Bitcoin Forum

Merit farming in the WO thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.new#new) has gotten way out of hand.

Its been a problem for years now but really ramped up this year. Although I can't prove it, I strongly suspect we're now seeing merit farmers creating alt accounts which they use to send merits back to their main accounts, with the end goal being to enroll as many alts in signature campaigns as they can.

The typical merit farmer post is a copy/pasted tweet from a large bitcoin-focused Twitter account, complete with picture and (often in smaller text) the word "source" with a link to the tweet. These accounts are literally just taking popular tweets and pasting them in WO for no other reason than to get merits. You'll see them on just about every single page of the thread this year.

This type of post is bad for a few reasons:

 - It is a distraction that dilutes honest conversation between good faith participants.
 - It is lazy, dishonest, and often wholly unnecessary.
 - It lends to promotion of a culture of cheating.

The meriting of these posts is creating a positive feedback system where merit farmers are encouraged to continue this behavior... as a result the only skill they're actually developing is how to extract merits from senior WO posters.

The simple solution to the problem is to disable the meriting of WO posts. Much like how signatures were disabled in that thread, it will discourage spammers from flooding the thread.

You can see some posters that are on WO that are established even since long time ago but not really active on other threads than to post about just the price of bitcoin. There are also good posts on WO that are given merit. Merit system is not something that is totally accurate on bitcointalk, but it helps against spamming.

Should merits be disabled in the WO thread? No

What would also discourage that kind of behaviour is people not meriting those kind of posts as its not that hard at all to differentiate a legit one from merit fishing if you spend some time there (or at any other board/topic).

My question is, why regulars there are not more selective when meriting as its in their best interest in order to keep the thread clean from that thrash.

It's been a while since I've been on the WO thread but I remember this being a problem for some time, I guess it's been exacerbated now. I remember naim027 and several of his alts getting merit there. And then other Bangladeshi accounts that were discussed a month or two ago on Reputation had also received merit there.

As soon as you visit the thread you know that saying bullish statements about the price, especially if we are in bull market, or saying you have bought a certain amount of Bitcoin is quite likely to get you merit there.

I think theymos thinks very hard before setting changes, but I hope he takes this into consideration, although I would like to know what the regulars there think, if they share the opinion or not. Maybe it's making the righteous pay for the sinners and they take away some of the fun they have there.


My guess is that they don't give it much thought. Many of them have accumulated a lot of Bitcoin for a long time, notice that few of them participate in signature campaigns and 90% or more of what they write is in the WO thread, so I don't think they give it more importance than clicking for a like on Instagram or Facebook.

How people choose to distribute the merit which they earned is completely up to them. If they want to give it to people in the WO thread for some posts that made them laugh, or because they are friendly, then that's their choice. Eventually they will run out and the problem will dissipate itself.

I can see how it may seem unfair or that the thread needs to have merits disabled because of how much is distributed there, however I don't think that disabling merits there is the way to go.

Of course if people are intentionally abusing or farming merit with evidence to back, just isolate those users and report them. Farming merit for the sole purpose of feeding each other merit is against the rules at the end of the day, right?

I have to disagree with your request because when you're disable merit in WO thread, it's will be unfair for high quality user since how good is his post, he will not get merit in that thread.

I think the better way is limiting only full member and above allowed to post in WO thread.

However you can use report to moderator since posting an image with source is considered as pointless/low value post or you can click ignore in his profile.

There's no rule about farming merit, it's unethical and unfair to the other, but as long as they're not joining a signature campaign or abuse trust list, there's no point about farming merit, isn't?

I think merit farming should be more moderated, so it's better to report individuals who do that and let moderators check and issue a warning/punishment rather than disabling merits in a whole thread. There are many good and informational posts there so I think they shouldn't be discredited because of others.

I've seen a lot of merit farms in local boards/threads that accumulate even more merits and I haven't seen any action taken. It is probably because it would be hard to moderate every single thread and user manually so the system can't really be accurate and ideal.

I'm pretty sure it is forbidden to farm merits? And it is mostly used for what you've said, sig campaigns and probably to seem trustworthy on the forum.

How can that be enforced though, I don't know much about stuff regarding merit farms but there are a lot of MS that have threads that they open to share your posts that you think is worth the merit and it just so happens that there are some people that's active on posting on those threads so no one can really blame them if they get chosen to get those merits.

Those threads are legit, you get merit if the OP of the threads thinks you should and that's okay. But there are threads which are just for farming, literally everyone merits everyone without worrying about the quality of the post or the actual thread/topic.

Maybe only thing that would help is more forum staff, but I don't know if that's possible.

Giving merit in WO should be equaled to giving merit for a bounty report :D

I've visited that thread a few times and had sort of noticed that the merit distribution was like the booze at a billionaire's cocktail party, free-flowing and copious.  All the shitposters who figured out where that party was are like filthy vagrant gatecrashers dressed up in tuxedos they don't actually own.

While I agree wholeheartedly with all of those points, I'm of the opinion that there should be less "government" on bitcointalk and thus I don't think there should be restrictions set by fiat from Theymos.  I think the names of the biggest offenders from the WO thread (the ones who are handing out merits to posts that don't deserve it) should be compiled into a list and then someone should PM them with a request to visit and comment in this thread.  That way if they didn't realize this was a problem that's being noticed by the community, they'll have no excuse in the future.

And after that, if the behavior isn't stopped perhaps DT members can come up with a plan of action--or not.  I don't actually know how bad the problem is in the WO thread.

I agree on the part that goes to good. Tell those who give merits too blithely to come to this thread to be aware of the problem because some of them may not even be. But I don't know what strength you think DTs can have over people who don't participate in signature campaigns, are loaded with Bitcoins, and practically their participation in this forum is limited to that thread.

If merit senders are merit sources, you can request a review about their distribution methods, otherwise merit farmers will find another solution.  Also you need to find where those merits come from originally.😉

I don't see it in your way and most of what you even narrated are very good reasons for it to be disabled if possible. Merit earning and sharing are not all about whether or not you are established or whether you can redistribute it better, the first requirement is for you to share value through quality posts.

I've read through WO many times and posted there about two times, but the truth is you will hardly see anyone sharing value there. The thread has degenerated from what @infofront created it for (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg1858442#msg1858442).

Imagine someone who did not share value earning 32 merits in a single post. This is alarming. Should it be disabled? I say Yes if it continues like this. But No if they can return to the reason why it was originally created, and it should be better moderated with strict rules.

Although I share your opinion on WO topic but I don't agree with you that merit should be disabled in WO topic. Disabling merit can reduce spam but it can also be a little unfair to other good members. Also, it restricts the personal freedom of merit senders members, and this is contrary to the principles of the forum.

I see that the responsibility lies primarily with the merit senders, they should give the merit only to the deserving and I believe that the top WO posters really have the ability to differentiate between good and bad.

Isn't the problem with the people who Merit them? The WO-thread has been very lenient on sharing Merit for years, not only for new users, but also for "the regulars". They don't need Merit, and in my opinion many of the Merited posts don't deserve it. But, as far as I know, several of "the regular WO-users" are Merit sources too, which must mean "upper management" approves. And many of the Merited posts are actually worth it. So I don't think disabling Merit is a good solution, and voted No.

:D  They probably do own the tuxedos. You can grab a tuxedo costume for ~.002BTC.. hat, bow tie & cane sold separately, but I'm sure the advertisers have provided enough funds for it.
https://www.partybell.com/images/Product/Medium/BS-888692.jpg
... I'd wear it.  ;D  (<- I'm joking btw)

Who aggravates you all more.. those throwing the booze/merit around to the shitposters, or those shitposters trying to get the booze/merit being thrown around?

I don't spend a huge amount of time at WO, but I do find various posts of interest, and enjoy the (sort of) laid-back atmosphere. Outside of the twitter re-posts, and the (illogical) failed meme attempts which sometimes get merit, I can't say I even fully understand why a short statement echo'ing what the market is doing on any given day, or throwing out any wild speculation, would get 5-10+ merit, even for "senior" members, but I try not to judge.. it is a speculation thread after all, and, for sources, I'm sure it feels much easier to drop this type of merit when a constant flow is coming in.

Some of it can be entertaining, and some of them seem completely useless, to me at least. But I'm not sure if merit should be the issue here, I'd lean more towards moderation of the useless posts until they get the hint those posts are not welcome.. in this case, would that be infofront (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=41175)?  

You can test disabling merit in the WO branch. I'm sure once merits are disabled, interest in posting in this thread will drop by half if not more. There are accounts that constantly publish posts there, after which they send merits to other accounts. I won't point fingers; however, local sections such as Pakistan and the Philippines are notable for frequent visits to this thread. I exclude the old-timers who just live there.

You are probably right, so maybe those who are annoyed with all those merit farming account should raise awaraness inside WO thread (if it hasn't been done already) so maybe people will stop meriting them.


Not all WO posts are equal (some are actually great), unlike bounty reports.


I don't know what DT members could do to try stop that, without abusing trust system.

I don't support disabling merit on WO,because the regulars are the ones giving out these merits and they are some of them that are merit source who attached themselves to that thread only. I think that the regulars are enjoying or entertaining themselves with the post from those shit posters which is making them to merit their post.

The high rank users and merit source that is focused only on that thread attention should be drawn to this thread as suggested early by @Skeptical Chymist and @Poker Player so that they can minimize the way they give out merits.

Solution is not that simple, they can just move to another board/thread and continue ''business'' as usual.
Sure, there is a chance Wall Observer thread could get cleaner, but I seriously doubt that this will happen even if merits gets disabled.

Disabling of merits on that thread will be an injustice to the senior and most well known members who have been active on that thread for a long time. Some of those members don't post on other threads at all, and if merits are disabled on that thread then their accounts may also not get new merits. That's actually not a problem because those members really don't need or care about merits that much because as far as I have noticed that none of them is in a signature campaign and they don't really care about signature campaigns at all.

The most members of the thread are true Bitcoin enthusiasts and they love to spend their time on that thread, and whenever they see a good post on that thread they can't stop themselves from sending merits to those posts. I think nothing is wrong in that kind of merit sending and the ones who are basically there for merit fishing won't get any better even if they receive 1000 merits which are required for legendary rank. I don't think that any manager would accept such merit fishers in their campaigns because most of the managers want high quality posters who could create useful posts for promotion of a campaign.

I have visited WO very well and I can see how they are sharing and cycling merits, but some of the exciting posts can be sent merits. I think I like what The Sceptical Chymist, LoyceV and other and many other people said about this. You can read what they post about this.

Merit is not what that is 100% accurate, but it is keeping the forum from shit posting. There are some posts on local board that do not worth the quality of posts on general board but showered with unnecessary merits.

If theymos do not see how this is affecting posting on this forum, he will do nothing. I am very sure that he will do nothing about this. Everything is working good even if some people are smart enough to receive merits with little efforts.

Cutting merits off completely might be too harsh although some merit sources in that thread could do better. It takes just a few seconds to stop and think "does this post contribute anything positive to this forum (or thread)" before hitting that merit button. Some of them clearly don't do that and this goes against the intent of the merit system IMO. Unfortunately evaluating this and giving them some guidance and/or restricting their merit allocation is not something I imagine theymos has time for, and if anyone else tries to "investigate" then it would likely result in bias accusations etc.

But if someone were to attempt it, I think the percentage of merits earned inside WO vs outside of WO, particularly for low-rank bounty-and-signature users from non-English boards would be a good starting point. If it looks like this... might be a problem:

https://meem.link/i/anrvvber.png

https://meem.link/i/izux8m7e.png

https://meem.link/i/aysjz5wf.png

Edit: spellign.

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You're a living example of campaign managers not giving a shit about "quality" or "useful" or anything of the sort. The irony of you posting in the "AI spam" thread hasn't escaped me either.

I will abstain from voting. I found an ignore button for myself, and now, personally, dumb copies from Twitter don’t bother me anymore. And on other issues, both votes for and votes against seem reasonable to me, so any option will be useful and harmful in some ways.

But guys, voting? You say that the WO thread is filled with alts (which is quite likely), but you hope that they will not guess to come and vote from all their accounts in the way that seems most interesting to them? The number of votes against is not yet in the lead by a wide margin? I would consider only reasoned comments, not voting, where you can vote from any number of alts! :D

You can't tell people how to use their earned smerits or source merits, and most users on WO thread don't pay attention to discussion or care about posts outside of the WO thread, so I doubt any of them would care. Nothing can be done about it as long as they are not trading it. Theymos says lose no sleep over it.

I've had WO on ignore for a long time cuz there's nothing there that interests me. Filled with alts anyways.

its a time killer thread.

I post there a lot and in mining boards a lot.

Most people with a ton of merits don't care about whom they give their merits to.

I can tell you really trying to give merits to deserving people takes hours of effort.

First thing you need to do is read every post the person made in the last month.

Second thing you need to do is try and see if they copy or pasted.

Then you can give some merits.

When I first saw  "Who is John Galt"

I was going to give him merits then I wondered if he was a cheap alt being feed by master accounts that have tons of merits.

I am still not sure if it is a stand alone non weasel account. So I hesitate to merit it a lot.

Altoguht once again he wrote a decent post  back a few posts.

To me the biggest problem I have on the WO is anyone with under 400 merits I simply tend to not post as I fear them to be a false alt.

I don't really have anything with you because I know that I'm doing good and trying to improve myself every other day. I don't think that it's fair to discourage someone in such a harsh way only because you don't like the way of someone. I'm satisfied with my posts and I'm constantly trying to improve myself. If your criticism is in a positive way then I'll do whatever I can to improve the quality of my posts even more, and if you're just criticizing me because of some personal issues which I don't think we have, then that's something that I can't really change.

This is a tricky one. On the one hand, I like this request; it'll make it much harder for account farmers to rank up, and I'm all for that. On the other hand, restrictions on users' freedoms are from the dark side of the force, and I (mostly) get theymos' reluctance to control things too much.

My first thought is that completely disabling merit distribution in the WO thread is too heavy-handed. I think basing it on rank (e.g. you can't receive merit in the WO thread unless you're at least a Hero Member, or something) makes a nice compromise between dropping a spanner in the works of account farmers but still letting WO regulars have their fun.

My second thought is that this could actually be implemented as an SMF feature, in the same vein as self-moderated threads. Something like this:

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/08/24/MJfxP.png

That way, the community has another tool to self-govern with, and other merit "soft spots" (like contest threads) might be hardened up, too.

It's not my responsibility to tailor criticism to some made-up criteria, it is your responsibility to not post for the sake of your campaign quota and/or merits.

To be clear, these days I don't give much of a shit anymore about shitposters - it's easy enough to ignore them and/or avoid threads where they congregate. However when I notice someone like you stepping into a thread without reading it, and posting a couple of paragraphs of generic tripe - I may point that out. Most of the time said shitposters are happy to respond with more padding to their post count so it's not like I'm hurting the primary reason of your presence here, am I?

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As for WO - at least the thread is somewhat about Bitcoin. Even if someone gets a merit for a copypasta meme from twitter (or whatever it's called today) that's probably not as bad as getting merits e.g. on altcoin or bounty boards. So if we were to disable merits somewhere (which we almost certainly won't) I'd start there.

Well said buddy, but I must let you know that I'm part of signature campaign that doesn't have any special post quota requirement from previous week. I really don't post to meet the campaign quota because whenever I like a thread and I know that I can provide my opinion in those topics then I try to present my ideas in those threads. I don't think that sharing one's opinion and knowledge in a thread is a form of shit-posting and if it is then almost everyone is doing it to a certain level.

I don't know about the thread that you're trying to referring to where I posted a comment without reading the thread because I always read the threads fully and I also try to read as many comments as possible in those threads before sharing my opinion in those threads. I spend most of my day's time on this forum to learn about different things and also to share my opinion and knowledge with others. I won't claim that I'm better than you or anyone else because my main focus is to improve myself rather than comparing myself with others. I'm truly sorry if I hurt you unintentionally but I don't think that my presence could be harmful to you or anyone else.

I believe that everyone has their own set of skills and each human can contribute to a site or forum with his/her ideas and sometimes those with less knowledge can also provide helpful suggestions to the ones who are more knowledgeable than them. I don't really know that in your eyes what is considered as a good post, but I would like to share my knowledge in a  genuine way and that's what I have been doing. I know that I post a lot on this forum and some people may consider members like me as shit-posters, but I believe that the more I can contribute to the forum the better it is. I still thank you for letting me know the weaknesses that I have and I'll most probably try my best to improve those weaknesses in future.

