Bitcoin Forum

Suddenly came on mind about quick merit earn method & outcome. Since most of newbies away from meta/reputation so I wonder to share on this board. When you will see this case, (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215876.0) then you will realized the point that about what I am talking. Anyway I will try to explain briefly.

Above mentioned user got red tag from multiple DT members due to spin/plagiarize post from some other sources. And I believe that tags are appropriate since that guy admitted himself (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215242.msg53547429#msg53547429) about spin or plagiarism. He had copied from other articles and likely spin or change some words by himself. That's totally against forum rules. You are not allowed to make plagiarized post.

The most dangerous and abusive behaviour is, he gave some answers of pre-planned questions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215242.msg53538254#msg53538254). That means, he prepared question and answer by himself, he made post (questions) by his alt or by friend's accounts and  immediately answered before someone else. By this way he gained lots of merits. Even me, I have sent him merits since I had not looked deeply about posting time. However somehow his shady behaviour has been exposed and got multiple tag.

Here is the lesson for all over forum user especially for newbies. That means that guy want to gain merit so quickly for rank up. But remember every quick method is harmful especially on this forum. You may realized even on your real life, short cut or quick method for anything is harmful.

There no way earn merit by quick method, in a result your account will be worthless. Because forum people is to intelligent than you. So there is no very easy way to skip such behaviour that I mentioned above.

Just be a decent users, create unique post with your own idea, you can search or study from other source but you are not allowed to spin or plagiarize from others. So many users rank up by their hard work, so you should do same. Learn as much you can and share your best experiences and knowledge with this community. I am quite sure community will reward you somehow.

There are so many ways to earn merit.

My case for example. I have 25 posts and 17 merits. Why? Because I interact with people, making jokes, answering questions, etc..
We don't need to grab some stuff from elsewhere and post here to earn or prove something.

We are on a board/forum and the main goal of forum is interact each other, sharing ideas, opinions...

If I need an article, I will google it and, off course, I will ask if I can't find something. This is why we are here after all. To learn and teach and share thought about different subjects. Not only to read about them.

But I think people forget how important the concept of community is to concentrate about posting a lot of topics. There are so many topics where OP don't even look at replies  :-\

Slowly, carefully, you will reach your goal  ;)

You rightly said, such a method is wrong.
The one who runs fast falls at the end. who walks slowly also travels more.

Oh do not show off here, please. More than half of your merits were given by the same member Halab, it more smells like cheating rather than clear game.
Maybe I am wrong and I even hope for that, but I do not believe that it is possible to earn merits just by making jokes and answering questions. In this case everybody would take merits easily.
I think to earn merits you need to spend like minimum 15 mins to write a comment, to it would be long and maximum informative. Add to that I noticed that posts with pictures and graphics earn merits in the most of cases.

Halab is moderator on French Local Board and he is Merit Source. Please respect him, and me at the same time, avoiding wrong accusations.
As I said, there are different ways to earn them. You can have another opinion, I respect that. But some courtesy is always appreciated.

People always want the instant method. They don't know about the process, waste so much time, and learning hard. The target is only want to get quick rank up to able participate bounty campaign to get money. As we know this is techology era, so many people wanted to find the best and the fast earn money. After knowing this forum, they will search to get money from it. Then, making the instant cheating way to get it.

It's totally a waste of time to find a easy process to get a merit that's why many users here indulge with trading/selling merits to rank up easily but end up their account compromise and got a red trust as per OP list indicated. Maybe low rank users should take all organically since if you do a hard work for it for sure you will enjoy the every single merits you will earn when posting and helping people here.

I hope the perpetrator eventually learnt a lesson about trying to cheat through the system. You will finally be caught, it doesn't matter when. He wasted all that time trying to rank up and now his account is rendered useless and can't be trusted by any sane member in the forum.

Newbies who are concentrating to earn merits from their first post have chances of being involved in such shady activities and they are not really newbies in most of the cases. But not every newbie who earned more merits in a quick time is abusing the system for example nullius, he is extremely knowledgeable and gets attention from forum members very quickly due to his technical knowledge about cryptos.

