Bitcoin Forum

Sorry for another topic about merit guys! But I wanted to tell this to everyone, especially to newbies. :)

A high number of merits earned by an individual is a sign that he is a quality poster but it doesn't mean every less earned member is not knowledgeable enough. Earning merits depends on a lot of factors like which section we would like to post/discuss and which local board we belong to. So some members can earn more if their board and section have high active members and merit sources.

Actually what I wanted to tell is, if you are not making enough merits even after you are giving your maximum effort doesn't mean that you are not deserved to be on bitcointalk at someday you will get caught by the merits sources until that keep posting and learn new things which you are being yourself.

I don't think it makes sense to try hard when posting - the more natural you are, the more the community appreciates you. Of course, there are highly reputable members out here who try their best on improving the forum or Bitcoin itself, but if you're going to post just for the post count increase, posting a line or bulshitting in 10 is literally the same thing.

I guess the mistake most make is that they rush in to get to higher ranks in order to earn BTC on a weekly basis, but that can be seen from a mile and affects your account on the longer term. If you feel like writing a wall of text, do it. If you feel like writing just a line, again - do it. But don't shitpost and don't spam and it won't be long before someone will start appreciating your posts.

Merit is everything on Bitcointalk, having merit means you are a good poster, everybody will like to read your posts and topics you created, and if you are established member, other members will respect you even Theymos and other staffs will like you and even give you merit when they see seriousness in you by the useful post you have.

If you check BPIP, you will see that only recognized members are there in which 100 people with highest merits are there, having merit is a good thing, it means you are contributing to the progress of the forum and through that you are respected and you deserve it.

But to ask questions, you are welcome, but if you contribute will be better because those that ask the questions are helped by these members. These established members learn a lot from here, and here makes them read more online before they gain more knowledge.

Exactly, be yourself while posting just don't try to copy others to earn merits which I am insisting members from a long-ago but people think if we are not making any changes in our posting style how can we get merits but the real thing is you can get merits only if you post good quality contents not just the high number of characters.

Great topic. Though, I'm relatively new but I do have a suggestion to make.
If you focus on merit you may give up when its not coming in the short run.
If you focus on value and knowledge, then the merit these two will produce merits both in the short run and in the long run.

This is so true, merit system is far from perfect, for example I see many posts that I think deserve at least some merit, but I'm always out of smerit, and I know that I have no chance of becoming a merit source, because that position is for very established forum users only.

Plus, the whole goal of this forum is to learn about Bitcoin, not earning merit or money. You can do this even without creating an account here.

If someone join this forum only for enriching knowledge about Bitcoin, Bitcoin transaction, Bitcoin mining, Atlcoin etc then I will say merit is nothing for him. But if someone join this forum for earning money then I will say merit is everything for him. You can see this in Signature campaign.

Merit sources can miss good posts but if one user is a good poster and keep up his good works and efforts from day to day, someday his posts will be caught by merit sources and others. Hence, some of his good posts will receive merits. There is a topic to help good posters earning merits: [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0)

I often see merit giveaway topics for newbies,  some even I started in this section,  so I think newbies also have chance to earn merits but I agree it's not easy for them to get merits if they don't have enough knowledge and experience in btc.
Before we didn't have merit system and it was more easy to rank up in the forum.
Now new users should make more effort in quality of their posts what is not bad in my opinion.
Some local sections probably needs more merit sources because some local users usually don't write posts in English part of the forum and have less chance to get merits.
Of course merits are not important for all members here.

Well said mate, it is not all about merit, there are some factors that may affect why some posts don't have merit.
1. It is not that useful post.
2. It is not updated news.
3. Plagiarism.
4. Posted in a wrong board.
5. Already posted before.

Those are the only things I know why some posts are not getting merit, so always keep creating useful and help posts to help everyone in this forum.

There is no board that has the highest chance to be given by merit as long as you have created a useful posts it will be given a merit.

Wrong !, not all news is always get merit... are you think history can be update? Even satoshi not update his post, he still get merit from other user Welcome to the new Bitcoin forum! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5.msg28#msg28)


Wrong again !, Are you know why people is copy-paste from other post/content? Because he is lazy to thinks and other people/websites have better answer than him. It's why he plagiarism high quality content to get merit


You can see HardFacts get 3 merit by plagiarism


This is nonsense reasons, if you post in wrong board, your post can be moved by moderator easily. As we know people in this forum is often using "report to moderator" if they see a thread in wrong board.


Again and again, wrong again !, have you thinks before give answers?

