Bitcoin Forum

This maybe a noob or complicated question and apologize in advance if this may find you a dumb question to ask but i just want to know the history of how the Merit spread in the forum.

Firstly, we know that Satoshi Nakamoto founded this Bitcointalk forum way back November 22, 2009 to be exact and his key people are Martti Malmi & Theymos. Source : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BitcoinTalk (http://Source : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BitcoinTalk)

Secondly, in relation to the title of the topic, I was told that Merit system was introduced by Theymos and my first thought then was, did Theymos hold thousand of Merit when the merit system was implemented and distributed it to the pioneer of this forum? or is he have a merit source key people to do the job? or when the merit system implemented all of the users that time got rewarded some automatically?

Thirdly, If this post may find insult to the pioneer of this forum, I apologize. Be know that my intention was to know the history of how merit spread first to the community because i find it brilliant steps and motivational as keystone to uphold this forum from spammer.

Lastly, I thank the key people who made this message board where people can talk to each other and sharing ideas. Thank you in advance for enlightening me.

I think that you may have greatly misunderstood merit.
I will start with the fact that bitcointalk is a forum. A centralized forum. Whatever happens in this forum is in the hands of its administrator, since he can do whatever he wants with the database where everything from this forum is stored.
Now, the merit is not bitcoin. The merit doesn't need proof of work. The merit is just numbers Theymos adds to the database, out of thin air.

When merit was implemented many old user had already certain ranks. I am very new in here compared to the founders, but I already had Legendary rank by then. Just as an example.
When merit was implemented everybody got "airdropped" merit according to his rank. I've received 1000 merit. I don't remember how much spendable merit (sMerit) I've got then, it must have been at least 500 (half of the received merit). From that point people started meriting valuable posts, legendary posts or their idols. If you look into https://bpip.org you'll see most merited accounts and also how much everybody got airdropped.
For example Satoshi has 4473 merit, of which 4223 earned and 100 airdropped. And I can assure you he didn't post anything since the merit exists ;)

Meanwhile a fair number of merit sources were created, meaning that certain users get spendable merit (within some limits) in order to keep the merit flowing in the forum, hence getting the more valuable posts getting merited.
Everybody who receives merit can spend half of that (rounded down) for meriting others.

Did I miss anything? Please ask if so.

If you want to know the history of merit in the forum, read the thread that announced it: Merits and new rank requirements (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0), that should give you a good understanding of how it started.

NeuroticFish already explain very well about the merit system was begin.

Since you have know merit is created because to fight against spammer and low value poster, but it's still cannot prevent from hidden spammers and abusers in this forum who creating a merit fishing thread in order to get merit, even worst they're have multiple alts who earn a lot merit, then meriting their own alts. Meriting your own alts are prohibited since it can be considered as merit abuse, but this forum is fine if you have alts account, so you're allowed to have >1 account.

You have to differentiate between:

• The forum and Bitcoin, they are completely different.
• The forum and people like Satoshi Nakamoto and Martti Malmi ended their link more than 10 years ago.

Merit system was established in the year 2018 to solve the problem of increasing spam, which is numbers that are updated within the database and therefore have no value. Theymos can create or delete millions of these points because they only represent an update to the database in the forum

Thanks mate for a well detailed explanation! Now i know that Merit were made out of a source code right? like programming a very complex program. Now the airdrop thing, i think i get it now how these merits started spreading in the forum, how i wish i was able to know this forum earlier hehe but i know that this is just the beginning and soon will rank up :)

Everything's implemented through codes. But there's nothing too complex about it considering that merit in the beginning was given based on rank. Indeed, lucky are those who arrived in the forum and had built up their rank much earlier. They didn't have a hard time ranking up. Ranking was as easy as making posts years ago. Now, new users will have to prove their worth before ranking up. To some, it's next to impossible to reach the highest rank. To some, it's almost effortless. While it may appear unfair, it makes the forum better.

Everything you see on this page—including the merit system, which is made up of lines of code—was made possible by the algorithm that implements these features to make the forum useable on a global scale. And since this forum is running on SMF, I think PHP is the main programming language used in the forum along with a databe (MySql)?

That's how it is!

Right now, all you have to worry is how you can maximize and enjoy your stay in bitcointalk while being helpful in your own ways.