I respect you a lot because you're a very reputed member of the forum and I'll most probably try to improve my posts quality even further from now on. I know that there are some days when we can't really post good quality comments, but still hoping for better always takes us to better levels, and we can learn from our mistakes. Thanks once again for all of your words.

Most of them are... but there's a couple who don't care and it appears they enjoy having their buttocks smooched upon, which is another tactic frequently employed by the farmers.


This is a good question. The loose merit givers are at least limited in number whereas the shitposters are amassing an infinitely large zombie army. Yet their growth could be stopped (at least in the WO thread) if the loose merit givers tightened up... which for whatever reason they refuse to do. I dunno, I guess the zombies aggravate me more.


The whole point is to stop rewarding them for shitposting in the WO thread where moderation is basically non-existent. I don't care if they move to another thread -- if they try what they're doing elsewhere their posts are likely to be deleted as spam, anyway.


 :D  I had also noticed that but am trying to be willing to forgive for past mistakes and all that.


This is brilliant BTW. You're really good at coming up with this kind of stuff (novel, implementable solutions to forum problems).

I just mercilessly Ignore merit farmers.

Zero tolerance.

If the people at the WO thread won't give merits to these " News / Tweets" posts, they will automatically be discouraged and won't be posting there for merits. However, those who give them merits aren't wrong either because they may find these tweets / news informative/entertaining.

Last time when this topic was discussed here, some of those people said that they weren't active on Twitter and they found reading these tweets as informative.

Finally, i will also say that Merit should not be disabled in the WO thread, After all, there are many good posts there that deserve to be merited and we can't take these rights from the posters only because a handful of users are using it for other purposes.

Disabling the merit system in the WO thread might not be a wise decision, it's too harsh for anyone who isn't abusing the system for the purpose of farming an account. I agree with most that tightening distribution is a wiser choice, but of course each user is still free to share his merits in his own way. Some users there don't really care about merit so there's a chance they're just having fun with it on some funny post or something.

Sure you can:
And for Merit sources:
I like the last part: it's not a big deal.

Or, as a BOFH solution: don't count the Merit received in certain threads, just like posts in Off-topic aren't included in your total post count.

As much as I would like more features like this, it would be very bad. It gives users power over other users. There have been requests before to make it impossible for certain Ranks to post in your thread, but that too was never implemented. Disabling Merit for the users who need it the most to earn their place in this forum would strongly discourage real users. May I remind you: proxybans have collateral damage too (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5350260.msg57505682#msg57505682). Denying Newbies from earning Merit even when their posts are good is not fair.
Merit requirements per rank are already very high. In 5.5 years, 300+ (https://loyce.club/Merit/all_users_who_earned_Merit_2023-08-18_Fri_05.07h.txt) users have earned enough Merit to be self-made Legendary. A couple (hundred) Merits more or less doesn't matter much.

Hmmm…. I do merit the WO mostly from my source merits
But I think mainly sending merits to OG accounts who have been contributing the WO for years and the rest of the forum. But also I see a lot of new accounts every day almost begging for merits… But we cannot be to harsh for them who write some good content in that topic.
I hope most of my merits end up well with some honest posters over there.

Maybe limited sending merits to legendary accounts or members who are posting in that topic for like few years or something ….

I also joined the few who voted. No, I have visited the WO street a few times, but I can't remember dropping any posts there yet, as I find it difficult to flow with things happening there most of the time.
The way merit is distributed there to me is part of the things that encourage the kind of conversation that goes on there and have made that place very active.

Disabling the merit on WO doesn't look like the best solution to me, but those who are not actually putting in some real effort to make quality contributions that are worth meriting should be avoided. If those merit farmers post 3 to 5 times without receiving any single merit, then they will realize that what they are doing is really not adding up, and as such, they will either put more effort into being organic with their post or better yet, copy and paste with a link to somewhere else.

I do agree and disagree for some reasons

Like I actually do send merits and some big numbers too regular OG accounts…
Reason … they are contributing accounts for first and for years.
For myself I have some out the forum occupancy and there fore I always empty my source on Good forum user as I know they will resend on quality posts… and Theymos said send merits are better than merits not send.

I try to skip sending to merit farming alt accounts….

I voted NO for the reason that I think there are other ways that could solve that "problem" without going to a complete ban on merits in that thread. I personally like how the rules are set in Serious discussion, which means that you only need to limit which ranks can participate in that thread, and if that rule were set to Senior + rank in WO, I believe that such discussions would not be necessary.

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For those of us who are not merit sources and are not very popular on the forum, such a source of merits really means a lot, because be sure that every sMerits I received from you and other members of WO ends up as a reward for what I consider a useful and quality posts.

IF there is freedom of speech , let there be freedom of speech to and for everyone regardless of Rank or any kind of BS.

I don't believe source merits are distinguishable.. are they?  .. and then.. should they be?  o_0  (hmm..)

PowerGlove's idea seems interesting as a thread-based setting, I just don't like the restriction in general.. it would be painful to see accounts under those levels making a great post and not being able to get any merit for them because of a thread setting.

And could this help scammers?  Unrelated to WO, but posts from lower ranked victims may not be able to get the attention/merit on a thread they deserve because their accounts are under the level the scammer set on the thread, probably while at the same time the scammer merit's his (likely bought) legendary account(s) supporting the scam.

I'd lean towards being more aggravated with the merit giver.. but both can be annoying. Merit can't be undone. I'm just not one to judge another person's merit giving, assuming it isn't somehow being used to abuse the forum and its members. Source merit might be another story entirely which IMO inherently comes with judgement.. but again, how would one distinguish what merit is being handed out as source merit, or just the merit received from other members for their posts?

many merit sources hang out in the WO, so running out of merits doesnt really apply.


generally, moderators dont do anything in the WO; it has special "dont moderate" status.

Not really distinguishable for a receiver of merits or for an outside observer, but a merit source can see how many source smerits and earned smerits they have and the source smerits get sent first. So the merit source knows which ones are being used on a particular post... not sure if that really matters though (in this context). I think a merit source should uphold a higher standard regardless of which smerits they use. As opposed to non-source merit senders who can do almost whatever they please with their earned smerits.

If that's the case and these people are abusing merit in WO, or farming, maybe it's the sources who should be reviewed?

Elaborated:
If the posts are good and merit worthy, whether it be comedic, reasonable, or whatever has some form of clear value to someone - then that's not a problem. If it's rewarding spam, or shitposting, then maybe individual merit sources should either rethink what they're meritting or be reviewed as to whether they should be a source or not; if they are obviously distributing merit irresponsibly.

My 2 cents.

I meant I sent most of merits in the WO regardless earned or source…
But my reasoning is ok? Of sending bigger chunks to members I believe re sending higher quality postings etc…?
Especially when i’m out of Belgium like right now (EPT occupation @barcelona) so little time … but still distributing merits … but On especially these occasions I chose to sent them for quality re-sent value instead of hoarding.
Meh it’s just about avoiding Alt and scam accounts and I think I mostly avoid them

Imho, even us non merit sources should have some standard because if I tend to merit certain type of shitposts, that can only encourage more members to do more of those as that's what those lemmings tend to do.

I find it interesting that 24 members voted "Yes" (31 voted "No", myself included) while (afaik) no one said so in this thread.

I am new to the forum and haven't posted in the WO thread but i would not like to be left out in the discussion in that thread until i reach Sr.

I wish the newbies and low ranks would have been more responsible so that this restriction wasn't required in the first place.

You haven't yet noticed the group of members/alts who consistently jerk each other no matter the validity of their opinions?

many merit sources (like myself) never asked to be sources. we just logged in one day and were informed that we were now sources. perhaps one day some will log in and be informed we are no longer merit sources.

until then? lol well some of us probably wont care either way one bit.

I voted 'No', and I don't like the idea of restricting ranks from receiving merits from WO cause it is like some kind of discrimination what if the member is actually a low-ranked member and trying to become a part of WO (speaking from my exp).

Merit sources can be careful when sending merits so it can eliminate the account farmers to grow but again having alts is allowed in bitcointalk so what is the point of restricting them from growing if they can able to check the merit requirement box!

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If I am not wrong theymos removed someone from being a merit source because the person simply showered meritsin WO for no reason which means he is aware of this and okay with the current distribution cause it somewhat contributes to the forum. The merit system isn't perfect anyway because you can find merits shared for posts with little to no contribution and some posts were ignored even if it has something to the context of the discussion so if we are trying to push the system further then it may end up badly like merit sources will not be interested in sending the merits to posts.

The circulations of merits in that thread is not new to us as we all know that there are many known user here in our community who still have time to make a reply on that thread and. Most of them are merit source and for sure we cannot stop them because they will do that for how many years which means they already know what they are doing so for me canceling or disabling the merit circulation on that thread is not the solution.

I never knew there is secret thread like that, or perhaps it's a thread that is only known for the garden surfing. That is why all these years I was thinking from where some users are getting high merits even though there posts are just few liners, meaningless, reposted images, sometimes just meme with no words on it and yet they end up getting merits in like dozens of amount. I am not sure how many of them are now going to debate and dislike my freedom of speech but that's definitely insane amount of merit source - source. Practically speaking the merit rush is only seen amongst the people who are either account farmers or those who want to get ranked up quickly and gain high bonuses from the signatures. I mean come on, you should talk the way you want and it doesn't really matter if someone thinks you are right or wrong.

I am posting mostly to learn from various development threads even though I am new to the field. Now and then I am trying to build knowledge based posts or interesting facts and sometimes news articles but it seems that people just love threads that are long dead, already answered thousand times and yet manage to get merits. Definitely full of talent!

In WO we have problems on the other hand it's fun to send merits to a post that you like and think the receiver deserves it. I think those of us who merit others, being a bit more careful can solve one of the problem. Mind it we just don't give away merit to others, there are reasons for it. May be a post / image looks stupid to someone but that same post might made the day of the person and that's the reason he merited the post.

It's a NO from me too. The WO should be out of any such restriction.

Ideally we should all encourage good posting habits with our merits... but let's be real, you can't expect everyone to follow some "high quality" guidelines that would be highly subjective anyway. However you can and should expect the ~100 (or whatever the number is nowadays) merit sources to try to avoid meriting obvious merit farmers/beggars/etc. Again, probably not possible to avoid that completely, some shitposters will be able to get some crumbs, but they're lazy AF so if they can no longer get easy merits for memes in WO they'll probably go shitpost somewhere else, where hopefully some moderation still exists and they can be reported.


Correct, theymos has said that sending big chunks of merits is better than hoarding / not sending them at all, and if you send them to a known quality poster (and hopefully someone who also distributes received smerits responsibly) you're doing ok.

Some of my local board members rank up pretty fast. it was hard for me to believe how they did it when i saw the way they posted. When I checked their source of merit i found that it was WHO. They just keep posting memes and sharing tweets. Some even got merit by saying a joke when i haven't found any logic behind them. If getting merit is that easy then it will lose its value.

It becomes a cynosure to worry about when it escalates to this point... I personally observed the habit on the WO thread and compared it to the infrequent meriting habits on altcoin section...it was way too de-escalating ...
I remember the stories I read so far about this whole meritocracy - when it really knew no boundaries and was spent appropriately across every section on the forum, including the altcoin section... This was later seen as an abuse since very many shit posters were seldom on liverage to earning merits.... Is this gonna be the fate of the wo thread?!
I don't think I've made any post in there but, I don't also feel any section of the forum needs to be on a merit ban; afterall, we've got good posters in there... Haven't we?

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

You're somehow right that there are many members of the local boards that rank up pretty fast, but that doesn't mean that they get all of the merits from WO thread because some of those members also get good amount of merits from their own local boards. I don't think that they're getting those merits easily. Even in WO thread there are many members who won't get good any merits even they create more than 10 posts a day, but there are only a few lucky ones who get a dozen of merits when their post is liked by @El duderino_ and I think those guys are very lucky because @El Duderino_ is known for his attribute of distributing merits to the posts he finds worthy of getting merits. That doesn't means he gives merits to all those craps the members are posting on WO thread, but to the only ones that are somehow related to Bitcoin.

Even the ones posting memes may get some merits from WO, but that really doesn't mean that those members aren't putting efforts in getting those merits. In fact they're trying their best to find those memes and post it on WO thread to get those merits, and that's the main reason that @OP of this thread wanted the merit system to be disabled on WO thread. Even-through their approach also requires some efforts, but they aren't learning anything in the process and such members won't be able to create good quality posts even if they receive so many merits in a short span of time.

Yeah, especially those board who has their merit source. When i visit some of the local boards it seems they send merits to every new topic. It is very easy to get merit in the local board if your board has a merit source i think. Especially india and pakistani board members are very generous towards their fellow comrades. I have no idea what is happening around here. Lol

I’m kinda uncomfortable seeing many lower ranked accounts in this thread trying to be outspoken and having an opinion on a thread that they have taken very little part in and means nothing to them.

I’ve been here since 2014 and the WO is important to me. I’ve met around a dozen people from the thread in real life multiple times. We have a brotherhood away from the forum and arrange regular meets all over Europe.

It feels a bit, I dunno, tacky to have, forgive me for saying this, no mark accounts trying to decide what happens in what I feel is a gold medal, historic bitcointalk thread. I don’t feel like most of the people in this thread should have any say over what happens in the WO. In other words if you haven’t been a huge part of it butt out. Obviously the likes of nutildah have a valid opinion but most people in this thread shouldn’t have a say at all.
Maybe the OG’s of the thread should be the only guys with a say on what happens going forward.

As for the question, it is a bit annoying to see all the newbies posting in the WO. It’s one of the reasons why I’m not as active in there as I once was. I voted ‘No’ though, I don’t think Meriting in the WO should be outlawed. Most of us know a shit posting, merit whore when we see one.

Good point. Maybe the merits received in WO should be visible/usable (e.g. with regards to rank) only in WO.

I seriously think that everyone should stop whinging and complaining about this topic and leave it how it is.

Don't worry about it, they have no say in it ;)

They have no say in it either :P

Why not just click Ignore on them?

This is the only practical solution since I don't see admins adding merit restriction features ever.

Well... I'm not going to read 4 pages of posts. But, I would like to share my opinion on the question raised.

Each user and the merits to whomever they want, wherever they want and whenever they want. If the post to whom the merit is given has a lot or little quality, it can even be a question. But what is good for me may be different for someone else. Although generally speaking, the whole community has the same concept.

Now, if there are users who misuse their smerits, it's unfortunate. But, we cannot harm those who use them well.

He noticed that sometimes, an exaggerated and wrong concept was generated, who and certain boards "should" exist less given merits. What is wrong. A user can make a good merit post on any board.

Therefore, as it has happened until now, and the distribution of merits is free, it must continue like this.

So does self-moderated threads, and so does the Report button, yet those exist...

I don't see the big problem with disabling merits in one particular thread where signatures are already disabled for the reason of trying to promote honest discussion. Merit farming has led to a flood of insincere posters (many of them likely alt accounts) who don't care about anything other than sig campaign earnings. The sucking up to & fawning over loose merit givers there is disgusting... To see it being rewarded is just ridiculous, and merit sources should know better than to encourage that type of behavior. Thankfully most of them do.

I understand the reason Op is making this kind of bold proposal. If there are people that sends merits to their alts in the WO thread, I cannot tell but if we feel that there is unnecessary merit flow in the WO thread, what happens is to call the attention of the merit sources to it. If merits are given to merit worthy posts, that wouldn't be a bit of a problem. If there are 1000 quality posts a day in the WO thread, 20,000 merits can flow there.
If the people sending these merits are not merit sources, they should also be called out for sending merits to relatively low quality posts. I do not support deactivating merits in the WO because that is the most remarkable thread in the forum.

I did not read the responses above, but I will return to them later and perhaps change a few of the convictions below.

---

Although I agree that the abuse of merits is clear in WO and that it has become a way for many to easily rank-up by copying and pasting from the Internet, but the problem is with the people who send those sMerits. Therefore, since signature campaigns do not appear there, there will probably be an additional rule regarding spam, and if the problem is not resolved, then disabling merits is the last solution.