There are too many ways to abuse the merit system, they are very hungry on it just to have in a different way. Most cases I have been observed are eventually on local they are exchanging each other. Maybe they had already built a good relation, something friends or co-workers. If they are alt giving merit to each other they will not long last I guess. Of course, they will probably run out of merit to spend.
There are obvious giving of merit from those greed people that easily to be busted.

It's not a quick merit earn method, rather it's an unethical means of earning merits on the forum and should be discouraged (through the DT system). Spin plagiarism is against the forum rules and is punishable by a permanent ban. There is no rule against answering pre planned questions but it's an unethical practice and falls under the ambits of the trust system.

To gain merits, make the effort to research, accept criticism and learn from it as well.

Oh wow, that guy now has 3 negative flags? That really escalated quickly!

Didn't expect a newbie to suddenly shoot all the way up to Full Member but it did raise a little suspicion.

Guess TMAN's not gonna get his refund :D

So we can send merits to the same user went we found a post/thread was made by him is really interesting? talking about merits should talk/discuss the topic he received the merits. If sending merits to the same user was a problem, then "merits source" gonna get a big problem.

Did you know, WO thread you can earn merits with jokes/memes and nobody cares about the circulation transaction merits there. Everyone can freely send his merits to which post he was like, and the joke still one of them. Same users or not as long they not abused merits by sending to his alt/buying merits from other people or his real friend its not a problem, but sending merits to non-valuable posts was very unfortunate/wasting the merits.

Long/short post it doesn't matter as long was valuable, contributive, helping/solved some other problem and relate to the topic itself.

There's nothing wrong with earning merits fast on its own, I've seen some low-rank members who have more merits than activity or even posts - this happens when a person is extremely knowledgeable of Bitcoin and makes good posts that demonstrate their knowledge.

What you are describing is cheating the merit system and breaking many rules of the forum, so no wonder it gets people banned and results in red trust. I think the person that you shows as an example fully realized that they were up to no good, they just thought they will get away with it. Still, newbies can sometimes break rules without realizing it, like when they copypaste articles - so it's important to learn the rules of the forum first.

If a poster does  not buy merits that help him to get merits quickly, merits naturally come very randomly.

Randomly because it depends on how many users read that post and how many of them have smerits left in their accounts. Sometimes I personally like one post because it is helpful but I don't have any smerit left, 0 or only 0.5. Honestly to say, if I don't merit one post immediately when I read and like it, I mostly forget about that post and rarely to come back to give merit to it.

Hence, merits might come to poster fastly at big amount or come very sparsely with very small amount.

Well, I guess there is but it is once in a year. The 10th year bitcoin and the forum celebration contest that made by theymos there a lot of forum members who ranked up. For me, --that was a quick method of gaining merit if you know how to make your own art masterpiece.
Indeed, I agree with you that it will become a worthless account once it is busted by DT members and investigators in this forum. They are very intelligent in fiding shady and malicious activity in the forum.

Indeed, this thread of yours will help those newbies that wanted to rank fast in a quick way but improper of getting merit. They should learn first and keep helping others via posting constructive posts.

It's normal to aim for merits and wanting to rank up but cheating and violating the rules is not fair. I didn't expect that he's smart enough to think of doing that with pre-answered questions. But other members here are way more smarter to notice it, which is good. Just like what I have said before, merits are for those who deserves it. It takes time and efforts to earn merits. Do not rush things, it's better to work things the hard way and use your skills and knowledge to earn merits.

Just want to add that if you're going to make a thread, add the links of your sources of the articles to avoid plagiarism. You can share that article here in the forum. You can paraphrase it, just include the link and give your insights as well.

Pardon. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Well, in my message you can see that I stayed some place for being wrong.
As I see the forum is full of people who do not afraid to report any suspicious moves and mods do their job.
That's why there are so many newbies here, who were registered in 2019 year - they cheated and thought nothing will happen. So now they try to start from the beginning to not loose such nice source of income and promotion. But in the most of cases they cheat again, because with rank of newbie you can't do almost nothing here.

