Bitcoin Forum

Merits on Bitcointalk are sent for all kinds of posts. You can get merits for posting interesting guides and tutorials, helping someone solve a specific problem, and being knowledgeable and proactive. Even being funny, arrogant, or cynical can help at times.

Whatever the reason is that someone merited your post, you might sometimes (or all the time) feel like you need to respond in the same way. So, you end up rewarding the user who rewarded you with some merits as well. Especially if you were awarded more merits than you thought you would or deserve.

Did you ever find yourself thinking: that user just sent me x merits, I will go through his/her post history and find something to merit? That thought has often popped into my head, and I have indeed done it a few times myself.

When you merit someone who just merited you, do you feel good doing it?
Do you feel like it looks like an agreed exchange, even if it isn't?
Do you think it's not a proper use of the merit system?

Even if you merit a post that clearly deserves to be awarded, you didn't come across it naturally. You searched for it intentionally. I am curious what other users think about this.

Yes :(
Sometimes I see a user Merited one of my posts right before I Merited him. It always makes me feel someone's going to judge me on that.
And it happens the other way too: If someone Merited me, I usually refrain from Meriting one of their posts, even though they deserve it.

Just Merit source problems :(

I don't even know when I get awarded merits. It was exciting at the beginning but once you get used to it the feel disappears. I focus on more to finding merit worthy post most of the time.

There is a topic which LoyceV or suchmoon created if I can recall correctly. It's about what others need to take when I am sending merit. I will try to find that topic and give a link which explained my criteria .

What I was looking for was this topic - If you received a merit... (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5280159.0) but this one appeared first and it is probably what you're referring to - Users that you should merit (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5164895.0)

Hell no! I never merit someone just because he merited me and especially never went to the user's post history to merit his posts just because he cheered me with his merits. If anyone is doing that then that's not a proper use of merit system because that restricts the natural flow of merits and from what I know occasionally leads to the creation of merit cycling clubs.  :P

But I won't say I am the best example when it comes to using the merits in right way. I have this bad habit of excessively meriting the posts made in the threads which I personally started. Nevertheless, forums are the kind of conglomerates where different users from different background socially interact differently. Everyone can have his/her own way of using the merits. As far as the user isn't abusing the merit system, there isn't much of a problem in sending mutually inclusive merits.

As a proud (and first) member of the Foxpup Merit Cycling Club (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5121375.0), and a Merit source with a load of sMerit to get rid of, I must say I'm sometimes "guilty" of checking someone's post history to Merit post. For instance when they only need 30 to ranking up, or just because the user got on my radar.
I don't think that's a bad thing, and since I'm still a Merit source after sending 19265 sMerit (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat), Admin seems to agree.

I get that many users "return the favour" for Meriting them, and I'm pretty sure people have Merited me just because I merited them. But that's also quite natural to do. As long as it's not excessive, I don't really mind.

No.  In fact, when I realize that I've earned some merits I rarely even bother to look to see who sent them.  And as a merit source, that's a good thing; I don't really want to know who sent me merits, nor do I ever feel like repaying anyone for meriting my posts--that would be an abuse of the merit system for a merit source to do that. 

For someone who's not a merit source, you can do whatever you like with your sMerits as long as you're not selling them or trading them or whatever.  I don't see any problem with the average user meriting someone who had given them merits, though it isn't necessary.  Ideally you should be giving merits to posts that grab your eye and not as a thank-you for whatever.

For me personally, all posts are divided mainly into two categories ... A message that was useful for me personally, or a post that was spent a lot of time (I saw posts that have a really complex bbcode structure, and this does not take into account the content). In some cases, I can rate the post based on whether this information will be useful to me in the future, I periodically use the "Merit:" tab as a navigator for the posts that I Merited.

You are right, (and it depends on nurture) at first I also had a feeling of "mutual appreciation", but this feeling quickly passed due to the fact that I experienced a different feeling .. The feeling when you see a very, very valuable post, but you don't merit it, because you are empty ...

Imagine you are talking in the real world with somebody.

You say something, your friend liked what you said.
He answered, and his answered makes a lot of sense and you like that too.

Seems like a normal conversation, isn't it? In this forum, is that happens, they would probably merit each other.

I merit all posts I like. IMO, If the author sent or not merit to me it shouldn't have an influence over my merit distribution.

I often go through post histories looking for posts to merit, particularly if it's a user I haven't noticed before. I don't think I have done this with users who merited me, not on purpose anyway, but the point is that just by chance it probably happened many times over the last 3 years. It shouldn't matter. We shouldn't avoid meriting good posts for some superficial reason ("what will people think about this") but pretty much by definition we're meriting posts that we read, which means we're likely to post in those same threads where we send merit, which means other posters/readers in those threads - including ones we merited or will merit - are likely to read our posts and merit us. Don't overthink this.

No, I never felt obligated to give merits to someone who merited me. But sometimes I give merit to someone who merited me in previous post. Not because I feel obligated or something, but simply because I like this post, it expand my point of view or somply correct me if I said something wrong. But I don't through history of posts to find merit worthy posts.
In early monthos of merit sysyem thought that such merit exchange may look a bit fishy and may be considered as merit abuse, but now I don't think so. Unless such thing repeats multiple times between same users.

I really don’t see an issue with it as long as you merit a constructive post of theirs back. Most of us are very senior members any way (Legendary Members) so we gain absolutely nothing by trading merit. The forum is one big merit cycling factory any way.

If somebody merit’s you & you take a look through their post history & return the compliment (to a constructive post) there is no problem at all imo.

It isn’t like you’re going to be meriting third world shit posters is it, they don’t receive any merit in the first place so you can’t send them one back as they have none to send in the first place :D

There are a lot more problems created by much darker people here than sending somebody a merit in response to receiving one.