Personally, I think of solutions like:

 - Communicate with those who send merits in private and tell them how harmful they are.
 - Restrictions such as the maximum number of merits per month or for a specific rank.
 - local blacklist: Votes to ban accounts from participating.
 - disabke merits.

While WO seems to be the place where most crap posts get merited for no reason, there are other similar places like that on the other sub-forums. As I see it, the most merit farming trolls are newbie accounts who copy/paste twitter garbage, generic memes or random crypto-related images. Perhaps if we disable posting in certain places for low level accounts then most of the problem sorts itself out? That way they would have to gather earnestly earned merit from newbie permitted areas first. And having them all in one place, we could more easily filter out the merit farmer newbies from the helpful, merit-deserving newbies. Basically we make it harder for the merit-farmers to get out of newbie jail without actually being useful to the community.

Furthermore,

I think that disabling merits in WO is unfair to those who have a large number in merits in WO and are not merit farming. Around 30-38% of my posts are in WO and while I admit to shitposting every now and then, I feel that I have earned most of my merits in WO rightfully, with somewhat decent informative or conversation-productive posts.

veteran accounts and merit sources need to hand out merit more responsibly. The only reason we see such WO merit farming is because merit farmers get rewarded for their crap posts. And there is too much merit going around, it feels like we are in a merit inflation.

Read theymos' post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4538227.msg40849533#msg40849533) on how harmful it is to limit newbie participation.

These do not get it or despise it cause they got that "I can you cant" Mentality. They farmed Merits through that same means but do not want anyone else to do the same.

But we're only talking about ONE thread, not the entire forum. Its one fricken thread with a loose moderation standard that is being manipulated by shitposters for the sake of earning merits so they can further their shitposting habits. How about instead of restricting low level accounts from posting there we disable the meriting of these accounts or halt merits from the thread altogether?


I agree with you, but you're already a Legendary... You don't need any more merits. I realize some campaigns have the 'how many merits earned in the last xx days part' but any manager who reads your posts knows you're a step above the average applicant.


This is also very true.

Current amount of merit shared is similar to the 2018 but the difference is that compared to then, amount of posts dropped down 75% (and will continue to drop) and maybe even more which then makes it much easier for alt accounts to farm merit.

While merit system is made to stop shitposter ever reaching higher rank, maybe we reached a point where there's simply too much merit being shared around (speaking generally, there are still some parts of the forum that are undermerited) which then makes situations like in WO possible so maybe its time to adjust the amount of merit shared to the current situation.


Maybe I misunderstood theymos, but I always thought that by that he meant that he won't restrict newbies accessing large parts of the forum and only limit them to a certain board, because we have Ivory Tower where low levels can't access meaning he is willing to restrict them to some degree. 

I would agree that it's a good idea, but what will be the new merit farming thread? I pretty much think it will just move to a new thread and we will still have the same issue. Look at the vote, I wonder how many who voted no are part of the farming? I think the only way to make merit different would be policing it, but that's just going to create new issues as well.

I think merit policing can cause way more issues in the forum than merit farming. It's a sad truth but the merit farming can't be eradicated 100% even if we take every action against it. Even if we implement new rules for merit sources but that can make the situations worse than they're right now. I don't want to take this topic very longer but if we closely speculate the situation of merit farming on this forum then we will have to disable meriting system on many boards and sub-boards not only the WO thread. I know that there are many posts in WO thread which really doesn't deserve the merits that they received but there are more posts in some other boards where newbies and low rank users got so many merits with a few  posts only.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5185736.300 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5185736.300)

The above thread by LoyceV is the way to check all those members who got so many merits without putting much efforts.
There are some members of the forum who are trying their best to create helpful content on daily basis but still they aren't getting the merits that they deserve to get.

The real question should be that how to prevent the misuse of merit system by the newbie or low rank members? The answer to that question should be to pose a limit on number of merits a user can receive when his/her account is newbie in rank and such limit should also be posed on those accounts who are newly created. That way the merit farming can be controlled, but I'm quite sure that many members would oppose a system like that and that's why implementing of a system like that may also not be possible due to many opposing votes.

I agree that there has been merit abuse in the WO thread so far regardless of how bad it is now - but disabling merit in the thread is not the decision I would most hope for. Merit sources need to make adjustments between who actually posts to discuss something or who posts to get merit. It's true that not fun - but disabling the merit system there is a bit harsh in my opinion.

Tightening distribution is the solution that I think about the most - but all of that must be supported by each merit source to go according to plan.

That's fine, I don't care if it moves to another thread. Every other thread has more stern moderation standards, and the offending shitposts I described in the first post here would be deleted as spam. Just tired of seeing my favorite thread being taken advantage of by an ever-expanding army of merit farmers.


Probably a lot, and I considered that. But the fact that 30 users voted "yes" so far is also somewhat compelling... Its not a completely lopsided poll.

How about you actually read the above post? Do allow me:



Spot on, me thinks. +1000 merits. :P


That said, y’ all know how I feel about the merit system in general:

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/08/28/MgzZ3.gif

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/08/29/MbjWg.jpeg

85 vote is done till now from here 50 vote is No and 35 Vote is Yes Shit posters are roaming here too. and they are upvoting (No) for Don't  disable WO topic.  but here they are not commenting he he  ;D

No no no no no no nooooooo.... Do not disable this topic Because we need fucking easy merit with our shitpost  :D

Honestly, I would like to know how the Wall Observer is easier to get mertis, compared to other areas of the forum?
I don't understand this theory. But, okay.

short version?

at any given time half the WO regulars are drunk and the other half might as well be drunk.

Nah, I think they are more generous with the posts they like and they won't reduce their generosity levels. Call them drunk or generous it's up-to you, but I'm quite sure that they only merit the posts that they find useful. Sometimes they may merit each other for humorous posts as well and other times they enjoy meme related posts especially something related to Bitcoin.

I don't know either between the local board or the wall observers that has the highest numbers of merits distribution each day, there's nothing about that, but i wonder sometimes that the bitcoin discussion board hardly earned enough merits as other boards being mentioned, merit may not be disbanded from any board but the simple task to do is to report any suspicious merit phishing act seen on any board irrespective of the user involved.

OK. Valid observation... and may even make sense.

Now, is the problem with the board or with those who give it merits? And who gives merits there, are they newcomers or sources of merits?

If they are merits sources, we are calling into question the credibility of these sources. Because they are the ones who give the merits, not the ones who write things there.

I attempted to address some of these supposed concerns about purported abusive merit source members in my response (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5464606.msg62762073#msg62762073) in Bob's "parody, but not parody" thread that proclaims that I am the bleeding-heart, irresponsible, merit-distributing (rewarding) problem.

Yes, I remember seeing that.
Looking at your case. You are credible at giving merits, except when you give merits in WO. This doesn't make any sense!

If we consider a source of merit, as someone credible, he will be credible in the whole forum, not just in some parts of the forum.

Its been mentioned a few times already but its because a lot of merit sources hang out in that thread, and anything pro-BTC or pro-number-go-up is deemed eligible for a merit. That in itself isn't the problem. The problem is that this phenomenon attracts a lot of lazy shitposters (and their new alt accounts) looking for merits to rank up, and that is the only reason they participate in that thread.

The end result is firstly a lot of unnecessary spam and secondly the empowerment and multiplication of lazy shiposters, much akin to the creation of a beggar culture. Its developmentally crippling for these users and if the bleeding heart merit givers really cared for these people they would stop enabling them -- stop teaching them that spamming, sucking up and kissing ass pays.


This is a great impartial observation.

Are you reading this Wordyman?

If you saw people mindlessly copy/pasting Twitter posts in any other thread, would you merit them there as well?

Okay, I believe there is spam.
But, whoever gives merits is the one who has to evaluate what is or is not, it is legitimate to give merit. And at the same time avoid giving merit to "merit hunters". The person who has to meet this criterion is the merit giver.

So I say that if we say that sources of merits are credible throughout the forum, this board has no criteria. So it's the same as saying that they have no criteria in the entire forum.

Rules were never created for how to give merits. Each of us is free to use our own criteria for the distribution of our smerits. Creating this type of lock is an indirect way of creating rules.

Those who give merits have their attribution criteria, we may not agree, but we have to respect them. For each of us gives our smerits to whoever and wherever he wants.

One of the issues account farmers face (and there are too many account farmers in the forum) is the manner in which they will try to receive merits. If they use the higher ranking (Full Member/Snr Member/Hero/Legendary) accounts they already operate to give out merits they will end up getting connected with their alt-accounts. The safest way for them to receive merits would be try to get other members to send them.

Not entirely but much activity in the Wall Observer thread has morphed in to an educational session for newbies and account farmers on how to spam and hope for merits.

The notion they will eventually receive merits for flooding copy/paste from Twitter/X has enabled the culture to thrive. Ranking-up threads used to mean something back in the day, now they mean nothing more than an attempt to get more merits rather than a mechanism for recognition for the contributions they have made in the community.

The threads created to give out merits for worthy posts that are reported to them are a force for good if they are used properly. There are several threads like that but when they are flooded with members who are operating as part of account farms, it simply does not bring the benefit the merit sources had intended.

Just look at the state of the thread here: Save your nice merit records here - LAST UPDATE: 12/07/2023 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5251894.0)

It was a nice idea to have that thread for reasons it was created for but lately it has been flooded by a huge number of relatively new members seeking merits for posting about other members merits and activity. In many cases there were no nice merits to save but some members used (and still do use it) to post anything they can hold of but ultimately they are seeking merits. It is for that reason many low ranking members started posting non-memorable records usually of much higher ranking members rather than Jnr Member or Member accounts because they hoped to get merits.

Not just the merit givers but as a collective we have to stop teaching them that spamming, sucking up and kissing ass pays otherwise we are sending out the wrong message of encouragement.

Exactly. Those who have to be aware of which posts should receive merits are the merits giver. He is the one who must assess the situation and understand what kind of user he is dealing with.

It would be completely unfair to block an area of the forum from merits, harming users who make a clear effort to write good content for the community.
I already commented on this in another topic, but even in the "Gambling discussion" area, there are topics that deserve merit. Despite noting that few merits are distributed in this area. This is a good example that the solution does not involve depriving an area of the forum of merits.

When there is a lot of spam in an area of the forum, what we should do is report it and ask the moderators to delete it. It shouldn't be asking to end merits.

aside from @infofront's light touch, WO is a more or less a moderator free zone per theymos

Yes, I think that WO is moderator free and I think theymos allowed it to be that way for some reason. If someone reports the posts of that thread then the moderators won't be able to delete those reported posts because none of them have the authority to delete any posts at that thread. I may be wrong but that's what I have noticed so far, and I also believe that the merit sources that are meriting the posts at that thread are well aware of their responsibilities and theymos  knows about that thing.

I'm more than sure that theymos won't disable merits on that thread because some of the most reputable members of the forum only post in that thread and if merits are disabled from that thread than those members may not get merited for their contribution. I also believe that if newbies get merited in that thread than there is noting wrong with that because if a newbie is active in that thread and is participating in that thread then he/she will most probably get some merits.

I know that merits farmers may find that thread an easy one to get merited, but I'm more than sure that those farmers will have to put a lot of effort to receive those merits that they're trying to farm, and yes the merit farmers will always find other boards or threads to get those merits. We really can't stop all of those merit farmers and that's a bitter truth.

They are everywhere, and they know how to take advantage of every place. But not all those who voted No here are Shi** posters, many members think that Merit should not be disabled in WO thread for a member to freely use merit for this purpose. So they voted No here. On the other hand, many members abstained from voting. So it expressed their personal opinion by voting, while many members abstained from voting and took a neutral position.

I think that is the point mentioned by nutildah. The criteria should not be merit givers giving merits for any reason other than the receiver deserving it. The definition of what posts deserve merits should not even be discussed because it will vary immensely from member to member. There is simply far too much reasoning and rationale (as well as politics, cliques, revenge, grudges etc) involved per individual member thought processes to ever find anything close to consensus therefore it should not be discussed here.

Keeping that aside, disabling merits in one thread could start an avalanche of requests for other threads but there is a problem and it has not been tackled. I am glad the OP started the thread to invite discussion.

There we have the answer to reporting low-quality posts and spamming in the Wall Observer thread. Moderators are not going to take action therefore what could be a solution that is acceptable to those concerned about the level of spamming and merit begging without those that are giving the merits feeling they are being censored?

This is not entirely true. If you look at the warning, you can see that the topic is not moderated for some simple violations, but gross violations can be reported to the moderators.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/08/30/MewVv.jpeg

And, as I see it, the point is, on the one hand, to preserve the special atmosphere of communication in the topic, but on the other hand, not to make it so that some spammers start using it.

You are write. But the problem here is how can you prohibit the creation of alt account? Corruption is inevitable. It's like a virus to the system, you can cure some but all can't be cured. What you are talking about has been here for years. Many people commenting on your post, saying "it must stop" are the propeller or the master minder's of it. Some account you see as the original account of some person are even the second or third of it. Most alt account has been grown to legendary an you can never know.


If you identify these set of people what about the smart one's. The unsmart once will be victimized while the smart one's gets away freely. This thread will affect the innocent ones because the grases has grow with the crops and if care is not taken the crop will be weeded in replacement of the gras. If this continues the newly created account will be suspected to be an alt account. Even when reasonable post is made it will look as if it's coming from a legendary in disgace of a newbie.


All what you have said is true but is this the only way?

Regarding your use of the term "credible," there is not even a standard (requirement) that a merit source needs to be credible.. but if there is any requirement it would be something like the merit source ONLY need not be abusive in exercising his/her merit sending discretion, and mostly in the arena of not selling the merit.... or perhaps not engaging in quid pro quo behaviors (or I suppose the appearance of quid pro quo behavior could be problematic, too).  

Any other standards that merit sources "need" to follow would likely merely be something like NOT promoting the breaking of forum rules or engaging in some kinds of conduct that might end up bothering theymos.. since as far as I understand, theymos continues to exercise his own discretion regarding who to appoint as merit sources and also he can remove any merit source at any time for any reason or for no reason at all.

Nutildah suggest that since there is already a practice that disallows signatures to be displayed in the WO thread, therefore merits should also be disallowed, since in this case, some of the smerits that are being received in the WO thread are being used to allow members to participate in signature campaigns. .and really these various Nutildah arguments seem to be convoluted, slippery slope, strained and even seemingly contradictory kinds of arguments that are really difficult to make sense of when you really figure out the impacts of implementing anything he is suggesting, which and would end up in merit restrictions imposed on newbie members or even more senior members or even disabling this one particular (WO) location on the forum in which historically the vast majority of the smerits have been already been circulated (and circulating).

I am pretty sure that the smerit sending/receiving statistics have been pretty consistent on the fact that heads and tails above any other thread(s), the WO thread circulates the most merits for the past 5.5 years (since the merit system went into effect).. so Nutildah's proposal (in and of itself) that is also getting a certain level of support (from seemingly jaded folks or otherwise receptive to being jaded in ways that I had already described in my earlier posts - namely being dumb, being spiteful and being elitists.. just to clarify that I am ad hominem attack anyone who supports Nutildah/Bob's pursuit of this matter hahahahahaha.. ).


I doubt that there is as much truth to the needs for bullish bitcoin related posts in order to be merited.. but it probably does not even matter.. we're in a bitcoin forum.. have you ever heard of investing in something and then cheering against it?  Well if you are participating in a forum that is about that investment (ie bitcoin) that you are bashing, you better back up your arguments with, at minimum, some facts and logic.

If someone is making some kind of bearish arguments, I likely will be disinclined to merit such a post if it is not backed up... but I might not require as much backing up from some bullish arguments... that's true.. that's true.

SO FUCKING WHAT?

Members are allowed to merit for any reason that they like - as long as there is no quid pro quo types of elements.

You also might be insinuating that merit sources are biased towards pro-bitcoin ideas.. or even that such pro-bitcoin ideas of the merit sources (and even the merit senders) are even worse in the WO thread.

SO FUCKING WHAT?

You are a lame little turd.  #nohomo.  Do you even know where you are at?  

Maybe you should restart your computer, and then conscietiously and manually re-log into each of your webpages so that you can clarify that you are not mistakeningly believing that you are in the NFT pumping thread... with your daddy dildah^** promotional pieces rather than a bitcoin forum.. and even a bitcoin specific part of the forum.. namely the WO thread?

