Bitcoin Forum

I know what I am about to say might sound awkward to some of you but I would start by appealing that you bear with me as I am here to learn so I could gain more knowledge and insight of how things are going on here. Although I have been a member of this platform for long now but as we all know learning is a continues process and as time goes on  curiosity arises to clear ones doubt or misunderstanding.

For long now I have been on this thought and I was wondering what happens to merit and Smerit of banned accounts. Is there any way it is been extracted from those banned accounts for it to be integrated back into the system so that merit could go round through the merit source to members who deserves it or once an account is banned everything about that account is gone and merits on that account is burnt or is there any other process or things done with the merit of those accounts because I know once an account gets banned the owner does not have access again to some vital profile assets such as the Smerit.  I know for sure merits are formed possibly through minting or other likely processes which requires it to be easily integrated here for easy access by members.

looking at this when you access your merit status you could see it for yourself.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/08/03/GdOEG.png

Does it mean that  the above is what exactly happens or otherwise.
The floor is open for discussion as I stand to be corrected if I am wrong. I look forward to seeing the admins and moderators comment on this so we could get knowledge of how the process goes. If also this board is not the right board for this post, you are free to channel me to the right board for it.

Thanks.

I understand correctly that the concern you have is that the total merits flow got stuck or --at the very least-- some of them goes to waste because they're "frozen" in the banned accounts? You can rest assured that they're not... well, in a way. If I may assume, your worries come from an understanding that Merit and sMerit are limited, and what circulates here and now are the same numbers being generated since the birth and introduction of merit system.

There are group of people called Merit Source, there are several thread talking about these members, but one that probably will give you a good and easy understanding is this one (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5285104.0). Simplified, Merit Source are members who get extra sMerit, "minted merit" if you may, from the forum, so the amount of circulating Merit and sMerit keeps being replenished, it's not constant and stuck at one number like "total supply" of a token. Please have a read and don't hesitate to ask here if you have further questions.

There are merit sources who get free smerits every month, there is no shortage of merit and there is no cap on it!
Reclaiming merit from banned users simply makes no sense as it would be distributed to merit sources, Theymos could just increase the allocated merit instead.


Stop exaggerating! Vital, lol! Assets!  ;D

Theymos can do it. I mean he can extract the smerits and give it to merit sources. But what is the point when he is giving merit sources smerits which he can increase at anytime if he likes. He can ask for people to become merit source too if there is any need.

Banned users are not hoarding merits, they are banned already and they can no more acces the smerits, which is good.

Merits of the banned account will decay overtime. There’s no sense to extract merits from them since theymos can produced unlimited supply of merit that he distributes to merit source in regular basis or else there will be no new user will rank if there will be no new merit add on the circulating supply due to the decay feature of merit system.

Banned accounts merits is considered as lost just like Bitcoin when the wallet holds it lost its private key.

Merits as the case maybe can only be controlled by Theymos if he thinks merits are short, and besides I don't think if the forum are shorting merits since Theymos always awards merits to the merits sources at every month just as few people already said. You don't need to be over worried towards merits maybe, and however whenever you are doing research there's always a curiosity for one to know all things especially how the systems works and functions even though you are not in that position to know how is being operated but, as a scholar you needed those knowledge to add to your upstairs as an added advantage and value to your life.

Ban account is an account that has no access any longer to the forum and whenever account are being ban, this shows that such person doesn't have this will power to make alternate account to continue the forum any longer, because the forum prohibit such acts and if caught for any reason their newly created account are also subjected to be ban as well. So, I suggest you should be more creatives and keep all the rules pure and clean, then try to move on and do not allow this to overweigh you down as I think there are more important things to learn here.

You're comparing merits to some kind of cryptocurrency, which is not true. "Merits" are just arbitrary data in the forum database. They do not have a fixed supply nor do they have to be minted. There is no point in extracting merits from banned accounts because new amounts of merit will be allocated to merit sources every month anyway.

Are we lacking merits that much that we now have to look into retrieving smerits of banned accounts? What purpose is this supposed to serve, as far I know merits do not have limited supply. I think we should be asking Theymos to appoint more merit sources, there are merit source applications in Meta that have been there for over a year without any response from Theymos.