First [SCAM] CryBet Plagiarized Whitepaper (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5231400.0)

Second [SCAM] Crybet Casino/Sports Betting- Plagiarized content  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5235012.0)

You can see first this accusations is created by Jawhead999 on March 09, 2020, 03:05:16 AM. Then, Rikafip make same accusations on March 24, 2020, 06:33:15 AM and he still get merit

If you don't know what you said, better to shut up and learn in this forum than giving false answers

There is no perfect system, and merit system certainly confirms that rule. New members who are not familiar with how this system works are often confused when they see one line or few words post merited, because they think merits are only for quality posts. While this is one of the important criteria, it is not crucial for most members when they merit some post.

What one should never do is beg for merits or post something that is against his beliefs just to please others and get some merits. It is true that merits are not everything, but on the other hand they show how low or high you are ranked in this community. Not only in terms of how good or bad is your posting, but also in your character, what you have in your signature or even in your name or avatar.

The world is a cruel place, the forum is no exception, the sooner you understand it, the better it will be for you.

Great job mate, always remind all the beginners out there about this thing, I have seen so many posts by beginners about getting merit, actually it is not bad at all because you are a beginner and you have so many questions on your mind and to solve all those questions you have to ask about it by creating thread about the things you want to ask.

But do not mind that because merit will be given to you if you will focus on how are you going to participate well in this forum because once you have created a useful and helpful posts, someone will give you merit by doing that.

Well said mate, merit is everything, it will determine how good are you in this forum, the higher the merit you are, the better, but if you have not much merit, it doesn't mean that you are not good, knowledge and experience are the most important thing to have before being a better person in this forum.

Couldn't agree more. They might now know it, but it's easy to differentiate just casually helpful posts from those posts that are obviously just purposely made longer just to make the post more "constructive" and to potentially attract merit-givers.

Take a look at the Trading Discussions section. Every few days you're going to see the very redundant sort of "how to trade properly". And the content is mostly just various spin-offs of "do your research first", "deposit only small amounts", "don't go all in", "control your emotions", and such LOL.

We should not really focus on earning merits because if you do, you will just get discouraged and will compare your posts with other members who have a lot of merits. For me, merit is just a bonus because of your worthy post. Most users here are generous with merits, you just have to show that you deserve getting one.

Merits will come to us, sometimes even without expecting it, you will receive merit. It means someone appreciates or agreed to your posts. Everyone is welcome here especially if you really wanted to learn more about cryptocurrency.

I agree with this one. How we see the importance of merit, depends on our purpose here in the forum.

Good point but merit is just a huge thing in this forum. I do get the point, low number of merits does not mean that you are not promoting "quality" in this forum in terms of your posts. But unlike before, this is the main thing in order to make profit in this forum, sad to say, unless you are in this forum to just learn and intereact which is the main purpose of forums. Without enough merit you won't be able to join campaigns which is the main source of profit in this forum. Although there are airdrops which do not require merits as well as campaigns, we cannot deny the fact how important merit is.
Some posts are not getting merits simply because other users chose not to give one for their own reasons such that they are not that familiar with the creator of the post (some are onky giving merits to other users they know), some thinks that it is a common topic and the concern is already answered in other posts or the idea was discussed already, and other reasons but the bottomline is that, we should respect still their decision of not giving so. Just continue your "thing" because we are having a wide community if users that can give you one or more someday.

Indeed, beginners should not mind first on how they will be going to get some merits in this forum, the thing that they should prioritize is "how they are going to learn from this forum", that should be the thing on their mind because knowledge is really important in every aspect of our life especially in this forum to be familiar about cryptocurrency.

If you have knowledge about cryptocurrency, if you keep reading and understanding some posts in this forum it will benefit you in the future because you will use all of that to gain money and to help some other beginners.

Nice, very accurate, merit will only be important for a person in this forum if they want to make more money because as far as I know, the higher the merit the higher the rank and if you have higher rank you can make more money, but for me we should always mind the ways we're going to learn from this.

Merit is the one source that upgrades your account. The higher rank members are getting more merit as they have more knowledge about Trading as well as the technical things related to it. For example, if one newbie is posting daily some good content and some knowledge what he has learned then that constantly they are learning. There is no end of knowledge.

as for other members merit is one of the key factors here in the forum, if you have great amount of merit that you get from posting good topics and helping the forum and other members it will be easy for someone to rank up.

Yes, it is right that there are many experienced people here who don't care about merit. And they also don't make pressure to earn some merits. Again it also right that most of the most merited peoples are all experienced and knowledgeable.   

Actually the main motive of merit system is reducing spams in this forum. 

