mate. I really appreciate it!
I remember when theymos released merit system, I was so close to become Legendary. I can't say that I was very disappointed or something back then, but it was kinda strange feeling. But I was confident that I will become Legendary one day.

I would like  to congratulate @LTU_btc deserve this rank. Also, I want to share the content created by BlackHatCoiner in creating a rank calculator. I used this previously as a guide to reaching my full member to senior rank now I try harder to join with the Hero member gang or Legendary gang.

https://btctalk.live/rankcalculator/

Bitcointalk Stats Live Counter by BlackHatCoiner (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5241019.0)
https://i.imgur.com/7Xuuloh.png

I think you made a mistake because you congratulate LTU_btc, and you quote my post ;)


That calculator would make sense before the merit system, but that variable is now key and activity means nothing without a sufficient number of merits.

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You're welcome :)

In their defense, when older members joined this forum, crypto prices were on much lower side, they (probably) didn't join for the sake of incentives hence less spam and there was no need for systems like merit.

The merit system seems biased, there is a lot more ass kissing for merits these days than there should be. I've been here for years since 2014, and right before I was going to become a HERO rank, BAM, they introduced the merit system. I mean it makes sense, there's way too many desperate new users coming onto the platform hoping to get in with a good campaign (we've all been there), that if they didn't introduce the merit system, all of those sweet opportunities would be gone. I'm not getting ready to go to searching for the merit Gods in order to beg for more merit. I'm comfortable being a senior member. It has it's perks.
   Also the spam was getting ridiculous from the new posters.  Sometimes I wish I had merit to give to others, some people genuinely deserve the merit, because  they make stellar threads/posts, I see them all of the time. They say the voice of wisdom often falls upon deaf ears though.

just my two cents ;D

When merit system was introduced I was full member and hence was showered with 100 merits to begin with, at that time I had no hope to reach sr member but after 3.5 years here we are. My most merits came from two threads, which I shared just for sharings sake without any expectation, no any kind of bootlicking  ;)

I’ve already become Legendary before the merit system, but that hasn’t stopped me from collecting over 1200 merits and thus confirming that 1000 airdropped merits aren’t something I don’t deserve - as some imply when discussing it. I think you have the wrong opinion about how to deserve merits, because you imply that they should be sought from some merit gods - and since my merits come from as many as 249 different members do you really think they are all gods which require ass kissing as you say?

Everyone has the opportunity to be a useful and active member, which will result in a reward with merits - without having to do any inappropriate things along the way (of course I'm not saying that such things don't exist) ;)

I think you're mistaken, Did you actually read my post? I'm not here complaining about my rank,  I'm talking about not being able to reward others merit without seeking out the merit sources. There's plenty of opportunity for senior members like I said above in my post. I don't assume any of these people are gods, I'm being sarcastic, no humor I guess  ::). There was nothing negative about my post, didn't mean to offend you brother! To each his own.

I was a senior member when the merit system was implemented. Since then I have started to move and continue to make effort to improve the quality of post, increase knowledge and do so until now I have managed to collect 691 merit that have been accumulated with 250 airdrop.

I was once said to be a sycophant simply because I got some users on my Local Board to comply with the rule and improve post quality. They thought that I was trying to ask for merit from the merit source, when in fact they were the ones complaining. I get several message from established member both on my Local Board and global users not to post just because of merit. It is the best idea to enjoy all the processes and the journey to the Legendary rank. One day, I will also reach that rank. I'm enjoying the process now.

Some users are not interested in the merit system and they may ignore the OP, quality poster, and important information from send of merit. They didn't care about anything to do with merit until one day they realized that regardless of the number of post, activity, merit were a condition for rank up. Regarding spam behavior, it can't be avoided here. However, we can still do the eradication effort only by reporting a number of badly quality post to moderator.

Reading here surely did reminded me this thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5095980.msg49177851#msg49177851
I was on the same shoes like you guys, getting ignored, criticize and wasn't able to do things that I wanted just like helping out the newbies..., 3 years surely is fast that I even don't  remember well the things I've  done.

The uses who do not care about the merits here are the one who do not come here often. They could be anyone who come here to get some knowledge or others who only use bitcointalk to advertise their services.

On the other hand, if there is anyone who do not care about about merits and keep on posting and one day see that merit is the requirement to rank up, then he is an ignorant person probably a shit poster who do not care to read the forum rules.

I read your post very well, and I am referring to exactly the part where you say "I'm not getting ready to go to searching for the merit Gods in order to beg for more merit...Sometimes I wish I had merit to give to others, some people genuinely deserve the merit, because  they make stellar threads/posts..." .

I understand what you meant by merit gods, and that you tried to be a little sarcastic, but I don't think you need to ask anyone for anything (in this case merits), but they need to find you. If you create good and quality content you will be rewarded for it, not only by merit sources, but also by all other members. Then you too will be able to reward others for every post you think deserves it.

I was not offended in the least, there is no need to apologize - everyone chooses their path and their strategy in life ;)