Bitcoin Forum

In the german section, there are two topics (from sportsbet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5261006.0) and bitcasino (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5270400.0)) which offer merits as a prize for correct betting on soccer games.

Merits are intended to express the appreciation of a good / worthy post.
Giving them out as a prize seems.. odd.. to say at least.

What is the general consensus regarding such behavior? What is your personal opinion?

Merits aren't supposed to be given out as prizes unless the contest has something to do with making the best post or something like that--certainly not for making the right call on a soccer game.  That's something I'd probably report to the moderators, though I'm not sure how they'd handle it.  Hopefully they'd put a stop to it, as it's a blatant misuse of the merit system (though I can't read German and thus can't understand exactly what's going on).

Edit:
Fair enough, but I'd probably do it anyway if I saw it happening in a language I could understand.

Looks like moderator Mole0815 is aware and condoning it.

Merit system is not moderated so I don't think this should be reported unless it falls under "incentivizing low-effort posts".

I've offered merits in the past for a correct guess on something or other. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that if it creates a good discussion. I don't know German well enough to figure out if those soccer threads are merely ad/spam threads or there's more going on.

I haven't given it any more thought. Since there have been such threads/raffles/actions several times and nobody ever had a problem with it, it was tolerated until now.

If this is a violation of rules we can of course change that.

If not I would leave it as it is :)

I think merit as a reward for prediction is a very wrong approach. It should not be given for such purpose, only good quality post should be given merits. However, I want to link you this thread by DTalk- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5218206.msg53624239#msg53624239
He planned to share merit for people who can write quality post on a given topic which was also a form of rewards. You can get some good discussion from that.

As a prize for guessing the correct “answer” or winner, no that is wrong, and should be condemned. If the “answer” requires a substantial amount of work, knowledge or research, giving merits for a correct answer may be acceptable.

It appears that Sportsbet is effectively selling merit, which is against the spirit of the merit system.

I agree with that. Merits should be for good posts, not a prize for betting games.
However i'd say reporting it is pretty useless.



So ?



It is a betting game.
The merits have been added to the prize pool, besides some satoshis.

I am not sure on how this could create a good discussion at all.



Since - as suchmoon mentioned - merits aren't moderated, it technically can't be a violation (since there are no rules to begin with).
But this completely misses the whole purpose of merits and can be quite "difficult", ethically speaking.



As far as i can see, the merits have been added by a user (cygan (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=27470)) to the prize pool. He doesn't seem to be related to sportsbet.
But i agree with the first part. IMO giving away merits as a prize for winning a betting game is inappropriate.

There was this kind of topic in the french section with few merits as a reward. I even organized some, just for fun.
The difference with the 2 german topics in OP was that there were ~3-5 merits to be won. 20 merits for the winner is a bit abused (in my opinion), but everyone can do what he wants with his merits.

Would it be more appropriate if the prize wasn't announced and the user just merited the winning posts because they want to?

Because the way I see it that's essentially the only potential problem here - does it result in merit being sent to posts that otherwise wouldn't have received merits.

If merit can be used as a gift for right call on a soccer game then there should have no restrictions of merit trading. I think gifting for right call on a soccer game is same as merit trading. Correct me if I am wrong.

The thing I am not getting is "prize pool " when I have translated into English. Seems there is participation fee is in bitcoin, so why prize outcome is merit? I am not sure if the merit award is additional besides of BTC reward. But since there is a deal with Bitcoin which is participation fee then merit shouldn't announce as an award. Announce merit reward for constructive discussion isn't wrong, or if merit send on the same thread for constructive discussion wouldn't wrong. But announce as a prize where entry fees by bitcoin aren't right in my personal opinion.

Nah, wrong information. There is rules for merit sources.

Every user has to add at least X BTC into the prize pool and the winner (the person with the most points after the season) gets all the BTC inside.
And apparently one user also "added" merit into the prize pool.

