Bitcoin Forum

People with a lot of Merit can earn $50 in BTC a week easily and more in signature campaigns. They have absolutely ZERO motivation to give others Merit because if anything giving others Merit will give them more competition in the signature campaigns.

The cancer that is Facebook with constant dopamine-addiction and global mass insanity and people just creating posts to get a like has also made its way to Bitcointalk now.

While Bitcoin promised to destroy the established system now and this place was great for discussions, now its just another Facebook. The old quality of message boards that you can still see in Posts by Satoshi and many others (in OLD posts where people actually made thoughtful posts and did own research and posted about experiences) is now completely disappeared because people rather make posts thinking they will get a like, or to spam their X posts a week for their signature campaigns.

While its great to offer people a way to earn bitcoin, basing this so much on the merit system is the stupidest thing Bitcointalk has ever done and it has ruined these forums. I must have seen the exact same ETH-shill post in different words 50 times last week in the Altcoin disussion board. Always by different usernames but probably the same people/same guy running all them in his bot network.

Was a great time but until this system is changed I rather write in some old mailing lists or even to my own notepad because there I have control over my words and thoughts and am not influenced by retarded distractions as the Merit system.

Have a nice day!

Check this forum very well, there are best post qualities always. Have you ever since meaningful bitcoin forum like bitcointalk? If there is, still can never be compared.

That is why bitcointalk is now having over 3 million users. The merit system helps to reduce shit posters, unlike 2017 as I heard where a single person will have 10 accounts. The more the account leading to shitposting.

I do not think you are needed. You are not theymos, not any of the staff, not Loyce V not any of the best members. You can be the one that needs this forum, not this forum that needs you.

Whenever I find a post worth reading, I will give it merit, if I have any. I think there are a lot of posts that are not worth reading, and I want to encourage people to make more posts that *are* worth reading, otherwise being on the forum would be pointless.

The purpose of this forum does not revolve alone in earning money through participating in campaign signatures. The forum is bigger than that- which is sharing your knowledge about cryptocurrencies in general. It just so happens that the traffic in this forum makes it as an avenue for businessmen to create advertisements.


The merit system actually contributed greatly in terms of post-quality of users. Lots of brand new users with relatively low activity are gaining hundreds to thousands of merits in a few months. With the merit system being implemented, it reduced the total number of users who farm accounts by ranking up only through activity.


I do think that the merit system will not be changed soon unless there is a compelling reason for theymos to do it. As we all know, the merit system cannot address every corner of each problem and it is not perfect but it does its job pretty well in combatting against spammers and scammers.

Did you either read the purposes of merit system or the welcome message?

• Merit & new rank requirements (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0)
• Welcome message (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5036308.0)

Many users (old-era and new-era) were ranked up. They are evidence that your statement is not accurate.

• Bitcointalk Ranking-up pipeline- Those close to their next rank (lacking Merits) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5206035.0)

Please don't compare Bitcointalk forum to Facebook.

I remember back in the day when I had to farm likes on Facebook so I could post "Marty's Apples" under my posts in a new Facebook Signature Campaign, which was definitely a secure job that made me create a mass of spam.

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It's the bounties of the altcoin cesspool that cause your discussion board to be tainted by such shit: that, and a lack of additional moderator support for locking down useless threads.

You have a report button, so start using it.

only an insecure person would think like that. and if there is someone like that in the forum there are tons of members and members that are merit sources who give merits to those that deserve it.

goodbye then. you would have had control of your words and thoughts if you weren't so desperate to earn merits.

It's been a while since we've had a good anti-merit rant. Unfortunately this one isn't even that good, just the same old fake complaints. Merits are not scarce, good posts are. Throwing a tantrum and threatening to stop posting here won't impress anyone.

OP get out of the altcoin section(s) and post some GOOD posts elsewhere and you should be able to get some more merit.
This is bitcointalk, you are going to get more traction talking about BTC then alts.
Yes, you can get merits in the alts, I have gotten some there and sent some there. But, I tend to, as do others, give more merit on the boards in the bitcoin section.

I also see you post a lot in the German section, no idea how many merits flow there, that might also be an issue, can't be sure since I don't speak German.

-Dave

It seems you have received a few merits recently, but wondering why you are complaining about it. If no one cares then how you have received merits? Peoples care, but only on a quality post or a good post at least, its depend on the sender. Good contributors always try to spread his/her merits on good posts, no only busy with earning from here. If someone from good contributors doesn't receive merits, then it doesn't mean the merit system is worst, possibly other users did not notice the post.

I try to review the local German section.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=16.0
Not like you said everything is fine and running smoothly, every topic has a merit.

I think it's not a Merit system like Facebook, your broken way of thinking is like Facebook.
You don't have to wait for the system to change to write something interesting, you can just do a scam in the Bounty section, if that's better for you.

$50 in Bitcoin per week, it is given to forward-thinking members, such as the creators of Bitcoin, members who complain and think badly, are simply not suitable to receive $50 in Bitcoin per week.

If you continue to think the Merit system can spoil your mind, you can choose to stop posting on this forum and do anything unrelated to the Merit system out there, it's better to make your nerves normal.

No one forces you to do something here, if you are happy, do it and if you are not happy to do you can find another forum, very easy way of thinking is not it.

What I think you mean to say is signature campaigns have ruined the forum, which is obviously why you're complaining in the first place. It's not merit that has ruined it for everyone but shitposters who came here in the masses. The merit system was meant to be a way to stop people coming here only to earn via posting and before the merit system anyone could farm as many accounts as they wanted to abuse campaigns hence why something needed to change. I agree it can be quite hard to get sufficient merit to achieve a high rank but it's not impossible and you seem to have a got a decent bit of it recently. With that being said, I'm still in favour of letting users bypass the merit system by giving them the option to buy new donator ranks that come with the benefits of some of the higher ranks ie Silver Member gets you Senior status in all but name and so on. I think that would help those who are struggling to get merit or are impatient.

So do I, but I'm a merit source and it's kind of my voluntary job.

I do agree with OP that the average member with very few sMerits to give isn't going to be motivated to get rid of them unless they're feeling generous, but that's why Theymos has merit sources patrolling for good posts.  The whole system would probably not work without sources for the reasons you've given.