 :D :D :D :D :D :D

**by the way, it just struck me that daddy dildah is a much better name than uncle dildah.. it rolls off the tongue much better, and you will thank my later, perhaps?


Doesn't it seem like you might be exaggerating a wee bit, here?  Playing into your own hatred of newbies?.. and even patronizingly believing that you are a better person to be making judgements in regards to human interaction intentions..


I almost fell of my seat when I read this part.


I doubt that joker_josue is saying exactly what you consider him to be saying.. You seem to be suggesting that he believes that there is some kind of inconsistency with my behavior that needs to be resolved - but instead he seems to be suggesting that there is some kind of inconsistency in the accusations that are being made or even the resolutions being proposed..  and sure he can choose to clarify this matter (objective observation as you suggested it to be) more, if needed.^**

**So, I see that it seems that joker_josue did clarify this point in his post responding to this post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5464370.msg62768330#msg62768330).


In regards to your implications that I might be employing different standards in different threads, there could be some truth to that.  If you had not noticed, different threads have different topics, and their topics could affect the extent to which any forum member (including but not limited to yours truly) might consider a post within such different forum threads to be merit worthy - and sure it likely is true that I am way more liberal in regards to considering almost any topic to be potentially merit worthy in the WO thread - in part because, if you might not have noticed, almost any topic goes within that thread - except pumping shitcoins.. or perhaps some somewhat obvious breaches of forum rules?  

Have you ever tried to report a WO post? You will receive a dialogue box that specifically reminds you that the rules of the WO thread are different than the rest of the forum.  

We should feel lucky that the forum has a place like the WO thread that is almost like a troll box and free to throw around almost any topic related or maybe even not as much related to bitcoin.. even though many of those of us participating in that thread are not very tolerant towards shitcoin pumping even though from time to time some active participants still do engage in such shitcoin coin pumping things in that thread.. but it seems to be way (I mean way) the fuck less than it was in 2015, 2016, 2017.. at least it seems to me that the WO thread has gotten better in several ways over the years - but of course, there are always going to be some dynamics that exist that might not even result in as much participation from some elements of the bitcoin community, so we may well be reliant on other members (even seemingly troll-like members and new members or even seemingly bad intentioned members) to post some of the happenings that are taking place in other places around the interwebs.

Seems to me that we are quite lucky to have a place like the WO thread on the forum, and some members are complaining and trying to ruin a good thing.. and maybe that's why we cannot have nice things?   have you ever thought of that daddy dildah?  :'( :'( :'(

Edited:  about 12 hours after the original post, I made several clarification edits.... and some of them might have changed my tone or even bolstered some of my earlier substantive content.

We absolutely do not.


Its one thread -- one thread in one child board of one subsection of the entire forum.

Don't we have to respect the opinions of others, even when we don't share the same opinion?
I think that in a free forum like this, respecting different opinions is essential, so that everything continues to work well, as has happened over the last 15 years.

When I say respect, I don't say accept. Now, since there are no rules about how each person distributes their merits, each person chooses their criteria. And I, even though I don't agree with your criteria, respect your freedom to have them.

Who am I, to question your freedom of choice/decision?
Because there is this respect, we can be here to debate this subject.  ;)




You're just helping me!

Which makes it even more difficult, technically speaking, to make a topic not capable of receiving merit. I don't know if you know programming, but the way the software works would require major changes for this to be done. It's one thing to configure a board for this limitation, another is a specific topic.

Furthermore, this could set a dangerous precedent where whenever the subject of a topic was bothersome, the merits would be disabled. Someone is very dangerous that line of reasoning.

No, we don't. Everyone has the right to express their opinion. They do not have the right for their opinion to be respected -- there's no such right.


Not really -- signatures are already turned off in WO, for the very reason why I think merits should be turned off there: they are conducive to spamming.


What? It's like you didn't actually read anything that was being said here at all. Oh, you didn't:


Personally I like the idea floated by PowerGlove (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5464370.msg62743086#msg62743086) about the option to turn merits off in a topic by its creator. Seems like a straight-forward implementation and would assist those who want discussion in their thread to be more serious.

Not exactly, it will depend on how the merits were created in the software. Signatures have been configured to be enabled or disabled.
I don't care about its merits, I don't know of any place on the forum where it is disabled. In other words, they may not have been developed with this function, which could involve redesigning everything.




The idea is not bad, the user can activate or deactivate it. But I repeat, I don't know to what extent, at a programming level, I would require rewriting this part. Impossible, isn't it! Necessary? I don't think so.

Now, the idea that I criticize is this: "more serious discussions, if there are no merits".
The idea of merit is to promote quality. Therefore, it should be the opposite, merits bring greater quality.

If this doesn't happen, it's not the merits' fault, but rather those who have a low quality criterion. But, as the forum has no rules for assigning merits, everyone gives the merits to whoever they want. I may not agree with that attribution of merits, but they weren't mine, each one gives to whoever he wants.

The point is that merit hunters don't need the WO topic for that. They can create topics themselves, and give merit to alts.
Saying that the sources of merits are not giving merits to those who deserve it in this topic is the same as saying that they do not have a good criteria for giving merits throughout the forum. And honestly I don't believe it!

I don't think the argument is that those who deserve merit don't receive it, it's about those who don't deserve it (shitposters) receiving it.

Anyway, WO is where posting low-effort twitter copypasta can get you merits (especially if it's "bullish"), and shitposters are exploiting that. There aren't many, if any, other places on the forum like that. So your extrapolation here is incorrect.

While that implentation looks convenient, I don't think that it would bring desired effect and those threads would probably end up like Serious Discussion/Ivory thread - basically ignored.

I agree that PowerGlove suggestion does seem like it would be something that could be implemented for thread starters to be empowered in a kind of way that they are empowered with their decisions whether to have a open thread or a self-moderated thread, yet at the same time, the PG suggestion does seem to go a bit far to give that much power to individual thread starters to potentially undermine the likely advantages of having merit sending and receiving abilities across all threads.. and yeah the Ivory tower does seem to be an exception.. and I am doubtful that I have participated very much in those threads.. even though I don't always look which section I am in if someone (or a post) ends up referring me to a topic.  

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By the way, I just made several changes to my earlier post in this thread (from about 12 hours ago), and I probably did end up getting a bit carried away with some of the at-first attempts at mere clarification that ended up being substantive... so if anyone might be interested in looking at that post again here's a link. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5464370.msg62772360#msg62772360)

But who gives merits?
Are each other's alts doing this? I repeat, for this you do not need the WO.

Now, are large forum merit sources distributing these merits to these spammers? I have serious doubts.

Unfortunately, what I saw, in a little analysis I did of this topic, is that it is used for users to attack each other. And halfway through, the guys distribute merits just to tease. In other words, because they start making accusations, many are making fun of the situation. Is this beautiful? No. But, when you start to question the credibility of those who give merits, and want to control how people give merits to each other, that's what happens.

I think it would be good for the main players in this situation to calm down and move on.  ;)

No.


Yes. Not sure why you'd have doubts about that - read 10-20 pages of WO and it's quite obvious.

Merit sources are not infallible. And perhaps in this case they believe that Bitcoin-bullish posts (even low-effort ones) deserve merits. It all comes down to this: "do I want to see more posts like this in this forum/thread/etc". I don't. I guess nutildah doesn't either. Users who send merit for those posts apparently do.

I don't think anyone's credibility is being questioned here. It's just a difference of opinions. And as one of the WO "regulars" explained to us peasants, our opinions don't matter anyway.

But I saw it.

And the idea I had is that these sources of merit are giving merits on purpose, because they started to pick on them. The situation is like: "does this bother you? so I'll continue".

Is it nice to see? No... but, people have to calm down and move on. Let this phase pass for a while, so things can more or less return to normal on this topic.

We are talking about a topic with more than 32000 pages, and it has the same amount of time as I have on this forum.  ::) The topic existed before merits, and has existed since the first day of merits. It has survived a lot on this forum, it will survive this phase.

Ok.  Aren't you undermining the argument that smerit sending/receiving should be disabled on the WO thread?

If you are tolerant regarding the idea of differences of opinions, then wouldn't you be tolerant of ideas about differences of opinions in regards to members who have smerits using their own individual discretion in order to decide which posts they want to send smerits, and if so, how many smerits they would like to send to such posts?

If you see a problem with abuse of discretion, then report those posts... or put together a package of posts and then report them all, and if theymos and/or his merit czar (if he happens to have a secret one) agree with your report, then maybe he will remove that member as a source or reduce his/her source amount.

The problem is TOO BIG, right?




right???






rrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiigggggggghhhhhttttttt?? ?? ?? ??


That's why dumb-ass, drastic, spiteful, elitist and perhaps other categories of thingies measures need to be taken in order that we no longer have nice things.. which is a nice little WO thread... that some members in this here forum seem to NOT appreciate.



I am starting to get the sense of what is being said here.  




The amount of smerits being sent on the WO thread is too damned high!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  



https://media.tenor.com/W6yw0rpRbLcAAAAC/too-damn-high-jimmy-mc-millan.gif



AmInotrite?

I made this post yesterday:
It received 4 Merit. I've made better posts that received 0 Merit. I think it's safe to say earning Merit in WO is even easier than in Meta.

it gave me a chuckle for whatever reason - so one merit from me... thats my story and im sticking to it

and now i must resist going back and giving 49 more.

That was a damn good post.
The kind of humour I like on theWO. A good giggle is worth my standard amount of merits.
If you point me toward your best post I might , or might not merit shower also those.

merit on the WO thread in my opinion is like the like button on social media, so if the merit is disabled from the WO thread, how can other members like each other's posts with the same WO members?

but what about the idea if the merits obtained on the WO thread cannot be shared use it in another thread, is there any possibility to make something like that?

It was pretty funny given the situation, if my sMerit supply wasn't so precious to me (I won't bore you with the meme.), I probably would have merit'd it. :P

With WO being one of the more active threads on the forum, it stands to reason that there would be a higher flow of sMerit in that thread.. maybe with more active sources viewing it?

In some ways, I think it should be easy to get merits for simple witty posts that entertain people, in other ways I think it should be somewhat difficult to make people put more time and effort into what they post to earn the merit.. but then I wouldn't want to discourage or devalue something like what LoyceVMobile posted.  :-\

This little example shows that merit worked correctly. Even if it doesn't seem like the sight of some readers.

The merit should be given when someone's post meets our ideas, stirs our emotions or a way to agree with what is said.
The merits should not be limited when indicating the work a user has had writing or developing a project for the community.
Merit is much more than that. We need to understand that.

I never said that it should be disabled. Some merit sources could be more careful with the privilege bestowed upon them by the almighty forum dictator, but that's just my opinion.


Source smerit sending discretion has limits and those limits have been successfully tested in the past (i.e. merit sources have been stripped of their privileges for misuse). Generally speaking, if there is a scenario where shitposters get merited by a source so consistently that they can successfully farm merits, that to me sounds like a problem for the forum even if it's perfectly fine for WO.


There is no way to report posts for incorrect meriting (I mean one could report them but that would do fuck all other than a bunch of bad reports).


It's a problem. Not even in the top 10 BIG problems on this forum IMO.


I'll give you a solid maybe on that one.

It made me giggle too.. but for whatever reason I did not end up sending an smerit to that particular post.. even though I have sent smerits to similar kinds of posts.. and whatever random thing that might be going on with me at the time too.. or maybe I ran out of smerits at the time.. so yeah a bit of randomness, perhaps?

.. I think describing why one of us might send several smerits to a seemingly low quality post (from a usually (overwhelmingly) high quality production robotic-like member) goes to the point that there is quite a bit of subjectivism in smerit sending, and surely there is no problem with theymos saying that he would prefer smerit sending from sources to aim towards the meriting of the higher of quality posts - but there is still no exact resolution towards getting away from a certain level of subjectivity and even any of us could have days in which our judgement might happen to be fogged and even perverted.. and surely if any of the merit source members are acting in those kinds of ways on a regular and ongoing basis, theymos may well choose to remove them as merit source members and/or to reduce the quantity of their source smerits.

We could also back theymos in a corner, if we might publicly proclaim that our purpose might happen to be to do the opposite of what he has stated to be concerns of his regarding the sending out of smerits.. and yeah sure threads like these might push the subject matter and even contribute towards theymos considering that some actions might be needed by him... but I am still having my doubts regarding the extent to which either OP or the paradoy OP have pointed out concerns to actually show that there is some kind of a problem in which there is questionable objective value to some posts that are getting merited by some merit source members.. just for shitz and giggles...

.....but even shitz and giggles does not rise to the level abuse, corruption and/or quid pro quo, which seems to be more in the baliwick of smerit distribution devolution that theymos might well feel that he would need to see in order to actually conclude that the problem is worthy of some kind of a solution attempt. and the dumbass kind of a solution of creating a change that ONLY affects the WO thread seems a wee bit nutso.. but hey. .anything can happen, even if a couple of nutsos creating threads to argue such nutso ideareas.. ..

....or maybe if we go by the recent ruling against the SEC, I am not even sure if merit source members would need to be arbitrary and capricious in their smerit sending in order to be enough to disqualify them from carrying out their smerit sending because there would likely need to be some level of showing bad faith rather than their randomness or not really having any kind of a reason for the merits they sent.. although , I am sure that theymos does prefer some kind of conscientiousness in the smerit sending.. rather than pure aribtrariness.. and the idea of capricious does have some kind of irresponsibility built into it.. and maybe in that regard, I recall that QuestionAuthority was removed as a merit source member after he had engaged in some seemingly random game-related merit distribution practices...and who knows what else was going on with QA (that was of theymos's then concern).. and maybe the QA example goes to the idea that some level of publicness might push theymos into feeling that maybe some kind of action from him might be preferable.

Ahh just remember bitcointalk.org signature campaigns are worth huge amounts of coin to lots of people.

So shutting wo thread from merits may not really help the website.

I think keeping enough but not too much signature action is a big function of bitcointalk.

Simple, you just reply "+1 WOmerit". It's been a tradition in the thread for a few years now.


I don't really understand what you've been attempting to say here, at all... You keep framing the discussion in ways that are irrelevant to the original topic at hand.

I don't care how anybody spends their merits outside of the WO thread.

It's just blatantly obvious that the low moderation standard for that particular thread has created a spam problem, which is due to the regular meriting of low-quality, cut-and-paste posts.

Actually its gotten a lot better in there since this thread started to gain some traction. No doubt they will be back at it after attention shifts away from the issue.

I think you're on to something here: leave the Merit system the way it is now, but on top of that create a system to add "+1 WOmerit" to any post in WO. Like a like, and only existing in WO. It shouldn't add anything to someone's profile, just to the post in question. On second thought: within WO, there should be a "WOmerit: xxx" counter above the user's avatar. But it won't mean anything for ranking up, and won't exist anywhere else so there's no incentive for spammers to get them.

Maybe that's all that was needed, some merit sources that are active there realizing that they should be a little bit more selective when it comes to meriting. It would imho be a much better solution than just disabling merit sending there alltogether.


If that happens, just bump this thread again. :P

I didn't shy away from the OP issue. I commented on an example presented about a post that received merit in WO.

Now the point is this: what is a low-quality post?
You can have one criterion, I can have another, and another user another criterion.
I'm not saying I agree with a post with just a smile. But what can I do if someone thinks it deserves merit? I may not agree, but the person gives the credit to whoever he wants, because there are no rules of how to give merit.

It is true that this may be spamming the WO topic. But to make exceptions in that regard may be made elsewhere in the forum. Besides, it can deprive a user who posts something on that thread that is actually of value and and that it is worthy of merit.

What I could observe from looking at the last 10 pages of this topic is that much of the merit given was given for the purpose of provoking. In a way of saying: "the merits are mine, I give it to whoever I want"

Do I like to see that? No. But they too have the right to do so.
One thing is certain, if someone abuses the use of their smerit, because it is a source of merit, they will be penalised - as has already happened and has been mentioned.

In the meantime, I apologize if I am unable to explain my point of view, as English is not my specialty.

I just hope that tempers calm down and that you can resolve yourself in the best way.

But the post in question was written by LoyceV who doesn't post there for the sole reason of getting merits and (as far as I know) isn't an account farmer. He certainly doesn't need them to rank up and had no motivation outside of wanting to contribute to the discussion. Furthermore, he's actually contributed a lot of positive things to the forum, unlike any of the accounts that are "problematic."