When a user does not care about merits but still keep his good works, he actually becomes a real asset of the forum. He contributes naturally and without demands of merit rewards back. Writing and discussing such ways help poster to make very good posts. Of course, they need to have experience and knowledge as you said. From the knowledge and experience plus no pressure while writing, they can contribute decent good posts with little efforts.
Thanks the system because merit has ruined life of shitposters but help the forum become cleaner and have better quality.

I think earning merit on this forum is pretty easy if people could actually understand and know where they really belong on here, the section they are happy to contribute in (meta, beginners and help etc) while they improve themselves to help others solve their problems on this forum.
Merit will chase after you not you running after getting merits.

Agree, the motive has been known since theymos implemented the merit system at the forum on January 24, 2018.


Hope of theymos that I quoted above in my opinion can be interpreted like this.

• For members who do not need merit to move rank up, they are also required to improve the quality of their posts better than before. Although merit will not affect their rankings, but if they make quality posts then they will also get merit. The amount of merit that users naturally receive can be used as a reason to refer to them as users who have contributed well to the forum. I think.
• Beginners and users who still have the potential to move rank up are emphasized to make quality posts so that the merit that will be obtained can help them to move rank up.

As far as I know, the merit system has succeeded in reducing the number of spam posts and preventing spammers from ranking. If beginners and users who still have the potential to rise rankings cant make quality posts, higher rankings will not be possible for them.

---

OP, as one of the users who have received 300+ merit, I want to know if we have a rating standard to find out posts made solely because they want to get merit and rating standard to find out posts made a natural ?

I've experienced one thing about merit - the more you think about merit and do something special to receive it, the far away merit is :D

When I've registered on the forum, in few days merit system appeared on bitcointalk. At first i felt say, that I wont be able to rank-up as quickly as others (that was the time I was fully in bounties). I continued to use forum as usually: more reading, less posting + bounty. Suddenly I've realised I had 7 merit. 7 merit - just 3 merit away from receiving member rank. I've got them quite quickly and became a Member. Further on I found such exciting game called "find scam project". It was really funny to find out all that lousy paint skills to edit project team picture and easy to find plagiarism (as I've spent some part of my free time doing freelance copy writing/re-writing). When I had free time, practiced my Russian-Englinsh translation skills and boom, I've become a Full Member. I wanted it is so bad just to be able to insert avatars (this is probably from forum childhood, when I envy ranks that wear avatars+signature).

I was not posting on the forum to get merit, merit found me by himself :D

I think merits don't have to be forced, i have seen some people chasing merits posting lot of articles and sharing hot news, and they get the merits, but i feel like is a forced way. It should be natural. If you want to get merits just be yourself and make some contributions to the forum. That's the right formula.

Your opinion is very true and this is what is happening right now. I don't want to be a hypocrite, but this is indeed the case. Besides learning about the knowledge of Bitcoin, Blockchain and crypto, I joined this forum to make money by working on bounty campaigns or participating in sugnature campaigns.

Merit becomes very important when some signature campaigns require that at least the last merit received in the last 120 days.

The best thing told by you @OP.
I believe that people who try to find best sections to earn many merits, who try to bribe high-ranked members or just copy and paste somebody else's content and gain merits are doing nothing but wasting their own account here. You've got an opportunity to be here, between a lot of knowledgeable people and an ability to learn through their experiences, gain them and be one of them one day. Most of the high-ranked members today (who have earned merits on their own) don't focus on merits at all but they just do their best, like what they are best at and then they get merited. I believe you should focus on improving yourself a bit every single day and let the merits come your way itself.

Those types of merit hunters are very easily to detect. Their post histories are full of bounty reports, and suddenly they join to discuss or simply make a long post and ask why I did not receive merit. Copy that post and search, then we mostly end up with plagiarism proof.
I totally agree with you on this. I am talking from my experience and it should be not right for all people. I did care about merit when I am newbie. Who don't care about merits because without merits you can not rank up to higher ranks. Months ago, whenever I wrote a post (I of course always try to stay on topic, and decent contents), I would go back to check my profile and that post to see it receive replies and merits or not. That's take my time for other meaningful things like reading and learning more. Now, I stop doing this but maybe because I have been a Hero member already.

Looking back, I see what you said is true.

Its simple, check their post history which is the simple and much faster way. If they are trying to join into a signature campaign so they are posting some long posts which are well constructed which will earn few merits which are needed for their signature campaign requirement to participate.

As I suspected, and it is quite simple. But if its consistent then I think it will be different.
Sometimes we will find it difficult to distinguish between natural posts and posts made just to get merit. But for me even though it is a post made to get merit but if the post is constructive, and quality then I think we should consider giving merit because making a constructive and quality post requires a little effort and time.