Why is this now a problem for you, OP?  You've been here for a few years and likely could have ranked up faster had you just posted more and perhaps put in a little more effort into your posts (though I haven't checked your post history).  Very few posts get merited, period.  Therefore you kind of have to be a prolific poster in order to earn a lot of merits (or an outstanding one, which is rare).  Good luck.

You got all that right.  Anyone check OP's post history?  I think I'll do that after writing this, see if there's anything worth meriting.  I've often encouraged people to PM me with requests to look at their posts, but only one or two members have ever done so.

Edit:  I gave OP a few merits for some of his previous posts, which were pretty good/informative.  I'd encourage him and anyone else to contact me as described above, and I'll review your posts--just don't beg for merits.

not suprised everyone in a sig campaign disagreeing

And you must have missed my post, then. 

I will reiterate my point that you've been a member since August 2017 and have made only 631 posts.  What are you expecting?  It isn't supposed to be easy to earn merits; that's the whole point of the merit system, to suppress shitposters and reward members who put in a decent amount of thought and effort into what they're writing.  I'd say you have a pretty good merit/post ratio.  I've certainly seen members with ones that are a lot less.

I take breaks. Like sometimes I havent posted for months. Which also was the case from the great depression after last Altcoin crash. Why should only people be rewarded who post here only or mainly for merit and forum rank? I imagine there is whole bot networks just to make money here from sig campaigns. Giving merit to each other or selling it.. I mean really it makes more sense to buy hacked accounts than waste your time hunting for merit and help ruin the forum with spam posts and a merit focused discussion instead of quality posts in a bitcoin focused discussion.

My arguments were completely ignored. I get it you (you as in everyone with a sig) want to protect the system you are benefitting from. But why would someone with a lot of Merit and in Sig Campaigns ever give out Merit? All he would be doing is cause more people to get to high forum ranks and steal slots in the best Sig campaigns from him. You may be an exception but most humans would say what you say then act completely different. Just like for example with cheap meat from insanely large, cruel animal farms. Nobody admits they are buying it yet almost everyone (90%) does it.

The reasoning I gave was mostly ignored. The merit system helps fry everyones brain and go for cheap & quick rewards in life only just like with the Facebook/Smartphone generation. But its just like with the meat, nobody ever will admit it to themselves.

All this does is create mindless sheeps who are easily distracted, and having your own opinion and formulating is PUNISHED because swimming with the mass gets you the likes/merit. Its a very bad situation and it will help destroy Bitcoin once the people who can still do analytical thinking will just destroy the mass.

That's the issue with the way that you're thinking OP. One shouldn't be hunting for merit. That is not why the system was put into place. The system was implemented to discourage spam posts and increase the quality of the content generated by the community. You can look to your activity in this forum as a discussion of yours in any group of friends : you intervene and share your ideas only when you think they add value / create discussion about them right? You're not expecting anything else in return (expect contributing to the flow of the discussion). It's the same way of thinking that you should apply here.

What is this tremendous hate for people that are running campaigns for other services? Is this jealously? Do you want to achieve that same "spot" but weren't unable to so far and you feel frustrated? My advice for you OP, since you seem to be focused on just climbing up and get some random campaign, is to first, change your personality. Don't just set a bar for " I want to be a Member or Hero Member to get into Y campaign" because that alone isn't enough for you to reach it. You first have to become the person that is able to achieve those ranks and then you can try to achieve them.

Make your habit (positive/helpful posting) be something consistent. I've had good results applying this way of thinking in other areas of my life. I really recommend that you read this book : Atomic Habits by James Clear (https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits)


I don't understand this way of thinking mate. There is so free speech in this forum, how can you possibly say that "having your own opinion and formulationg is PUNISHED"?. Could you provide some examples where you saw that happen?

See, thats the perfect example of a merit-hunting post. You pretend someone is wrong,
claim the morale high ground and theres an issue so you can gain some merit ;)

Thats also how the media has been doing it for a while keeping
everyone hooked. They just make up issues and that gets them attention and clicks.
Which has led us pretty much to mass insanity and people completely addicted to
quick dopamine rewards.

Whether theres an actual issue or not does not even matter because for them its just about their
personal benefit.

You could barely make a thoughtful post on bitcoin future because it will soon get either pushed
back or flooded from all the signature posters.

I have tried asking people to give good, cheap altcoin suggestions and 99% I get replies by
people pushing ETH with always the same type of posts that I have no doubt are auto generated
with text spinners or other text tools, maybe even AI.

I mean I get it, its a pretty significant amount you can make here, when people use several
accounts they can probably replace their job. In some countries maybe even already with just
one account.

Then they can use that to push Merit to their other accounts, or to their friends, so they always
receive Merit back. None of that actually improves post quality ever.

With the continous Bitcoin rise you could be looking at making a small fortune all based on
spam posting. Sure not all make spam posts, but I mentioned the issues and none of you even
has disagreed.

Also you just need to look in the Signature Campaign threads. It shows the people who want to
sign up and they post their merit received in the last 120 days. Its usually like 5 or 10 Merit.
So currently you are looking at 5 years to improve one forum rank.

Like why would YOU merit anyone for a quality post when you can just merit your friends or
your alt accounts? Not a rhetorical question. You think theres no actual issue with that, why?

Let's pretend that it's just you and me on this conversation ok mate? I'm going to tell you a secret of mine : I don't pretend/intend to run campaigns on my avatar/signature related to services (i.e casino, mixers) advertised on here.Not because I have anything against them, I would just prefer not to. So now that we've got that out of the way, why should I be worried about making "merit-hunting posts"? Do you think that all of us are "sheeps" because we defend a system that has been proved to work ever since it was implemented? The same number of voices that support this system would be the same number of voices that would be against it if it was implemented in a poorly way.


Again, could you provide some examples where that happened mate? I would gladly read your answers / thread to understand how you got this view of the forum/system in place.

You act as if whoever runs these campaigns just trows their money to the first user that goes to them. In reality there are a couple of campaigns (if not all) that have a huge list of requirements other than "be a Member or Hero Member".
Anyone that just tries to "give himself merit" from their alt accounts will face the same problem that it faces in the other accounts : without providing good, positive and helpful posts they won't get their money for advertising.


