Bitcoin Forum

I was reading a thread and a question came to my mind. Obviously, it's merit abuse meriting yourself and trying to get away with it. But picture the following scenario:

If I know I am going to be away from home for some time, but I will need to access Bitcointalk from public WIFIs or internet cafes to get in touch with my business acquaintances regularly, why couldn't I merit myself to get to Jr. Member, make a few posts, and get rid of the PM restrictions associated with newbie accounts? Buying the copper membership doesn't affect PM limits if I remember it correctly.

- The second account would be clearly marked as an alt account.
- The sole purpose of that 1 merit is to remove PM restrictions.
- I don't want to use my main account on unknown internet networks and computers.
- Maybe I am unsuccessful in acquiring a merit or two in the "normal way" while posting with the alt account to get the needed activity points for Jr. Member.

* Before someone gets judgmental, this is just a discussion and not something I am actually planning to do or have done.

This seems a bit like an admission that you think merits are hard to earn for newbies? And if not, then you should be able to earn them within a few weeks.

I think Theymos might remove the pm restrictions on your newbie account if you sent him a message and asked too...

Why not if the person has good reason but yet to a quality post, if the person declear the account as alt, giving a good reason for the one merit. This forum is not against sending merit to alt, but veteran members do not like it due to genuine reasons, but these members can be convinced with good reasons. That is not yet a merit abuse.

What I have noticed is that people that are abusing merit are really abusing it before they are tagged or raised concern about, which means such people would often be sending merit from one alt to another and/or vice versa, and most especially with accounts full of shitposts. If someone have a good reason to send just one merit from one alt to another and the person is not cheating on with the merit, likely nobody will still tag or raise any concern, especially if the person include the genuine reason for his/her action which will not be repeated and just only 1 merit.

Maybe I don't want to bother that much or don't have the time for it.

This is the first time I hear that he can do that? Are there are any documented cases where he has done that that you know about?

I know. That's part of the reason why I created this thread. To see how the community looks at all this. 

I think it still counts as merit abuse. It's just that the motives are different. You aren't meriting yourself to rank up and participate in bounties, signature campaigns, giveaways, etc. You are only doing it to help yourself engage in regular forum activities easier. Like writing and replying to PMs without waiting for 24 or x hours to pass.   

I think you should just ask to be whitelisted for free with your alt account to any staff member to lift the PM limits as what was mentioned in here -
New PM limits (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2536728.msg25872334#msg25872334). Just mention your reasons to be whitelisted.

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For the 1 merit to alt account, well it is just 1 merit. I won't count it as a merit abuse as it is not like you're sending more than that, but it is best to say your intention through it through the Alts thread in Reputation, so that others will know.
It's frowned upon by the community though.

You shouldn't Merit your own alt, it's frowned upon big time. Even though most people won't hold it against you, you shouldn't give the remaining users an excuse to blame you either.

Copper Membership includes whitelisting, which solves your problem:

Or just vouch for your alt-account in Remove Proxyban (evil fees) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5350260.0), I'd say this qualifies as knowing yourself personally:

Get someone else to Merit your alt, that's what happened to Maggiordomo (https://loyce.club/Merit/history/2340148.html) when Piggy didn't want to Merit his own alt-account to lift PM-restrictions.

The proxyban message (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3934069.msg37641376#msg37641376) says you'll be banned if you email for free whitelisting. I wouldn't bother theymos for this:

I’d say that the ethics that we demand from accounts to not merit their alts is better played out if it applies objectively, and not subjectively, where some reasons warrant self-meriting and others not depending on the subjacent exposed reasons. Open the can of worms, and the worms will wiggle their way out …

Besides, any decent poster can earn some merits from a new account without much effort.

But that's a proxyban for having evil fees, theymos must've had a lot of messages from that because users were brought on to do the whitelisting (I remember seeing an ann a while ago for that).

I think there are 2 different forms of white listing now too, one for evil fees and one for DMs but I might just be reading these wrong.

