Bitcoin Forum

If a member is/was busted abusing the merit system then he will be unable to access it...

The limited "faucet" I suggested could be restricted to specific ranks (full members and above for example).

My request is simple, can we (owners of less than 0x smerits) claim 1-2 (s)merit per week for example to give it as a reward to good posters?

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perhaps faucet for users who earned more than x amount of merits (1000 or so)?

Have you considered applying for merit source? Theymos selects who gets a smerit faucet, keeping some form of oversight limits abuse.

Why not just use the [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0) thread in Reputation?

We can direct attention to quality posts rather than sending the merit to the posts themselves... -snip-

It will lead to chaos.

Getting 1 smerit a week will simply mean you can turn a newbie into a full member in two years without any quality post from that account and it will be severely abused in that way. Although your intentions are good, it will lead to abuse.

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What about something automated? A lottery with "sent smerit" condition of entry? 

Imagine the following :
User A  earns 50 merit in a 30 rolling days ( gets 25 smerit).
If in the same rolling period he has sent >90% of smerit then he becomes eligible to get some extra smerit the next time he is meriting someone. But how ?

UserA earn 50 merits (25 smerits),  [so User A is a quality member, earning 50 merit in 30 days is somehow proof of quality posting, can be updated on a rank basis]
Once he has sent 20 of that smerit, he goes into a lottery.
Once in the lottery if he sends smerit he has a lottery ticket. (1 smerit sent = 1 ticket if 5 smerits then tickets)
 winnings could be :  1 extra smerit (1/10 odds)  / 2smerits (1/20 odds)  / 5smerits (1/50)  and  10 extra smerits with 1/100 odds. 
If he wins some free smerit, They wont allow him to get new tickets for the lottery.
You only get smerit lottery tickets based on the smerit you send from the stack you have earned (not initial airdropped/won at lottery).

This will do 2 things: make smerit being used instead of hoarded.
Increase by a little the amount of smerit in circulation.

That would be abused, perhaps faucet for users who earned more than x amount of merits (1000 or so)?

Getting 1 smerit a week will simply mean you can turn a newbie into a full member in two years without any quality post from that account and it will be severely abused in that way. Although your intentions are good, it will lead to abuse.

Assuming your calc is accurate. 2 years to become full member doesn't sound really chaotic and abusers will be linked to each other easily. I am not fully up-to-date when it comes to rank / merit stats but I think there is way less abusers in high ranks especially legendary and hero members. Maybe requiring an additional minimum merit requirement to claim that 1 smerit / weekly could be a better choice? (if done ofc).

It is a nice initiative from Loyce but I will be honest, I don't have much time (depends from months/seasons) searching that topic and following a format to point source(s) to a post that I think is helpful and he/they may disagree with (they may disagree between each other whether a specific post should be merited or not and how much...) + have no intention to post in self moderated topic (with all respect to LoyceV and other good members).
I am just asking about a simple fluid way to merit other members if possible.

I am just asking about a simple fluid way to merit other members if possible.

Merit source have more freedom that you think, there are few merit sources who give fixed decent amount of merit to all posts/threads to save their time.
There are even very few cases where merit source read some posts of a user and decide to give 50 merits straight.

~snip~

There is already a sMerit faucet and it's called writing good, useful, helpful, whatever posts :) I know it's not easy, and also depends a bit on your rank, in which boards you normally post and individual time constraints, but it's doable and in your own hands more or less.

The user who created the post you want to merit probably put some effort into writing that post, so you could put more effort in your posts then as well to receive merit and reward the effort the other user has taken. It's in your power, if you want to go that route and if you feel it's worth the hassle for being able to merit a post every now and then. Sounds a bit harsh, sorry if too harsh :), but it's a domino system in the end and the starting point are always good posts.

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The way I see it dMerits understood as delegate merits could have two non-collisional paths:

1.   Delegate Merit as @Jet Cash suggest, where by a Merit Source transfers some sMerit to person of his choice (with no Merit added to the recipient’s Merit counter).

This would have the advantage of delegating some sMerit to others on a discretionary basis, and may help the Merit Source to distribute his sMerits with less of a burden and over a wider network. This approach does not increase the overall Merit Source monthly allowance, but it could help to empty it out on a monthly basis, thus increasing overall received sMerit by the forum members.

The disadvantage is that, although Merit Sources are trusted by theymos for this task (as they are approved or pre-chosen on a one to one basis), there should be a certain degree of tracking taking place so as to avoid speculation on the sMerit transfers from the Merit Source to the Delegate.
Perhaps the transfer process could create a TX just like every other sMerit transfer, but where the message Id involved would have to be an internal reserved code that indicates “delegate merit transfer” (i.e. User A awarded User B n sMerits for this post: “delegate merit transfer”).


2.   Appoint a "D" Merit Source. Each Merit Source could appoint another person as a "D" Merit Source.
Merit Sources I figure are assigned a monthly allowance after being cleared, and probably classified in some sort of A/B/C category, where the monthly allowance depends on the category.
The idea is that the "D" category would be a Merit Source with less of a sMerit monthly allowance than a regular Merit Source, but that is vouched for by the Merit Source. This only makes sense if Merit Sources are considered scarce, and as a means to speed-up the process of finding trustworthy members for the task.

Now in order to avoid any speculation or foul use (although unlikely to happen with a Merit Source), the "D" source would need to be cleared by theymos just as any other Merit Source, but perhaps at a swifter pace since he would already be backed by a Merit Source that appoints him.
The "D" source should be a reputable member too, and have decent experience at giving merit with a fair criteria that the Merit Source has cleared. It would also probably be better if the Merit Networks of the Merit Source and "D" source do not coincide too much (see image below).

The advantage of this procedure is that, if there is any real intent to add more Merit Sources to the system with a bit of haste, these would be already vouched for by existing Merit Sources, and could be quicker to appoint.

Say for example @Jet Cash considers @Seoincorporation to be a good candidate for being a "D" source. @Seincorporation has previously indicated on the forum that he would like to be able to give out more merits, but perhaps not become a full merit source (correct me if I’m wrong though). In addition, their Merit Networks as sMerit awarders do not coincide too much <…>

I believe the intention behind this is good and truly, we can't deny that there are around 3 million users on this forum and we just can't put the complete burden on merit sources alone............