I don't think anyone would go to the extent of creating hundreds of accounts to give back sMerit to his main account and then repeat this process without being caught. Besides the tremendous amount of work that implies, with the time that you wasted doing that you could had created some really helpful posts :p
But I'm open to debate on that issue. Do you have any proof that supports your claims?

EDIT: Ah! I've just told you a secret of mine on my 100th post! Congrats to us!

Tit for tat strategy. Encourage honest meriting and look for reciprocation.RETURN
RETURN
Also see: mutually assured destruction, social contract, status quoRETURN

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Also, what's the problem with merit in general? All it does is add a further restriction to leveling up - good for preventing spam.

The question is also why have facebook-like-merits to "reward" posts when the post should speak for itself?

Like with people buying bad, cheap meat and never admitting it when asked, its pretty clear (and for example Facebook
also fully knows this, as leaked internal data has shown) people become absolute SLAVES in hunting for likes/merit for
their brains reward system.

I can see the moderators do their best to improve the forums and its always easy to complain (as I do right now)
but not very easy to offer solutions.

But without even making it a loaded question, just as a neutral question to bring the discussion forward,
do you think the merit system has actually improved the forums?

I know you have given me merit before like in the HITBTC scam thread, and I thank you for that. But I think you
were actually the only one.

So the only good thing I can see from the Merit system is you barely get any so maybe that makes people
chase it less than on Facebook. But why Facebooks system should be a good thing I dont understand?
I grew up with ircII text based, lynx text based, then BBS and forums all text based. It was good times,
why now forums (not just here) need to be facebook-itized?!

Isnt there maybe a better solution? I mean one easy fix would be to stop showing the merit on posts,
that at least would make people who post here a lot not get CONSTANTLY reminded of it by seeing it
many many times a day, right. Which automatically influences their brain (even if they dont want it)
towards merit.



I thought so too and I signed up here for good discussions and maybe shill some projects I believe in,
and benefit bitcoin future and all that. But would you seriously give up on $1000 a month just for
posting anyways?

Can still make quality posts.

However now, you need to make merit-Posts first because only then you can get into the club,
or you buy a Bitcointalk account (which I dont want to suppot, really, but when the alternative is
posting for 8 years to gain the needed merit,......)

If you have proof of members meriting their own alt accounts, by all means, make your case public in the Scam Accusation or Reputation board. Otherwise it's just noise. 

I would like you to take a look at the following thread:
[TOP-200] Members who support newbies (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5034141.0)

Check the members and the ranks of the users who award the most merits. You were trying to say that high-ranked members don't award others with merits because they don't want to create more competition. Well, members of the highest ranks are the ones that are on top when it comes to merit distribution and awarding low ranks. If you want to believe all those accounts are awarding their own alts with merits, make an investigation and post your results in the appropriate section.

I give merit away as fast as I can find a reason to do so.  Never once does competition for a signature campaign enter my mind.  I doubt that's much of a factor for any of the merit sources.  If it looks like they're meriting each other or their alt accounts excessively it likely has much more to do with their ego and feeling some sort of validation by having a higher score than anything related to a signature campaign.

We're already on page 2 and you still haven't explained why you need merits and/or given us a huge list of excellent posters who haven't been merited because of some corruption or whatever you're preaching. Merits or lack thereof aren't preventing you (or anyone) from contributing to the forum. You can  even post absolute garbage and still get by - if you don't get pity merits you can buy Copper membership.

So perhaps the problem is that you just enjoy being part of it (the problem) instead of being part of a solution. Make good posts, earn merits, spread them around in a way that you think is lacking, report shitposters... too hard? Easier to whine in Meta? Thought so.

I would definitely pay to improve my rank and to support the forum. But the copper membership
seems to be for Newbies so they can post images. Am I missing something?

Paying for a higher membership (and to support the forum) is actually a much better system
than the Merit system because it improves quality, and I doubt people who pay to support
the forum would harm their accounts by spam posting.

edit: I suppose you meant this:

https://bitcointalk.org/donate.html

I think paying 50 BTC for a custom Title and VIP is a little rich for me right now. Glad its
worked out for the Forums tho and that so many BTC were HELD! :)

What do you want then? In one sentence.

Support an open discussion from the best minds in crypto, security, assets, technology, not some kids
hooked on Facebook-likes-Merits to make their Signature-Campaign posts.

(I know many signature-posters still make great posts, but many do not).

Once Bitcoin started becoming popular the amount of people joining this forum started to increase exponentially. It was expected that the quality would see some decline because not everyone is a tech or finance nerd and is interested in the technical aspects of BTC. The quality of posts was already going downhill, the merit system isn't a perfect solution but it's a whole lot better than allowing any random person to easily rank up and spam the hell out of the forum.

There is nothing preventing that from happening, certainly the merit system is not preventing that. It's not going to happen in shitcoin/bounty boards for obvious reasons, nor in Meta. Go to technical boards and have at it. And moderation there is uber-strict so no shitposters.

I mean it sure did slow down the ranking progress but it kind of reduced garbage copy/paste posts slightly. I've been here for almost a week after taking a long break and I still see those generic 0% thought process siht posts almost everywhere.

I don't have a problem with merit as well, it's called merit for a reason, but imho the lack of definition on what makes a post meritable is a bummer.

Tho I'd love to see the most merited post among 20pages at the top, because if it's an answer or a solution for something, would be nice to have it at the top.

There might be an argument that if users with <10 sMerit (or some other small amount) don't spend their sMerit within a certain timeframe, the sMerit will get distributed to merit sources.

Another possible way to improve the merit system might be to make it so that each merit source gets a percentage of a merit source pool instead of a fixed amount of merit. The size of the merit source pool could be a function of how many sMerit was sent in the preceding month (or another time period), and possibly involving the number of users who are active (by some definition) in the preceding month who have received at least x merit. This would mean that as more people who have received merit are active, the larger the target total sMerit transactions will be, and as more sMerit goes unused, the source sMerit of the merit sources will increase to encourage more system-wide merit spending.