For starters, one that would be deleted as spam in any other thread. Another is if it is recognized as a transparent ploy to get merit. Here's a couple such threads for your reference:

Requires support from merit sources (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5463181.msg62692703#msg62692703) - blatant plea for merit
Our Vision: How to change the world in three simple steps by Bitcoin" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5459591.msg62541598#msg62541598) - copy/paste of tweets presented as original thought

How about every post within WO being capped at a max of 1 per sMerit giver?  :)

I'd argue it shouldn't matter who made a post, although I also try to prevent giving Merit to users who "in general" don't deserve it. It's tricky sometimes.

I have enough sMerit left to create 3 6 Legendary accounts :P

I saw an opportunity, and took it. Right before I read fillippone's post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg62775263#msg62775263) I had a small heart attack when checking the Bitcoin price, so it felt only right to share the misery with someone who's price data was just minutes older.
Don't get me wrong: I don't mind getting Merit in WO, but it also seemed like a good recent exemple of how easy it is to get.

You'll just get more posts from "merit farmers".

Limiting to 1 sMerit is an option and removing merits completely is another. Ideally, there has to be some way of controlling spam at root level from the contributors perspective where they do not feel the urge to spam rather than spam being reported.

Merits it seems is something that is in massive demand as account farmers try to get their alt-accounts enrolled in the highest paying signature campaigns. They will find ways to spam, beg and concoct stories whilst trying to have posts merited. It really is up to those giving merits to be more responsible as their behaviour determines what action merit seekers take next.

This is a simple and yet effective idea.
And I guess that for regulars in the WO, “WO merits” would be more valuable than “forum merits”, while the opposite would be for merit farmers, of course.
Of course it would mean a little work from Theymos to implement that.
I recall compiling statistics for forum merits gained in the WO only, there already were a few “WO-legendary” members…

Up to yesterday's data dump, 150472 slightly over 12 Merits were sent within the WO-thread. That's almost 10% of the total.

Sorry for that. I've corrected it.

https://y.yarn.co/3c6fdc5e-4b4d-44c2-bb60-1186cf13f33b_text.gif

Great. Thanks to the this statistic being on public display, we're gonna get a new round of accounts shitposting for merits again, I can feel it. This is how they respond when you ask merit farmers if newbies are their alt accounts:

https://y.yarn.co/fe2a3da7-30e7-493a-af30-b91dee2bfcdb_text.gif

Here's an account farm at work:

https://media.tenor.com/fdV7jGaz--MAAAAM/assholes-space-balls.gif

that original 150472 merits (per day?) number.. you know of course that is now the new target to hit right? WO peeps are nothing if not competitive.

With all the striving to be the first to reach the level of one and a half hundred thousand merites per day in one topic, it will be possible only with hyperinflation of merites. Of course, the presence of merit sources makes merit an inflationary asset, but not to the same extent! :D

But I give credit, not because of the username. I give credit for what the user has written or accomplished.

Logically, over time we begin to identify more with some users than with others, and this can influence the merits given.

But as a rule the merits should be given by what is done and not by being done by a particular user. This in my opinion, of course.

Well the discussion will continue to get longer and there won't be an end to it. I'm sure that WO thread has been a merit house for many years and it will continue to be that way no matter whatever solution we purpose. I'm sure that @OP's concerns are valid about those members who took advantage of WO merit sources and earned those merits to rank up their accounts and a reputed member like @Nutildah would never accept such kind of activity on the forum and I believe that's the sole reason behind creation of this thread. But, I must say that the whole blame should be on the ones who took advantage of the merit sources or reputed members of the WO thread for the purpose of account farming. The simple solution is to find all of the users who ranked up their accounts using WO thread only and then create a thread to report those members. I know that my solution isn't a perfect one but it can at least send the message to those account farmers that ranking up their accounts through that thread isn't acceptable and they may stop their account farming activities after getting that message.

I think it's better to purpose a solution that would be beneficial for everyone because disabling of merits won't be an acceptable solution for the members who are mostly active on that thread and it can dishearten most of the members of that thread. I know that some spammers have used that twitter meme post spamming on that thread, but we can't ignore the activity of the reputed members that have been active on that thread for many years. The one with highest posts on the forum is also part of that thread and I can say that there are many such reputed members who spend most of their time on that thread. The presence of those members make that thread useful for the forum and that's why any decision regarding that thread should be handled with care because any wrong decision may hurt the feelings of the members who have given a lot to the forum.

I don't think that creating any limits on that thread would be any helpful because limits can really discourage the members who are actively participating in that thread. Everyone has purposed their solutions and I think every member of the forum has right to share their opinion regarding an issue. I know that the main intention of @OP behind creation of this thread was to stop account farming and that's a valid concern but still disabling of merits on that thread isn't the best solution. I think we all have to find a solution to solve the issue of meriting on that particular thread but the solution should be something that should be acceptable by the reputed members of that thread as well. The purposed solutions from the members on this thread are truly awesome but I think the best solution is still going to be the one that's supported by majority and also by the members of the WO thread.

You are surely doing god's work daddy dildah.

https://media.tenor.com/VjNmDCaNCigAAAAC/patrick-star-love-you.gif

I can try to take a snapshot of that information.
Maybe we'll even be surprised by the positive.

If I can get some time, maybe can do that this week. I'll try, I don't promise.

Yes, you should definitely do that when you have free time. I think a step like that will help to reduce the numbers of account farmers on WO thread and whenever a newbie or someone that's low in rank gets most of his/her merits from WO thread then that user should be reported in that thread where such cases are reported. The reported accounts in that reporting thread should be sent to the managers of the forum that actively manage signature campaigns. The managers will then decide that whether they'll consider such participants in their campaigns or not.

I'm sure that such step will be helpful for all those members who want to have a proper solution to tackle the issue of WO thread. I personally don't have any issue with the members who are getting their merits from WO thread because I'm sure that they are also trying their best to gain those merits, but I also agree with the concern of those members who say that such kind of merit gaining will increase the number of users who will mostly post low quality stuff on the forum.

Is this suggestion going to gain any traction or will it be dismissed entirely? If not limiting the number to "1" but limiting to a number that is accepted by consensus, is it an option? Another option is to cap the number of merits a member is allowed to give in a/that particular board.

If all those (and other) options are not feasible then there is another option: to do nothing and allow the status quo to continue in the Wall Observer thread.

That won't help IMO... Some of them are perfectly happy to write 10 posts there before getting a single merit. They are significantly motivated to spam by the prospects of receiving even just one merit. Thankfully they seem to have made a "group decision" to stop it for the time being... for the most part. We'll see how long it lasts for.

Sometimes it seems like some WO posters don't have much time for merit distribution, as merit sources, and therefore use WO in order to re-distribute them to lower-merited users*, which I don't think is a bad thing. At least that's the impression that I get occasionally. For others the rest of the forum is simply too trashy to spend much time in, so much better off sticking to WO if you want some decent content at least.

*Ie meriting the user for their overall contribution to the forum as opposed to a specific post

As promised, here is the file, compiling the total number of merits received by each user, and the total number of merits that each user gave.
File: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AuWqcTrLK_TciKVm8Z0GKtmpF1rBpQ?e=qyx6gP (https://1drv.ms/x/s!AuWqcTrLK_TciKVm8Z0GKtmpF1rBpQ?e=qyx6gP)

Based on this data, let's be honest: do you really think that merit hunting users are really managing to do this on WO?

You have done a really great thing and now everyone can see that how many merits were sent and received by each user. I really appreciate your efforts on compiling that list because it will be really good to clear doubts. Based on that data I don't think that merit hunters are targeting WO thread that much. Most of the merits were sent to reputed members of the forum  and I don't think that anything is wrong with such meriting approach because someone can send his/her smerits to posts of the ones whose style they like.

The data clearly shows that most of the merits are given to reputed members of the WO thread and I was more than sure that @El duderino_ will be on top in the list, and he's actually on top in both merit sending as well as merit receiving list. All top merit senders and merit receivers on that list are the reputed members of the forum and a few of them spend most of their time on WO thread only. I guess other would also think similarly after going through that list, and I'm quite sure that it will help to clear some doubts.

Looks like a list of the Cool Kids to me.

And why the fuck did you make me trust Microshaft Javascript in order to fucking see this data?!?!?!?!

Exactly! This ends up being in line with what I mentioned previously.
Out of more than 150k merits given, +20% of this value was given by @El duderino_. He, in turn, is one of the biggest merit givers on the entire forum. Let's say that he is not consistent in the merits he gives, just because he is in the WO? It certainly suits your criteria to the type of topic you are on.

this is top 77 on the list:


https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/09/06/mPtgT.png

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For the record the WO was being trashed by twitter quotes (About 120 days of it) and images that 3 or 4 of the top merit givers were giving merits.

It was an issue.

Do I think they were feeding bots and alts so they could have a dozen signature accounts nope.

Do I think they were being taken advantage of by sleazy  farmers maybe.

I still voted no.

And if you check me you will see I stopped giving the twitter/bots/alts/farmers merits around 90 days may 95 days ago.

Nice data! Looks a healthy who's who of Wall Observer participants to me. Forgot there were so many, though enough of them are MIA these days.

Chart buddy otherwise didn't make the Top 50 cut, which is reassuring.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/09/06/mtEof.png

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/09/06/mtNFD.png

The forum already has the option to report. Restricting giving merit in one section will make these members move to other sections of the forum. So better option is report them so that their account is flagged red and becomes useless.

Poll has finally ended. 38 for Yes and 59 No. Not completely surprising, but for the 38 people who voted Yes, well let me just say I am proud of you.

There's been a considerable dropoff in merit farming in the WO since I opened this thread (although it still exists to a certain degree). I reckon I will re-open and bump it if it picks back up again.

At least Duderino seems like he's considering being more selective with merits, so that's good.

Just a reminder to all merit sources, you don't need to give away all your source merits! Ideally you are giving them out for good posts that demonstrate the slightest inkling of original thought, and not just for copy/pasted tweets about number going up, or because somebody expresses admiration for you or agrees with you. I dunno, I guess the takeaway is don't let yourself be so easily fooled and manipulated. Its happened to me a few times, nobody's perfect, but let's not consistently reward low effort copy/paste posts. It just leads to a multiplication of such posts in what is arguably the best thread on the forum.

Reopening this thread as I couldn't think of a better place to post this.

So I got a PM from an account asking if I would reconsider a neutral trust I left them for unattributed copy/pasting in the WO thread, which would be considered plagiarism if it happened in any other thread. I am quite certain the person behind this account runs several other accounts as most of their posts are designed to extract merits from particular merit sources, which suggests they have a high level of familiarity with the forum.

I started reviewing their posts and noticed a pattern... let's see if you can also see it:









Tons more posts like this... Basically at least 25% of their posts are sucking up to JJG or other merit sources.

Perhaps my neutral trust on this account was worded too harshly, but it wasn't a one-off thing for them.


https://talkimg.com/images/2025/08/22/UZE6dC.png

I mean, is there any conceivable doubt that this is word-for-word plagiarism? For some reason this is OK in the WO thread, and it just encourages merit farming in that thread.

So anyway, I would like the opinion of others for this issue: should I delete the neutral tag as requested, or not? Keep in mind I am certain they have other accounts and the end goal is to get yet another account in another signature campaign.

I have to reply to give you my support.  Although I see many sources giving 5,10,20+ smerit to posts, my posts can't even get 1.  Even when I can reward a meritable post, how much is 1 merit on a post now anyways?

The same thing happens in the "buy, buy...blah, blah" threads. Page-long JJG quotations and further paraphrasing of his words above can be seen in dozens of so-called "newbies." For many sycophants, the phrase "I agree," although they were talking about themselves as a newbie a minute ago, looks not only funny but also disgusting. How do they know whether to agree or not if you've only been on the forum for two days? I am surprised at the patience of those who read this thread, although it is clear that no one reads it.

Therefore, I would not delete the tag; it is neutral, and the owner has earned it by right. Newbies who learn about the WO thread and all merit-distribution threads should be aware that their stories about their newness are not credible, as they are likely fabricated. And later, when they are caught, their assurances that they realized and will not do it again should be tested by time and not by tears in PM the next day after receiving the tag.

one of them:

I haven't read all 8 pages of the thread, but I read the first and last ones to see if anyone had mentioned the idea that had occurred to me. I've seen “+1 WO merit” mentioned a few times in the thread, as a joke, like many of the posts there. One idea would be to create a sort of WO merit that could only be used there. But given that the problem seems to have been reduced, that theymos doesn't seem to care much about how merits are distributed (as long as they're not sold or anything like that), and that it would have to be technically implemented, I don't think it will happen, but since it occurred to me, I wanted to mention it.


The thing is, merit distribution is relative. Often, someone is given a lot of merit for a post simply to raise their rank. Other merit sources give a minimum of 4 by default to any post they deem worthy. And in the end, there is always some subjectivity in whether or not to give merit to a post, and how much.

It is word for word plagiarism, for that sort of conduct members have received bans and negative tags.

As for the quotes related to that kanftka account, he is serious about trying to get merits in order to rank up as soon as possible.

He is following JJG around, posting compliments in the hope he might get merits for any subsequent posts. The desire to join signature campaigns is their sole purpose to register therefore they will do anything to achieve that goal. When you multiply that behaviour with multiple farmed accounts, it provides an idea of how big the problem actually is and the WO thread plays a huge part as it allows them a free hand to operate seeking merits.

I would argue that the Wall Observer is the only relevant thread on this site for a vast majority of the Bitcoin community.  I'm not sure that nerfing it is the right thing to do.  If people are complaining that they aren't getting merits in other places on the forum, maybe they should try posting relevant analysis or something of value.  If you aren't getting merits, that's the community letting you know that you aren't providing any value and maybe you need to look at yourself instead of trying to find ways to take merits from the people actually providing value to the community.

 ::) The community wants to give the merits, they just don't have any to give!  Maybe look at the accounts that keep passing the merit to each other, for whatever reason, instead of to the posts that are meritable and providing value.  The wall observer thread is garbage, but it is relevant to the greedy part of society (a striking minority in the Bitcoin community).   The vast majority of Bitcoin users I know are content to use their coin and enjoy the volatility, rather than HODL and constrict Bitcoin adoption.    Please realize you don't need to insult every one each time you want to write your individual opinion for sats. 


How would removing merits from the section weaken it?   Everyone posts in their best interest and there are very few posts of quality.  But here's the kicker -the backscratching that happens in that thread (you want to hodl, I want to hodl, let's swap merit) doesn't stay there.  That excess merit spills over to the rest of the forum, making our normal merit contributions irrelevant.    I'm sure removing merit from that section is the best thing for the majority of bitcointalk users.

If some source cannot spend all new merits, then usually it means, that their merit allocation is too high. But yes, by spending less than they could, they just give a signal, that their allocation should be lowered.

And how much is one like? It is not something to be traded. In the past, people wrote "+1" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347.msg15139#msg15139), instead of sending merits. So, how much is worth "I agree" or "+1", inside a post? It has no monetary value, it is only there to improve social interactions, because humans have emotions, and they are not bots.

Also, I think meriting 50 different posts with a single merit is much better, than sending 50 merits to a single post. Because then, you can look at merit history of some people you like, and you always end up reading a lot of good posts, instead of reading only a few great ones.

Another thing, is that if you give a single merit, then all complaints from people around will be binary: they can disagree with you about the fact, that you merited something, but they cannot accuse you of sending too many merits. There is a reason, why Satoshi always wrote "+1", and never "+50". Not to mention the fact, that sometimes you may merit something, and want to take it back later, if it will turn out, that you were wrong, merited some AI spammer, or some misleading answer, which is technically incorrect. Then, if you send just one merit, the "damage" is quite limited.

For me, it was always the opposite: I always had more merits, than I needed.

And even when I had none, then it was quite simple solution to that: just try harder. Write better posts. And it always worked, after some time.

Usually, there are more than enough merits. The bigger problem is to find good posts. Because sources always have plenty of merits every month, but the same cannot be said about good posts: they appear every sometimes, instead of coming always at regular intervals. And there are a lot of topics, which are not yet described, so there is still a lot of content, that I would like to see, but it requires some effort, to make such posts (and nobody did it yet, because forum crawlers for some phrases still give zero results, or only single sentences, instead of detailed description).