It's the same.

Being too much transparent here and obviously you will be tagging that alt account is yours and the purpose you mentioned, seems ok to me and it won't come under merit abuse.

However, even if you share all these details and without giving the merit to yourself, someone else will give the merit to your account after seeing the cause.  :)

Seems one of our moderators made a post  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2766177.0)about this.
I agree with this. It's because perhaps you will send merit to your alts for good reason. But the abuser would take advantage of that. If someone needs merit for any good reason, then just simply can write PM to reasonable member, or may create a post to get help from others. On the other hand, even a reputed member just makes a post I am alt of xxx then I believe someone automatically will send merit. So getting merit is not a big deal at all. So it's better always avoid sending merit to alt. We should judge our own quality.

Unless I missed something, "this forum" is very much against members sending merits to their alt accounts.  That's the vibe I've gotten from the beginning of the merit system, that it's a misuse of merits--and it has to be, since merits are supposed to be used to merit good posts, and if you're the one making the post and then meriting it....well, that's obviously not an unbiased opinion of the post's quality.

On the other hand, there's no rule that I know of that says you can't do it (AFAIK).  OP, if you did what you proposed in your scenario, my guess is that no one would ever find out and there wouldn't be any trouble.  I don't think most members would even care if they knew, though I'm sure some certainly would.  The problem with meriting alt accounts is when people do it a lot, with the intention of ranking up an alt account.  

If you were to do that as a way to get around Newbie restrictions, I still find it borderline icky and if I were you I wouldn't announce that you were doing it to the community unless you're prepared to have both accounts tagged.  And I just think it's a bad idea in general (though I don't tag merit abusers and wouldn't tag you or anyone else who merited an alt account for that reason).

That post is one moderator's opinion (which I respect), and it's not a rule.  It's more of a community standard, and that was back in 2018 when the merit system kicked off.  Sentiment toward tagging merit abusers has changed a bit since then.

Could just be me, but looking at everyone who has posted here:

Pmalek
jackg
Charles-Tim
isaac_clarke22
LoyceV
DdmrDdmr
UmerIdrees
COOLCRYPTOVATOR
The Pharmacist

I have seen enough of everyone's posts and participation that if anyone so far sent me PM from their main account that said
"Can you do me a favor and merit a post of my alt account so I can send more PMs"
I would just do it, (so long as they had a post that was worth any kind of merit) we have all been here long enough to know how things work and a few days of good posting would accomplish the same thing anyway. This just saves them a bit of time.

Just my view.

-Dave

That was hilariousandco's post. I raise you theymos:
Context: this was about Merit sources.

I like the way you put it. We can't hold others to standards we don't apply to ourselves.
My LoyceMobile (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1903546) could have been Hero or maybe Legendary by now if I'd have flooded it with Merit :P

Rule about abuse of merit are clearly displayed when theymos implement this system in the forum. For whatever reason, sending merit to alt itself is against the rule which will only damage the main account's reputation if caught. This is definitely not the best idea as getting 1 merit for now isn't as difficult as looking for a needle in the hay especially since we have few users who care about newbies having quality post.

If newbies who weren't even veteran members weren't excluded from merit, why should veterans who have been long-time forum contributors have to ruin the reputation of their main account because of merit? Anyway, the above idea will only provide an opportunity for many other users to post the merit to their own alt for the same reason.

Dave, that's kind of you if you were to do that, but for me it would be hypocritical to PM a member asking for a merit for an alt account when if some random newbie PMed me the same request, I'd report it to the mods. 

Ultimately, there isn't a "right" answer to OP's question.  It's allowed (meaning you wouldn't get banned for sending a merit to your alt account) but frowned upon, and if discovered it could lead to you getting tagged.  The only answer anyone can give is their opinion as to whether someone should do what OP posed in his hypothetical situation.  And as far as requesting a merit from another member, if it's done in the form of "can you review my post history and see if there's any post you can merit?" then I think that'd be acceptable--but if the alt account is brand new, obviously that wouldn't be possible.