So this is the reason? If you were to be leggy member yourself, you wouldn't be complaining here, would you?

Says a person whose one of the firsts posts on this forum was in a merit giveaway topic :D
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5213418.msg56053778#msg56053778


Then you make topic about other merit giveway topics :D. I like how you as new member give advice other new members how to get merit.That is classic merit hunting post.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5314054.msg56252233#msg56252233


Solid tactic,pretending not to care about merit to get more merit.

Dont blame him. Its natural human behaviour to live in denial. In germany a huge supermarket chain (actually also popular in many other countries I guess, Lidl) after protests from farmers about low prices for meat, raised prices by 2€ per kg(2 pounds) for better treatment of animals.

These 2€ were to go to the farmers completely.

The result was it failed completely as people were not buying this meat anymore.

Despite in polls very large numbers of people like 80% say they are willing to pay higher prices if animals are raised better.
And nobody ever admitting they buy low quality/cheap meat.

That is how facebook has tricked the world and holds peoples reward system hostage. They abuse people living in denial of being
tricked, cheated and ruining the planet. Attention spans have sunk to new lows. Its very sad many forums do this too now like Facebook.

I saw in many local forums now (I wont mention names) people just keep giving each other Merit. And the more I looked into the
Merit system its a naturable behaviour. You will reward those who reward you. This does not improve forum quality at all.

Dont blame the users. Blame the Facebook-Likes-Merit system.

I think you are right about this. In small communities, those that you help will tend to help you, and merit will be "circled" amongst those who are 'liked' in the community. This is a difficult problem to address because communities should have merit sources to give the community merit, and overregulation of communities can cause real harm.

Increasing the total sMerit available might somewhat alleviate this problem as sMerit will be less scarce, and there will be less of an incentive to send sMerit to only your friends.

It is true, one of my very few posts was in a (s)Merit giveaway topic. Still, if you look to my recent ones (and in the future ones) you won't see me interacting in the same manner. Why? Because I've been following the concept that one should focus more on actually contributing positively to the forum (either by posting, making useful threads, or threads that promote organic activity). The merit that could come from those contribution is a benefit, not an end goal. Not anymore. I reckon that I'm a different person now.

I really don't think that's a fair comparison. If you look to my thread I didn't included threads that just work on the basis of "It's my birthday, post for merit!", "I've got spare sMertis, come post and get some!", "Going to leave Bitcointalk, want to get rid of sMerits".

By contrast, each thread there OP manages to actually care about the organic growth of the forum and asks users to make something rather useful/positive either for the community or for the OP themself (learning to sign messages, learning Logic Gates and what not. Each of this actions contribute in a certain way to good posting, why it would be a bad thing?

I doubt that. Have you seen how many merits were sent by the most generous (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat) users? As you can see, all are top merit earners as well.

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Yes, unfortunately, this rant is pathetic, not genuine at all. I can't remember since I saw a good one. It seems that ages passed since wolwoo and the horde used to fill the forum with his rants, which were really nice to read. I was always amused when reading those posts. But OP is like a copycat.

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What club is that?

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"To gain the needed merit" - needed for what? Besides, why would you need 8 years in order to receive some merits (no matter what their purpose is)? A good poster can reach the Legendary treshold in less than a year. So why would anyone need 8 years to earn some merits?

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Why not?

There’s also a bunch of contextual data to consider. I can talk for my local board (haven’t looked into others), with which I’ve been engaged with right from the beginning. Unfortunately, the active community is pretty small, with a couple of handful of regulars at best (on and off), and a few stray appearances. Those that are regular, are also generally decent posters, and help maintain the community active. In addition, most of the have no problem earning merits in the general English speaking boards.

Unfortunately for my local board posters, I’m a tad bit mean with my merits, and barely ever hand out more than 1 to those posts I merit (two is rather infrequent). Of course, I tend to posts there too, and every now and then, I receive some of those merit thingies. There we go, a potentially local board closed merit circle from an outside observer’s numeric point of view, but erroneously concluded if not contextualized as above. Actually, what would be seemingly wrong is to find profiles that go unmerited, yet post decent enough content (at least as decent as those merited).

I wouldn't argue that the merit system is like likes. Although yes, this is how I feel about her. But here on the forum, everything is much more complicated. Newbies are looking for merit, sometimes buying it outside the forum. This is more like merit being treated as a local currency. Have you seen on Facebook that people accumulate likes and then arrange distribution of likes with an important air? Here, on the contrary, very few people just give their own merits. Everyone wants "valuable" posts.

On the contrary, if many here had a simpler attitude to merit, there would be no such excitement.

But judging by your convictions, will you do the same? In your opinion, is it easier to buy an account than to try to develop it? And if the first owner turns out to be not entirely decent? Are you ready to try on his reputation for yourself? If, according to your words, give merit, then only for posts that are useful, according to your rating system. But there are no criteria for everyone. People are different, they have the right to do whatever they want with their merits.
It's like arguing about tastes.

Keep it simple. Love likes, love merit, write good posts, and don't take on the role of a judge. :)

Here is a good example. This user wrote a good review/summary of a project 2 days ago.

No interest at all.
No reply at all.
No merit at all.

Until I just saw it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5315277.msg56305712#msg56305712

Meanwhile 99% of the posts in this board are spam and 1% are good, but why bother make good post
when they just get ignored?

Bitcointalk keeps losing traffic despite getting so many clicks from CMC and other sources,
the Merit system has made it worse.

Yeah, a good example of a user buying an account, or waking up to post a "good" post three times in threads. Is it advertising or spam?
https://i.ibb.co/njGPzc7/Screenshot-1.png (https://ibb.co/bX0bzBs)

Looks like that post is copy/paste from reddit, here is the original that is posted 3 days ago (that makes it older than btctalk post) https://www.reddit.com/r/binance/comments/ld49ej/sparta_on_binance_smart_chain_the_next_snx/ so unless @Books4sale509 is behind that reddit account, this is nothing but a plagiarism case.

But generally you won't see many active merit sources in altcoin section and that's probably the main reason why even good posts there often go unmerited, or receive way less than posts in other boards, which is not a surprise as name of the forum is bitcointalk.

