Bitcoin Forum

The contest has ended: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5211037.msg53391027#msg53391027

Thanks everyone!

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Tiny print rules: LoyceV, DdmrDdmr, Vod, and anyone else with access to secret merit data is not allowed to participate.

We have merited ~180 thousand posts so far. Can you guess whose post was the 100000th to get merited, what it was about, and who merited it?

Some hints:

• Author of the post is a well-known forum member, particularly in the altcoin boards.
• The post itself was in one of the most popular boards but not in the altcoin section. There are a few keywords, any of which I would consider as a correct answer to "what it was about".
• The sender of the merit is an occasional WO participant, not active recently.

First to guess one of the three gets a merit, first to guess all three gets 7, first to provide the link to the post... LoyceV, get back to your couch, you'll get your chance when I announce the result and you need to prove me wrong.

If this turns out to be too hard I'll drop more hints. One guess per person please, don't try to post a list of 2 million usernames. If I provide additional hints you can make another guess but please make a new post so that I can track who was first. Edited posts will be disqualified.

The way I determined the 100000th post might be subject to some debate but since this is pretty much a lucky guess anyway - I don't think that matters.

Hey, I am on my couch!

Accroding to the first hint, I guess it's tk808 since I have seen him to be active in altcoin section quite a few times; although I don't visit that section much due to less interest & more spam there.
I have no idea about other hints. It would be better if you give some more lights/hints. I will edit the post on the other hints you have given once I get.

I get that part … luckily I can’t participate, otherwise I’d have to come up with a few solutions depending on the possible selected criteria to deal with can’t tell, can I.

The first hint is a bit of a trick. I didn't say the author of the post is an active poster in the altcoin boards. You probably know this user well even if you don't visit altcoin boards.

The second one is a dead giveaway already I'm afraid. No additional hints for the time being.

The third one... as of now the sender of the merit has been inactive for more than a month.

Don't edit your post, just make a new one if you want to replace your answer, otherwise I won't know who was first. I've adjusted the rules in the OP a little bit.

I'm still scraping posts, even though loyce.club is currently offline. They'll be uploaded once it's back online.

Let me guess:  @Welsh (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=84521) >> [Guide] Reporting effectively (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4519248.msg40698575#msg40698575) >> @mdayonliner (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1432468)

As you are asking about 100000th merited post not 100000th merit and the sender of the merit, so that post has received merit only from one user.
Am I right?

No, but you're on to something here. Can't divulge more as it would make too easy for others so let's see where this gets us. Feel free to post a new guess since I did give a teeny tiny new hint.


Yes, 100000th post of ~180k merited posts.

Good deduction on your part and there is one more piece of information you can extract from that.

bones261?

10/18=0.555 so a little less than half way back in the history of merits..

And judging by the slight declining trend of merits..

I'd have to take a WAG that the 100,000th post merited happened around a year ago, or at the very least longer than the merit summaries pages keep track of them, therefore I have about zero chance of finding it..

I'll guess the 100kth merited post was made by actmyname, merited by bones261, and ironically in the meta board something to do with the topic of merits..

Well done, only one piece missing and it should be an extremely easy one for anyone paying attention.

This shouldn’t be difficult for anyone with access to all the merit sent and knows what they are doing.

Without looking at any data, I would say the merit was given a year+ ago if there have been 180k posts merited to date. I don’t see anyone reasonably guessing without access to the all time merit data.

Edit:

It sounds like you are playing the numbers game.

Hah... this? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5099328.msg49304699#msg49304699

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5054473.msg48830835#msg48830835

I guess none of actmyname & hosseinimir93 guess is correct since in the second post of this topic suchmoon has hinted out the post was a giveaway thread/post where bones261 handed out the merit. None of the post you 2 linked is about giveaway.

My guess:
Person: suchmoon
Sender: bones261
Post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4661300.msg48832540#msg48832540

They didn't guess correctly but not for the reason you stated. "dead giveaway" is an expression: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dead_giveaway

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5111069.msg49954107#msg49954107

 ::)

Yeah basically..


Looks like I hit 2/3 somehow miraculously, bones is correct getting morvillz7z a merit (beat me by less than 1 minute), and the guess wasn't correct but not for the reason of board and topic? actmyname being the last incorrect part?

Does that statement count as a "clue" allowing another guess?

Ok, a couple more notes.

You don't need to try to guess the exact URL. I've sent two merits in this thread so there is clearly only one of the three items still unknown but even if you guess all three it still wouldn't be enough to identify the post. It's far easier to just find the missing piece and not worry about the exact post.

All you need to do is figure out why I merited eddie13's post in this thread and scroll up a little bit.


Yes, feel free.

bones261 meritted Welsh/mdayonliner?

I'd say bones261 meriting Welsh on Meta.

There are two potential posts from around a year ago which fit that criteria, one about censorship and one about voting. Is it cheating that I found these two posts using BPIP?

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You want something weird with it, like pickles?

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I missed the bit on the first page where you said the post was only merited by a single user, so I change my guess to this one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5095556.msg49160405#msg49160405

I'll let it slide for a bucket of ice cream. And you're wrong anyway.