Sometimes I did check members who sent me merits, then I check back their post history and if I find some interesting post and if I notice they need merits for ranking up, I may reward him with merit but that is not something I always do and I don't feel obligated at all.

Well rewarding people with merits or with trust includes as we know has a lot of other benefits aside from ranking up.
Like having control over the trust system, ensuring the merit requirement per month for certain sig campaigns etc etc
Can be used as leverage to entice of lure other members to support certain agendas or help protect certain sponsors from flags etc.
You also have the new merit volume button on the alt board.
Merit cancer has spread into far more than rank.

To the answer the question. 

If you consider their post " good  " you get to give it merits? What part isn't clear?

Other peoples opinion or any other factor is irrelevant. If the post is clearly a worthless or dangerous shit post is irrelevant.
So long as you claim you believe it is a " good " post nothing else matters. If you suddenly have the threshold of "good" Lowered due to them giving you merit really is irrelevant.

I mean smart abusers are not going to be the most obvious either. Although after a lengthy period it will become obvious when all of their top 20 fans and recipients are all stacked full of each other.

So if you want to give them merits in return straight away, then that is fine. I very much doubt the timeframe is important.
The entire merit system is clearly just a pal points type of thing for the majority of the members in meta anyway.
I think even considering if a certain strategy or impulse to allocate merits is " acceptable " could only come from someone who doesnt understand how the majority of merits are dished out.

Nope, it feels unnatural to hunt for a post in someone else's post history just for the sake of meriting back one of their posts, but if I come across their posts in the exact thread that I've received merits from, I wouldn't mind giving some if I found their post to be high-quality or useful ^{[I've done this in the past]}.

I don't care for the first part but despite my initial behavior ^{[I rarely gave merits back then]} upon its implementation ^[merit], it gives me a little joy to see I'm at zero sMerit from time to time ^{[I was hoarding them back then due to my own standards but since then, I've learned to lower my standards/expectations]}.

Very interesting question.
We all have the freedom to give merits according to our subjective feeling and thinking, there is no concrete rules.
The only thing that is explicitly forbidden is trading and selling merits.
Personally, I don’t particularly care who gives me the merits nor do I look at his history on the forum.
I have my own criteria for giving merits that I follow.
I look at the quality of the post, whether it contributes to the forum or is a constructive post.

You're overthinking merit.

No matter the reason. If you feel they deserve a merit then merit them. Doesn't need to be anything more or less than that. Who cares if they merited you in an attempt to get you to decide to go through their post history (I still think this is overthinking it), if you uncover merit worthy posts distribute them.

If someone merits you and you see merit worthy posts in the thread then go ahead and merit them. Are you afraid of offending whatever bellowing troll is inundating the forum?? If not, don't worry.

I really think people fear what forum drama creates entirely to much. If you aren't doing anything greasy or conniving then carry on as is. If someone accuses you of something you know there is no basis.

There's certainly examples of merit/trust abuse where two or more users gift each other merits on the same day e.g. ten sent then five received back around the same time.

For me personally I tend to hand out the merits to as many people as possible which is reflected in my merit circle score of 355 which gives me a ranking of 80.

Merit me and I'll pay it forward.

Looking at the question from an objective point of view, that is to say, through number that lack a context, it does happen a fair share.

For example, going over all my historical received 2.608 TXs, I’ve merited "back" the Meriter on:

32 occasions within the hour (1,23% over received TXs)
408 occasions within 24 hours (15,64% over received TXs)
605 occasions within 48 hours (23,20% over received TXs)
(over 48 hours is less prone to a potential cause/effect, so 'im not looking into that)

I haven’t gone down any further to see the detail of who I merited on those occasions, but many are likely from my local board, where a reduced set of poster are active, get merited, and thus causality is (wrongly) inferable due to the group of posters there being small and fairly decent. That actually was the trigger for me to award small quantities, that only build-up through recurrence of reasonable posting participation, and not mere presence.

Additionally, the more engaged one is on the forum, both in terms of online time and reacting to received notifications, and the more available sMerits one has, probably the more likely and quickly for these “returns” to happen. Not due to intention in many cases, but related to areas of affinity and reasonable posting content.
 
Full dataset, ordered by nTxReciprocal_48h descending, where the column represents the number of times a given profile merited back the same person after being merited within 48 hours (likewise for 24 and 1 hour columns):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uS72R-MDnMAcpWgBCHw0yfoBEYfGIYZnNHzI71lfAS8/edit?usp=sharing

Fastest way to search: select "name" column -> <CTRL+F>

Well, there are those here who really have a good messaging history, and so it's only natural that merit doesn't matter to many.
But not everyone on the forum is so honest and unselfish.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=2381968
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=2521454
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=2648561

Our bounty hunters will never give their merits to a stranger. It will fly to someone familiar, brother, relative, friend. Indeed, for a bounty hunter, merit is recognition of participation in the bounty, and the more accounts they have, the fatter the prey. ;D
Again, meritsours are specifically looking for good posts, and they kind of even need to do it. And for ordinary users, it is better to treat merit more simply. A good joke deserves merit, too.

well, in my point of view i think if you got interested by the member who merited you and you checked his post/finds some worthy posts to merit that's totally fine and this doesn't considered a merit exchange, and even if it is you will have always your answer to defend on your self .

what i don't like about the merit system is there in some sections in the forum, there is some members making like a crew to exchange merits without making any suspicions while other new members in the section especially newbie are getting zero merits which i found it not fair .

I wouldn't call it a terrible or abusive usage of the merit system especially if you end up meriting a post that deserves the merits and has received some regardless of the merits you sent. A bit unorthodox and unusual, sure.

I don't see a problem in that either unless the difference is really huge. I merit good posts in my threads as well, but just because I visit my threads more often than some other threads.