From what I could see here is that merit are rewards for a good contributions to the platform. It is a kind of a thank you for a job well done here. It also determines ones forum rank and as such very important on the platform. So based on your curiosity and to the best of my knowledge, merit are given to merit sources to distribute to members who are deemed fit to have it and as such every one member can distribute it accordingly to everyone who deserves it too.

Merit I think are not minted. Possibly, they are just some kind of distributive data in digits as they have no maximum or minimum supply in existence. They are given out by Theymos to merit sources to do their work and that makes it easier for everyone due to receive.

Since there is every tendency that merit is not minted, there is every possibility that it could be extracted from banned account but I don't think that would be necessary as it is clearly stated as uploaded by you OP. So Theymos distributing it is a good one to meet up with the activities on bitcointalk platform.

Splash one!  You beat me to it (as you always seem to do; maybe it's a time zone thing), as I was going to say exactly the same thing.  The merit system has been around for over 5 years now--way longer than OP has been a member, even though he claims this:

And even with all of the members who've received lots of merits and have been banned, there's been no crisis of merits, no shortage, not even any real complaints that I've seen that the system isn't running smoothly.  A'ight, in the beginning there was a lot of fuss but that died off a long time ago.  So I second your sentiment.

Splash two!! (that's a Top Gun: Maverick reference I can't get out of my head)

OP, it ain't no thang but a chicken wang, so don't trouble your perty little head 'bout it.

Even if the admin could do that - but I'm not sure about whether they've thought of that thus far.
If the banned account has sMerit in their profile - then I don't think it will interfere with the merit system. Have a look at this reference below this - there are 33940 sMerits per 30 days distributed by the admin for 109 merit sources, so don't worry about it.

Find it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources

I think this is a Meta topic - so moving it there.

Bitcoin Forum > Other > Meta (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0)

Just like you stated it can be decayed and I think that is the only reasonable thing to actually do, the idea of having to give it back to merit sources will seems more like a waste of time because this merits ain’t a thing that has a maximum supply limit like bitcoin or any precious metals that we would say with time will grow scarce and it been on banned account will make it e gust more. But since they ain’t any limit to its supply then it is perfect to let it slide that way or even decay it rather than recycling it to merit sources

This is the second post am seeing concerning this merit and smerit of a thing today and i just wonder if the forum is really that short of smerits. Most people who complain about this are mostly low rank member and i feel maybe they think they don’t get merited after making a post. All they are concerned about is earning merits, merits are earned when you provide quality content to the forum thats if another member thinks it is useful or meaningful.

The forum is not short of merits in my opinion though i still think the forum needs additional merit sources since people are complaining about shortage of smerit and low merit circulation instead of retrieving smerit from banned accounts.

OP, a suspended account loses the most important thing, much more important than Its well-deserved or not merits. And this is the right to write on the forum. But it's probably not a problem for you to be blocked; the main concern is that the blocked person loses merits. This question has already been in Meta.
OP, There is no shortage of merit in the forum; if you are worried about that, look at yourself. You will have enough merit for your purposes, but there is not enough content that you could get merit for. :)

In essence, don't worry about the allocation of merit because the amount is like foam in the ocean, and vice versa there are limits for you to receive it. The only important asset of an account is its reputation. So just think about how to make your reputation at least not bad.

This belongs to the Meta board and afaik there have actually been a few similar requests in the past.

about any ban you are talking about, if it is a temporary ban, then you will be able to send merits, and if it is permanent, then you are not allowed to create a new account, so do not care about the forum and you can help others in the forum in other ways.

Merit sources can generate 33940 sMerit per month, and assuming that 70% of these sources spend their merits, even if no one sends points from their account, the system still works. These things can also be modified if there is a problem with the distribution of merits.

We need to distinguish Merits and sMerits. The merits you earned should never be taken away from you, regardless of your account status (banned/not banned). Your question is about the sendable merits. Could they be extracted? Yes, but there is no point in doing it.

