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I don't know if the same thing happens to you as to me, and this is something that I understand only happens to people who are not merit sources or top earners.

I have seen legendary members say that they have a hard time finding posts to merit. In my case it's the opposite, I have less merit than I would like to send. Sometime, seeing a post worthy of merit, I've thought: well, as soon as I get the next smerit, I'll come back to this post and give it a merit. What happens is that if time passes until I get it, days for example, in the end I don't come back. I have decided that when I get a smerit, instead of meriting a previous post, I keep surfing the forum and give the merit to the next post I find worthy of merit.

Do you do the same or how do you do it?

If you are out of merit, and are aware of a good post without merit, you can report it to merit sources here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0). Many merit sources monitor (and contribute to) that thread, and if you report a good post, it will likely receive merit from multiple merit sources.

You can apply to be a merit source:
It's been a while though since a new merit source was added, and several applications have been unanswered for a long time.

It's all relative to how much sMerit you have to give.

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@Poker Player: feel free to post some of your own best posts (with or without Merit) in Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0). You're not a bad poster, so I don't think Merit should be holding you back. But I don't have the time to read hundreds of posts, so please make it easy for me :)

Not at all. If I find a few exceptional posts I really want to merit and I can't, I bookmark them.
But most of the time I merit what I find appropriate as long as I have sMerit and afterwards I just not merit.
Of course, since I'm not merit source, I simply cannot be generous with merits and will usually award only 1-2.

If you do spend time to specifically award good posts, it could also be an option to apply for the merit source position, although you're only Full Member and that could be in some eyes an obstacle.

I always have many quality posts to merit, some people even make good posts while they correct me but at times do not have smerits to give, and I will not have option than to not give as I do not have at the moment. I wished to have applied for merit source when I got 1000 merits but there were many people that have applied and yet not given, to the extent I noticed TheBeardedBaby wrote 'When Merit Source?' as his personal text as it has been so long ago he applied.

People that feels the same way that think they are good poster could have just applied for merit source, but it has been very long since merit sources were choosen last, and there are some merit source that are no more active. For now, I think the best alternative which is effective but might not be satisfactory enough is to report the post as mentioned above. I said it is effective but not satisfactory because merit sources can still report good posts there too which is an added advantage.

This is something I have read many times on the forum since the merit system was enabled, and I think it is not always easy to find a post worth rewarding with merit. Some Legendary members (who are also merit sources) have preferred parts of the forum they visit and their merit distribution is limited to those parts of the forum. There are a lot of good posts that are simply cluttered with a lot of spam and there are few who want to look for something worth meriting at all in a pile of garbage.


I don't think you should bother so much with the fact that you don't have a sMerit at one point - listen to the advice of others and save it in bookmarks if you think it really deserves to be rewarded. I will tell you that it is never too late to go back in time and reward someone. I will give you an example of how I got the merit for my 2015 post years after I wrote it :)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173044.msg12372803#msg12372803

Probably our set of standards are different. You might say that there was a quality post you see but for others it weren't.

Still being so active in the forum really matters as to get to see more posts and replies in the discussion that you were able to find those quality posts hat others are not. Anyway, giving merits is not our responsibility because the admin handed it over to the merit source. As the user has stated that we can still able to help by submitting it to a merit source or making a list of possible prospects posts to be merited in a thread and let the other members look into it and provide some merits if they want.

Due to a large number of user registered daily in the forum. The set of merits provided by the admin could not compensate or probably it is enough and calculated but the only thing is that a user may not able to get of it due to posting habit like shitposting. We could not blame the merit source for that instead the blame will be on the user itself for not making a way to contribute for the forum. Reminder that in order to get merits one must be helpful in a sense and that the merit source or even other members that will going to see the posts as a contributing factor will reward some merits. And that is what I think of the merit system for now.

I'm not, I let those merit sources decide their own judgment and I know they have different boards to merit and they know it but as what @Quickseller just said you may report it on that thread. If you think you find worthy of merits everytime you open your account why not apply to be a merit source, afaik to be a merit source doesn't discriminate on the rank of the account.

At first, I used to try to always have at least 5-10 merit to share just in case I stumble upon some really good posts, but later on I gave up on that so now I just spend as I get them so now I generally don't have merits to share for more than a day or two. Just see no reason to keep them.