There is a difference between being tolerated and it being a violation.

Can you please confirm if this is actually a violation or not. Thank you.

Good!! So,
1. Can you trade merit?
2. Can you give merit to your alt account?

It is not right and it is opposite the aim of creating of merit system. giving merit like this should be stopped immediately.

Merits shouldn't be used in such a way, yes users can do merit any post if they want but to have the effective system it should be used for the right cause.Because they are using merit as token for that they are supposed to receive money so its like trading the merits. But only admin can comment on this to know what can be done.

So who will but first he will get all the funds plus 20 merits. Am I right? And seems there is 2nd & 3rd prize as well which are distributing with merits. That means even your prediction becomes 3rd place somehow on the competition, you will not get merits unless you pay the participation fees. Nah, I wouldn't agree with that kind of gamble where the prize will be rewarded by merits. So even the worst poster would be a good predictor and would get merit rewards if participate in the competitions. Moderators should discourage from such as competition, otherwise, we might encounter so many such as thread which would lead to merit abuse. Merit was introduced as a reward of good posters & contributors, not for gambling prize.

i see it the same way as mole0815 - if it does not follow the forum rules, i will of course remove the merit reward from the prize pool
i just wanted to do something good and i wasn't aware of it now



this is a very good argument👍

If the merit sender wants to reward someone for putting their money where their mouth is - that's fine with me. Unless you can prove some sort of secret scheme whereby the whole thing is rigged to allow shitposters/sockpuppets/etc to win the contest and get undeserved merits it's really a huge stretch to call it abuse. Meriting a post that you think doesn't deserve merit is not abuse.


Do you work for Sportsbet? Do you get paid for those merits?

nope, in no way have any relationship with sportsbet.io or any other betting provider
i do all this just for fun and enjoyment in this forum, as a kind of "good reward" for "good football knowledge" :)

Then it seems that at least the "selling merits" accusation in Quicksy's post is completely false.

Personally I don't see a problem awarding merits for participating in a skill-based gamble (as opposed to e.g. merely rolling a dice) but as you can see there's plenty of folks willing to burn you at the stake for this so you might want to remove that merit offer and just reward the merits as you see fit.

because i have no desire for red flaggs from some users, i have now decided to remove the merit reward for this competition
stay healthy ;)

1. I could, but I never would do it (unless I was a complete idiot).
2. Surprisingly, I don't have an alt account.


Shall we talk about the merits sent in the WO ? :)

During my time on the forum I have seen merits awarded in a variety of ways, some which were completely rational and others which were quite bizzare to me, this ranges from give aways to newbies, merit for gifs and some other sort of give away for unsavoury comments on CSW. I had my personal opinion on them, but they were not my merits and I couldn't dictate how they could be given. I would only consider an intervention when it was unethical, like merit sales or using it to incentivise posting in an ANN thread, sort of like paid bumps. In these cases the trust system which is equally unregulated by the forum could be used to check it.

Except in cases of extreme abuse, I would rather not scrutinize merit giving as everyone has diverse opinions on what they think is deserving of it.

I don't see anything wrong in this kind of merit competition rewards.
Many people are sending merits for good posts, and correct prediction of anything can be considered as good.
Also, there is nothing against the rules here, correct me if I am wrong.
This is just my personal opinion.

Still no official clarification about this.

Is the distributing of merits in this manner a violation or not?

Merits are given away for much stupider reasons on a daily basis.

You shouldn't care. It's not hurting anybody.

People who are participating in such a contest and others like it are likely to be overall contributors to the forum as they actively care enough about the forum to get merits.


This is where I draw the line. Sales or trade of merit should be discouraged. For the most part, Theymos has encouraged a "hands off" approach as far regulating / issuing negative trust for any sort of merit giving was involved. So if a negative trust is to be issued for merit sales/trading, there needs to be pretty substantial evidence behind it.