I couldn't care less. I was just interested how others think. And it seems to me that certain users have the same 'doubts' and 'uncertainties' as I do sometimes. Not an issue, just an interesting point of discussion. 

No idea why I didn't think of you before. I initially had the idea to include some stats showing members who return a received merit to the sender and how fast they do it. Since I have no programming skills, I PMed a few users and asked if stats like that are available. Unfortunately, you weren't on my list. Turns out, you had the data all along.

Where exactly do you see this take place?

Take a closer look at the links I gave. Do you see many people? This is one farm that exchanges merits.

Thanks for making this list! Pmalek asked me before he created this topic but I didn't have the time.
Considering how many Merit transactions I've sent and received, I'm not disappointed at all with 1.06%, 7.04% and 11.18% within 1, 24 and 48 hours respectively!

Yeah its clearly merits exchanging, and take a look again at my post, I said many people which means more than four or five members tending to merit each other in the same section even if the posts are not that high quality, the funny thing is between their posts in the same topic, there are newbies with valuable information sometimes buy they get zero merits, I'm not saying they are helping each other in purpose but I think newbies should have their share of merits too tho.

I answered no! although I have done it in the past but not
for a very long time.

Im not massively mindful of merits most of the time,
Im a minnow in the merit department and with my
sMerit I try to give them to lower ranked members than myself.

If I want to be short to answer this, I would say, "I never planned beforing meriting." I guess you got my point. Usually, I browse the forum, look for solution on different issues, share opinion and read other peoples opinion. In this procedure, if I find somethinhg interesting or of high quality, I merit them if I have available smerit to share with.

There was something Suchmoon said about sending out merits, he said merit a good post not user, these quality posts might be a tutorials, solution replies, and many helpful articles irrespective of the user's rank that renders such help. Some members here had taken the habit of meriting only well recognized users/ranks which is not appropriate, they aren't meriting a post instead a user.

---

To me, i rarely had merit from discussing and commenting which 80% of my merits were gotten from quality topics and I got hold of whosoever had merited me which in turn I tell myself that I owe them some x amount of merit to reward them back. Seriously I can't say it's an exchange for merit but it's a reciprocating appreciation for helping you reaching a target.

I don't usually go looking to merit people who have merited me because they're mostly users who already have enough merits and have a high ranking in this forum. What I look for when I have merits to give is users who are low ranking members and I personally have read posts of these users that I would wish to merit. That way I believe that I can help promote members who write good posts.

Not intentionally per se but on some occasions I have stubble upon some of my meriters as I read through the comment section and decide to just look through the users history. If fortunately for them I encountered any worthy posts in the process and do have some smerit on me, they get merited. That's just luck (preparation meets opportunity) been on their side as if that users wasn't contributing to the forum positively, the possiblity of me finding any worthy posts won't be there and therefore he/she won't get merited.

This practice isn't just for only users that merits me but also for random users I find their contributions meaningfully while reading through replies. I enjoy reviewing accounts and use the opportunity to encourage whoever is doing quite well for themselves but not getting the much attention other decent posters are getting.

On the other side, I have received severally merits in a form of appreciation I guess. Irrespective of the quality of the posts been merited, I still consider them an appreciation or attempt to get my attention as the merits comes exactly from the users that were beneficiaries of my meriting and usually it happens within minutes or hours of me meriting them.

I don't pay too close attention to the merits I receive. Good posts will naturally show up in threads and I will merit them if I have enough sMerit to award.

Best way to deal with this problem in my humble opinion is to give back not to that person but to someone other than that person, make it a daisy chain and not a loop between two individuals, in a way you are helping others to get one step to ranking up.

I agree with Loyce. The feeling that if a person has just merited me or in recent past, and even if I feel that user really made a great post, I start to think if I will be under scrutiny or something for meriting him. But it's hard to ignore the post completely, so I either wait for the post to get merited by someone else as well before meriting them, or sometimes I just close my eyes and merit it without thinking other thing :P

That user would have to unblock the 95% of the Forum and actually be less selective in the handful of favourites they merits on a regular basis before such a comment from them could be taken to be creditable...

No. But I was thinking "I hope that he won't mind that I don't reciprocate".
However, it did happen to merit the same person's posts after getting merit, but that usually happens because I spend merit ... only if I have what to spend.


Sometimes it does, if the merited post is not great.
But I think that most of the time it's not. At least not in the areas I'm reading.

High activity leads to good amount of knowledge, hence to good posts. Also high activity is a requirement for merit source...
You guys are making a lot of good quality posts. Sometimes good posts of yours you see as great get under-merited and maybe that's why you are overthinking it when you receive merit? I don't know.
But I agree to this:

Merit system give the person a lot of freedom to choose who deserves to send them merits, so it cannot be considered an exchange of merits unless it is anomalous and affects the rest of the members.
There are even cases of merit rotation among members that seem high and yet they are not banned.

Personally, I don't care who sent my merits to me, I open topics and send to those who deserve it.

At the end of the day, my attitude is if someone deserves merit, then they should be rewarded it despite how you came about them. I've probably discovered several good posts this way, but its all normal browsing habit, rather than making a conscious decision of "They merited me, lets merit them".

I definitely don't feel obligated though, and wouldn't go out of my way to reward a poorer quality post, just because they had merited me. It is sometimes interesting, that you get merited by someone you haven't heard of, and that can sometimes lead to looking at their post history in more depth. However, I think I've got the the point where I don't really notice too much who has merited me.

A user with the highest rank deserves the same amount of merits you would give a member who is ranked lower. His rank shouldn't be a deciding factor whether you will merit him or not. I have done the same thing many times before as well in the past. If given a choice to merit a user with a lower rank and one with a higher, I picked the one who is ranked lower. But I have changed that approach, and now I merit many Legendary accounts if I like their posts. And many times I do. The only factor I consider now is if the member I am going to merit participates in the merit distribution system or not.