I used to bookmark good posts too and merited them after I got some, but also kinda stopped with that practice as it's pretty easy to find merit worthy posts if you are active enough.

I don't find it hard to find merit-worthy posts. I find it difficult to decide sometimes which of the posts I want to merit should get it because I give them out daily and my personal stash isn't that big. Sometimes it's necessary to lower your standards a bit and understand that not all members are capable of producing extraordinary posts. This can be because of language barriers, lack of knowledge on the subject, experience, etc. The occasional merit-push could be the incentive someone needs to do better in the future.

@rosenbauer02
Merit sources aren't the only ones that are supposed to handle out merits, we are all. It's a whole system, and it needs as many working units as possible to operate properly. A person who receives, but doesn't award others with merits breaks the system, and makes it less efficient.

Never made any problem sending merits. I like the post, there is a reserve of merit, I give. If I like posts and I have nothing to give, I will not blame myself for not sending merit.
This is probably not a very popular opinion, but I treat merit as a liking on Twitter.
Seeking and rewarding merits is the fate of merit sources, for ordinary users it should not be a problem. The only thing I am against with all my hands is to transfer the merits to my alternative accounts.

I never hoarded merits, I would like to spend as soon as I get them but merit becomes more scarce and also distribution is getting limited to particular boards so yes it is hard to get them so I can't merit lot of posts which I wanted to in the recent days.

Reporting it to the merit source can be the alternative but I am not such kind of person because everyone have different standards to merit a post so its highly subjective, I just want everyone to spend their merits, don't keep your standards too high and the circle too low, just grow together as a community is a healthy for the future of bitcointalk. :)

For me, I feel sad once I can't send merit in a good post according to me. I don't know others but I feel happy when I can help someone by sending merits. Because I believe we are a family and we need to help each other those aren't spammer at least. If others weren't helped me from the beginning today I can't achieve a Legendary on the forum. So I know how hard is to earn merits. However, now I am a merit source and before the end of the month, my source merit becomes empty. Also, my earned merits become empty most of the time. Many users holding smerit those aren't spending on the good post, I don't know what befits would bring to not sending merits to others.

That exact same thing used to happen to me before I got tapped to be a merit source, and I was earning a pretty decent amount of merits back then, too.  But once I (or anyone else) became a merit source, I had both my earned and source sMerits to use, and believe me you get plenty if you're a source. 

I do have a relatively hard time finding meritable posts on my own, and I try to use DmdrDmdr's "ranking up" thread to guide me by pointing out members who need merits to rank up.  I also think I may have lowered my standards a fraction.  My standards for giving out merits used to be incredibly high, but now as long as a post is on-topic, of a decent length, has decent grammar, and is (hopefully) made by a member below Legendary I'll give some merits out.  And I do end up meriting Legendaries a lot of times, but I try to give lower-ranked members priority.

You probably don't have a lot of merits available, so it's not difficult for you to spend those merits as soon as you get them.
When you have a lot more merits available it's sometimes harder to find enough quality posts that deserve merits.
I solved this problem by opening a topic in my local section where local members can report their quality posts that deserve merit in their opinion.

I only get 100 source sMerit to give out each month, and I am often finding myself being out of source sMerit and earned sMerit. Over the months, I tend to give out a lot of merit at one point during the month, so I often have either no merit, or a lot of available sMerit to give out.

You can appeal for more allocation, because lot of merit sources can't able to complete their quota of source merits given to them each merit so Theymos can consider reallocation who are often stranded in a situation with out of smerit before the next time period begins.

I had sent theymos a PM when I ran out of source sMerit years ago, and posted on one of the threads for merit sources to ask for more merit. Theymos has not adjusted the source merit allocations in a long time, and has not appeared to have adjusted merit sources in a long time, even as merit sources have become inactive.

That was the case when it was first introduced but after a brief ^[ish] hiatus, I decided to lower my own standards for giving out merits ^{[best decision ever]}.

I used to go back to meritable posts ^{[if I'm able to find them; I know I should've bookmarked them instead]} as soon as I have some sMerits but from now on, I prefer using my sMerits for bookmarked posts ^{[I'll start saving them]} that haven't got any merits yet or just reward new merit worthy posts.