I think appreciating the effort and time to make quality posts wont be a problem. As long as him dont beg for merit. But this is just my perception, and you and others might be different and quality and constructive posts although the purpose of getting merit will also help the forum to reduce spam. Give a little chance and see the difference.

It's worth giving merits for them but let's see if everyone follows that strategy to get merits, they are posting something for getting merits so they are not for real discussions which will push the situation of bitcointalk to the same situation as in 2017 which is the time people making money and money from bitcointalk then the only merit was introduced to control their activities.

I am not saying their quality is less but if they change it into their natural habit as forever then it will do no harm to the community.

It's sometimes not so easy as you dictated because these users don't just stop here and continue to make new accounts and they don't hunt bounties but merits only (maybe with plagiarism or try to make many meaningless posts, but lengthy ones) and the worst part of all is that, some genuine members with genuine content do suffer a lot due to these people who do it just to get higher rank but without possessing the knowledge to reach there.

Agree with this, some members who have knowledge and post from their own knowledge in the best way they can is suffering from increasing their rank but as I said that isn't everything in bitcointalk we have to wait for the right kind of audience for our contents. :D

Very well said :). Me? I don't sweat it, just chillin. What I mean is I never push myself so hard because at the end of the day the one who will decide whether you made a quality post or not is the rest of the members here — and you can't please them all. Actually, what I only do is to communicate normally with you guys. I just try my best to convey the ideas inside my mind, share what I know and offer help if I could. That's it! Maybe I'm just fortunate that some people appreciated my posts and gave me merits lol :D.

Yes, in this case I strongly agree with your statement, which is "making a constructive and quality post requires a little effort and time" so obviously it won't hurt if we appreciate the little effort that someone has made in making a quality post and that can be useful also for many people, although each of us also has a different assessment on each post.

So much importance is given to merit because  it's the easiest way to rank up in this forum, so you can participate in bounty campaign when you can participate if even if you are a junior member because there are other options to participate like the article, linked and social media campaign, not only signature campaign, just concentrate on what you are doing and abide in forum rules.

Being yourself is really great than pretending to be a great person. :)

So there is no wonders that others appreciated your attitude but most of the times we guys maybe unnoticed but our personal satisfaction is more important than earning merits.

Yeah I agree. Even though I'm just lying between the middle of experts and morons (maybe nearer on the side of morons lol), I'm already proud of it. At least I know to myself that I'm not a cancer cell here inside our forum. So for those mediocre posters out there, I just want to say "You can do it!". You will be recognized someday, just continue the good work and remain obedient. Trust God's process :).

I'm not even 100% sure how to earn Merit. Though I was awarded 1 for a user, so I can be a jr member.

Agree though, users should be using the forum to interact and talk about a shared love of crypto/blockchain/tech, not just to raise their accs to a particular status

Nothing is impossible here, if we are desperate to achieve it then we will surely for that we need to have enough patience. :)

But people choose faster way so they switch the section from the posting habit because they feel that if we post on those sections then we will get merits for sure and if you create a thread then there is guaranteed merit for you such kind of mindset is wrong. :)

I see quite a few topics created just for the sake of increasing merit. Instead of that, people should focus on a number of key topics. Too many redundant topics are created

There is no hard and fast rules for gaining merit. If your boss wants then you can get promotion. If your interviewers wants then you will be hired.
Merit is important for every newbies. People who are trying there best but did not get any reward then they will lose hope. Many members have no patience. On the other hand who are gaining merits regularly they will not give up. They will continue to hunt merits.

Like it's been written on a number of other topics... Every user who thinks that his post deserves a Merit but didn't get one can try applying on the Merit Giveaway topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215727.0). Owner of that thread (and probably other users) will review posts and Merit the ones that truly deserve a Merit.

Merit important for newbies because he/she thinking to hard about merit and forget the most important behind merit is quality posts and member who have smerit. If you are docus on merit you will always say is hard to get merit. But, if you are focus on good post and quality post, it will easy for you to get merit.

Yeah exactly! This is very hard to resist especially if no one notices our posts for long time then we start to become desperate and change our approach or posting sections and ultimately we lose our consistency and interest and give up. That is hard to overcome but once done, then the rest of the journey is smooth  8) ;D

Gaining skills is more important than gaining merit If you have the skills then you can achieve merit Therefore you should try to increase your skills and talents without running after merit. You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people Patiently try to analyze different places and if you work according to the rules of the forum you will be able to achieve such merit.