The initial Merit/Smerit airdrop, as we call it here, was twofold:

1.   When the Merit System Kicked-off (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0) in late January 2018, all existing accounts were given the amount of Merits that equated their rank’s requirement under the Merit System. So if an account was a Sr. Member, it was awarded 250 Merits, a Hero Member 500 merits, and so forth. The idea was to keep things consistent, and have all pre-merit ranks be coherent with rank requirements upon introducing the Merit System. The other option, I figure, would have been to have all accounts start from scratch again, option that was discarded in any case.

Note that, at the said time, Jr. Members did not require any Merits for their rank, and thus did not receive any in the so call airdrop. The 1 Merit requirement for Jr. Members was introduced in September 2018 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.0) to try to further curb the spam on the forum.


2.   In addition, accounts were airdropped a certain amount of sMerits (those that are actually sendable when meriting a post), which were different for each account, and depended on its Activity over the prior year (roughly) and its rank. Members and upwards were awarded these sMerits to get the ball rolling, as per this post:


On top of that, Merit sources were introduced (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources) in order to create a new inflow of sMerits in the system. Some were initially appointed, and others were later added either after postulating as candidates, or being selected for the task. The number of sources changes from time to time, as sources are sometimes removed and/or added. Their individual 30 day sMerit allowance also gets revised every now and then, and may increase or decrease over time.

Last but not least, once the Merit System started to roll, every 2 Merits that get added to your counter generate 1 sMerit to sent to others.

OP look what other users reply to your post all you want to know is already answered by them. In additional as they said that this is open forum which is we can share our ideas/knowledge and also we can learn more knowledge, and about merit system works it has a big role of this forum cause now adays if you don't have enough merit you can not rank up even though your activities are qualify and also merit helps everyone of us here in forum to upgrade our post to more creative and quality.

I think NeuroticFish has said all that there is to know about the history of the merit system, but to add to what he said, and also in reference to the quote above..
I did like you, @op to know that merit isn't a coin, neither is it a token, it's not like bitcoin or eth, like NeuroticFish said, they are just numbers created out of thin air.
When the merit system was introduced, I was a senior member then though I left the forum for several years, I was airdropped 250 merits  which is amount required in other to become a senior member, now I can't remember how many sendable merit I got then, but I don't think it was many.
Merit was introduced by theymos as a way to encourage users to create more quality posts and less spam, and as we can all see, this has been a success for the forum and its users.

For me, coming up with the merit & trust system was actually one of the most brilliant idea Thermos and his Co team came up with,  because this features has really filtered the way activities are regulated on the forum. And knowing about it's history how it actually emmerge is one thing all forum users need to know, because everything on this forum recycle round the merit and trust system.

Thanks for your reply, indeed i gained some knowledge about this Merit system works. If you don't mind, I have some question that needs for clarification.. are these sMerits have expiration? at what extent? like when unused for a long time? you said they gain some sMerit when given a merit by some users, don't you think there will be an oversupply that will make merit system unbalance when tried to hoard by some users?

Moreover, I really find this Merit System very interesting you know. I can feel that it has more features to unlock. How about a Donation that can be given to a certain charity institution where gain sMerit can be opt to donate that can be converted to a certain token. I know Merits are made of out of codes but you know maybe if possible the Dev can start to come up with a similar idea using this forum to work this things out of a program in the future.

I don't know exactly what you're trying to say, but be aware that sMerit never be converted to any tokens because sMerit is essentially worthless and not for trading. You just have to think of this merit system as something very simple, this is another requirement to help forum users rank besides activity. Some of the explanations above should give you a good understanding of the merit system, so what do you expect from the rest of the features?

If indeed the forum wants to raise funds, then the best choice is bitcoin as the most decentralized coin so far. You don't have to think of anything complicated to implement, and so far your idea of ​​it doesn't seem very good to me.

No, sMerits do not expire, although there is a reference to this that opens a door:

Nevertheless, that door has been kept shut from the beginning, and I’d be surprised if it were to actually occur at some point in the future.

What is likely normally monitored is the monthly flow of sMerits in the system amongst other dimensions (i.e. somewhere along the line of some of the things show for example here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4428616.0), but with inner tools/queries). So long as things are reasonable on a monthly basis, there is likely not much of an issue with/of people hording, as Merit Sources do quite a lot of pumping sMerits into the system. Forum members will likely make threads on Meta to alert when things are not going well in terms of sMerit flow, and that has, in the past, led to changes in Merit Source numbers and quotas, in order to pump things up a bit.