Hey dude, why are you so salty ?
Yes you are wrong, Halab is the only merit source the french board has.
He is always fair and only give merit to people and post that deserve them, even he disagree with the people or the content.
I've been there 6 years + and he is the most respectable mod we had.

But maybe you are salty because you only earned 2 merit in more than 4 months !
And even your 2 merits were "begging" in a giveaway board.

You don't  need a 15min post to earn merit, you need usefull information, constructive argumentation.
Sometime one or 2 lines can be enough.

I saw so many merit abuse that it made my question everyone and change the way I sent merit.
Many want to upgrade their ranks just to make it for some next bounty, so they use alt accounts for this,
or something OP wrote here, with asking stupid questions and pretending like they don't know something.

Anyone thinking of trying to game this forum stands a high chance of being hammered. And sometimes it can happen years down the line like the slews of older accounts suddenly being wiped out for plagarism that took place years before.

There are people out there who are very vigilant, very sharp and very committed to nailing anyone they unearth and they seem be getting better at it. I think they go ludicrously overboard sometimes but they have the interests of keeping this place scum free at heart.

The chances are extremely high that they're considerably better at uncovering you than you are at staying covered. And it only takes one slip.

I myself mainly complain about my haemorrhoids, crap holidays and prostate the size of a basketball yet still pick up the odd merit without having to resort to subterfuge.

Being yourself ultimately produces much better and much more sustainable results and as a double bonus it's likely a shit ton less effort too.

It is better to avoid shortcuts. I don't mind ranking up like a snail(slowly), so far I'm learning so much along the way as i rank up. Those "smart" shortcuts are not supposed to even be an option, you could be winning with them for a moment, but a time could come and everything would be unravelled, where would you start from again then.

If you have intentions of being in the forum for a long time, do what's right and ethical, I'll prefer being on the forum just to discuss even without ranking up, than ranking up through plagiarised texts and getting a permanent ban eventually.

The only way to survive and prosper in this forum is, to be hones and hardworking because these cheap tactics can be encoded som or the other day and you will end up losing credibility and requirement to join the signature campaigns as I suppose this user had been doing this in order to earn quick merits and join any signature campaign but it has backfired him and his genuine efforts if he made any would have also gone in vain due to this unethical activity. Just be yourself and keep learning and sharing knowledge and merits will find you.

There are not many short cuts to success in life. Those who go for short cuts always fall down.
The reason why many new members are running after merits is because of bounties and other incentives at this forums are only for seniors members.

From a Meriter’s point of view I’m sure I’ve been tricked into meriting posts that use all sorts of tricks to seem legit (pre-planned fake conversations, alt-accounts playing dumb, alt-accounts playing wise, and so on). I assume that is going to happen to some extent, hopefully minimal, but after distributing nearly 4,5K sMerits that is bound to happen to some degree. I normally take a bit more convincing from accounts I’ve never encountered before, and generally merit in ones and twos per se, but even so the account referenced in the OP got a few sMerits from me.

Now the cases that may eventually be noticed are through a slip of plumae in a post, or raising a largish amount of merits in a small period of time, drawing attention to the account and leading to someone digging well into it.There are likely many smaller cases that go under the radar, but who can tell.

I know that the forum has a very strict punishment for using plagiarism. So I don't understand why he didn't get a permanent ban. After all, this participant has not yet managed to do something good for the forum, but its violation is limited only to negative tags.

the main reason for every forum is to learn, interact, read and most importantly, have fun. as this community, it is all about cryptocurrency. for users that wants to enjoy or learn about crypto, here is the right place and make sure you give back to the community whatever you learn.
incase you don;t know, there are thousand people joining this platform daily so there must be newbies. don;t be greedy to share what you learn please. Knowledge they say is power. teach the newbies what you learn to avoid trouble.

Definitely, we will be rewarded if we make our own mark  :D I see many people who are very positive in this forum, but that positivity does not bring them any merits. Their common point is inadequate attention to the topics. They often post "vague" posts, some never read what OP and others have said. It is like the posts are done just to demonstrate the operation, with no real support to the community. Most people who work in this forum, whether this job or other job, we are looking forward to money  :D But the value of money must come from your contribution  ;)
Hopefully this topic will make some of them understand the value of their contribution and self-worth

Trading merits for a few dollars is also punishable, I don't know where and how such people committing this, can be found. Though, that user got what he deserved and it is a lesson for those who look for shortcuts and end up in forum morgue by having their account totally worthless. I ask all the newbies and lower rank users of the forum not to take any such shortcuts please because putting efforts to gain something feels great 'if you have that 'conscience' in you.