Yes merit is not everything. Knowledge should be everything as it is the reason why people earn merit in this forum and also earn money. There are some people here earn btc not because of his/her merit but because of his/her knowledge in the field of cryptocurrency technologies like mining for example.

well its kinda both i think lets keep it real, you join to learn about crypto currency, and also to earn merit , first learning what is crypto currency but a long the way, you are earning merit, i mean what are you going to do with that merit ofcourse there are bounties, im sure you'll be happy to join those if you find out you can earn a small amount,

I dont think OP is trying to farm merits here. He just wanted to emphasis among other users about quality posting. Its not about merit at all, but the contributions made and how those post of them are being liked or helped others.

Maybe thats a mistake for a lot of who wanted to earn merits, they doing the posting to earn merits, and higher rank even merit sources will surely noticed if you are posting to help or trying to farm.

Yes but some uses their time to earn only which is why they are having a hard time to earn merits. They are prioritizing the perks but not the actual objective to be here.

Merit isn't everything in bitcointalk, but merit is everything if you want to rank up and join signature campaign. And the fact is "mostly user join this forum to join signature campaign and earn extra money". It's why most people ask about how to get merit

Good advice, few newbies are on rush to gaining higher ranks for only one reason, to make money through signature campaign on this forum, why the rush? Creating good posts and topics will earn you merits one day, most times not instantly

It is true that every user who wants to get a higher ranking then that user must make a good quality post so that other users can send merit as an award for him. For those who can post quality things, I dont think they will think about how they will get merit because they will receive merit regularly for their useful posts. While merit is important to move up the ranks and join a signature campaign, its not good to keep thinking about it. Just improve the quality of posts and we will get merit naturally.

So far I think that the merit has succeeded in turning most users to no longer be junk posters, spam and other bad things if they want to be promoted and join a signature campaign. Quality posters are what campaign managers need to help promote a company or project. Without merit, eligible posters can still join the signature campaign, because there are several campaigns that do not make it one of the requirements for participants.

Merits might be not everything in bitcointalk but merit has their places in bitcointalk. Because when any bounty is going with signature campaign ,has lots of funds towards signature category and every big merit member taking part in that take away big portion of that bounty. Even some bounty comes with the headlines that only member category can join this bounty.
So in my opinion merits isn't everything but good to have some with their brilliant work.

So I have been a member for a while here but I was never really active.
I registered here and it was just information overload when I first got here. So much knowledge, so much info, soooo much content.

I am slowly finding my way and joining some of the interesting subjects and well there are some really cool people on here!
Yes I had to find out what merit is and what its for.
I now don't solely post for merit, I just like to share my knowledge, I love to inform and learn more!

Merit isnt everything, it will come and if it doesn't oh well =)

Hope there could be a workaround for this, like if one established member has simply lost smerit, maybe it could be forwarded to a more established forum user so that other newbie forum users could be recognized somehow (if deserving).



I totally on agree this, of course.

You didn't understand what the poster wrote, many times users that aren't merit sources may want to give merits to a post, but have none to give, so they skip the post as they can't merit it;  but Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0) can help. What hatshepsut93 meant was he also finds himself in that position and is not a merit source.

Merit sources are established members, who get refilled with smerits every month to give them to good posts on the forum, though I consider hatshepsut93 a very good user and should apply to be a merit source if he feels the need to.

Finally, smerits don't get lost, you send them to good posts and a newbie cannot be recognized or established, it's takes a lot of time to get that status, and efforts to.

Yep you are right, lot of member give a merit with a stranger in this forum no matter he/she just joined within 1-3 days if he can give a good post, constructive, informative, fun or anything and make member who have smerit happy with that post, he/she will give a merit. In the end, not because how difficult member get merit, but how members try to contribute for this forum to make a better forum. Newbie or member who stuck with current level are to busy to blame member with lot of merit or merit source just give a merit for some other, but they are never try to change their post activity so no one give them merit.

Well that's a brutal truth and open secret  ;D
Sometimes I find the people shouting loudest against sig campaigns to be those who are in one of the highest paying campaigns. And many of them haven't earnt a single merit (they got it airdropped) .. nothing against them, it's fine, but cringy :D but, have patience, work hard and you will see the fruit. Post consistently and in good quality and none can stop ya ;)

Heres my opinion about that. 
 
Merit is important especially to the members who are empty pocket, they need merit to join in signature and earn.

And for other people merit is not important ,what they want is to educate themselves about crypto, looking for threads that will help them maximize thier knowledge about digital currencies.