Nobody should just be handing out negative trust for giving away merits in contests. Even the most superfluous case of merit giving ever for a contest (by a merit source no less) was never given negative trust over the issue. They did lose their merit source status, however.

Lol, that's funny. That's opposing what merits was supposed to be. A shout out can be given as a prize. Or even some bitcoins. Or any physical gifts as well. But merits? Merits should be earnt, not getting as gift. In this way, merits would just lose its purpose and will become some sort of currency within the bitcointalk community to exchange services and products lmao.

I've seen this also however most of the merits that I give or that I've gotten is when you took the time to help some poster out. Usually in the mining section people got problems with their rigs, or setting up their rigs or how to buy the right parts. If there is some poster who takes his time to write a detailed post usually he is rewarded with merits.

So basically if you put in effort you get awarded however there are times when they are given away randomly sometimes. Someone writes a small sentence and its actually meritted. Very puzzling.

It all depends on the context and the point of view of the one who is awarding them. A sentence can be short, but helpful to those reading it.
A reply could also give a good laugh to a couple of members and rather than dropping an off topic reply like 'LOL' or '+1', which will likely get deleted, they use a merit to recognize the post, which was not technically helpful to most other readers.
Users also merit posts they do not agree with.

A bulk of merit transactions is based off quality that is visible to most, so a little personal indulgence once in a while is not really a problem.

This seemingly "random" thing is what's great about merit system. It's not based on one person's opinion of what constitutes a good post. Sure some merits may be given for stuff that is not very appealing to most people but that's perfectly fine. If that's all someone posts and gets merits for - they won't get many, reflecting their overall contribution to the forum. If someone gets 20 merits for a soccer contest but is otherwise a vile shitposter - they won't get far in ranking up etc.


This thread made me worried that I got drunk and stumbled into the time machine again. We're still trying to micromanage merits like it's 2018.

I have to say you are making the obvious point. If merits are given away as prizes they lose their significance and importance, it simply defeats the object of what merits are intended for.

What are the exact rules about using merits as give away prizes?

No, there are no specific rules. Seems moderators have mixed opinions about this case. So, only admin knows that. I am assuming admin has read that thread and since he had not left any opinion, we can't call it as abuse. But for me, this isn't correct use of merit, I don't think its something punishable by the way. I will discourage to use merit as a prize.

https://i.imgur.com/kdE8vR5.jpg

I highly doubt that the Merit "offered as a price" in our prediction game would have ended for a prediction like



Most likely the high Merit award was rather intended that the user giving out the Merit would look for good posts made by the prediction winner. If there are no meritable posts, the Merit prize shouldn't be sent, I agree here. With Merit being an award for good posts, that wouldn't be abuse when the Merit will be awarded finally to quality posts.

Yes, it's controversial if such a high number of Merit should be issued to a single user and less Merit for each rank would be fairer.

In some way, that could be compared to one of the few Merit giveaways where organizers also care, that the Merit isn't sent to shitposts.

---

This. I would also say, that in some situations it is not fraudulent if someone makes a Bitcoin price prediction and receives Merit for it (later, when it turned out to be a very impressive prediction) but it is also depending on the number of Merit sent for that post.

@JollyGood

There is not fixed/offical rule regarding the giving of merits for posts which can be applied to this case.

Since the awarding of merits is completely subjective, people are free to merit whatever they wish to. As per theymos' words, merits are to given to posts that are worthy of being recognized (rephrased statement). However you cannot be punished for giving someone merits on a post that someone feels as not merit-worthy.

Now there are certain mega-threads where such merit distribution among regular posters there happen but I dont think this is something to be concerned.

It definitely sounds like using merits being offered as prizes defeats the object why merits were introduced in the first place.


Well if there is no such rule about merit abuse then I guess there is no way to define it.

Is there a clear definition of what merit abuse actually is?