Did you actually read what people have said or just saw they have a signature and then disregarded it?


They weren't ignored at all. In fact, some people agreed with some of what you were saying. The rest is just complete conspiracy theory. Do you really think people are hoarding their merit like it's some sort of precious gold? For most higher ranked users who already have achieved Hero/Legendary rank have no need for merit and I've never once in my life thought I've best not merit this post because my signature place is potentially at stake and I'm sure this is relevant to 99% of others. I think the only people who will be cautious with their merit and not send it are the ones who keep it to give to their alts or want to trade it with others in a merit for merit exchange or something but those will likely be in the minority. Personally I'm happy to give it out to anybody regardless of rank.


Most people here probably think you are wrong. You're making a biased argument from a point of frustration that you don't have enough of what you're complaining about. It's like complaining about greedy capitalism whilst in reality you're just annoyed that you don't have a mansion and Lamborghini, yet if you were in a position to have those things you'd have nothing to complain about but it's the greedy others that that are keeping you down and are to blame not you.


We have the merit system to try limit the abuse that you're complaining about and this has already been stated but I'm not sure you're reading what people are saying. Before it people were either manually or botting accounts farming them for signature campaigns. Tell me, if you were theymos what would you change to make the forum better? Do you have a solution to minimise botting and farming and shitposting whilst not punishing everyone else? Would you completely scrap the merit system or implement something else instead? At the end of the day the merit and even rank system is meaningless to anybody who isn't here just to earn. It doesn't stop you from posting at all. 


You can do this with as a newbie with zero merits. Be honest, this isn't really what you want. If you want a sig free discussion you can try the Serious Discussion boards.


I take it you didn't read my previous post then?  ::) However, I guarantee you even if we did offer more affordable donator ranks that came with the benefits of Full and Hero Members people would still complain why do we have to pay for this, you're just being greedy, how can I afford this when I can't earn here in the first place and so on. Whatever we do we can't win and people will always complain.


Well of course they're going to give it amongst themselves mostly. If you're mostly posting exclusively in that board and can only speak the same language they're hardly going to be dishing it out to posts they either don't see or can't read/understand.

Really dont understand why are complaining about merit system. Those who want to rank up, still manage to do it. Just take a look on this topic [LOG] The ranked up members - Congratulations! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4850225.0). This (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=recent) proved that merit is distributed, and not kept to prevent others from ranking up.


But if everyone distributed all their merit to others and merit sources wont have merit limitations, this would created forum rank worthless. Everyone will be a Legendary and everyone would earn 1$ weekly for wearing signatures. Even accounts, that has only bounty reports in their post history will get Legendary status in two years. Is this what you want?

P.S. Ever thought why in Olympics only first place is awarded with gold medal and everyone else not?

I somewhere heard a story about a man who entertained people by drawing their portrait with toothpicks and he charged $100 for his work of 5 minutes. Once he was asked why dafuq one should pay this much money for a bunch of toothpicks that he/she would probably throw away after some time. Then the guy said he spent 30 years of his life in order to perfectly own his technique. So it's not about the result that you see at the given time, it's about the amount of effort and investment that one put until he got to the point where he/she is now.

"People with a lot of Merit" did not register their profiles with those "a lot of Merit" inside.

Yeah, that post is not a good post by any means, and it looks like it's been trashed anyway since it was plagiarized.

This is argument for more reporting and more moderators, not an argument for abolishing the merit system. Without the merit system, an even higher percentage of posts would be spam.

I don't know if you remember during the ICO craze at the end of 2017 when every new coin/token was launching a signature campaign, but large areas of the forum were completely unusable due to the spam. Bitcointalk was losing traffic from real humans and actual users in place of more traffic from bots and spammers. The merit system has undoubtedly made things better.

---

Having said all that, I don't disagree with some of the points you are making. There is far too much spam in the altcoin sections, and probably not enough merit circulates there either. Looking through your post history, you are not a shit poster, and so I've given you some merit. The reality is that this is a bitcoin forum, and the majority of senior and knowledgeable users (and therefore the users with the most merit to distribute) spend most of their time in the bitcoin boards. I, for example, have zero interest in discussing alts whatsoever, since the majority of them are outright scams.

Thanks. And I feel kinda stupid for giving that guy 1 merit but it seemed like a good post and he "shilled" a Binance project, where the project itself does seem fine. I looked at the project not his post history or if his post was plagarized.

I agree on the Altcoin forum points you have made, and I understand the motivation behind there being no Merit sources because I noticed the Admin is really into Bitcoin (and I am too). But not everyone got many many Bitcoin from back in the day and so for me the best way was to buy cheap Altcoins and trade them into Bitcoin after huge gains, and this strategy has worked well for me.

I stand to the point you could be making quality posts in the Altcoin section for 10 years and not reach Sr. Member.  And in the last Bullrun and the months before, there definitely was more quality posts here in the Altcoin sections. Now you can hardly even get people to name some good low cap projects because they just spam the same ETH-related posts over and over.

To reach Sr. Member before 2018 all you had to do was make 240 posts, quality didn't matter. To reach Sr. Member now you need 240 posts and some of them need to be good enough to stand out in the ocean of crap. You still haven't explained how that's a bad thing or why one would need to be a Sr. Member to begin with. And still no examples to support your blanket statements, like - users who have been making quality posts for 10 years.

BTW there are merit sources on the Altcoin boards so again, you need to show those overlooked high-quality posts.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, and as suchmoon says, if you have examples to the contrary then please do provide them.

There is a well known troll who has spent the best part of two years whining about the merit system and how there are hundreds of good posters who are not getting the merit they deserve. He was asked on multiple occasions to provide links to these great unmerited posts so us merit sources could give them the merit they deserved, but he was unable to ever provide a single example.

There is a thread started by Loyce here - [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271) - where you can leave links to good unmerited posts for merit sources to review. I would encourage you to use it if you find such posts.

I'm not saying all this to be deliberately antagonistic. It's just I spend a lot of time looking for and asking for links to all these great unmerited posters, and very rarely has anything been forthcoming. I'd be happy to be proved wrong though.