And not infrequently, merit sources and other users will be happy to provide merit for users like this. Merit currently has many functions and some of them are:

• As a condition for rank up
• Encourage users to post useful things
• As a condition to join a signature campaign (not necessarily for multiple campaigns)
• Help the forum to minimize the number of spam posts, junk and useless posts and prevent shit poster to move rank up

Merit as a condition for joining a signature campaign in my opinion is to make it easier for managers when choosing suitable participants to fill the available slots and I think only good posters have a large amount of merit and it is not a mistake if managers and campaigns employ them to promote the site or project.

You are absolutely right! Merit is not everything, if you are good at posting, do it continuously, keep helping the community, soon or later you will get noticed and high ranked people will give you merits. There are many good posters who yet to gain enough merit of what they deserve but some people who don’t have much knowledge about good posting, they are gaining merits through other ways! So, there are some ways to earn merits! So, do whatever you know well.

Merit is not everything on the bitcoin forum, this assumption is certainly true.

The main priority of the merit system is to encourage each user to post quality things as delivered by them. There are many problems related to the quality of user posts before the merit system is implemented in the forum, and the existence of this system has given the forum a positive impact and it must be like increasing the quality of user posts.


So, the application of this merit system in the forum by itself has forced people who care about ranking to improve the quality of posts so that ranking can be achieved. Quality posters if they feel that they are lacking in merit will also get special facilities to report their posting links to feasible sources as LoyceV and several other merit sources do. So theres no need to be discouraged if our quality posts dont get enough attention from appropriate sources because we still have other facilities to get them.

For sure the main goal of the forums is to exchange information with the other users to learn, sharing new ideas about cryptocurrency or bitcoin, etc. But merit is already part here in the forum which is always connected to our goal. Maybe we want to earn a profit as our goal in this forum which is not a bad thing but could be a bad motivation. Posting constructive posts share information with other users here in the forum connected to gaining merits to rank up in the forum. What newbie need to understand is merits or ranking up is just a bonus don't make it a motivation because it might lead to spamming because you just want to rank up or complete a number of posts.

We all believed that having merits signifies you are a good poster. Lest we all forget the knowledge we get when someone contributes or give his or her own opinion without been merit upon. It don't necessarily mean those that doesn't have merits, doesn't contribute meaningfully in this forum that's why the find it hard to rank up.

And yes, this Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0) is what I was actually referring to, that I wasn't aware of beforehand.



I wasn't aware that smerits get refilled every month, although I am aware that merit sources are indeed established members here already.



Re: smerits don't get lost, this one I admit that I totally misunderstood based on my prior comment earlier. ;D  I appreciate the explanation and now I fully understand how it all works.

Merit criteria can filet lot of shit posters but a member who earned 50 merits and 100 merits in the same time interval may have same knowledge or even the one who earned 50 is more knowledgeable than the one who earned 100 so campaign managers should accept based on the post history not alone with the numbers of merits earned.

smerits get refilled monthly, but that's only for the merit sources . If you're not a merit source, you don't get any monthly automatic smerit refill from the forum. The only way a user can get smerits as a "non-merit source" is to earn merits, the more merits you earn, the more sendable merits(smerits)you have to send, but merit sources on the other hand have both their source smerits and earned smerits to spend.

On that note regarding smerits, the great Spiderman quote from Uncle Ben often comes to mind: "With great power, comes great responsibility."  8)

BItcointalk is not paying anything for merit sources, they are doing this voluntarily to make this forum is better placed so we can't expect everyone who is placed as merits sources are always active and always looking for posts which are deserved to be merits that is why the number of merits earned may not be always a sign of knowledge.

If anyone is a regular poster on this forum, he/she will definitely like to get merits. No one can deny the importance of merits not only because it gives you better rank, but it also proves that you are a quality writer.  I think this assumption is also wrong that anyone writes quality posts and still does not get merits. Those who does not get merits, don't deserve to get it.

When you say that "Merit isn't everything in bitcointalk!", its like saying that "Money isn't everything in this world!"
You need money to have a better life style in this world and similarly you need merits to have a better feeling on this forum too. But for both merits and money, you have to work for it.

....


Guys, I am not against earning merits just understand what I am trying to say.

Even with quality posts it is hard for random newbies to get a huge number of merits and there are some exceptions as well but as we are all talking about the regular member don't feel low when you are not earned what you actually deserved, the time will come. Until that doesn't say you are not deserved to be here. :)

Apples and oranges. This forum is totally usable even if you have 0 merit, you can still participate in discussions and read posts of other users to get more knowledge. But trying living without money - it's just impossible. Merit lets you have higher rank, and higher rank gives you features like avatars and such, but they are purely decorative. This forum was doing just fine before the times of sig campaigns and merit points, because first and foremost it's a place to learn and discuss Bitcoin.