Nothing wrong with that unless you intentionally neglect and overlook the posts of higher ranked members.

This statement can only be correct if you don't make distinctions between the users you wish to merit based on their rank.

I know that everyone on the thread is already in existence before me and I'm saying these base on my own perspective, meriting someone who merited you I think it will look as eve both are exchanging merit, but not knowing if the guidelines of the community is against it, I would like to say is not wrong to merit who merited you because I seen it as another way of showing appreciation to whom merited user, but in another way round meriting a post that does not required merit because the user merit you, I think such aspect really need a concern or call for a discussion.

I am the 21st user who answered "no" to the question you have asked.

The merit system that has been implemented in the forum since the beginning of 2018 has become a momentum of awakening for me to change the behavior of my posts to be more useful and quality. At first I almost always check who sent me is appropriate because personally I really want to know how people rate a quality post. But after a while I was no longer used to it because I already knew how the merit system worked.

The distribution of merit I do has nothing to do with whether they have provided merit for me or not. Whenever I get a quality post from anyone I think I deserve, I will unless I don't have sMerit. Merit should be distributed on quality posts regardless of whether they send them to us or not. This is the basic reference of the merit system in my opinion.

If it was a quality post, then I thought I would do it without feeling special. I have the same feeling for every merit I send others on their quality posts. If they deserve it, why not ?
 
I know that account ranking is no excuse for us not send sMerit on quality posts. But sometimes I might miss a high ranking member post from merit if I find a quality post from a low ranking user just below it. But it all depends on my sMerit balance.

But the first one to admit it.  _::)

Man, don't be offended that I'm taking the phrase out of context, but a few weeks ago I saved this picture just for such an occasion ..

https://i.imgur.com/k90RASo.png

NO. Imagine this, once someone merited your post, you must be interested to know who he is. Then you look at his profile and probably check his post history too. If you find quality posts and merited the posts in this way, I don't think it is a wrong thing. The basic or fundamental reason is quality, not who he is. Is it wrong to give merit to a decent post?

Actually the fundamental reason is retaliation.    Mostly used in a negative way, the term describes responsive action and is tied into society.  If someone is nice to you, you will look for a way to be nice back, even if not consciously.  After all, you view their action as correct behaviour that needs to be rewarded.

I don't do it for others, but there are a handful of people that are compelled to send me a merit after I send them -- in all likelihood they think they are performing a common courtesy.


suchmoon has given out more merits to more forum members than anybody else on the forum:

https://i.imgur.com/0XzApvT.png

#1 in Sent and Circle... you literally won't find a more open-minded merit-giver on the forum.

This is a fact for which most users experience but not so many would be bold enough to accept the fact as you just did without sentiment. This happens more often between a those for whom you are of higher rank than. Its a common thing that, when you get merited, you tend to know its sources as per the meriter, on what post and even at times, you tend to tend the post over again and just the, you might just conceive the idea of responding in the same manner. There is a common saying in my head that goes 'merits begats meriting', most users here might have said this sometimes consciously or otherwise but then, its wrong. Its an idea that must be forth although, we can't deny the fact that meriting kind of puts a user in the spotlight but then, merit for merits creates the idea of merit sharing or cycling which won't very much promote the correct use of merit and as a result, we just might consider meriting an unworthy post all in the name of responding in the same way. Lets just try to keep of this path, it leads the forum no where!

Yes, it something I have thought about several times but I just overlooked it since I am not guilty or abuse the merit system afterall it good to be nice to someone is nice to you.

No, I dont since everyone can independently send merit to whoever she wanted since it does not involve merit selling.

Yes, the difference here is that you are a high ranking member so you have more merits to give. I am a lower-ranking member with fewer merits to give so I choose to give the few merits I receive to lower-ranking members. Don't get me wrong, I wish I had more so I could give to high-ranking members too.

I don't see how my choice to help users of lower ranks is bad. Maybe you can elaborate more on your point of view. Personally, I don't feel like a post loses value if someone doesn't merit it. However, it is the lower-ranking members who actually need those merits to rank up and gain distinction on the forum, not those who are higher. So, I operate based on that.

Happens to most of us, although I still prefer to distribute my smerits to the needy ones than who has already plenty (ie, leggy members).

It’s kind of complicated for me here as a new member about the concept of sMerit, initially to be very honest I feel  obligated when someone sends me merit. Until I read the forum rules carefully and fully understood the main idea of sMerit so I don’t reciprocate to merit given to me by others on the purpose of trying to pay back but I give my merit to quality post and vital information to the forum.

I think it's natural and logical to think that way.
I suggest that you look at merits as a tool with which you can reward someone's effort and time, which they invested in their post, and thus help other members with some useful information.
You can express gratitude in another way, by replying to his post, in a private message etc.

No.

That's buying trust with merits and should be taken into consideration whenever you want to "return the favour" of having been showered with merits, especially from a merit source.

Okay, you're right, I used the wrong word and corrected it, my mistake.
I was actually going to say that we can show gratitude in a number of ways but it's important that we don't do it in a way that can raise suspicions that it's some kind of counter-service.
Of course you're going to respect the person who helped you with the merits, maybe you'll trust that person in other things but the trust network is a whole different thing.

What has happened to me more specifically is this: someone merits one of my post. Until then I didn't know who he was, but when I see him commenting on other posts I remember him. I think that most of the people who have given me merits are Hero/Legendaries, so it's very easy to find your posts that deserve merits. So I end up giving them some merit but not because when they give it to me I go to see their post history, it happens after that.