If the OP is really that worried about restrictions on their alt account (I can only presume they mean six minutes between posts and no signature) then start an alt account, post details in the Known Alts thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2544574.0), post a note (neutral) on the alt's trust feedback page, then post a dozen times - even if it's just once per day so that when it comes time to travel, your alt account is ready to go.

As to merits, start a meaningful thread via the alt account which you feel will earn you merits and you are set to go.

I've seen hostility towards persons who merit their alts. I don't feel it's a good move in part because you need four merits to send one via your alt to anyone you want to merit.

(But why the need to merit on the road anyway?)

To be a Junior member and have the restrictions uplifted, one need to post at least 30 times before having the required activity. So, it’s a long time (for 1 merit gain) and with 30 posts, someone will gain 1 merit if they are not purely spamming. It shouldn’t be an issue at all. On the other hand, if they don't get a single merit from 30 posts, they certainly have problem with their posts.
However, if someone thinks they have enough quality post to get merit but they didn’t get one, there are places where one can report their good unmerited posts.

Sending merit on your own ALT account is not recognized by forum. However, if you want, you can use Alt Account. This is recognized by forum. If you are in a situation where you have to go out of the house for a while, then you can open an ALT account in advance and earn a merit in a recognized way. Achieving a merit for a good contributor is not very difficult. There are a lot of Legendary members in the forum who use alt accounts.

I thought it didn't have any affects on the PM restrictions because I seem to remember an old post by theymos in which he said that it doesn't. Good to know that I was wrong. That basically solves this potential problem, thanks!

That is isn't the ideal solution either. Asking someone to merit you isn't the way it's supposed to work and is also frowned upon. 

No, not meriting on the road. Sending PMs while on the road. Newbies have a PM limitation of only 2 PMs in a 24 hour period. Let's assume that I have to keep in touch with x number of forum members daily while I am on my travels, and I only want to be in contact with them through the forum's PM system. I would only be able to send 2 PMs daily and that's it. But LoyceV cleared it up now, and purchasing a copper membership would solve the PM problem.

Many users don't accept PMs from Newbies.

There's really no reason you should ever need to send yourself merit.  If you have some restrictions keeping you from purchasing a Copper Membership, you could always take advantage of community offers to earn merit.  One such opportunity is provided by yours truly.  All you need to do is display your knowledge of PGP encryption by signing a message and you can earn some merit from me.  If you do a bit of looking, you'll find lots of offers to give merit to accounts that are well intentioned and genuinely need it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5289839.0

Look my main account does not leave my house.

I have

 philipma1957cellphone and mostly use it when on the road.

I simply asked and a few people gave it merits. It also posts often enough that it earns merits.

I think if your alts are clearly marked it is not abuse of the systems main intent.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2664833


my alt is marked very clearly. and it was created for security purpose as my main account has many long self modded threads 🧵.  I would hate to lose a mobile phone and have some a-hole delete

100000 posts of other people.

So I made the mobile account.  It now has 100 plus merits.

Now if it were stealth 🥷 it would be wrong.

but that is just one opinion.

IMO, if you are regularly in contact with a business contact, you can use email instead of PM. Or you can use some other messaging platform. If you can use a VPN, it will generally increase the security of public WiFi.

As a merit source, I would not merit any alt account of mine, nor any account rumored to be an alt of mine. My personal recommendation is for everyone else to do the same.

<Slightly off topic>
I actually can't recall anyone ever making that particular accusation against Quickseller
</Slightly off topic>

I have gotten nothing but complements from my being a merit source. Despite having a fairly small allocation, I do my best to contribute positively to the merit economy.

People should have the freedom to do things that are unethical. When people exercise that freedom, others will frown upon you and will think less of you.

If something like that were to happen and someone stole your account, your threads are safe as long as other people posted in them. You can't delete a thread containing posts of other forum members. You can only delete your own posts, move, or lock the thread.