I can't understand when the OP said "Merit isn't everything in bitcointalk". could you have said that when you were a newbie?
You say that because maybe you are already in a campaign. try you are still a newbie and have not been in the campaign for sure you will never say that.
basically something that has a strong relationship with the forum has an important role including the acquisition of merit, just maybe you do not realize because your goal is at least achieved.

Mate, I am sure if you only read the title, there will be an intention to refute the opinion expressed by the OP. :D

I think the title would be more suitable to be not sad if you have not gotten an merit and it seems more in line with the contents of the thread. The reason is.

Sometimes, incorrect placement of titles will lead to several different assumptions. So basically the title of the thread is a summary of what we want to convey with the contents on the thread.

Not everyone here just for merits,others just love to questions or answers the topic. Not everyone here are looking for some returns in btc ,so just feel free to express your ideas about the matter,that's most important.

Exactly,
at first, i didn't think I could get my first merit,

I used to try to be diligent creating a good and useful posts, and apparently someone suddenly gave me merit.

So just trying and trying, keep learning and learning.

I was repeating this just after the merit system came in place. I was a member back then but I wasn't interested in signature campaigns I was just enjoying the forum. Now I can say that this paid off and I ended up on the best campaign just like that, I never believed that I could join CM at all.
Merit is not everything.
If you care only for the merit and take this forum as a job, you are doing it wrong.
I already have a full time job, I need some place to relax and have fun, make what I like (sorry spammers), I take the reward as a bonus for the joy.
Life is short, you have to enjoy it :)

He didn't read all the replies that is the reason he didn't get what is the intention of this thread. :)

You are one of the great inspiration to me and I still remember you name from your old avatar only, now it's a little bit harder. :D

---

You earned lot of merits and its possible with your knowledge and natural posting behavior but if I try to do the same as you do which may not get success in getting the merits so what I am always trying to say others is, try to be yourself and be unique on this what you are doing.

It is useless to be someone else when it comes to posting and if ever you found an information which would help anyone then why not bother to share it and just post what you know and then many people will appreciate what you've done. Clearly the merit is for reducing spam and not a forum where earning merit is the first thing to do here.

Do you believe that a local board is a board that help many users get merit and move up in rank?
I am sure there are merit sources on the local board that can help you get merit and of course if you can make quality posts. The habit of posting on boards that are often ignored by merit sources can also prevent you from getting merit, and that is like gambling boards, alternative cryptocurrency and many others.

Be yourself even though there are others who have inspired you, make quality posts naturally and I am sure you will soon get your wish.

We can't deny the fact local boards are getting more activity and merit per post ratio compared to the main discussion board but that's is not actually I am trying to say here. :)

Merit per post on a given board is not that simple to interpret, since the ratio shows a result, but does not dig into the causes behind the result. Say for example that a local board has very few posters, but an active Merit Source (and not a mean one while at it). In this scenario, the local board’s ratio may be high, but the impact low (only a few users may benefit from that ratio).

We can take a look at some merit/post ratios on forum boards here (selections are customizable):
https://public.tableau.com/shared/6GPY2Y92Z?:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link

The influence of local boards on people ranking-up is better viewed on a case by case basis. For example, in this post (in Spanish), we can see the influence in terms of % of merits made on a local board by those that ranked-up at some point needing merits on the Spanish Local board:
 Relación de las personas que han escalado de rango en nuestro foro local (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5136079.msg50770050#msg50770050).

If we scroll the list enclosed in the OP, of the above link to the right, we’ll see the column "% Español" which indicates what % of the merits of a given profile have been originates in the Spanish Local board.  For Full Member onwards, with some exceptions, % of Spanish earned merits is less in proportion to the total earned merits (with a few exceptions), and rather variable per person. Overall, the highest Spanish 100% earned local merit rank is Full Member (just one case).

So this means, there are still users who do not receive merit even though they do have the highest capacity to make posts?
Well, I guess it's the responsibility of the system, as, on some other boards, the circulation of merit was very low, and I doubt that any good posters on that board would earn merit.

I guess they're supposed to adopt other boards to earn merit if that's what they want. If they're very good posters, they can apply it on different boards. Cryptocurrency is a wide-ranging subject, and you can create essential topics or posts that are connected to it.

Well, it's true if the good posts are not common, extraordinary, and have a good meaning. If a good post doesn't have those qualities that I've mentioned then I guess it's not a good post 'cause if it's really a quality then someone might give even single merit already if it's really a good post.

What if that local poster is not good at English, they might use translators but most of the time google translate mess up with the translation and change the whole meaning of the statement so people think that user is spamming or having low level knowledge.

