Bitcoin Forum

I am curious to know is there a validity period for sMerits sending? How long will the sMerits will be available to send to other person? Will it expire?

If there is a time limit for sending sMerits, then who owns the sMerits should get a notification or be aware of that deadline. So that the sendable merits should not get wasted.

There wasn't an expiration, everyone can hoard their merits as long as they could. but base on these statements, hoarding merits will not benefit us and they will make an update in the future regarding this matter. If you see some posts that are worthy of it give it a shot.

There's only sMerit deadlines for merit sources , but for normal users there currently is not limit/deadline. However, it has been proposed that sMerits should decay to encourage users to spend them, but nothing has been implemented for that yet. Merit sources "pool" of merit refreshes every 30 days, and therefore they are encouraged to use up all of their sMerit within those 30 days.

For merit sources, is the date fixed for the replenishment of allocated smerit? Or it depends on when they run out (in 30 days)?

Do you think such will be implemented, when you have to understand that some users do not really have a plethora of Smerits and are probably cautious with how they spend it, so when they see the best kind of posts, based on their judgement they'll be able to show appreciation.

I think if it's to be implemented, it's should be for users who have let's say about 50 Smerits and above and haven't sent out any in a particular period of time.

See:

it's a rolling 30 day cycle, so any merit you spend from your source is going to be replenished exactly 30 days after the moment you distribute it;

perhaps changing it to fixed replenishment at the beginning of every month would be a better idea because I suspect some merit sources
might feel in a rush to allocate as soon as they receive the source merits so as not to delay the cycle, and possibly when they later come across far more remarkable posts through the month, they might have run out already and have to skip them...

The meta board is again getting clogged with topics centered on merit description and which was answers can be found with a little effort put into research.

Now,  there is no point hoarding your smerits as they do not add any value to your rank, but there is also no repercussion for not sending merits, except you are a merit source.

Nice post!
Some high ranking members don’t send/share sMerit. I think it’s really stupid to hoard them & it totally goes against what theymos intended when he implemented the Merit system.

I understand people are busy in RL but it’s not difficult to browse the forum and send Merit to deserving posts. I send out every single one I have available & I’m a Merit source.

Really?  I haven't noticed that there have been an inordinate number of them lately.  Back when the merit system came out and then after the 1-merit requirement to achieve Jr. Member went into effect, it seemed like every other thread (or more) was about merits.  Compared to those two occasions, Meta has been downright quiet as far as merit threads are concerned.

I doubt it.  Theymos had floated that idea around since the beginning of the merit system and it hasn't happened yet.  There might be some sMerit hoarding by senior members who couldn't care less about the merit system (gameristo (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=214455) comes to mind) or who are inactive, but I don't see how decaying those sMerits would solve any problems.

As far as when merit sources get their monthly replenishment, it's been my experience that it's usually on a specific date--that's how it is for me, I think, but I haven't really been paying close attention.  I still have a hell of a lot of earned sMerits to give out and I haven't run out of either supply in quite a while.

Then again, giving merits sometimes attract people who question you and think somehow it's an abuse. Might actually be better to just not give merits at all to avoid drama.

I think I get sMerits every few days. I notice it only when it's 0, and then a few days later its up by 20, then a few days later, it's up by another 20 or so. If I don't send any merits for a week, its up to about 100 or so.

Totally agreed, we have a few users in our local section not participating in the Merit system and that's slowing down the Merit flow a lot. They are online every day but didn't send a single sMerit yet just because they seem to dislike the new system.
While we can't enforce them to participate, their egoistic "boycott" isn't helping new users to rank up for good posts and might be unfavorable for the general impression of Bitcoin users (rich, don't want to share (which isn't true if you see the majority of helpful members taking time to explain, writing guides or the generous quarter prediction giveaways / collectible giveaways)).
It's just sad to see how up to 300 sMerit are stuck on their accounts (per account (!)) just because they don't like to participate. That's almost half of the monthly Merit allocation on the German board. Sending sMerit doesn't cost anything if they are online anyway several days every week.  ???

I don't know if it's appropriate to delete sMerits of active (online) accounts after they were online several times but didn't spend a single sMerit for more than a year and allocate the deleted sMerit to Merit sources instead.

I know that there is no point hoarding sMerit but my intention to create this thread was to know whether there is a validity period for sending our sMerits, so that it may not go wasted. Even I have read this message -

It is mentioned that they reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future but there is no where mentioned about the date or time period when sMerits will be decayed or destroyed. I am new and I have only 1 sMerit to send but there are many Members, Sr. Members, Legendary Members who will have so many sMerits to share. If they have not sent yet, they can send that without allowing it to decay.

I was hoping that the algorithm would be more sophisticated to allow for the award of sMerits as rewards for those who have completed the entire source or sent to certain sections based on the distribution of merit.

The current version misses the merits of a lot of good posts

How many smerits each of these merit sources get every month and can i see a list of people who are currently the merit sources ?

This has been done for a long time, by other members, they do not keep sMerit, everything has been given to other members, who are entitled to receive it.
Don't worry, sMerit won't rot.

Most generous merit senders, all time (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat)

Most generous recent merit senders (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsend)

Indeed:

There is no public (nor privately compiled) tracking of how many sMerits a Merit Source gets per month. A few have disclosed it at some time or other, but that’s it, and it can range from as low as a dozen to several hundreds some in the upper hundreds range). The aggregate is currently:
There is no real need to know how many a sMerit Source has nor spends (aside from inner forum control), and it would only lead to groupies posting all around where Merit Sources posts (more than now). There is a thread here that managed to find out who many of them are. If you're very keen on it, you can try to locate it (clue: it's on Meta, and last edited no further than a quarter of a fortnight ago).

This data just contains only the top merits sender list. But it doesn't contain the list of members who have more sMerits and it is not sent at all. There are many members who still have many sMerits and they do not want to send those, as they think it is a time waste and some do not like the Merit system.


My point was about the validity of our sMerit not the validity of Merit sources.

I wanna let you know that there is no expire date for sMerit. You can use your sMerit anytime. It doesn't matter that you are using your sMerit today or 1 month later. It will remain same on your account.

It is to notify you that forum authority reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future.

Also if they declare it publicly then those Merit sources inboxes will be filled up with PM asking for the merits. Theymos also told the exact.



Merit sources are the ones who will have a lot of smerit to be send. Anyone with a common sense can guess from the above links who are the merit sources.

It's fairly straightforward to work out who the merit sources are on this forum by looking at the merit received, and given. If someone was dedicated to pestering merit sources they would be able to figure it out. Although, I haven't had too many users message me to merit them. Only a few now, and again.

Good, i'm someone who's almost empty always as well, I did asked to be a merit source and I do send every single one, I have the time to do so and would easily be able of spreading more, as I think hoarding is stupid cause the merit are here for reasons....If however I would be very busy IRL and not able of sending them out, then still for sure I know a lot of very good members/posters who could use some in order to rank up or because of high re-send value of merit... whatever they will be distributed when I have.

Here's an easier way to see who are merit sources:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources

Changes in the merit system results in more posts than usual about merits. Meta is usually never really quiet on issues regarding merits, and I do not have a problem with merit discussion and analysis. But I had come across a couple of redundant threads which has been answered previously.

21045 merit = to low amount for active forum member/sources

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5164223.msg51788098#msg51788098