Colonel Mustard in the Study with a Candlestick

Let me guess the last time. I have checked all the merit sent by bones261 around March 2019, I guess bones261 meritted cryptohunter(May be this is why you are talking about this  :D
Probable link to the post- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5103988.msg49743991#msg49743991

Ok. Since one of the three inputs from eddie is right, excluding bones261, either actmyname or something to do with merits have to be correct.

But few guesses have already exhausted the possibility of actmyname. So most probably something to do with merit is correct. My next guess is lovesmayfamilis. He's pretty active in altcoin section.

Yes. And:

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So there is another wrinkle thrown into this whole thing and this qualifies as a hint so feel free to guess again. Someone got caught cheating.

Bones didn't merit anyone in the recipes thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5145923.0)..

So basically bones merited someone (actmyname) on Meta for thread/post about Merit  approx a year ago.
This is what I came up with till now with my poor English.

Who's this cheater >:( >:(

And "someone" is a well-known forum member (this was the first hint).

Bones merited Welsh's post on censorship?  ???

That's between the cheater and the Almighty who is no doubt striking the poor sod with a lightning at this very moment. (not to be construed as a hint of any kind)


And a metric ton of other hints, what is taking you all so long!!!  ;D

I'm still on my couch, just saying....

nullius (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3013604.msg30997322#msg30997322)

I'm praying to be back on my couch about now.

It must be right under our noses.

Blast! I totally forgot about nullius! I'll get back to working on my newt cure immediately.

bones261 -> theymos -> account recoveries ?

Lauda (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5085815.msg48725590#msg48725590)

nutildah?

Merit sender: bones261
Merit receiver: mprep

For this post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5095556.msg49160405#msg49160405

We have a winner, congratulations hosseinimr93!

Here is the 100000th post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5095556.msg49160405#msg49160405

Thank you all for participating!

Below is the logic behind my hints, let me know if you consider any of them misleading - I'm open to sending additional merits if I screwed something up.

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I think one of the global moderators qualifies as "well-known". With the additional hint this was supposed to be easy:


I mean who is known in altcoin boards without posting much there, if not the moderator? Who is known even to those who don't visit the altcoin boards - I mean he even authored the rules thread pinned here in Meta!

hugeblack - intentionally or not - had the right idea and got another hint:


o_e_l_e_o got it right but I disqualified him for making two attempts and for editing the post, which produced another hint that was probably too vague to be of any use. Or perhaps it confused matters even more because o_e_l_e_o asked about cheating for another reason and then I said "I'll let it slide" so some of you may have thought he couldn't be the cheater.

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Meta is quite popular and merit is a popular topic here so eddie13 got this with a scattershot, which is what I expected with that hint. Another keyword that would have worked is "video", possibly some others, but "merit" was the most likely one by a mile, even if not the most accurate.

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Not sure how morvillz7z figured this out, perhaps the second hint helped:

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Here is how I determined the 100000th post:

Took all merited posts and the timestamps of when those posts received their first merit. Sorted by the timestamp and took #100000 in that list.

DdmrDdmr and LoyceV got the same result, with DdmrDdmr being quicker therefore winning the unofficial contest of forum bots because of a clear technological advantage (hint: SQL).

I'll have you know I didn't edit my post, I was just borrowing Foxpup's time machine. ;)

This was fun!!

Good job hosseinimr93 however you found it exactly..

Thank you suchmoon for this enjoyable contest.
You are really creative.

Honestly, I couldn't find the answer if I didn't know the merit sender is bones261. Thank you morvillz7z or I didn't know 180,000 posts have been merited.

It's about 1 year and 11 months the merit system has been implemented. So, I expected that post to be made on January 2019.

I checked merits sent by bones261 in that month considering 2 facts:
1. bones261 should be the only user that have merited that post. (Read this post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5211037.msg53389690#msg53389690).)
2. The merit receiver should be well-known.

I checked many posts. If there were no other user that had merited the post, I visited the profile of merit receiver to check whether he has made many posts in Altcoin sections or not.
I didn't found any qualified post until I saw the merit sent to mprep.
I was sure mprep is the well-known user suchmoon was talking about.

That's right, that was the other potential piece of information I was referring to (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5211037.msg53389752#msg53389752).

Well done and well deserved.

Let's all wish o_e_l_e_o a speedy recovery after the lightning strike and the beating he's gonna get from Foxpup.

No, i got it straight from the initial clue, WO participant + not active recently , bones was literally the first name that came to my mind.

Was bones a merit source at that time? I thought one would have a better chance to send the 100kth merit.

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This got me puzzled though...if we knew the sender and recipient, and the board, why wouldn't be able to identify the post?

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Anyway, good project sir!!! When bounty 2?  ;D

Technically the same person could have merited multiple posts of the same author on the same board, right? It narrows it down a lot but it's not a direct pointer to a specific post.

I have to say though that I made that statement without looking at how many other posts would match that, and it turns out - not many, particularly if you consider the date range:

https://bpip.org/smerit.aspx?to=mprep&from=bones261

On the other hand, even without knowing the recipient hosseinimr93 was able to figure out the exact post.