Merits are kind of an equivalent to Karma and Likes on other platforms, but with more semantics and scope as I see it. They aim at pointing at posts that are interesting for some reason or other to the meriter, and it shouldn’t really have any more transcendence than that (other than being a vital part of the Ranking System and, to some extent, a soft reputation).

Not gonna lie, but I thought that sMerits do have their own lifespan and I kind of misinterpreted the phrase "decay unused sMerit in the future". Good thing I was not pushed to the point that I have to patrol to give some user a merit worthy post while I still have sMerits left. :D

For merit system history, how it began, how it adjusted, etc. Please read my topic

• One year anniversary of merit system (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5101718.0)
• 2nd anniversary of the merit system (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221532.0)
• One year anniversary of enhanced merit system (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5186633.0)
• History of bitcointalk.org's rank system (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5170032.0)

Merit system was created after a few months of discussions on how to handle spam epidemic on the forum as consequence of bull run 2017 and ICOs. First, we have Serious discussions and Ivory tower boards; then the merit system kicks off a little bit later.

• Restrictions on signature in some board (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5186820.0#post_signature)

The question doesn't look stupid and what I remember about Merit being first enforced was in 2018 for everyone on this forum.

When the merit system was implemented in 2018, some people who were already at a certain rank such as Member, Full Member, Senior Member and so on, obviously got a limited amount of merit automatically in their respective accounts.
For example, Senior Member rank automatically has 250 merits in their account and has 20 to 25 smerits in their account at the time, as well as higher ranks such as Hero Members who immediately have 500 merit units in their account. So it is automatically in their respective accounts when merit is applied to this forum.

I just hope you really wanted to learn at OP and not ridicule the merit system as to its validity. Which ever way, it helps and has curbed a lot of ideas that could have gone wrong such as spamming to generate activities whole giving more jobs to moderators and shot posting in the forum to ensure you gain in on the activities that applies to certain ranks.

Haven't gotten all the replies as at above, I guess the question that should puzzle any beginners mind is,
How was the ranks determined before the merit syste?

Well, I haven't been here before then and later joined to meet all these things in place but, information met on the forum tells me that, the activity system have been in place before the evolution of the merit system in January, 2018. Details of which you can find in the Activity & new membergroup limits (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=237597.0) for which, a grouping based system for what we call ranks now was accorded users.

This in turn created a users based determined rank that could result in a shit poster just assuming ranks. Like we see in the bounty section where accounts can just keep posting POA and Bounty Reports and still could assume ranks like Hero and Legendary! It's absurd right.
These are the sort of ideas that necessitates the merit system. Whole the activity system keeps you active, the merits ensures you make quality posts too and jus like that, we have a more better form and users than the single activity era. No doubt, we have users that were good then but became bettering this era for sure.

When merit is implemented each forum user received merits according to their rank which you can see the rank requirements thread. Those who have rank from member to full member got merits and every two merits creates 1 smerit which you can send it to whoever you think deserves it. Later on, the rank requirements is changed again which jr. member requirement is changed where it needs 1 merit to rank up instead of activities only. Merits are generated every 30 days for merit sources to reward every forum users that depends on their criteria.

Because if not then all the rank will back to newbie so it's given for free, don't forget Legendary members gets 1000 merit don't know how much sMerit they got from system.

It's fine you noted to OP that there is a difference between bitcoin and bitcointalk. I have seen in many occasions where newbies confuse the too. Most times they question how bitcoin works in Bitcointalk which normal, but when they start questioning how bitcointalk works in relation to bitcoin, you will understand that there is a mixup somewhere.

I was not here when they said there was too much spam, but with what I witness now, I can only imagine how bad it was then. Moderators would have seen alot. ThankGod for implementation of the merit system.

Accounts created after 2018 do not receive any privileges from the forum, and therefore all merit becomes more valuable.

But if you look closely, today there are a lot of people who very quickly increase their rank and become legends by giving their devotion to the forum.

Therefore, it is in no way worth relating to the issue of what it used to be just to increase one's rank than it is now.

I think you already know that so I'm not going to tell you anymore that Legendary gets 1000 merits when the merit system is implemented and also has 100 to 150 smerits in it.
And what I remember is that only Jr.Member rank dropped to Newbie a month after there were new rules so that those who had been in Jr.Member had to try to get one merit in order to be in Jr.Member Rank again, while for Member Rank it was automatic has 10 Merit units at the time the merit system was implemented.