It pops up on Fiverr every now and then. I've seen prices of $15 for one merit which is a pretty mind blowing figure. No doubt it takes place in murkier corners of the internet too.

Considering how broke and desperate many a shitposter must be I don't understand why they don't dig deep and channel that to, y'know, non shitposts for a little while just to see what happens.

I understand that new members sometimes don't have patience and wants everything now,  not later but I think current forum system is really fair and good for everyone.
Good and hard working members progress and others who try to cheat get ban.
Be honest, work hard,  contribute something to the community and you will be rewarded.
For others there is no place  here.
For users who feel that their posts deserves merits we have a lot merit giveaway topics or they can start their own topic.

It's funny that more often than not, users who are directly related to bounty companies ask about their promotion levels.
After all, if you think about it, why do you need to get a higher rank on the forum? Or in order to earn money, although this is rather strange considering the decadent situation in the Riots market now.

Or in order to increase your status in the community and fit into the community and become its deserved part, get the community’s vocation as a full member.
But as a rule, such people do not ask similar questions; they prove their belonging to the community through their actions.

It seems to me that most people don’t understand that getting a rank will simply not give them anything.
This will not increase their profit, and will not add respect among the community if their rank is not earned deservedly.

Great! Funny, friendly, enthusiasm is always the key to get interest from people. Good mind bro.

You can joke or reply only when you understand context of any thread. The user OP mentioned created his own questions and replied on his own as he did not even have the ability to understand anything. But, he was trying to spam by playing those cheap tricks.

It is to be noted that the moderators ate awake and alert to maintain the discipline. His tricks screwed him off. That is a less to all other scammers.

I don't think this is the only tricky case of merit abuse. A lot of people are willing to do a lot to make money. In my opinion, such behavior shows disrespect to all forum users and such a user must have a red tag.

Sharing knowledge and getting knowledge from this forum is more important then earning merits. I am perfectly OK without merit since I am getting what I want to get from here. There are many who prefer to buy merits rather then getting them through posting interesting stuff.

The moral of the story is that you may get merits or survive by these artificial tactics but one day you will be caught and all these efforts of your will be in vein. If it more better to spend your time and efforts in writing your own posts without trying to be over clever and slowly you will move up.

I think if it is your passion to write and post you will rank up more quickly than if your only motive is to get merits for earning money.

In other words, whatever dishonest things you do in darkness or when you think no one is seeing  shall one day be revealed or exposed. Obviously most of the merit abusers have only one motive here of earning money not knowing that acquiring knowledge through try to learn, helping others and being a good member here in the long run has even much better benefits.

And people do that will never learn anything since they cheat to and make those things faster for there selves and for sure they will be unmask and everything will be revealed once there is a lapses on what they are doing that's why it's better for those who think about that to do it on legit and unique way so that all efforts will not be wasted and I'm sure true efforts will get rewarded soon.

I saw a post about asking how one can earn a merit, I don't want to answer because some already posted with the best answers they can get.
I think this thread is what they needed to see. The hunger for merits will made them use unacceptable methods just to earn one. They need to understand more about what will be its effect in the long term. Let's say they got what they wanted, rankep up as fast as possible, however we can't deny they lost a lot of knowledge they should have learned when they choose the right path.

I hope they will learn that it is enjoyable and knowledgeable to just choose the right path. Enjoy the process of learning and in no time you won't notice that you are already contributing constructive post and you will be surprised you are already receiving merits, and that feeling is heaven, because you work hard for it.

The rules has has been the same and every member knows the consequences of breaking such rules. you either get temporal banned or banned from here.
personally, i don;t believe in quick merit method. every merit been given out here is at the owners digressions. our comprehension are different and understanding varies. some post might not mean anything to you but it may mean something to another person.