And I'm sure, that if it will be done, then people will merit posts from anywhere else, just to avoid these restrictions (which is what happened on other forums). Of course, in other places, the situation was much worse than here, because they also had "negative reputation points" (equivalent of proposed "demerit" here) and it was one of the worst idea, because people constantly send "-20" (they have a range of points from -20 to +20, where everyone is a "source"; I think our merit system is much better, than their "reputation system").

Wait a minute OG.
There are clearly some patterns in some "communities" of the forum where people get rewarded for crappy comments and useless posts/questions.
Some users, are clearly using merit system to grow their sockpuppets accounts, farming between them and then get enrolled in a signature campaing, make frauds, and so on.

I am able to earn 0 merit... in my local section. 
All my posts worthless ::) ? ALL ?!? ....
And casually all people that write "yes thank you" or "yes I agree with you" .... These deserve merits because I have said something useful or something right? ;D

Come on... it's evident that some "users" are using this specific power to enrich themself and probably to keep some sections like shit.
There are dozens of these accounts with no contribution at all with a ratio of 90-95% of the post merited...
 
Is that because they are so good to say "thank you" ? ;D I don't need the answer since proofs speaks by themselves....
But it must be clear that if you defend a scammer you're defending all scammers.

I disagree with this statement and if I thought it was garbage then I wouldn't care about the merit farmers there lowering the quality of discussion. Its a bit more sophisticated of a place than most others on this forum, IMHO.


I actually fall into this category and have always been of the opinion that Bitcoin was born to be spent. However, I've developed a camaraderie with the regulars there over the years. I appreciate the witty conversation, the humor & jokes, the cultural references and occasionally the spirited discussion. I just don't hold it against anyone who thinks HODL is the way.


I think this as well but the thread poll results would suggest we are in the minority.

Do you think I should make a "WO Explorer" on Talksearch to help with the thread navigation?

The WO thread is its own cool little universe. I don't know if there's a good way to balance (1) trying to control the volume of merit getting thrown around all willy-nilly, against (2) trying not to disturb the WO's whole "Fuck you! We do what we want!" thing...

One thought that must have come up over and over (I see DPD mentioned it a few posts up, but, I'm pretty sure that I've encountered it several times before) is to separate ordinary merit from "WO merit". I really like that idea, but, having a bunch of extra logic and presentation-wise stuff in place for just one thread seems like something that theymos wouldn't seriously consider doing. (I guess, a more general version of this idea would be to have board/topic based "merit weights". As in, if it's particularly easy to earn merit on Meta, for example, then merit earned there should be scaled down by some factor during balance calculation. Because all merit transactions are stored in the database individually, this idea could be applied retroactively, and I think I see a way for it to be done pretty efficiently, too.)

Another idea that I've been rolling around for a while now is to allow 0-merit sends. Sending someone "0" merits could be thought of as sending them a "like" (and, for example, instead of it displaying above a post as "LoyceV (0)", it could appear as "LoyceV (L)" or "LoyceV (+)", or something). I could see a "like system" based on 0-merit sends being very straightforward to implement (with maybe a one-click "+Like" button next to the "+Merit" button to make the whole thing feel more natural). I mean, that idea is worth pursuing all on its own, IMO, but, connecting it back to what we're talking about now: I wonder if the WO regulars would be very against the idea of their thread being made "like-only"? (If that's too heavy-handed, then maybe something that still allows for them to merit other regulars, but limits them to just 0-merit "likes" for new arrivals that haven't yet made 100 WO posts, or something. That way, WO regulars can form a substantial impression of someone before they dump actual merit on them. And, in the course of a merit-seeking spammer trying to cross that threshold, they'll hopefully end up on a few important ignore lists.)

There are a bunch of other "soft spots" on the forum that account farmers seem to rely on. It would be nice if it became a convention for certain kinds of threads to be marked by the creator as "like-only". In my view, you shouldn't be able to formulaically rank-up an account by carving a pumpkin, baking a pie, making a shitty pizza, and then repeating agreeable things on the WO. Off-topic, but, one thing I really miss is how selective DarkStar_ was when it came to assigning slots for the ChipMixer campaign. That campaign was pretty much the reason I joined Bitcointalk to begin with (in fact, I only fell into the whole SMF-patching thing because I was trying to get my merit-to-post ratio high enough for it to make sense for DarkStar_ to admit me as soon as I hit "Sr. Member"). Looking at Bitcointalk now, I don't think I'd join today... I used to get strong cypherpunk vibes from this place (even correcting for my naive view of the forum at the time). Now it feels like some kind of weird third-world school where the passing grade has been lowered over and over and all the "graduates" are idiots (I mean, I realize that that statement doesn't make much sense when you look back further and consider that rank used to depend only on post count, and then only on activity, before depending on merit, too. I'm just talking about the decline I've noticed during the 3 years that I've been paying attention).

As that been discussed for and it has not led to any acceptable resolution (the status quo remains), what can actually be done?

Granted those that are comfortable giving merits in WO, the onus nevertheless has to be on them to avoid what others could deem to be as a frivolous use of merits because it only encourages account farmers to keep churning out accounts.

Had action been taken a long time, this situation would not have occurred.

Local section is a different story. There is much less traffic, and also, you correctly noticed, that merits are always subjective. They are similar to "likes", but just have a more serious name.

No, it just means, that people are either hoarding merits, or there are not enough sources in a given place.

Giving a merit is very similar to writing "+1", "thank you", "I agree", or something similar. Theymos didn't receive a single merit from Satoshi, but when he got "+1", then you can look at it in the same way, as if he would get it.

Because this is the main reason, why the whole merit system was invented. If all posts would have high quality, then that system would never be needed, because the mere presence of a given post would imply, that it is worth reading. And this is the case for example in mailing lists, where everything is strictly moderated. But when you have a forum, where newbies are also invited, then something like merit system is needed, just because newbies don't want to see "your post is waiting for approval" after writing anything.

And also, the presence of "+1", "thank you", or similar posts, instead of merits, is usually a hint, that instead of writing it, merits should be sent. Which is why I think some people should be able to somehow reach negative amounts of merits, which could be filled by those with positive balance. Then, we wouldn't need topics like "link posts to merit sources", but instead, some users could do that from UI directly, and that list of posts could be browsed by sources. Maybe it is a good idea, to have a rank somewhere between "source", and "non-source", where some people would be able to fill that kind of lists (making it open for everyone would be too spammy I guess).

My own definition of giving a merit is "this post is not a spam". I can disagree with someone, and merit that person anyway. Maybe I want to correct someone, who is wrong, by quoting that person, and pointing it out (and also sending a merit, because if something is worth replying to, then it is usually also worth a merit).

And then, it becomes semi-automated: if something is quoted, then it is usually merited (unless blacklisted). And if something is "not a spam", then it can be whitelisted. By using "quotelist - blacklist + whitelist", I can spend many merits, without thinking too much about it (and of course, it is never fully automated, so each merit requires a manual action from me; my tools can only make suggestions, not decisions).

It is already implemented. You can give any amount from 1 to 50. If you want to split it between WO merits, and non-WO merits, then just send a single merit in one place, and two merits everywhere else.

Not to mention that merit history can be explored by anyone on pages like BPIP, so maybe it is just a matter of adding some rows and columns, when displaying statistics of a given user.

Sending things should have some costs. If that would be implemented, then users would need to provide some Proof of Work, before sending zero merits.

Also, merits should be treated as "likes". It has a serious name, but it is just an anti-spam feature, really.

I think it is better to link posts to people, who have plenty of merits. And then, they can give just one, if they like the content.

Merits are always subjective. And I think demerits should be avoided. If you think, that there should be less content, then this is what can be achieved by making moderated threads, where every post would be reviewed by someone, before being published. Some places, like mailing lists, are using that model, the question is: do you want to see it here?

You can always try to reach more moderated places, like mailing list (https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev), GitHub comments (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues), Delving Bitcoin (https://delvingbitcoin.org/), or things like that. They have higher standards than forum, and if you wonder, why developers are no longer as active here, as they were in the past, then I can give you an answer: they just moved somewhere else.

But, if you decide to join different places, then be prepared for your posts being rejected. Or be prepared to wait a few days, to see your content published. It is all normal and healthy: if there are higher requirements, then obviously, there is less content.

Because it is often the case. There are many things, which I would like to see (and merit), but they are not there yet, because a lot of effort is needed, to make them. And it is yet another reason, why I usually send a single merit, and not "50". Also, receiving a single merit from 10 people is usually worth more in my eyes, than a single person sending 10 merits, because then, there is a bigger circle of people, who need my content, and think I am not a spammer.

And what is done, when some features for BTC are proposed, and rejected? Well, you make a soft-fork, or a no-fork solution, and then it pushes things one step forward (some people also make altcoins (https://www.altcoinstalks.com/), but then, they are usually worse than the original version).

Want to see zero merits flying around? Write a plugin for a browser (hint: put some Proof of Work or other protections, to avoid being flooded). Want to separate WO merits from normal merits? Just display them differently, and count them differently in statistics. There are a lot of things, which can be solved by plugins or third party tools like BPIP, if they won't be solved officially, by changing the code on server's side. If server cannot meet your requests, then you have to modify the client, or make another server, which will do, what you want.

Yes, of course, that's the spirit! This is exactly what should be done in practice: less complaining, more coding. Because this is what can really push things forward.

Enrich themselves?  Merit is worthless. 



Why would I care one way or the other?  As long as what you're doing isn't negatively effecting anyone else, do what makes you happy.

OGNasty,
those accounts that receive merits are able to "rank up" in the forum. After you had a good rank you get enrolled in a signature campaign.
Maybe it's worthless but if you have it... you can earn money on the forum. It's not like anymore like 2014 where accounts grow thanks to activity.

Moreover as we have seen in collectibles, accounts could be easily used for scamming people after have a kind of trust...
Some guys are even collecting personal data as "side job" from this section of other collectors! ...  ;) they think this is "normal" but no its not .
 

---

Now you had to receive merits. But these are assigned "based on mood of the source".
I can try to understand stwenhao post, but it's evident something isn't working since 95% of post merited are only from certain guys and something like:

"Are they like AIs that do things with trading? I don't understand. Where can I find something to read about it? Thanks to anyone who can provide me with information."
"Here we go! Now it's beer and chips, but where are the beer and chips? So now you're part of the Olympus of the gods, lucky you. Good for you."
"And here you are right, definitely worth selling."

These are the first two (unofficial) rules of the forum. It's clear that this section is not applying rules anymore. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0
1. No zero or low value, pointless or uninteresting posts or threads. [1][e]
2. No off-topic posts.

It's clear that retard messages receive dozens of merits for no reason, meanwhile long explanation about bitcoin remains without merits (maybe because the poster is not an alt account or some friend of a scammer).
If we continue to keep all "at personal evaluation" it's clear that scammers can just support between them.
Some local sections (and not only full threads like WO) are already pure garbage with no real users but just clones or clones supporter.

If you support those cheap scammers, you're supporting in some way a scam behaviour that would impact brands advertising in forum, even the way we trust each other.
Did you think it's normal there are "cartels" of scammers that have growth Hero and Legendary accounts by farming merits? :)
I don't think this is something ok, so it's better to keep ALL posted in public about this argument.
If I have spent 162 days on the forum has been for bitcoin and for community (the good part of community) that is here around.

I agree, that "something isn't working". It is all about making this forum just a bit better place, even if it is invaded by troggs.

And you don't have to convince me, that there are places with higher standards. As I said, developers are already somewhere else. Here, many people just treat this forum as a playground, where they can post things, which they never would in more moderated areas.

Of course. If moderators can give one-word answers, then why users shouldn't:


Of course. Because, again, as I said, merits are similar to "likes", but they have just a more serious name. And a lot of merits are sent just for fun, between closed circles of people, who like each other, and they merit mainly themselves. It was always like that.

That's why I think some people should be allowed to make a list of links with good posts, directly from UI. But, again, it requires some effort, writing some code, a plugin for a browser, or something. And also, it requires some anti-spam protection, to not be flooded by every newbie, trying to suggest every single post as a candidate to be merited.

Without merits, there would be just more spam, like it was before this system was introduced. With demerits, there will be wars between users, who hate each other. So, what exactly do you want to change, and how?

It's not. But every system can be abused in that way or another. Bitcoin is also used for many illegal activities, as well as fiat currencies are. It is clear, that merit system is abused in some places, but to limit that abuse, you have to invent better rules, and deploy something, which would limit such cases. So, how do you want to do that?

@stwenhao
Lets be clear here, since I am seeing a questionable "defense" on your side.

If a moderator or a reputable user posts one time a "one word" comments, doens't means nothing since this is just "one time". And probably this was an answer to provide, maybe has just avoided a long text because he is not earning from signature ::) .
If there are users that have reached the higher ranks creating ALL worthless messages, yes this is worth. And there are dozens of these.
This is ongoing clearly from years and anyone could just check how 90-95% of merits are collected by just few users with non sense post.

You decide to make this assumption (wrong) that merits are "like +1" .
No this is not the meaning and clearly people are using for launching altaccounts/scam brands that advertising here.
Even if you consider as "like +1". Some users have reached higher level of yours granting 0 meaning on the forum.

Even another assumption (wrong) is that without merits the forum will be garbage.
In this way we created the "elite garbage" where "questionable" users that have hundreds of merits can decide who can be a shitposter and who not.
This has just created a new category "spammer supported by merit sources" ;D .

Of course any system could be abused. That's why I am highlighting this... I am not proposing a solution but just clearly exposing an issue.
Also because I continue to highlight that some of these users involved ARE STOLEN PRIVATE DATA OF OTHER USERS... it's clear they are acting in a fraudolent way and they don't deserve any kind of trust/respect.

Of course, if the same users are also merit source it's an offense for ALL serious /trusted users of the forum or all people that are following this community.

Many unfair things are going on in the WO section indeed, but nothing is completely fair anywhere, which is why I don't care if they allow merits there or not. As some posts were not worth meriting, but attracted more merit there, the same thing is happening elsewhere on the forum, while those posts that are worth meriting are overlooked.

On this ground, I say the WO section's merit should be left alone, removing its merits is tantamount to overcontrolling. It has been stripped of its signature appearance, which should be enough.

Perhaps, they should limit the maximum merit permissible per post on the thread.

If we disable merit usage on certain threads, there will be no end to it. Eventually it will be banned in most mega threads. Not sure how that makes sense.

The thing is account farmers will always find a way to exploit the system no matter which one is in place. It is because they adapt.

Why not establish a system that only allows users only making minimum 2 pages long academic level posts to be  ranked up?

Or just demand a PhD for the legendary membership.

The quality would go through the roof. All sig campers would be as wise as Gandalf the White.

**opens chat gpt**

-hey mf tell me how to write posts like gandalf the whitey would

@mindtrust
Since account farmers are always finding new way this means we had to stop to make proposal to avoid their bad / scam behaviour? ::) Interesting theory let me say this.

Regarding the other part of your post, I don't know if you're serious or ironic, but no one asked or suggested going from one extreme to the other.
It's clear that certain accounts have accumulated a quantity of merits that reached the level "scam against the forum", scam against its users, and against the signature system.

If we consider any act of issuing merit as "at the sole discretion of a user who cannot be removed or judged"... ::) (more feudalism system than a modern ones) it's clear that some "smart guys" have clearly taken advantage of this...

You can jokes as much as you want. However if you are going to trust a guy that rigged the merit system, you're trusting the same guy that has collected (doxx) of private users ...and so on... I don't know how much these users could be trusted or public defended but it is always funny to read certain messages :)

I've come to peace with the reality that my request won't be put into practice, and that's fine. I just needed a place to park a post so I didn't have to open a new thread about it. Because its not that big of a deal. I just find some things annoying and in my own weird way I'm trying to potentially protect other forum members from dishonest people... I can't not call it out when I see it, or at least when I think I'm seeing it.

It's not bad idea. But it needs some limitation, since it could be misused as another form spam. Imagine a post receive "like" from 1000 different account or account created with username that contain their advertising keyword (for example, "EXAMPLE.COM (+)", "WWW.EXAMPLE.COM (+)", "EXAMPLE.COM 200% BITCOIN").

This is why I keep criticizing signature campaign manager that keep accepting user based on the merit count without considering what thread or board they get most of it.