The merits I receive are usually one or two at a time, so I'll just merit whatever I happen to be reading at any given time.  Having said that however, I usually check to see if I have previously given that person merits or not and if I have, I'll usually just go on and find something else to merit by a user I haven't previously merited.

I feel merit sources shouldn't merit Legendary or Hero members more than one or two merits at a time and should instead search out posts by users below Hero rank.

Hey, thanks for the suggestion but I'm not going to apply, at least for the moment, as I think I'm not a somewhat established member, and the fact that



doesn't motivate me much, but maybe in a few years I will give it a try.


Thank you very much, I will use it at some point.

Thanks to the others also for the answers.

That is why I feel like he may reallocate the merit distribution since there is no changes were made in that area for very long time and also as you said some merit sources becomes inactive needs to be filled with new merit sources or reallocations or certain boards and sections will ran out of merits for sure no matter how good those posts are.

That doesn't make any sense.

IMO a reallocation is probably necessary, but I don't think it will happen. My assumption is that merit sources with large allocations probably don't exhaust their source sMerit, and merit sources such as TMAN will have their source merit allocation always be full. This will probably lead to metrics reflecting that there is sufficient source merit.

But since TMAN is inactive for very long time then its time to do it so right that is why we should give it a try!

There are some criteria for someone to be in the DT1 network which also has one as being active in certain time period which also can be implemented to the merit source to avoid the source merit is getting wasted when someone went inactive for very long time period.

I agree that TMAN's source merit should be redistributed, or at least removed from TMAN's account so there will be accurate reporting of the actual amount of source merit available. I am saying that TMAN has been inactive for over a year, and no changes have been made, so I doubt changes will be made. 

I'm not the type to accumulate smerit too long after I realize how useful this system is. On various occasion I have tried to distribute the existing smerit to those who deserve it. I'm excited to try distributing it on local board nowadays when I come across quality post because the distribution of merit there has been on a downturn over the last few months. Although I can distribute it on any board, but currently I try to focus on local while increasing the motivation of other users to post quality.

There is also the possibility that some are still active but their merit sharing will decrease so that there are still many quota that are not used every month. In my opinion, the merit source is not a robot, so it is still possible for them to reduce their activity a little more especially if they are not actively post. Maybe, the TMAN case was very different because he had been inactive for more than a year.

I am bumping this thread just to say that, curiously, I seem to be earning more merits lately. I don't know if it's a streak or what. In the 8 days so far in May, I've earned about 30 merits, that's 15% of the total I've earned in 9 months. I hope this will take hold as I gain more knowledge and become a better poster, so that I won't notice so much that lack of smerits to send.

Good for you and you deserved it mate, I sometimes saw your post and I say, not bad.  Keep it up and keep it motivated through your informative posts and someday you will never know and said, "oh I'm now Sr. member rank".  :D

I tend to agree if you will apply as a merit source, it seems you're very active in the gambling section and that section doesn't have enough merit sources to visit and it might distribute some good posters there.

Inactive merit sources should be replaced with a new one, IMO.

I don't know what is the process of sending smerit per merit sources but it seems sending 20+ smerit in one post isn't looking good, it might reasonable if that 4-5 smerit in one post, my question is, are they tired of distributing on it?

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Edited:
Congrats! finally, you've ranked Sr. Member.

Want to be Sr. Member today? Do this:
My source sMerit is overflowing :D :D

Update: I picked some of your posts that were Merited by others and Merited those. The lazy way, but well deserved for you to be Sr. Member.

As a reminder:

 ;D


No, not really. I'm not very active there. I visit that board because if I write up to 15 posts a week I get paid some extra satoshis but I only write about 3 or 4 at most. I only participate when there is some poker related thread and then, in the other threads, when someone thinks he has found a good strategy to win with some variant of martingale, for example, I write to explain why it is wrong and that casino games have negative mathematical expectancy. I am sure that 99% do not listen to me but I think it is the right thing to do.


WOW! Thank you very much. The funny thing is that I wasn't expecting to get any single merit when I created the thread, as I was asking a question and just wanted to exchange opinions, but look at how it's turned out.

Number of merits for a post is subjective and it depends on the merit sources and their monthly allocations, but all they claim is they don't find enough quality posts to merit them, so time can be the major factor not their are tired I guess.