Judging from the discussion, not only the OP, but half of those present here attach very great importance to how they are perceived and evaluated by others. Although, in general, this is not bad (this is how the world works), but it seems to me in such matters it is better to turn your gaze to yourself ... After all, it is a kind of indicator showing whether you are moving in the right direction. And no matter how valuable you are to the forum, you still sometimes need time (like any of us) to distract yourself from the past discussions to take stock.

As the question is about obligation
I agree: the contrary could lead to servility.

In my case, answering to the poll question, I never feel obligated (with one exception). In fact, I am aware that I tend to give my merits to other members who need them, to the detriment of those Legendaries who really deserve them for the content they share. Aware of this, I am now considering regaining the balance on this issue.

I just felt obligated once (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5297105.msg55760598#msg55760598), when I received 20 merits (the highest number I have received ever at once) in a thread I opened talking passionately about one topic I was afraid of the answers: the reply was so comforting and eye opening, that I felt obligated to send him back the 10 sMerits I earned for his generosity. (Thanks again, @squatz1).

Look at it this way. Merits are supposed to be given for quality posts, no matter what rank the user has. You aren't meriting a lower ranked or higher ranked member, you are meriting the post that was made. Quality is a subjective choice, so if you feel that a post you want to merit deserves 2 merits for example, your decision to merit that post shouldn't be influenced by the rank of the user.

It sounds easier than it is and a limited merit supply definitely influences the choices you make.  
A legendary user doesn't deserve more merits than a newbie just because the user is legendary.
A newbie doesn't deserve more merits than a legendary just because he is a newbie and needs to rank up.
Because the only thing to consider should be the post and your personal opinion about it.

I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread that I tend to merit totally random users, usually not more than once then move on. If there really is a phenomenon of boomeranging merits back to the sender, then it's not being done by the majority of forum members if my 80th placed merit circle is any indication.

I worked for the merit I got, I can give it to any post I like, so far it is not a spam and it has quality. I do give to anyone I want, but I like giving people that also have merited me before so far they are having quality posts to merit, that should not be a big deal.

If someone is meriting back the user who just merited them then it is called merit farming which I never appreciate among our fellas.

But sadly it becomes a reality, people making it as habit to merit them people who is giving merit them which should be changed, just merit the post which gave you some new information to you or atleast it will be helpful to someone in the future.

I don't really care about the user who I am meriting, if I feel it deserves and got merit on hoarde then I will just go for it.

I request everyone to do the same which will increases your merit cycle.

It isn't an issue in small amounts in my opinion.  It's the users that have exchanged hundreds of merits back and forth that are a real serious threat to the system here.  I've gone on record multiple times as saying there should be a 50 merit cap on what any 1 user can send to another over the lifetime of the account.  If you look at some of the highest merit earners on this site, they have literally exchanged hundreds of merits between each other.  I'm pretty sure this isn't what the merit system was created for and it should be stopped with a lifetime merit sent limit between users.  

It is also abundantly clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that massive merit abuse took place in the first couple weeks of the system.  I think in addition to a merit per user lifetime cap, rolling back merits received in the first month of the system as well as merits over 50 sent to any one user by another would make the system much more honest and make the merit whores have to go through the additional steps required for alt account signature spammers.  That's if we actually want an 'honest' system instead of a 'who can befriend the most abusers' system we currently see in the trust and merit networks.

DT1 Alt account merit swapping:
https://bpip.org/smerit.aspx?to=OgNasty&from=Rmcdermott927 (35)
https://bpip.org/smerit.aspx?to=Rmcdermott927&from=OgNasty (24)

The fifty merit limits works great if you want to spread your merits around for influence and power.  But many profiles here (myself included) continue to think of new ideas, so a merit cap is not needed.  

:)

Kind of agreed with the statement but not with merit cap per user for a lifetime may not work but it will be better to limit merit per posts like

only 2 merits can be rewarded for a post with two people awarding one merit each or just 2 merits from a person so even if someone want to merit that post it is not possible to do so.

Most of the community members agreed that awarding 50 merits for a post is too much, BTW I didn't see any post received 50 merits from a person in the recent days.

I agree that 50 merits for a single post is too much.  If there were a lifetime cap though, it wouldn't matter so much and would eliminate a serious problem.

Only 2 merits on a post seems a bit low to me.  Some posts, like my escrow, nastyfans, minted seats, and green energy mining threads have led to years (soon to be decades) of work and tens of millions of dollars exchanged (billions of dollars in BTC at current USD/BTC rates).  Limiting those posts to only 2 merits seems a bit strange.  A lifetime merit limit addresses the issue of merit cycling forever, but a per post merit limit does what exactly?

My preference would be that a user can only merit a post once with not more than just two merits (which would enable the recipient to on send one merit to the next user).

Any post can be merited by an unlimited number of users, but as I mention above just once for either one or two merits.

Other threads have figures showing merits are not making their way down the totem pole to the new and near new users to enable them to rank up, so both the merit sources and the recipients they shower with anywhere from four to eight (and more!) merits simply aren't giving new users the time of day much less merits.

Some threads really deserves lot of merits for their contribution to the forum and also the whole crypto community but this has been taken as an advantage by the people who you call is farming circle and just keep spending them in between  posts.

If we have merit restrictions per posts then it might be helpful to restriction their actions and will encourage them to merit more posts than single post with huge merits.

In overall, I think that more likely we merit each-other because their opinion matches our opinion.

Personally, I think that people may think in a different way. When the person merits you, you may feel like you have to merit but at the same time you may think like if I merit him/her, it will look like a chain

To my mind, a high percentage of bitcointalk members think differently because when the person merits you, you may feel like you have to merit but at the same time you may think like if I merit him/her, it will look like a chain where we try to rank up each-other. I came up with this conclusion after seeing this behaviour from a lot of users.