There’s a lot of this user enrolled on Rollbit campaign that allow new bloods user that obviously farm merit through this board and other mega spam board that merit is flooded either from merit source or their merit circle. If no campaign manager accept this kind of user account farmer through merit will be eliminated because most of this user is low quality poster in gambling board mostly posting about football too obvious discussion based on sports article.

The previous signature campaign standard that only based on post quality and content instead of merit count sometimes much better rather than the current basis that is pro merit farmer.

Newbie posting immediately on thread that has high merit distribution and have a good knowledge is an obvious alt.

Merit system worked for a while until it didn't. I am all for ending the spam but let's face it, campaign managers can hire accounts with very low earned merits too if they wanted to and a person with low earned merits might be a person that produces better posts than the OG's of the forum.

They probably do that individual inspections on the accounts before they hire people for signature campaigns anyway. And If they don't, that's the problem we need to solve because this problem, actually has a real solution unlike the problem that is described in the title of this thread.

Apart from the issues related to the WO thread, the whole merit system system itself could do with some kind of overhaul. Exactly how some posts are merited will always be debatable but to have a two-tier system where some members are (and some are not) merit source, is not healthy as far as community cohesion is concerned.

I don't know the state of things before this system, but it is clear that it does not work at all. Almost all posts everywhere I go are junk, very few are non generic garbage. If a system like this was working, over time most posts would converge on the quality of d5000's posts. As people genuinely try to do research, learn and improve their content then the average post quality must continue to rise consistently.

While it is rare, it is possible and does occasionally happen.

Who exactly do you refer to as we? I don't see how average members could do anything about the campaign manager's behavior. The administration or the default trust people could solve it easily.

While I would not mind individual improvements such as the proposed in the OP, I agree with you. There is very bad merit farming and cycling in local sections that this would not do too much. Whenever I see an user with more merit than is warranted by his post quality, I quickly find that he has earned them in local sections for short or generic posts.  ::)

While some people say that the merit system needs an change and there are others who complain that they don't get merits even on their useful posts. The biggest problem at WO is not that people get merit on worthless posts but the real concern is that there are few peoples who share merits among themselves and those people are only active on WO.

Recently, many new merit sources were introduced on the forum. I wonder if any of them focus on merits only at WO ?

Not really. To achieve this kind of scale, the cycle of new users would need to be non-constant, there would be no alt accounts, and some of the good posters would need to stay.

Like any system, it is infallible against abuse. Unfortunately, abuses do occur. But for me, the problem isn't who receives, but who gives. In turn, if someone is free to give merits to whomever they want, even if I don't agree with those choices, that's their right.




This is also very subjective. Someone can write a very good post and receive a lot of merits, and then write 30 weak posts and receive zero merits.



Anyway, I see this conversation as being more about creating rules for assigning merits than anything else. It seems people have forgotten that there's always been a lot of freedom on the forum, and they want to impose similar rules—unfairly—to those that exist offline.

At the beginning when the merit system was new it stopped the account farmers for a while. I'd say the forum gained a couple of spam-free years because of it but since they figured out how to game it, yes that time is over.

By "We" I mean all of us. Everybody can express his opinion here so we can all do something about it by showing our concerns.

And those who farm their merits in local boards or mega threads, they don't get to join quality high paying sig camps so easily as far as I am aware. They do join sig camps with lower pays though and that's because managers need to hire people either way and there is a shortage of good poster supply.

Let's say for a moment campaign manager refused to hire low quality legendary accounts... then they'd have to hire good posters with lower ranks, but the problem is this time, their account rank isn't high enough to display more complicated signatures.

When enough number of good quality posters emerge and get their ranks, those low quality posters with legendary accounts will be driven out of business.

Merit&account rank is only a deciding factor at the moment because the forum lacks the supply of good posters. Maybe it is not the managers' fault too as I originally thought.

For sure, the merit system is not without tradeoffs, but you might need to be more specific in what you are suggesting, since it surely would be nice if theymos would increase the number or merit sources rather than reduce them, as seemed to have had happened in his last somewhat global changes.  He went from something like 130 merit sources down to 88.. so he seems to be working in the opposite direction of your suggestion.

Another thing is that overseeing the merit system is likely a lot of work that theymos does not really want to do, which seems to be more apparent from his actions rather than anything specific that he has said in recent times on the topic.

Perhaps he needs a merit czar, but the person would need to be someone he trusts to follow the spirit of what he wants, which seems to be mostly a hands off kind of a system (maybe a person who is already on the staff that he has already screened for the characteristics that he considers good for a person carrying out such oversight duties - to the extent that he has not already created such position without saying anything since it might not need to be publicly known who such person is - even though there is value in some level of openness too in regards to some kinds of things, even though I doubt it is known exactly how some of the administrative matters are decided).

In any case, I am having trouble getting away from your observation of a two-tiered system that is currently existing.. yet maybe there could be a way to expand the merit source members and to cut back on the quantity of smerit sources per member.. so maybe no member has more than 210 smerits per 30 days, for example (that would be on average of 7 per day - those seem like reasonable top end numbers).. but then there might be members with various lower levels of smerits in their monthly source.. maybe starting out at 15 per 30 days)... but if there were too many merit source members, such as more than 2,100 (work up from 88 to 210 and maybe see how that goes before trying to add another 100 or 200 and then see how that goes - so yeah my random number of 2,100 might be too many), then that would likely lead to abuse of too many smerits, and take us back to pre-merit spamming days... which would keep the merit czar overly busy in the kinds of work that theymos would likely prefer to avoid drama and work and perhaps avoid too much change.

I would not claim to have enough information to know any kind of possibly balanced solution that would be clearly better than the sttus qo, even though my sense is that it is difficult to get completely out of two tiered, even if there could be some attempts at leveling out the matter, but that tends to take work. and maybe theymos has to learn to trust some one with such oversight  duties... There's gotta be someone who is somewhat compatible with his views on the topic, yet at the same time capable of helping in the oversight of such merit system matter (while being more help than hinderance)..    

I get the sense that theymos is viewing the matter more closely to a kind of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" kind of a view, even though surely there are some members who are somewhat reasonably discontented by the current way merit systems are... and yeah, I agree overall witht he idea that the number is too high. I doubt that a two-tiered elimination and/or meaningul reduction is going to be possible, even though there probably could be some possible ways to expand the merit source members to a level that might be a goal of reaching a few hundred rather than the current less than 100 count.

This is a point that I still haven't been able to understand, how is the system manipulated?

- Is someone taking money to give merit? As far as I know, this is prohibited. Anyone who knows this is happening should report it.
- Does anyone always give merits to the same people? I don't see this as system manipulation, but rather as normal. If someone identifies more with a particular user's opinion, it's normal for that user to receive more merits.
- Are more merits given in local tabs than in other tabs? I doubt this is some kind of manipulation. If someone spends more time in a certain section of the forum, it's normal for them to give more merits there.

Let me give you an example. Note that 60% of my posts are in the local tab. It's normal for more than half of my merits to be used there. Of course there are posts outside the local tab, which I would easily give merits to, but unfortunately I haven't gotten to them yet - maybe unfortunately I won't even get there. In turn, in the last 3 months, I received more merits outside my local tab than inside it.

OK, it might be true that in some cases, some people receive merits for simply saying "Hi." But honestly, is this considered a merit scheme? We can't forget that leveling up isn't just about merits; it requires activity. Don't tell me that just because someone receives a few dozen merits on posts that we all agree are of poor quality, they're going to move up a level.

In turn, the problem isn't the merit system, nor is it who receives merits; at the very least, it's who gives them. But this system is free for everyone to use as they wish. Do you want to lose that freedom just because of the bad behavior of a few? This is what I see more and more in everyday life, and then people complain that they are losing their privacy and freedom of choice.

I am not advocating an increase in merit source members because that compounds the two-tier issue. As the merit system currently stands, it is a two-tier system consisting of a group that are merit source and another group that are not. With all of the perceived benefits some members might conclude that merit source have brought to the forum, it excludes factors that are hardly mentioned: corruption and manipulation.

The word "worthy" is subjective without doubt, nevertheless the deliberate avoiding of giving merits to a worthy post purely based on the fact the author is disliked, is an inappropriate use of the system. As is the over meriting of a post on the basis of having somewhat of a rapport with the author. The latter is commonly glossed over by merit sources citing a quote from theymos that stated it was better to use the allocated merits per month merits rather than not. That has given a free hand to some merit source members to justify their merit giving.

All of this is happening in an environment where merit sources can act with complete impunity and without having to justify their actions if some (or most) of their merit history is examined and questions raised. That is part of the reason why a two-tier system is not conducive to community cohesion.

What I am advocating is an overhaul of the merit system. How exactly that overhaul would manifest itself after a transformation is something I would invite members to suggest, if they believe it is the way forward.

Well, it is not rocket science.

If you go to WO or the $100k/push-up challenge topic start posting moon boi messages, you'll farm some serious merits that way. Once you have a main acc that holds considerable amount of merits, you can start building your own alt army and exchange merits between accounts. That's probably what the acc farmers are doing atm. It might sound unreal, non-sense, unworthy to you but some people try it anyway.

You are right some people give merits to short ass moon boi messages a lot and that behavior encourages account farmers but here is the problem, merit distribution is not moderated. Meaning, people can merit whatever post the find merit worthy.

In the end we are almost back to where we were before a decade ago.

I was considering that to resolve the two-tiered system in the way that you were suggesting would either be 1) to completely get rid of the merit system (which seems to bring us back to a system that had already been in place, yet with the baggage of 7.5 years of prior existing merit system) or 2) to expand the merit sources to such a level that everyone or almost everyone were a merit source.

I suggested some kind of compromise of the second with the use of a merit czar since there would likely be a certain amount of work to oversee that abuses might not be getting out of hand if the merit sources were to be expanded to levels that are quite higher than thaey are now.. and yeah, theymos may have already experienced problems with having more merit source members which is part of the reason that merit source members are currently down to 88-ish.


There isn't a current standard of even requiring posts to be worthy in any objective sense, and the only restriction is really on merit sources to not be engaged in quid pro quo kinds of arrangements, and yeah, maybe there might be some unwritten rules regarding merit source behavior that might cause theymos to remove such members as merit sources - not spending their source smerits seems to be one of the unwritten rules that might cause a merit source member to lose his source..
 

Yep.  I saw that post by theymos, and I think that he stands by his statement which communicates quite a bit of liberty to merit source members and harder to criticize members who might ongoingly max out their smerit sending to certain other forum members every 30 days, and theymos does not seem to have problems with those kinds of smerit spending/distribution ideas (50 smerits to any particular member every 30 days).

It seems that many times other forum members, including author of this here OP tend to be inclined to want to impose smerit sending standards on source members and those standards do not exist and theymos does not seem to be in agreement with such standards.
 

Are these questions being raised in public ways and about specific conduct of specific source members?  Or is the conduct being reported and itemized within private reports to forum admins.

Sure I know from time to time some members will be put under scrutiny for their conduct, but it is not generally only about smerit sending, even though in some bad cases smerit sending might be part of the package of wrong doing of specific member that might be targeted, but it still seems to be fairly rare, at least I have not seen too many of those kinds of threads that might attempt to review various source merit members.


That is still pretty vague.  You seem to be suggesting democracy (like commentary and perhaps voting) and/or a committee, and members have already commented on these ideas for years.. yet sure, maybe there could be a thread that is specifically on the smerit system reform topic.  Perhaps?  If theymos were to give guidelines on such a topic or maybe if someone could reasonably infer what his guidelines might be, then maybe some useful suggestions could come through such a thread.  The idea of disabling smerits on the WO thread does not seem productive at all, even though surely there is some relevance in looking at threads such as the WO in terms of the large quantity of merits that are given out (or distributed and/or redistributed) through that thread.



This usually not a good way to start out a post in regards to a topic that includes controversy and a variety of potential solutions.


I am not sure if you have enough information to proclaim that the merit system is completely unmoderated, and sure maybe you consider more and/or better moderation of the merit system.  The devil is in the details regarding how additional moderation might be applied and what might be the guidelines for such better moderation. or maybe if it is not moderated, but merit source members might rotate, but that would be a lot of work.  Theymos would have to do it or delegate some or all of the duties in regards to how rotation might take place.

As far as I know meritocracy has helped the system a lot to clean it from spammer, and of course some lazy fools aren't here anymore when they sees that the forum is becoming more strict and harder to scale through they all ran away without forging ahead. Usually, Forum is a place to discussed about bitcoin and other life related discussion, so people can share merits to whatever post they found interesting, and that doesn't mean it is baseless or worthless.

For WO, well, I do not regularly visit that board and even if I visit sometimes, I do not comment rather I stick to reading things that are being shared over there, basically I go there to source information and whenever I read things that are worthy I goes off from there, but of course there are newbies or people who are going to source for merits with the intention that merits usually flow there.

So, at somehow, I don't think that section should be disabled about merits because there are people who only base there and they don't have time posting outside of that WO, and if you look them they don't have time or interest to build their account only those who are wanting to build their account and join signature are the people who are that busy spamming that section in the name of seeking for merits.

I never said the topic should be flagged or deleted or something. I don't even agree with the topic title. I am just pointing out what has been happening ever since the introduction of the merit system.

If I had to describe these chain of events with one word, I would call it "entropy"

It is irreversible. Given enough time every system eventually collapse and that's exactly what we are seeing here.

Yes, I do not also said that as well. And of course you are right.
Things are changing and most times the system that was implement could like change due to some compromise, that section has been information and disable merits in that section would make no addition just as other section are permitted for merits distributions. Of course, the system has helped a bit even though it's roughly seen this way at least spammers have no place over here because no reasonable person would go waste their merits on those profile. Of course I do not give because someone gives or some people are dumping a known profile due what they said.

I understand what you're saying, and I realize that it might even work to a certain extent, but I have some reservations about whether it's really a big problem or just one or another more publicized case.

Or maybe I'm just being very naive and don't understand the scope of this whole "macabre" scheme.

A user has three alt accounts in addition to their main one. They collect merits from their main account, which they then redistribute among their alts. (At this point, if someone is caught doing this, they can be reported, I think it wasn't the first time it happened.) But, he doesn't get caught and continues.

If the main account earns 30 merits, it distributes 10 merits to the 3 alts.
Each alt will have 5 merits to give. If everyone gives to the main, he will have 7 merits to give.
It returns 2 merits for each alt account.
These alts return to giving 1 merit to the main, and have 1 or 2 more merits to give.
In the end, each high received about 12 or 13 merits throughout this process.
He has to do this scheme about 10 times for an alt to reach Full Member. Added to that, each alt has to have an activity of about 200.

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that with just this scheme (have 1 or more alts) the account will level up.

I still remember the effort involved in leveling up and earning merits, and I find it hard to believe it's that simple. Yes, I probably also earned some merits with little effort, for posting in a few threads. But I also know it was never a significant amount, maybe 10, 20, a little more. That doesn't get you very far.

I see it as somewhat difficult for someone to farm merits using only these resources. Maybe they're being naive... but I think it's difficult.

You don't need to feel bad about what I said, nobody should. I probably got like at least 30% of my current merits in WO when I was an active poster there. So, by all means I am not pointing any fingers at anyone. It might look like it but I am not doing it.

Campaign managers tend to not like accounts that farm their merits that way (I think I heard it from the chipmi*er's manager when he was around, but it is common knowledge nowadays anyway) so if a high ranking account with good reputation does the WO/pushup merit farming, it is probably because he doesn't care what the campaign managers think about him ( probably not carrying a *paid* signature too)

If the ranking is high but the repuation is shaky, there is a chance that he is running an alt farm. Again, not pointing any fingers. Just my guess.

That is just one scheme, a naive one. What is more likely (among other things) is that they have managed to get one or several of their colleagues promoted to merit sources which now support the farming. Do you not read stories of organized scam centers in third world countries? That is how it works. They have groups and do this together. Even if all the accounts involved are not yours it is still abuse. Further, you can make it seem more legitimate by having a strict rule of not giving merit to your own accounts across the group. In that case they would only give merit to the accounts of their conspirators and never to their own account.

You earlier mentioned subjectivity as an argument, which I strongly reject. The problem with subjectivity is that they can and already are using it to conceal their organized farming. One example: Make nice artwork thread similar to the Pizza Day contest in a local section as a merit source, and you can give a lot of merit to all the people in the farming group at the same time without it looking too suspicious. Subjectivity has its place, but the intent is what matters. If merits are easily earned in a local section for low effort contributions, after which the user proceeds to shitpost in other sections for campaign money, the intent is clear from the start. Of course this is extremely hard to prove compared to direct alt abuses, but you can spot some patterns because of the low quality of posts.