Quality posters with plenty of merits to give or merit sources usually know the rules and don't get banned. But even if they did and they had thousands of sMerits left, theymos can just pick other people to become merit sources. Or he could increase the supply to make up for those lost 5k of sMerits. You will rarely see a highly valuable member get banned here, whose lost sMerits are felt by the forum as a whole. 

Historically merits (earned ones) can be reverted by theymos. He did it with some transactions years ago when one merit source used sourced merits inappropriately. By reverting those merit transactions, the receivers had both earned merits and sendable merits drop back. In such scarce cases, both can be doable.

theymos did it with an account deMerit (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3078328.msg62621824#msg62621824) and there are 17 negative merit transactions (https://loyce.club/Merit/merit.all.txt).

In blockchain definition, the Bitcointalk Merit blockchain is centralized and reversible.

Another case is only for sendable merits like we see in the warning after clicking on Merit, it is attached in OP too, it has never happened in the forum since the merit system kick-off.

Their is a place I was reading and someone was arguing that a banned account will not login in bitcointalk forum account, and another person responded that a banned account will login its account but it's not permitted to make comments in the forum, and I have to think of it that if someone can login it banned account and also access a locked account that means a banned account can merit someone since it only be restricted of posting. That means that the Smerit of ban account is still useful.

There are two distinct cases - first; You can't login from a locked account. Second - you can still login from your banned account regardless if it's temporary ban or permanent ban. It's just that you can't post - can not send PM and distribute merit on posts that you find useful. You can still receive merit from other users and the amount will be accumulated as usual - but you cannot spend sMerits.

hugeblack - wait, is it really accurate?

I think this kind of topic was also created some days ago, but with a different idea by the OP. Well, there's no need to collect back merit that has been sent to a banned account because I believe before the account received merit on a post, it might have been a good post that was worth meriting, and sometimes other members can still come across posts from a banned account, and seeing that the post got merit might attract you to read the message the user was trying to pass in that post. To even surprise you, @OP, are you not aware that some posts from banned accounts even receive merit up till now? The fact that they receive merit equally means they get some Smerit on their account but can't use it. Despite that, it doesn't mean merit stops flowing. If you have read your first comment, then I assume you know the reason why it never stops flowing.

I know, and I remember that case. If you look back at my earlier post, I didn't say that it can't be done. I said that the earned merits shouldn't be reverted back to the senders or taken away completely. Obviously, cases of abuse are something entirely different, like the situation with the merit source who was abusing the system. In all other cases where a person gets banned or disappears of the forum, no one should be touching their merits.

If the ban is temporary, then it will end within a day, or two weeks during it up to 3 months, so I do not think that you can send merits, but the account is not permanently banned, so it is illogical not to be able to send  merits after that.

Frankly, I do not know during the ban period, can you send merits or not? Can anyone confirm this? Can Merits be sent during the temporary ban?
Is it possible to send merits from an account whose signature has been banned?

This is my personal opinion on these cases. A temporarily banned account should have the same restrictions as a permanently banned account with the only difference being that the temporarily banned person will one day return to the forum. Like you said, be it in one day or a few months. But during the temp ban, the user shouldn't have the possibility to post, send PMs, or distribute merits. All restrictions are removed once the account is fully reinstated.

My personal opinion again. I think it should be possible. The punishment of that person is not being able to earn money from their signature space. Everything else should work the same as with other regular members.

Permanent banned users can edit Trust list according to naim07 case. It means you can use the forum with view only mode, just can not post, PMs, leave trust feedbacks.

I guess sending merit from banned accounts is not allowed as it is no longer view-only mode but actually have interactions with other members.

Well to me disappearance has to do with account is not ban (partially active) so there merits are still usable, while the ban account why I noticed some of their merits aren't being reverted is that sometimes such person could have chances of gaining back their account if their cases are clearly reviewed and they judge it, when they noticed the owner still have chances to get back his or her account, at the cost of restoring back the account they won't lose their merits. But however, ban account may not have that power to send out their smerits, I think only those they had issued a temp ban can be able to attest to it.