If I understood your proposal correctly, you are suggesting that no post should be able to receive more than 2 merits in total? So if I awarded this post of yours with 2 merits, and a second user wanted to give you 1 more merit, that wouldn't be possible because the merit cap of 2 merits/post has already been reached ???

I don't think anyone would support such a change. And it would be unfair to new users who are good posters and can theoretically get 20, 30, 100 merits per post/thread if enough people like what they wrote. I don't think abuse should be fought by limiting the entire community like that. That is why I am always against proposals that would put additional limitations on newbies, based on the fact that many are spammers or share malware and scams. I think that 1 legit newbie who wants to become part of the community is worth the 10 idiots that get banned for various reasons. And because of that 1 quality newbie, he shouldn't be treated unfairly.

Merits are transparent. You can always check who sent what to who. On top of that, it's a subjective decision. If I feel like something is worth just 1 merit, that's my right. If the member next to me feels the same post is worth 10 merits, he has equal rights to award those merits to the same post. And a third user can think it's not worth a single merit.

Merit abuse should be proven the same way alt accounts, ban evaders, and scammers are proven. On a case by case study.
   

Meriting a post is highly subjective and I am agree with that but you feel that any good post deserves 50 merits from a person? Very rare exceptions to such amount of contributions.

IMO, meriting a most in a thread is just to highlight that particular post among the others because it contains some information for the newbies or to the community that is why I think 2 merit cap is enough, we no need to pour merits on a single posts because this leads to the circle formation so the merit get distributed into a closed circle not to the entire active members.

If we have low merit cap per posts then it will encourage people to merit more posts so more newbies can rankup! :)

Putting a merit per post limit to 2 merits in total is very different from allowing a single user hand out 50 merits at once. We can discuss whether or not a post deserves 50 merits, and if it's fair or not to award so many merits for that post, but I doubt anyone would vote for having a 2 merit per post maximum. That surely doesn't sound fair.

There are thousands of posts that can be used as an example, but here is just one I remember from yesterday because I used it as a source somewhere.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5184169.0
With such a rule in place, the work wwzsocki put in to create this thread would be worth (at maximum) the same as a potential 1-2 liner that someone finds useful or entertaining. A slap in the face.     

For me, just merit for good. Doesn't necessarily always make a high-quality post. Otherwise, a good poster will miss merit from me. But I don't use this policy receive>send. If someone sent me merits I even don't visit his post history. So there is no chance to send him merit as a return for received merits. Although this doesn't merit abuse in my opinion, but I don't feel this is a better way to spend your merits. As a merit source, wherever I notice a good post at least according to me, then I send merits. I don't care even he had sent me merits or not.

But I have to admit, I visit post history sometimes to send merits especially if someone very near to rank up. I just try to help them to achieve their desired rank.

Having merit cap per post is the idea and 2 was just an example, if community thinks that 2 is not enough then we can consider 10 for a good post as cap merit to be received.And as I said there are some exceptions which deserve 100s of merits but we are giving chance of merit circle to get formed on most of the occasions where the post is definitely good but don't deserves 50 at all.

I don't think there will be any tweak in the merit system from theymos in the merit system even he said that there may be some changes if it was needed when it was implemented but so far so good the system works but still it can made to be better for everyone deserve to be encouraged with merits if they are having some worthy contents.

I agree with this as I am one of those people you helped in ranking-up!

I still remember the time when I was about 30-40 merits away from being a Hero Member and you suddenly merited some of my accusation posts, together with Rikaflip and LoyceV. With your combined efforts, I was able to attain those merits and subsequently ranked up.

To be honest, until now, I still feel indebted to what you guys did to me and I really want to at least bring back the favour for what you guys did! That is also why every time I see a user who is near in ranking up, I make it a point to help them by meriting some of their post!

There is a guy named elmanchez (who was already permabanned due to loan default), who initially asked me to exchange merits before on a 1:1 ratio on Telegram. I simply said no because it’s against the rules, and I had a feeling that he fumed after responding that to him and never had a convo or heard from him anymore (until seeing a scam accusation against him).

I don’t mind who merited me (but I appreciate at least), because I am not obligated to merit him or her back. I would rather choose the natural way of sending and receiving merits because of helpful and valuable posts. 

I think merit is based on post that deserved merit and not any how post that can be merited, from another aspect of meriting a user that merited you, looking towards it, it's a symbols of appreciation to merit who merited you but that should not mean that it's a privileges to merit a low quality post due to a mate merit you, let me recapitulate by saying it's not bad enough to merit someone who merited you from my perspective because some people merit a post due to inspiration or knowledge acquire from a post without minding how many times such a person merited he / her.

Bump

Hi pal. What's the reason for the bump? I think this post should rather be locked. It was interesting but if people haven't commented in a month, I don't see the point in bumping it.

It's simple: The bumping rules give everyone the right to bump their threads once every 24 hours. Therefore, I am well within my rights to bump my thread that was last posted on more than a month ago without consulting with other forum users.

Thanks for your concerns. 

Haha ;D

Funny reply, but he is kinda right about the reason for the bumping though.

Anyway, just to add about an opinion about meriting a user who merits you. I kinda feel it has to do with being benevolent. Some people just have this gesture within them. It's more like feeling the need to 'repay the person who did you good because you feel you own them.' It's a human feeling. We see this often when people open the door for us, we feel the need to return the favor to another person.

If I open up the topic and then was merited to a certain user and then the user made a reply which strikes to the topic or was being answered the way what I wanted like learning from the topic then giving merit back to that user to me was not a problem because every user has the discretion to give the merit he has. This is what always been done to high ranks when they made their reply. They always end up making good answers and tha could satisfy most in a certain thread.