Like I said previously, a system that rewards quality contributions must over time naturally increase the average quality of the contributions assuming that it works. According to mindrust there was a period in which this was the case, and this empirically supports this argument. It seems that the system needs new tweaking to function again. I always through that a demerit function within such systems would be nice, but it requires more oversight as it can leads to gang behavior and significant abuse.

Your poll was over 2 years ago.   You should lock this one and start a 2025 version to see how things have changed.  :)   The sources will obviously vote no, but there are more recipients to vote yes.

You're right, I could do that, but honestly I find it effective to just berate or shame merit farmers right in the thread itself. Or like the above-instance that persuaded me to reopen this thread, leaving them a neutral tag over the matter seems to be at least somewhat effective.

Also, and somewhat contradictory to my suggestion, I spend a decent number of merits in that thread, although I will seldom give them to new, new-ish accounts, or accounts I suspect are one of many in a farm.

Finally, there are some longtime WOers that I respect that don't have a problem with the whoring. They are unbothered and just choose to ignore them without even putting them on ignore. Mind over matter, or something.

Maybe it's the size of my local tab; I don't know what the others are like. But frankly, this kind of pattern is easier to spot in a local tab than in global tabs. If this type of behavior exists in some local tabs, it is almost certainly detected by the main and biggest users of those tabs.

One of two things. Either all the experienced users of these tabs are participating in this conspiracy. Or all the merit sources in these tabs don't know what they're doing and are completely clueless about how the forum works and what merits are for.

In turn, the problem ends up being in the local tabs and not in global topics like WO.

Furthermore, if campaign managers allow low-quality users into their campaigns, they are seriously undermining their work! It's not enough to say that they only accept posts with more than x characters, they should blast those who frequently make short posts.

In the end, what I see is not a problem with the merits, but rather with the benefits that some users with low-quality posts have in campaigns here on the forum. Perhaps what we should be discussing is how managers analyze their user choices and retain those users in campaigns.

Why not let’s cut the root that cause this situation?

All this account farmer aim to join on signature campaign while there’s only few active campaign manager right now that accept participants.

Since they are considering merit counts on accepting members why not establish a rule that merit gathered through this method merit jerking, spam thread and other merit sharing thread(except merit source thread) shouldn’t be considered.

If campaign manager will just based on post quality only, all this merit whore will be ignored. Bring back the old way that campaign manager check post quality instead of merit. It’s funny that some campaign manager give priority to user that gain most of merit from these questionable thread that is not related to the project they are promoting and keep ignoring those user that regularly contribute on discussion to the board which their project is suitable.

We should accept the reality now that merit is not always the right basis to consider a user as constructive poster especially for those new account that rapidly rank up due to this merit farming through their merit butt buddies.

I wouldn't be so sure, that sources will vote "no". For me, if there would be less places, where you could get merits, then it would make it easier to get even more merits, than I received. For example, if only topics from Development & Technical Discussion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0) will be allowed to receive merits, then I could get much more, than when they can be sent everywhere.

After introducing the functionality of merits and allowing members to use it for a number of years and then to remove it (because a better alternative was not found), seems to be not only a waste of resources but also a waste of opportunity to rectify something that already has a structure in place but would work better for the forum members with modifications.

For the latter, making all members merit source effectively means removing the merit-source tag and giving all members 'x' amount of merits each month to distribute. Theoretically, that was something that could have been implemented in the first place. Rather than the completely biased two-tier system that is in place now that theymos appoints/remove any member as he deems appropriate, it could have been a more metric based system on either higher rank equates to more monthly merits to give or maybe receiving 'x' number merits equates to distributing double merits.

These are mere limited examples and not an exhaustive list of every option or permutation.

That conduct is precisely the reason why I stated there was no discussion of corruption and manipulation because merit source were being blindly trusted by theymos without any credible checks and balances in place thus allowing merit sources to operate with complete impunity.
 
In that case, we are once again talking about theymos unilaterally taking those steps. I think the forum has grown to a point where there are enough members that care about the forum enough to be able to contribute to a decision making process. It would not be practical to have an all-inclusive debate for every single issue to the forum but where it affects the forum to the degree that merits and merit sources do, maybe having the unilateral approach is no longer appropriate.

It was deliberately left vague as I did not want the first suggestion that started the debate to be mine.

I will add this, I had never contemplated the implementation of a czar but after your suggestion it does seem to be a workable idea. I think implementation of a function that stops any merit source from distributing merits with impunity is an excellent idea. The fact a merit czar (as you stated) could remove/replace a merit source is an excellent idea but on its own does not solve the issue of a two-tier system not being conducive to community cohesion.

Another suggestion could be rotating merit source automatically on a monthly basis similar to the manner DT rotation takes place, is another idea that could be implemented. It would be better and more inclusive to the two-tier merit source system currently in place. A merit czar could be overlooking how these rotated merit source are giving merits and hold them to account. If merit abuse collusion is discovered, the merit czar can permanently ban that member from being rotated on to merit source again.

As far as suggestions are concerned, the debate is there for those that want to contribute with suggestions/ideas and I hope they do.

Hhampuz last accepted users in Rollbit Solana campaign on August 24. Unfortunately, his latest acceptance proved you wrong. He didn't accept (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5475372.msg65727300#msg65727300) the most merit earned applicant.

Yes it’s not the highest but still they are one of the highest merit count than most of the participants

It proves me right, Check those accepted members merit history. Does the thread where the merit acquired looks familiar to you in relation to this topic?  ;)

Extra: those that applying typically just the merit jerker buddies. They just recycling merit through themselves on merit thread. Notice that these guys rarely send merit out of their circle.

I’m too tired to fight this merit jerker. Merit system is now use to carve an easy path for a guaranteed signature campaign spot for farmer since normal user that using forum having a hard time to
get merit without merit buddy unless they are initially good on Bitcoin technical discussion while this jerker just post hype bitcoin post and received tons of merit.

Look at the quantity of merits that this thread got: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5542027. It is much less than D5000 posts often get. It is not even a substantial thread.  :D Most of that user's posts are shit, it is clear that they helped him rank up fast to join campaigns. This doesn't mean that he wasn't better than other applicants though, I have not looked into that. That's besides the point anyway.

For reference, from the whole list of merit senders in the example thread only Halab sent me 2 merits once. Some forum data magician could probably do a good analysis of these claims, but the results would upset a lot of people. LoyceV?  :P

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Sure, there are only two ways of going about it. At the merit source level or at the campaign level. I don't mind your suggestion either. However, I can already foresee some people giving excuses how managers can do whatever they want and whatnot. A fairly sized block of DefaultTrust members could solve this situation in a few days. However, it seems primarily to me that network aims to preserve the status quo and tries to avoid making changes policy. The lies that we tell ourselves about allegedly decentralized systems are just sad.

Some would argue that it is a supply and demand problem, but that is a symptom not a cause. Yes, managers need more quality posters to employ in their campaigns but they are not available. This is where this user makes a good point. When the situation is like this, it is hard for normal people to earn merit if they are not able to provide very substantial contributions or very technical contributions. Their contributions have to be several magnitudes better than the shitposters from these circlejerks to earn the same quantity of merit. Their decent posts get hidden in the crowd, and they have to make extra effort to try to earn some merit such as applying in those report your posts threads.

Both ways of approaching the problem will have their respective downsides. For example, if you push the campaign managers to reject all these posters then there will be a period during which they will not be able to fill their campaigns.

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I understand the issues that you are trying to solve, I just don't see how your ideas would help for the other issues such as the one that I am writing about. If anything, making everyone a merit source would amplify the power of the abusers and the farmers. I think that such a system would need much more oversight and require frequent and severe punishments to have any chance of deterring cheaters.

I think it is more relevant to analyze the level of campaigns than the merits.
Because merits is a system that involves technical characteristics, more complex and time-consumindo. Changing the way campaigns capture users and manage them is simpler to do.

Of course, maybe managers prefer not to change.
Others think it's okay.
Some think that everything is fine, or that everything is bad.

But, we can still put the moderators on the question. Are they managing to clean up all the low-value posts?
Do they simply ignore some boards?

In the end, we all like to have our status. Now this should not be higher than the whole community.
Looking at my experience, I think most of the time it's more personal disagreements than something so global.


Honestly, I would like to see more complex cases of how these schemes work and actually work.
Can anyone point out a Hero/Legendary user, who has reached that level, for having used this type of scheme?

The issue is majority of any idea that can be thought of Would be misused
It's not that the system is bad is just that it involves humans. And we humans are good at finding loopholes in every system.

The case of everybody being merit source. I saw something similar in Altcointalks and the abuse is obvious.
And even if the merit system is removed, people would still find a way to abuse the system.

Your "limited examples" don't get me too excited, but who am I. 

It seems to me that even though several members are complaining in reasonable ways about aspects of the merit system, theymos is likely not completely unsatisfied with the merit system as it is playing out, so any suggested changes likely would need to be somewhat in line with what is already happening rather than revolutionary changes.


It could be that there is a certain level of scrutiny, but just not the kind of scrutiny that you believe to be warranted. 


Probably by law theymos is the owner of the forum, so then his choice to employ democratic means is something that he could optionally choose to employ (and to take into account).  Sure members could rebel or even vote with their feet.

So if the forum is losing influence and/or participation, then maybe theymos could be motivated by that.  The forum's treasury is large enough that he probably does not need to expect the forum to generate revenue in any way in order to operate it through earlier donations being kept in BTC.  Arguments can be made that fiduciary duties are owed to run the forum well and to spend its money wisely.. and sure maybe even participants of the forum can argue that we bring value to the forum and so therefore theymos owes us.

I think the punchline is that the extent of democracy is upon theymos's discretion and the extent to which he might share ownership, yet I thought that he was a sole owner in the last few years?


I keep mentioning merit czar because it seems that theymos does not want to do the extra work, so largely he would be appointing someone to take care of such duties and to be reportable to theymos in the event that theymos might either limit the powers of such czar or to override the merit's czar's powers (and/or decisions) from time to time.

The thing about two tiered. I doubt that can be resolved.  It is a feature rather than a bug.  Theymos want's two tiered since the merit system seems to be an attempt to disempower spammers and/or other ways that members might be abusive of the forum.  The merit system allows a kind of way to make it more difficult for some members to get ahead.... Of course, maybe there is more than just a two tiered system since there are merit sources, and then there are members who contribute good substance and regularly receive merits and there are members who hardly receive any merits... Of course, there are variations within these categories, since some members receive merits who might not deserve it and other members do not receive as many merits as they likely deserve..  Yet I still doubt that theymos is wanting to get into the weeds of trying to sort the deserving from the undeserving.


Yep.  Theymos likely does not want to get involved in that level of detail, and sure a merit czar could be helpful in regards to rotating merit sources and even excluding some members from being merit sources or adjusting their quantity of merit source based on issues that might come up through oversight or reports from other members.  There could be some creative ways that might help more than they hurt, and surely having a merit czar would not be without its own potential risks... yet I would imagine that theymos has staff members (or already existing mods) in place in which he might trust their judgement more than others.. .. and yeah, he would not necessarily even need to make the merit czar public.. and you never know, he might already have a merit czar and did not say anything... even though I would think that most solutions that make sense does involve increasing the number of merit sources rather than decreasing them, so theymos's recent action to reduce the merit sources by 20 or something like that tends to show that it is not too likely that he has actually identified and/or employed the services of a merit czar.


Sometimes the parameter of the debate might need to be outlined better, which was part of the reason that I had suggested a specific thread that outlines the parameters of the discussion better, and surely it does not seem to be a serious discussion if there are thoughts and proposals to disable a whole thread (such as WO) from being able to participate in smerit distribution.  Sure  anything could be on the table in theory, but if there are attempts to be realistic, then some kinds of proposals don't really seem realistic, even if they are theoretically possible to carry out.

I did not advocate making every member merit source. We both agree on the fundamentals of the situation.

If the majority of any idea can be misused because members will find loopholes to exploit, I see no reason why the current two-tier merit source and non-merit source should not be changed (even if just to test any new proposed format).

We are all members and within our capacity of being members, all we can do is to contribute ideas and suggestions. I am not looking for my suggestions to be implemented, nor am I asking for support. I took the opportunity to invite debate and suggestions.

The merit system is broken, whether it continues in the same format or not I doubt members will use that as a reason or excuse to leave the forum.

Maybe I am being repetitive in some regards, yet it seems to me if there were a desire to get rid of what you assert to be two-tierdness, then the logical conclusion would lead to something that you don't seem to be advocating which would be either to competely eliminate merits or to cause more members to have smerits to spend (like having more merit source members)  - and so if we were thinking in terms of increasing merit source memers, then where do you draw the line in order to eliminate tieredness? a few thousand? 

Since you seem to agree that compete elimination of the merit system is not a good thing, then at what point of the expansion of the merit system (by adding more merit source members) would the tieredness be sufficiently eliminated?

Oops.. maybe I am not giving enough credit to your rotating merit source members idea?  There still would be some tierdness in the eligibility pool, and the more I think about the idea of rotating merit sources, that starts to seem to be logistically disasterous... Would the terms of service be a month?  or maybe a year?  or every quarter?  I am not opposed to the idea, even though it seems like potentially a lot of work.

I seem to recall when the merit system was first activated, theymos said that he would revisit it about once a year, and yeah, he revisited it a few times and probably did quite a bit behind the scenes while maybe striving to allow it to seem like it was pretty much hands off, yet part of my point is that systematic review and revise did not really seem to take place in any kind of a public way, and likely there were just ongoing administrative matters change the source amounts and remove some members and add some other members and even theymos's one time stated goal of increasing the merit sources to a couple hundred or whatever it was did not come to pass, since it seems that the most we ever got up to was around 130.. and perhaps even that was a lot of work to sometimes review reports of abuse or drama related to some locals not  having any merit sources or maybe just having 1 or 2 merit sources, which also could have had led to some problems in some local sections.


It likely is true that aspects of the merit system as it currently stands has quite a few negative aspects, meaning that it could be improved, yet it could continue going on as is, too.  

In that regard, broken just seems like a wrong choice of words, and I am starting to feel that I am repeating myself.  Theymos probably reads through several of these merit related discussions, and there could be some kinds of changes that he might be receptive to making or even contemplating making...yet I am just guessing, since in some sense, even if some members believe that some meaningful changes could be made to the merit system, he might just think that if any changes might be tweaked here or there by removing or adding a merit source member or maybe increasing or decreasing a source member's quantity of smerits, those might be good enough kinds of adjustments to make from time to time, so in that sense, he might not be agreeing with your "broke" assessment.

This is what I notice. Merit jerker circle either send first merit to attract other user to easily follow the merit pouring or hype the thread with support post to encourage user to think that the post is super good.



There’s a lot of cases of potential merit abused from this jerker that go to thrash due to lack of connection for obvious reason that these account was controlled by experienced forum member that knew exactly how to hide their track.

It’s the reason why I mention that merit system is now being used as easy ticket to campaign because this jerker has huge source of merit to rank their account while normal user struggle to get one since if they post same content as above they will usually being ignored or criticized because of lack of connection.




There’s a lot of decent poster that better than this jerker already leave the forum because they can’t compete with this jerker when it comes to merit count as this is one of the factor that manager consider.

Most of the active signature campaign is on gambling board. Normally, campaign manager preferred regular use that post on that board as natural poster but the problem is there’s low merit distribution on that board.

That’s the time this jerker enter and fill the spot. They are not regular gambler poster but they can post now mostly on football thread discussing an event like “wow Arsenal won today hope they won again” like that which is obviously just meh post on sports.

Got another request to remove a neutral today, and I won't be doing it. First of all, if your post history looks like this:

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/08/29/UZ0Uqm.png

its pretty obvious you're only writing in the WO to farm merits. You only exist as an entity on the forum to basically plead for merits in the hopes of some day ranking up yet another alt account to join another signature campaign. You're not here to engage in good faith discussion, you're here to see what works in terms of manipulating merit sources.

A lot of the time I don't mind it but some people are just so annoying and cheesy that I feel the need to attempt to discourage this kind of behavior.

Please, have some sense of self worth and stop being shameless balls of cheese.