@Op, I have over 30 smerit so if it happens that you find a good post you think it deserves merit, feel free to send me a PM with the link and I'll merit it after a review of course.
I'm not a merit source but lately I started browsing the altcoin section. Didn't find many reasonable posts to give merit to but hopefully in the future I spend some more time there and help the section as far as I can ;)

You will get zero support here because.

1.The merit sources who derive like 80% of their merit from each other or the other top 200 cyclers all have their noses in the sig spam trough and DT protection racket.

So go check out the DT1 top 20 fans and recipients lol
Go check their DT inclusions.

So yes merit is a cancer that destroyed the forum.

2.  These people are the forum wardens friends who he will sit there and allow to cycle merit around to each other and include each other on default trust using the merit = trust he made up although that makes collusion VERY EASY rather than make it more robust.

Then he will allow them to use their position in DT and having bags of merits given to each other to

Red tag people for saying anything they dont like.
Red tag whistle blowers that present independently verifiable evidence of scamming
Block flags and legitimate warnings  on themselves or their scamming friends even when there is proof
Trade red tag removals so 2 scammers can make deals to remove each others red tags.

On top of this if DT can not find any evidence of any financially motivated wrong doing at all
Then theymos will put a defamatory and bogus lie on your threads that DT have placed warnings you are a scammer when they have not.

Yes the fact they use merit to ensure they are all jammed packed in the highest paying sigs is the tip of the iceberg.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5088852.0

This post was made before the merit and trust system were conflated as being the same thing.  
See how this member points out clearly the merit system is crap and abused anyway which no member could debunk his points.

Notice how theymos doesnt merit any of that but gives merit to some anecdotal crap from a guy that is now spamming

.....yes you guessed it CHIPMIXER. Claiming it all works perfectly well for him as he likes the taste of ass.

Merit is cancer to this forum. It was poorly conceived to start with. However like a foundation of pure liquid manure it was then built upon. And built upon to ruin the trust system and other aspects.

Now I see where people are pissed that merit sources are all on DT1 and all spamming the highest paying sigs.
Colluding and scamming with impunity in some cases. All are either scammer protectors or enablers. None have any back bone at all.

So yeah it's bad the most greedy and most corrupt take all the money and support scammers or enable them by not doing their fucking job.

The most worrying thing is the implications for free speech.

Merit is the carrot to push the echo chamber ..agree with our pov and get merits.
Merit is the fuel to control the trust system, that is the stick for not following the narrative or whistleblowing on them.
Also can be used to directly block legitimate warnings.

DT mods and the forum warden theymos will not dare deny or debate these points because every one is independently verifiable.

Meta is their favorite echo chamber.

You will get no support here to change the status quo. Next if you continue to speak the truth you'll get some red tags or get banned.

You notice even mods have multiple accounts where they are maxed out sigs and avatars. Lol

Theymos is independently wealthy obviously so greed is likely not his motivation for allowing such corruption and the crushing of free speech here. He is some kind of computer programmer or enthusiast that is likely trying some kind of weird social experiment or experimenting with some kind of pseudo centralized control systems and has spent a few hours designing and coding it out so is either too lazy to fix it or too stubborn to admit it was a cluster fuck until the forum is just him and some mods with Dt1 all fucking each other over fighting for the last sponsorships available.

Lol I mean the entire thing seems strange what kind of dumb fuck is darkstar to hire these dregs so you have 8 chipmixer sigs all on every page of meta. Also find me a chipmixer spammer that has made an original thought inspiring post that has made any lasting  difference? I mean find me 1 chipmixer spammer here that made a real difference to any important outcome here ever?

I see no huge scams stopped? I see no advise given that turned lots of poor people into millionaires. I see nothing at all apart from regurgitated slobbering and meaningless useless drivel from most of DT1. All claiming to be looking out for the forum and its members by milking all the best sig spots and other rev streams... high interest loans, escrow etc etc

Merit is cancer. Read every post by cryptohunter and the one above all  after that account starts posting in meta around 2019.  A wrecking ball of truth that meta couldn't handle.

Having said all of that make sure to understand free speech is far more important than a fair crack at the bitcoin dust
Both are intertwined but if they can only use the carrot and not the stick then more will speak out, or you would hope so.
Better if both are removed.

Keep pointing out how corrupt and flawed it is regardless of how much they tell you nothing will change so no point mentioning it further.
The main issue is that everyone is greedy.

They complain about how unfair it is until they are allowed to be part of it.

You see the same people fighting to retain merit? All those spamming highly paid mixer or gambling sigs?
They are the same ones fighting to prevent transparent objective standards as the basis of the trust system
They want to retain the capacity to red tag you for anything they want to retain the capacity to block legitimate warnings on their own and friends accounts.

See the dirty turds thread. The types of people in charge of merit and trust are clearly greedy corrupt losers.
They have been here years on end through 2 huge bull runs and are still broke. lol

Yeah their advise and posts are well worth merit. You can become a total loser too, what are you waiting for.   Haha

Oelieo or whatever that peasants name is, is talking crap.  Good post?

Well as suchmoon says good poster and bad poster are meaningless terms unless measured against specific criteria.

But these idiots of DT are splashing merit over each other for pure crap 95% of the time. Then say find brilliant posts that deserve merit and I will merit it.

Okay well how about let's start with the link posted here. Go merit the OP and each post he made there.
Then find every post CH, Toaa and all of those made about the merit system , DT scammers and spammers.
The dirty turds thread that no member could debunk any of the independently verifiable evidence of DT scamming, scam facilitating and scammer protecting.
If you want links here specifically that deserve merit let me know.

I mean you only need to look at foxpups merit splurging

He got busted chucking out merit every 2 nano seconds to pharmacist and other DT colluders.
He said he had a time machine. Others say they just bookmark ( their pals ) and search their posts to give them merit lol
He also says his own opinions are not based on any form of reasoning?
Merit = collusion credits.

Control merit and therefore DT = control all rev streams, can scam with impunity and block valid warnings , trade red tag removals , offer incentives via nice merit morcels or trust includes to either support or block their flags.

There are so many holes in this merit and trust system is it dangerous at best or deliberately corrupt.
Research and think about it for yourself.