However,  giving merit back even if the reply was completely non sense then that would be an exchange of merits. The only problem is that we can't verify whether they are only exchanging merits or the user was honest to goodness giving merit back when he read the reply even if we consider it non sense but for him it was not?

Well, merit system for me works well but there are no rulings and it will be complicated depending on how you perceive things especially here in the forum.

Although if anyone does this, the intention is not bad but sometimes if you do this regularly and repeatedly  then people might suspect that you are alt of each other and meriting your own accounts. For me, it better to merit posts as you see them and not necessarily try to go through the entire post history to find a post to give merit.

I do not feel either good or bad about how I give merit. The only criteria is that the post must be of quality, helpful, well-thought, etc. The thing is that people who give merit are usually those that also do good posting, and that is possibly why they have merit to give away. I also run through some postings story often, as some members tend to give consistent quality and great information.

I certainly do not feel obliged to it.

I do understand that it may look like exchanging merit, but it is not. Nobody ever asked me to merit back nor I sell or otherwise trade with merit. If anyone considers that I overlooked their posting they can drop me a line and I will happily review their posts.

Also, I give plenty of merit to people who do not merit me or even disagree with my views, even across full threads and even the threads that I start which may look like incentivising, but again, it is not, it is simply because I do bother to read the answers and it is inevitable that I will find posts that are good enough for at least one merit and sometimes many of them.


I am strongly against any limit per user life, etc... There are two particular users that I am aware I am meriting a lot, but they have earned every point and I am willing to defend any merit I have ever given. Except one time in which I accidentally merited with the trailing default 0 by mistake.

I am of course happy to consider how to reduce merit abuse, other than the existing 50 maximum per month to one user, which by the way i reached once.


Unless one of the cycling members is a merit source, the merit decays (you get 2, you give 1). If they just cycle, it won´t go far.

The problem is that doing a proper merit control job is a huge task. You would actually need to read the posts and find clear examples in which a shitty post is merited clearly too much.



I have found numerous posts that deserve much more than 2 merits. If limited, it would not make sense to make great posts that do require knowledge and time and thus are worth more than 2.



That is exactly right, people who post quality tend to do it often and consistently so is not only that make meriting easier, it is also that they are worth being read. And +1 on your view on using common sense and do not abuse same-member merit and back-meriting.

Have you seen any good (worthy) posts lately?  :D

Interestingly, the last merit you shared was over a year ago. I rest my case.

Well now i think merit is for higher rank member. I noticed in my 7 or 8 month journey in this forum which is like a exchange process. But in this process only higher ranked member got benifited. I saw in lots of topic that where higher ranked member comment just 1 or 2 line. But he got a 2 digit number merit. And in those post i saw a newbie member comment on it and his comment definitely deserve merit but he didn't get. I noticed this things on lots of post. Higher ranked people exchange merit between them. But what we can do just comment or nothing. I always takes merit as award what i got for Doing something not as a ranked gaining point. I saw someones topic who created that topic which will gives newbie or jr member merit to do some task like encrypted message or something. I have done this after a 1 week hard work and then i post that but i didn't get any merit maybe all because of i am a bounty hunter. Look sir i am an undergraduate student. I want to bear my study expense. Thats why i work on crypto. And bounty, airdrop is a way by which i can earn free money. And without bitcointalk i can't join bounty. So what can i do. But its a guranted that anyone can visit my profile and you got the proof that am i doing anytype of spamming post here. No you didn't get. Because i work every where with my loyality and its a challenge for me also. Now i don't want to tell anything more. If anyone got hurted via my this post then i am sorry. Because its my place where i work. And i also want to admit that no doubt i got huge knowledge from forum what i didn't know before joining this forum. Thats why i loved this forum.

First, you shouldn't think that the merit are only for high ranking because this merit system is not moderated so that it is still possible for users to miss quality post of merit. I really have to advise you to understand how this merit system works before you decide to say a merit will only benefit high ranking users.

In my opinion, merit will not make it difficult for low-ranking users to get them if they have good post quality. You may have to upgrade a post that seems more useful than complaining about how hard it is to get merit. General post often won't invite other users to send you a merit, only quality post can help you earn them. The solution is to contribute to forum and other users regardless of your job as a bounty hunter. One more thing, there are time when a long wall post isn't considered a quality post if it doesn't contain useful information. You have to do some introspection before you blame this system.

This thread that @LoyceV created might be proof that achievement isn't specifically for high ranking users. The future of Bitcointalk: Low Ranking Top Merit earners in the past 30 days (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5185736.0). There are quite a number of merit that every user send each month on quality post, you just need to maximize your chance of getting them by creating quality post. If you have quality post but not getting merit, try using this thread as a workaround. [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0).

That is your subjective opinion. If you believe such a post by a newbie or any other member deserves to be awarded, feel free to throw some merits their way. No one said that a merit-worthy post needs to be lengthy and consist of multiple paragraphs. One sentence can offer a complete answer to a problem or show that the user is knowledgeable which makes his post merit-worthy in the eyes of many.

You could consider it an organized crime syndicate exchanging merits or have you considered that they receive substantial amounts of merits because of the quality and effort they show in their posts?
 
You are talking about OgNasty's thread where he asks users to encrypt a message. It could be because you are a bounty hunter, only he knows. He posted a disclaimer where it says if you spam a lot with bounty applications he will turn you down. I saw you posted it twice and got no reply. 

You can be both a bounty hunter and a normal user of this bitcoin forum.

I have always classified bounty hunters in two different groups:

• Social media link spammers
• Those who actually do some work (graphic designers, video creators, translators, writers).

I am not a fan of the first group but I have no problem with the second group of hunters.

It's so hard to get merits, I'm always on the collectibles section buying items so I feel like I never have the chance to be merited. One day I will have activity of a legendary member and still be a junior member 😅

Any advice?