I doubt someone does not know the basic English language. I joined this forum with a low level of English knowledge because it is one of my most despised subjects, but now I have learned to type in English by doing it on the international boards.

And on top of that, most of the advertisements, crypto platforms and some features of this forum were written in English so I doubt they don't even know the basics. If someone doesn't really know English, this forum also features free ebooks or even google books that will let you learn it.

This is what exactly the newbies should do, we should start as a beginner at anything so it will take time right? In the meanwhile time, they may get disappointing for not earning merits that is the time they should keep doing the right things than expecting the merit to come right after their try.

my personal opinion is sometime merit and rank are important for people that have good and spend so much time in bitcointalk
and some airdrops chaser like me that require to be junior/senior members.

but merit isnt the main focus, as we can still look and read posts, find some knowledges or informations.
it depends on the individu itself, what is the main focus of their purpose.

Yes, Most people join bitcointalk for bounty or signature campaign. The forum was full of shitty poster once and that's why theymos decided to bring merit. Which helped a lot to improve this bitcoin community. Although, it has some bad effects too like some are selling merit or giving merit to alts.         

Once we join something like a forum or other stuff we already start as a beginner so it's only natural that we are still learning as a newbie until we gather informations later on and learn from it. I joined bitcointalk on january and days later merit is implemented on yhe forum and that means that I should learn more and here I am learning bit by bit.

Right right. Of course no one's here just for the merits itself and expecting big return, I myself just want to express my daily ideas on anything under the sun

That's right. I also try my local section to make awareness among the lovely local members. I choice a topic and make a post with the best quality which i can express through the words. After posting in our local section, i try every translator website or app and check the translated one which looks like a low level post. That's really unacceptable , but if i try to write that using English, i can definitely write better which will be more qualified than the translated one.

I just want this to share guys.

Taxation (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3280237.msg34199706#msg34199706)

I created that topic last April 2018. But it was given merit a year after I posted that thread, see here (https://bpip.org/smerit.aspx?to=Nellayar&from=cabalism13).

What I want to emphasize is that even you have a good post or created a useful thread, don`t expect for merit. Because as soon as the users here recognize your post, they will surely look for your previous post. Then if they satisfied with it, merit will come towards after you.

Just don`t cease to learn and help this forum. Don`t be also discourage that your posts are not given merits or never been acknowledge.. Merit is just an incentive for your post but the true reward of it is the knowledge you gained when you exerted an effort in your post.

My bad. :P
yeah, great.
As for me... Nevermind.
MeritDidBrokeMyLife on these past years and now I'm only a bit needy to reach the Legendary.
Some posts aren't meant to be merited, Some posts gets 1-50 depends on the user who sees them.
So, yeah. As for this time, no one should be bothered anymore by this system. If you'll gonna ask me it's way more strict before than this present times.

I also see that some posts are more popular like scam reports or tutorials and usually have more merits.
Some posts don't get enough merits, specially in local boards because most merit sources can't understand language.
Can we do anything about it?
I'm afraid not 
There is no absolute justice in life.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t have to lead to a stalemate type situation. From a Local Board’s perspective, there are a couple of pros and cons to their situation, bearing in mind that there is an array of heterogeneous circumstances.

My local board for example is currently visited by a Merit Source, rather regularly to date. Alas, he is rather mean, and tends to merit post at a rate of 1 or 2 sMerits per merited post. The good thing is that there are not too many active people there, so it’s not difficult to get merited. The bad, is that the pace is relatively slow compared to other areas of the forum. A few other merit sources do visit it every now and then (some native, others with some language skills), and spice things up a bit once in a while (not too often though).

I figure there are still boards which lack a Merit Source, and probably don’t have enough activity to warrant one (or at least, one with a significant amount). It may seem like a catch-22 type situation there. Other boards may have a single Merit Source and a language that is more incomprehensible to outsiders, and therefore are more dependent on whether the Source’s monthly allowance is decent enough, and how active they are (aside from how objective the Source is).

Probably the best one can do if they find that their local board lacks enough merits is to shout out, by building a documented case. That is, identify and list (alone or collectively, in a thread) unmerited/under merited posts, and if the number of cases and apparent content is compelling, it probably won’t be overseen if presented in Meta. Still the Language barrier will play against, but if the numbers speak for themselves, then there is a case to defend. 

Not every merit sources have equal amount of merits, it changes for every merit sources.Some local board merit sources may not have huge allocation to spend for that month so they will be very picky and award less merits in number but some merits have more allocation so they are spending more if it is worth. Remember some local boards don't even have any merit sources so they will never get any merits even if they are highly quality poster.