I was referring to people sending merit to their IRL friends for posts that are probably not deserving of merit for corrupt purposes. There are many good/interesting threads in the English subs, and most modern browsers have auto-translate features that allow people to translate content into their native language.

This is probably not an ideal situation. Having close to zero merit circulating in the altcoin sub means that it is more difficult to identify good posts to read and respond to, which will lead to a worse signal-to-noise ratio in that section.

Because it prohibits them from easily earning here straight away. muenze makes his gripes clear in the very post you quoted:



Not exactly true. If you registered before the introduction of the merit system all you needed was the activity which just required you to make one post every fortnight, hence the introduction of the merit system as people were easily farming accounts just by shitposting.

It isn't the merit system that is at fault. The problem is the migration of some of the old established members. Biased moderation is one possible reason, and I get pissed off when I have a post deleted. Especially if it is on a political or health topic. I spend a lot of time on research and observation, and I don't appreciate attacks from people who have rolled over and accepted the current propaganda. If you don't have time to do your own research,then at least look around you and think about what you can see,

There is no evidence about this and you may also know that members will always give merit to the good posts that they think deserve a merit(s) if they have sMerit. And so far, many members are increasing the ranks and they are on the top. competition is something very usual in this life and how we can make qualified posts will deserve the results. SO, just keep up the good work and you can also get the merits and also chance to get into the signature with BTC payment and also others.

What do you mean by this?
This is so funny how you accuse this forum. But this is your only thought. Bounty Managers commonly not only consider the merit but also the post quality to get into the signature campaign that they manage. If you are a good poster, why don't you try to join them?

Who listens to a noob shilling such a crap sig?
Shhh the successful elders are discussing and debating based on observable events.

Try to debunk any of my points? I challenge you to debunk my core points in 24 hours or you admit you're a chode.

What you're stating is anecdotal crap from the perspective of a very professional ass eater.

Lol at your mind reading talents. My posts must be brilliant if nobody can debunk my core points ...get applying the merits and speed the word. I should have at a minimum 100k merits by now.

While I agree that people with more merits can earn more money, but the main goal of the forum is to have positive an critical discussions about Bitcoin and not earning money, and if we remove the merit system, there will be hell lot of spammers making their way up ranks and earning from campaigns by more spamming. Coming to the competition part, I don't think it's true. While some might be a little hesitant to give out merits, almost all merit sources and people who have good number of smerits give it out generously without hesitation. It won't increase competition, because money isn't the only goal here, if a member posts good, he will rank up later or sooner :)

Do you want to get rid of signature campaigns? Because i can't really see you offering any other solution. From what i've understood in Satoshi era this was a very different place anyway.

Or do you really want to go back to old system? That would just create account farming and meaninless spamming for bounties would be off the charts. How would that be good for the forum?

And comparing this to Facebook dopamin addiction doesn't make any sense; Making this forum a better place for everyone by helping others, with interesting points and informative topics is very different from posting puppies and selfies for likes with your friends.

That's not true, even with the excessive way you're presenting it. If I send a merit to a person, it can be seen on my merit history. It can be seen by everyone that BlackHatCoiner merited <someone> which shows that BlackHatCoiner liked a high quality post. So no, I don't have ZERO motivation to give my merits. They are useless units if I keep them, but I can show my generosity by giving them away.

I can't really compare any forum boards except Altcoin Discussion with Facebook.

I think you've confused Bounties with Signature Campaigns. On bounties you can literally see the same kind of post. Call it spam, call it meaningless. But on signature campaigns, it's entirely different. People try making high quality posts, otherwise they won't be accepted in future campaigns. At least this is the way I see it.

We can agree here.

---

So basically, what annoys you is the spamming. Not the merits. If the merit system didn't exist, have you any idea how much spam it'd be? The altcoin discussion is the cancer you're describing that has "ruined" the forum. Not the signature campaigns. And you can verify that by observing that only signature campaign participants have replied on this thread. None from bounties.

theymos does not care because he make 5000 BTC from this website. He has long since abandoned the bitcoin community after satoshi handed it to him and enjoys his selfish lavish lifestyle

Do you forget about all the stolen coin he refuses to help go after because of his "Non-legal, non-violent" attitude?   

I seem to agree with some of your points though, but merit system was introduce and implemented to solve the certain problems which was the easy rank up of accounts even without contribution to the forum as before it was only activity that matters.

This system is not perfect, but don't blame it to the merit system why others are easily getting a spot in a campaign. I'm sure some managers are not stupid enough to just solely based on the merit system, as far as I see, they also evaluate the post quality of applicants, and some campaign managers does not even require a merit from them to apply, so it does not make sense why we blame the merit system.

We low quality posters had already accept the fact, that we are not eligible for ranking up what ever we may do.
If it is all about earning?..  we were just focus about the bounties on the altcoins so many opportunities than signature campaigns that paying btc.
 Also signature campaigns now a days requires Merit earn counts in their previous months,  which is impossible for us to have.  ;D ;D
P. S it's hard to make a posts when your goal was for begging merits  :'(

There is no fixing the merit system without full reset.
While there is huge financial incentive to game merit and it is wide wide wide open to abuse..

Guess what will happen.

Earning merits is not impossible, dude.  But when you admit to stuff like this:

You're pretty much admitting that you don't put any effort into your posts and don't want to do the work required to make your posts merit-worthy.  That's on you.  And I'm assuming your first language isn't English, but there are merit sources on a lot of the local boards that can be of help....if you put in the effort.

Depends on the signature campaign and the campaign manager.  If you have a very selective campaign like Chipmixer, you're going to get some of the best posters on the forum, and it's run by a firm but fair manager, DarkStar_.  Other campaigns have been known to let spammers/shitposters in, and there's very little oversight.  But I would agree that bounties are full of idiots posting nonsense nonstop, and the bounty managers generally don't seem to care all that much.

Lol. This persons post history clearly debunks his own points above.

Ask him to present his 10 best original thought inspiring posts that resulted in any meaningful changes here?
Ask him what his biggest achievement here is ( he said it was getting on to a highly paid sig campaign)

Then ask him who HugeBlackWoman is aka his alt he got busted for sneaky greedy sig spamming crap for the highest rates he could get.