It's really not hard to get merits, the fact that majority of your posts are in collectibles reduces your chances as it's not a board which showcases a users knowledge on Bitcoin related topics or their willingness to learn, so merit sources and other users with merits to drop do not visit there.

There's no harm on being on the forum for a sole purpose without any interest in joining discussions, but if you wish to get merits and rank up, then you have to participate in discussions.

I really think it's weird that there are merit sources on this forum who have literally exchanged hundreds of merits back and forth, but people are worried about the newbies who exchange one or two with each other that they originally had to earn at some point to be able to give...  Just figured I'd point that out.  If you really want to stop merit abuse at a level of more than 1 or 2 merits here and there, then a merit cap of 50 merits that one user can send to another over the life of their accounts would make a whole lot more sense, particularly for the merit sources (Disclaimer: I am a merit source).  

The collectibles section is for auction between the seller and item collectors and most of the merit source don't usually visit the section, for you the get merit you need to make a good contribution on the forum in the sections where the merit source and also create some informative thread which will enlight the newbies in the beginners and help section.

Merits are handed out for posts other users find have brought some quality and effort to a discussion. Buying and selling stuff, putting up ads, and asking questions about prices, shipments, etc, aren't the type of posts that others will find useful. If you have rare items, offer good prices, and if you know how to create an interesting auction, some merits will be sent your way. But to get to a position of ranking up, you have to start taking part in more serious types of discussions.   

The Merit system was created to stop spammers, but you're not one of them. Judging by your Trust ratings you're a real Bitcoin user who uses the Collectibles board for actual trading.
The problem for earning Merit is that you post like this:
On the Collectibles boards this is totally fine, but the posts aren't substantial enough to deserve Merit either. So basically, Merit just sucks for you :(

Therefore, I've sent you some for this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5308639.msg56790907#msg56790907) post.

I personally don't see anything really bad in meriting someone who merited you. A user earned his merit and is free to use it in any way he wants. This would not cause anything bad. The 2 sMerit=1Merit system is designed this way taking into account this case. You cannot abuse the system = you get merited in return for yours, but now you have to work your ass to earn the second sMerit to be able to merit back.

P.S. I never did merit someone just because he merited me and totally against this action.

Why? It's not a merit exchange, it's simply gratitude, and you want to help someone get more, as long as he deserves, so you search.

Thank you all for the advice. I will try to be more involved in discussions. There definitely will be a learning curve before I can contribute something worthwhile in those discussions as most people here are very knowledgeable!

Thank you Loyce for the merits and yes my posts in trading have been pretty short and direct 😅

I guess you shouldn't worry too much about this if you are a collectible fan, as as far as I know the collectibles section is famous for its generosity of merit if you publish quality content. Personally, I would love to read a first-person guide to creating collectibles from A to Z, (so go for it).

I'm really interested in how you judge someone's performance. Can you show me some criteria? At least, it could be my goal in the future  :D I'm just back here and I'm looking to act like a real user.

I don't have hard criteria, it's quite arbitrary I must admit.
This is something:

I'm not looking for people who act like a real user, you have to be one.
Judging by your post history (and the fact that you're promoting bananas for some reason) puts you in this category:
If I look at your post history (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=945589;sa=showPosts;start=180), I don't even want to read it.

Yeah, I usually do this on some of my countryman that support me by giving merit on some of my post. I do search on there post history for some meritable post whenever I see there post on a random thread that I’m reading. Somehow I already mark there username in my brain so its easy for me to spot them on a bunch of other post.

For me this listed points should be enough criteria for sending out Smerit although most people feel indebted when the receive merits from higher source feeling the have to reciprocate the gesture by sending back some merit to the source. I am still pondering how right this could be but for it's still a good way of spending merits.

LOL, I really don't want to see how much activity I currently have on my profile because I would be in a different rank without an merit system. But the merit system has at least opened my eyes and mind about the so-called contribution, do we still have to complain when the merit system force us to post quality thing?

Some people may still complain about the difficulty of getting an merit, but you will get it when someone find your post very helpful. There are currently 97 merit source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources) around the forum, maybe you'll get more when they or someone else get the post you deserve.

Collectors are very generous individuals I totally agree; however,  getting merited is hard because most of the contribution of collectors to the community are not showcased in posts but are through PMs.

For example, when I first joined bitcointalk as a collector I was lucky to meet a very generous individual that goes by the name "Hookzup1". Not only did he sell me an amazing collection at cost to help me start a collection. He continuously supports me with ongoing advice and, as a result, I was able to avoid any pitfalls that one would suffer when entering a new space. While "Hookzup1" has been of great help to many newcomers behind the scenes, this was never showcased through his posts. This resulted in one of the best collectors to only have 56 merits which shocked me. I'm sure a part of it is that he didn't pay particular attention to merits but I still think we should say thank you to his contributions and show him some love (his birthday is coming up, can we get him to100 merits as a surprise).

I hope he doesn't see this post haha

Best,

You mean, a real user doesn't have to learn how to act, right? I'll try
Yes, I know, that's why I'm here and asking the question. Honestly, I have so many unknown things here, I think I need a lot of time to get used to. I participated in advertising bananas because I want to make money, it was understandable, right?

I remembered this thread, because lately fellow member @Cnut237 and I have been giving each other merits. At some point you doubt if that could be seen as a merit exchange but I think it is clear that we give them to each other for worked posts in which many times we start with separate points of view and at the end we come to close conclusions.

From what I can see, you've sent a grand total of eight merits and they have sent a total of ten merits.  (your eight were in one merit lots sent while you've receive ten in just four separate posts).

In small numbers it isn't as big an issue as when there are dozens of merits flying backwards and forth.