There are, of course, other means of contact including Skype or social media. But I intentionally created a scenario in which I wanted the forum's PM system to be the only thing I wished to use. 

I didn't say "ask" ;)
I sent Philipma1957cellphone (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg57648317#msg57648317) enough Merit to wear an avatar (which they aren't using now anyway) because I know it's not a spammer. I have no problem Meriting any other alt from an established user when I see it.

I think you're mixing things up: The PM-limit depends on Activity (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2536728.msg25872334#msg25872334), not on Newbie-status. So a new account with Merit can still send only 2 PMs per day.

Philipma1957 created many self-moderated threads.

Yeah all the alt coin threads I think 9 of them are self modded.

They date back to 2016 and have a few thousand pages of posts.

I very rarely needed to delete any posts but I wanted the option to run good threads with out trolling.

I do not want them to get hurt.

I wholeheartedly agree with this post.

Approach this type of conundrum objectively- not subjectively. In fact, the end does justify the means! If the forum rules explicitly prohibits meriting your own alt-accounts, even with the most honorific or reasonable excuse, it should not be allowed in any case. Besides OP, with your caliber of a poster, receiving 1 merit would not be too difficult on your experience and skill.

Like most mentioned, just ask someone respectfully if they could merit a post of yours or message the moderators about your issue.

Actually, there are no rules when it comes to meriting at all. There is only the community's viewpoint on this matter. If you want to see what theymos thinks about it, take a look at his quote that LoyceV posted in post #14 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5355913.msg57759596#msg57759596).

Like I said in my OP, this is only a fictional scenario and not something I have plans to do.

There's an official rule, visible when a Merit sources Merits a post:

I will check that out next time I merit someone, I don't remember seeing it to be honest. That still matches with what theymos said when he touched upon the subject of people getting tagged for the way merits are sent and/or received. Unless they are sold, you shouldn't be tagged according to theymos. Although I am the one who asked the question of meriting yourself, my personal opinion is that it's an abuse of merits, even though the ultimate goal is not to abuse bounties, campaigns, ranking up, etc.

By just providing their name using their alt account?
I believe what the OP is saying is that, creating alt account if it happens that he travel of out the city and for security reason he doesn't want to use his main account on the public network or computer.
No one will merit such an account cause it could be an impersonator except a close friend on the forum which the OP and she have a mode of talking language which she could use to identify that it was her.

Obviously you aren't going to create a new alt account and PM someone from that alt account asking them for a merit. You would do that from your main account, and in the PM you mention the name or link to your alt account. Nonetheless, that shouldn't be done as the other party might see it as merit begging.

Do a bit of forward planning and create a couple of alts. It isn't too hard to earn merits, and I have several alts of various ranks. I have never sent any merits to any of them.

If you look at the history of my main account and my cellphone account I made it pretty clear that I was in control of both accounts.

Specific to let people  know what I was doing.

I have to be fairly careful about the main account as if is super trusted and has done large escrow deals for people.

You simply do not want to walk about with a cellphone that has access to it.

It tough to follow ethical rules and principles, but I effort to do that.

Even doing that I still have a few people here that don't care for me.

But if you read the main account trust for me it is really good for over 8 years.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=64507


Internet can be difficult to get along and or do the right thing.

Op has a legit question. 

Most do not show the alts  they have clearly.



philipma1957cellphone = me.    https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2664833

philipma1957laptop = me.         https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2625746



I did one a while back in like 2014

But I can't find it any more something like

philipma1957 on vacation.

That was greeted with a lot of skeptical people but I said no worries I will not do business and be home in six days. I will than okay this account.

pre merits a very different time and place.

From LoyceV's complete List of all Bitcointalk usernames (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5202231.0):

Well I guess if you are creating scenarios in which you must give merit to yourself (and ignoring alternatives), this thread is moot.

Using some kind of key authentication, such as GPG, or using bitcoin signed messages would be superior to using forum PMs in pretty much every scenario.

I don't think what the OP is describing would be considering selling merit.