Then how does someone with zero achievements, zero original thought inspiring posts that made any lasting difference here end up on FT1, one of the highest merit earners ever and spamming the highest paying sigs??

Think about that.

Why do think he wants to tell you how credible the merit system is  lol

If this place was a meritocracy he would remain on newbie for eternity.  The thought of paying for his misleading, self serving regurgitated slobbering is laughable.

Research and see for yourselves. This person is a fucking scammer supporting shit posting fool. Contrast that with his merit score and sig spam pay rate.  Merit Is working great he says.

It's bullshit threads like this that ruin the forum.

LMAO.. you're more worst

I see.. I should not be contented being a loser here.
You're right English wasn't our mother tounge, but it's not impossible to improve my English skills here. I assume that there were so many errors on my vocabulary, but atleast some of you can understand the way I deliver my thoughts.
I ADMIT INSTEAD OF PRETENDING ITS BETTER THAT WAY  :-\

Stop grovelling around eating ass dreaming of chipmixer.

You sig makes me laugh.

Now debunk the valid points raised or fuck off.

I'm trying to go easy on you here whilst remaining polite.

1. Specifically isolate and present the bullshit you're referring to.
2. Tell me you will stick around for a transparent debate on your claims.

Or

Slink away like the bitch I suspect you are.

Enough of conflating the observable truth with bullshit.

You're not gonna drag me into your bullshit. Now, have a nice day, poor little troll. And thanks for proving my point.

Consider this:  OG and Theymos have already made hundreds of millions.  It might be in their best interests to have the forum overrun with (paid) trolls to shut it down and have time erase evidence.  

On topic:  Merits used to be a way to control spammers.   Now it's evolved to Theymos letting OG choose who gets 4 merits for signing a message. 

I'm a newbie compared to you, but I've been reading your posts lately. The ones with the OG Nasty accusations. Can you provide me the link/text that made you think these people have made hundreds of millions?

Amicably.

Shouldn't the manager be responsible for those people's spamming activity?

Sure.  :)   Last image in my signature.   Og paid out a 1% reserve fund, embezzling at least 2,600 BTC - worth $130,000,000 today.  That doesn't include the forked coins he stole while holding the forum funds, or the dozens of bitcoin Theymos paid him while scamming, or new thefts I'm recently discovering.    But ironically, OG provided the best nail in his coffin when he posted, "Selling shares without SEC permission is illegal."


Managers may be in desperate times as well, accepting any scammer that applies.

By the same reasoning, in 2030, he'll have stolen billions of dollars. But he didn't. I don't know if he stole anything, but seeing the number 2,600 BTC doesn't mean that he made a fortune. IF he sold them today, he'd have made that amount.

I took a look on the thread, but it seemed like two bald men fighting over a comb. I can't know who's right and who's wrong. I just talk objectively.

As for theymos, I don't want to believe such thing...

That's been the typical response so far - you obviously couldn't see the ponzi in the format I have, so when I have time I'll fix.


I guess it is possible he was incompetent and unaware of the scams.   The courts will need to decide.  :/

Lol at this turd munching moron.

I ask him to validate his claims and specify the details of what he is claiming is bullshit publicly so we can debate it.

He runs away screaming troll.

Hahaha

And then he said ....thanks for proving his point ...hahahah

A troll is someone who posts under an anonymous name because they are afraid. 

Thanks for proving his point OG.

Give vod some merits for that one. That was a brilliant post vod.

An undeniably incorrect definition of trolling. Satoshi was a troll vod says.
An incorrect assumption of alt
An incorrect assumption of proof, based on the prior 2 incorrect assumptions

Now this is the gold standard of DT logic and reason . They love splattering merit on these types of shit posts.

Lets not get off topic with 2 fools that make claims ranging from undeniably false to the absurd then screaming troll and told you so to anyone that challenges them to produce the evidence that you wish to examine  in a transparent and public manner.

How have these low functioning drooling plebs achieved any merits ?

I mean how could such minds produce anything other than negative value in terms of locating the truth or the optimal solution.

You are a merit source OG - do it yourself.

Long ago 5000 BTC was 1 Pizza

You pretty much gave up for trying to put effort which is sad. You should try to make constructive posts in any topic you have knowledge in and be patient a bit, be consistent as well, and not lose self confidence and self-esteem, you will see yourself ranking up way faster than you can expect because efforts really pays back silently :)

The purpose of merits is to improve the quality of the forum and the overall well-being of the community, not to improve your earnings from the promotion of suspicious projects.

Make an effort to add something valuable to this community, and I'm sure the community will reward you with respect (and merits) in return. Instead of thinking that you're posting for merit, just think you're posting something constructively and relevant to topics.

Lol, he says spamming his shitty casino eating ass.

Debunk the points that have been made regarding the undeniable damage that merit has brought or eat ass elsewhere.

Remove your gambling sig and request a perm sig ban then we will take your virtue signalling lectures with only one bag of salt.

Probably an alt of some DT merit source spammer self powering up merits for more lucrative sigs.

Did I hit a nerve here? LOL!


Nope. It is my privilege to wear this signature. Find your own.


I guess any critic is entitled to wrong judgments.

Why I think that your idea is not true because of these facts:

• You gain likes on Facebook if you show boobies or if you are beautiful and wearing sexy outfits. Sadly most of the members of this forum are either straight male or colored-coded ones. Showing real boobies are quite difficult to achieve and if somebody will do it and receives a lot of merits then I will consider your opinion
• The real cause of the spamming issue is the signature or bounty campaigns. If you really want to stop it or to lessen this problem to the very list then suggest removing it which is impossible.

Although there are good points in your post as well. It is really possible that some of the forum members are abusing the system as well so that they could stay on top of the line.

Lol, yes you really hit a nerve by running away when I tell you to debunk my core points.

Your posts says ..

I'm scared to tackle your core points because they are undeniably true.
I'm a peasant who wouldn't even post here if I couldn't get my btc dust for spamming gambling shit.

Now debunk the core points I made regarding why the merit system is a cancer and creates an undeniably dangerous and corrupt system where a few milk the board, scam with Impunity, block legitmate scammer warnings on themselves and their pals and crushes free speech.

Get on with it or run away like the rest.