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When luck is on your way then nothing can stop it, it will happen how it is supposed to be. ;)

I usually leave a remark like"this is worthy for a merit" to a post worthy of merit whenever I run out of merit so that a person who will comment after mine might notice it and give the author a merit. I don't usually browse back but whenever when I read my post history for summing up my total post per week, I sometimes give merit to the post that I gave a remark if ever I received smerit for that week.

Meta has always been an "easy" board to earn Merit, and it's a good place to get some attention. Making good posts isn't enough, you also need someone with sMerit to see your posts.

I'm one of what you will called a picky person, who really needed to be impressed more than what I want to, to merit a post. I am just that kind of person so I really don't mind if my posts don't get merits cause I know for myself that I am the one who made that bad post. But in regards to when I see a really good post, I always have spares in me for that kinds of posts, and normally posts that impress me comes seldom so I have merits in my arsenal

Quality is a relative thing. If the post that you found to be hq and you thought to come back when you will have an smerit is really hq, it will stay in your mind and you ultimately will find that post to merit. The case you said means that that post was not hq enough because by time it seemed to be less hq that the new post you found.

That happens in daily life too. Options... But the truth is if the thing is really credible, you will come back to it anyways.

That is true indeed. The Gambling discussions together with the Altcoin sub are the two most spammed parts of this forum. No wonder that many merit sources avoid it like the plague. It's difficult to pick out merit-worthy posts amongst a whole lot of rubbish.

But there are good exceptions and they deserve more attention. Just recently I reported such a topic in the Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0) thread. I am glad that a few merit sources checked it out and sent some merits to the OP. I will try to find other examples of merit-worthy topics in the gambling boards that deserve some merits, and I can only appeal to other users active there to do the same.

I guess we all know what causes this.  ;)


Yes, definitely. Even though it's sometimes difficult to differentiate a tree from a forest, I see at least one (in my opinion) merit-worthy post every day. It is in those moments I would've liked to have more merits to share, and I agree with the OP. Therefore, I try to keep a merit or two in reserve even though I generally try not to pile them up. Like you suggested, it's good to lower the bar a bit and make it easier for young members to progress on the forum. Sometimes, it feels as if I am constantly meriting the same members. It may be difficult for some members to produce exceptional posts due to either a lack of expertise or a language barrier. If they positively contribute to a quality discussion on the forum, that is enough for me.

Ideally, as the total amount of time on the forum increases, so does your knowledge and your ability to make quality posts. As your ability to make quality posts increases, so does the chances of you earning merit, all else being equal.

I have noticed that meta has tended to not have as many threads with many posts getting merit recently. Same with reputation. I am not sure if this is because less merit is being circulated, or because people have reacted to criticisms from certain forum members, or for some other reason.

Happy bump  :D

I am bumping this thread because I've realized that for the first time I've got more merits than activity.

https://i.postimg.cc/02hBbC3K/merit-summary.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

I think all started with this thread, and I can assure you that when I wrote it I wasn't expecting to get any single merit for it.

Until today I had always had less merit than activity.

I no longer notice that lack of smerits to send that I felt when I wrote the OP, as I earn merits more frequently.

Not long ago I increased my Bitcoin investment. I don't know if maybe that has also something to do with it.

I would like to thank everybody who has merited me, but especially thanks to LoyceV, who helped me to rank up (something explicitely allowed by Theymos) and to The Pharmacist, who seems to be liking my posts lately.

A Merit source is entitled to award merit to any user they feel like to award merit to, irrespective the rank or position, because awarding Merit to user is not by personality or rank position in the forum, so from my perspective it's by the post of user, some post can interest you and you are entitle to award any amount you feel like, but according to the rules and regulations of forum despensing of Merit per day to a particular user.

I haven't seen all that many threads in Reputation as of late, period.  That could be due to the decrease in drama in the past few months, but who knows.  I wasn't aware that the merit distribution in Meta had gone down, though it makes sense in a way.  It doesn't seem that as many threads are being created in that section compared to times past.  That'll probably change eventually, so I'm not particularly worried.

The gambling section is one of the ones I have on ignore, primarily because I'm not a gambler and thus don't care to read about gambling-related topics.  But yeah, the times I have visited the section it's been a complete mess, although I do remember there were a few members who made some pretty good posts.  I'll leave the merit-granting to others who frequent that section, however.  I'm not about to scroll through threads I'm not interested in to find posts that I don't want to read, even if they're good.