If trading merit is discouraged and it may turn into negative trust, why not for giving as award for calling correct roll? I think it is same as merit trading because the prize if offered for something which should be awarded by dollar. That means merit is being used as alternative of the dollar.

Will you stop with that nonsense. Buying merit is wrong, you're supposed to earn merit. Sending merit for a good post is not wrong, even if that post can earn money too. You have a paid signature - does that make you ineligible for merits?

There aren't really any official rules regarding merit or the sending of it, much like the feedback system it's left up to the community to decide what is right or wrong. Giving merit away like this should probably be frowned upon or at least discouraged though. I've seen a couple of instances in the past where merit has been used as some sort of prize for winning something and I don't think people should be doing that personally. Giving merits away as a prize or reward for getting a bet right shouldn't really be done, but at the same time I don't think giving merit to a post that posted a winning bet would be inherently bad as long as it was worthy of being merited, but specifically offering merits for this is going to encourage users to bet with them. As others have said, worse posts are merited. I even saw OgNasty merit a your favourite fruit thread which is just another shit thread that shouldn't be merited but people can merit whatever they feel is deserving at the end of the day: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5265481.0

I don't see any reason and opening new topic for something like this.
Official rules does not say anything preventing users to send merits to anyone, except maybe in cases of merit abuse or merit trading (that can earn you a flag)
In fact, we have small fun topic in our local board (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5269680.0) for predicting correct price of Bitcoin on specific date.
I will reward extra merit if someone make correct prediction, and I hope I will not be burned like a witch(er) for this  :P

If there are no official rules regarding merits or their sending of - then it means it is open to interpretation. Surely it would have been better to have had a system with point-specific rules in place as it would have clearly defined what was allowed and what was not. Maybe this will change in future.

You can ask theymos about it but from comments he's made in the past he isn't a big fan of specific set-in-stone rules and even the 'rules' thread here is unofficial and not sanctioned by him, considered more of a guide if anything. Just like feedback or scams they're left up to users to decide on how to police and from what I recall of his previous comments on merit they're to be largely unmoderated and left up to users to decide on how they issue then.Maybe you can create a thread and get community input on what they should and shouldn't be given for but I'd just say take potential abuse of them on a case by base basis like this situation.

Very supportive, this is the kind of user that really care for his local board. I am not sure but there is not rulings here regarding on merits giveaway. It was not mentio that it is not allowed but merits is intended to give for users that are helpful.

So, what benefit that the organizer will get through this activity? I guess it is piblicity. By helping them out in their publicity they reward merit for the users who participated I guess it is still classified as helping as to what merit is intended to be given.

Anyway, if this is not allowed then no choice for the mods but to take action on this activity.

This should be a violation and shouldn't be encouraged from my point of view. The quiz, giveaway or other activities in the past that have resulted to merited been used as a means of awarding the participants always had a way of impacting the forum but this particular cases isn't adding any value to the community instead it brings about more promotion to the project since participants hoping to gain some merit from them who likely participating in their contest.

Using merit simple means you're monetizing it as it's been given monetary value instead something with actually monetary value like BTC, etc. This just doesn't seem right, it should be stopped.

I understand theymos is not too keen on rigorous rules as such but do you think if there was enough consensus on this issue between a sizeable number of members then it would carry more weight? If theymos wants to leave feedback and merits largely unmoderated then maybe even with consensus it would not make much difference.

What then will you people say of those that do merit signature campaign applications. I have seen where a post like "Zzzzzzzzz" received 10 merit and no one said anything.
If you guys don't have anything meaningful to say I don't think it will be out of place to keep quiet and say nothing.

I think our thread is safe when it comes to things like this, since it requires some knowledge research and skill. Some charting and looking at various indicators or data to try to predict the correct price of BTC on a specific date and time, plus the poster that writes a good analysis or valuable opinion is rewarded extra merit.

It is crypto related, requires dedication, activates the community and adds value to the forum itself. Based on this I think we are more then good when it come to our summer fun topic.