Bitcoin Forum

Today I just visited meta board and saw this topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5498144.0) and some old question in my mind araise once again that-
We know that forum has total 109 merit sources and as this info total Smerit (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources) generation of up to 32990  in a month. So questions is-
  -Are all merit sources have same smerit generation?
  -Another question is once a merit source can be a lifetime merit source?  Or is it also pick and drop system like DT¹
    member election?

No, theymos distribute the smerits to merit sources differently.

As long as the merit source is active on this forum, theymos will continue to give the merit source smerit. After long time of inactivity, theymos will remove the person from merit source.

No, I believe each merit source have differing number of sMerit generation per month. There are some merit sources who generate less sMerits while there are others who generate more sMerits. Only Theymos and those merit sources themselves know that how many sMerits they get per month.

No, merit sources are different from DT members because a merit source can stay at his/her position as long as he/she is helping others with those sMerits, he/she is active on this forum, and he/she doesn't break the rules of the forum.

There have been some merit sources in past who aren't merit sources anymore. If I'm not wrong then a few months ago Ratimov was a merit source too but now he isn't a merit source or reputed member of this forum. Similarly, there were a few other merit sources who left the forum and aren't merit sources anymore.

According to this reply from @hugeblack, they are not the same. Each merit source received a different amount of merit on a monthly basis.

All merit sources don't have equal smerits allocation. Technically I think the amount of smerits different merit sources get from their refill is quite fixed and the volume of smerits they get is actually fixed based on some predetermined factors like the allocation Theymos made for for each source depending on how much smerits they spend, and  how many boards they visit and distribute merits to. I think merit circulation is also relative to how much smerits sources get during each refill because if merit sources are giving out excess merits the merit system will get messed up so will ranking.

I think a merit source remains one forever except they choose to stop being one of which I have never come across since my time on the forum.

These are current figures which are different than past ones and will be different in future.

No.

Because if they have same source sMerit, their sent merit numbers would not be too different even they will have different active times in the forum to read, post or distribute sourced sMerit.

No. If they turn to be inactive, scam or abuse sourced sMerit, their merit source role will be removed by theymos. Removed positions can be replaced by theymos, or not, it depends on his view on stats of merit distributions over boards from forum data base.

Merit source observations (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5180975.0)
Chronological changes of top 200 merit receivers / senders since Jan 2018 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5276587.0). Images are dead now, I have to update image links. Pay your attention on sent merit.

The intensity of sent merit transactions and number of sent merit increased in 2019 because of increase in monthly (30-days) sourced sMerit change from theymos on some merit sources. In contrast, some sources have drops because they turn to be less active in forum.

On the page with the list of merit sources, opposite each name is the number of merits they receive for distribution. Or is this information not displayed for regular users?

Yes, it's not visible for the regular members of the forum may be you are seeing those stats because of you are a Staff Member. Normal users don't even know the names of all merit sources.
So far I have known the name of the merit source member only by looking at the ratio of sendable merit and earned merit using BPIP Extension.

Hey, long time no see  tranthidung!
What about updating your merits stats up to now? 2023 and 2024 are missing from your graphs.
This would be a nice thread to go through for a statistics junkie like yours truly merit rascal.

Just chiming in here as a merit source (even though OP's already got his answer): yes, not all merit sources get the same monthly allocation of sMerits.  Last I knew I was tied with one or more sources for the highest amount, though that might not be the case anymore.  Either way, it was because I kept requesting a bigger stash since I kept running low each month and monthly allocation isn't for bragging rights and isn't why I mentioned it. 

In fact, I could probably do with a lower number of sMerits each month right now as I've ended my post history review offer.  Maybe Theymos could give me 400/month with the remainder going to a new merit source, and preferably one who could cover a local board.  Theymos himself might not see this post, but perhaps a sympathetic moderator will.  I'm still trying to be active, but I'm sure I've got too many sMerits to unload each month.

Being a MS....a job you both love and hate to have at times.

Me too!

I appreciated your support for my thread (in the past).

I am sure will give you update next several weeks (perhaps 1 or 2 weeks). Weeks ago, eventually I figured out ways to import data from loyce club that will help me to run that script again, but with 4 additional years, I will not use my previous script, have to adjust it and add some new ideas too.

The new thread will not like weekly update by perhaps will be updated quarterly.

Several members answered your first two questions, but not that many focused on this one.
There are no elections for merit sources. What I mean is, there isn't a voting system where you have candidates and you vote for those who should have that responsibility. We don't know what happens in the staff quarters, but I doubt they have a voting system there. Perhaps they talk about it like "I am going to make X, Y, Z new merit sources, do you guys agree?", but I don't think there is more than that.

Even though there aren't elections, you have probably noticed threads with merit source applications. Trusted members can apply to become merit sources and then everyone is free to share their opinion about it. The admins could look at that feedback before deciding YES or NO if they want to.

I believe you deserve to get the number of sMerits that you're getting already because you have been a very generous merit source and most members appreciate your generosity including me. With your post review offer you've helped so many deserving members with your sMerits and I'm very sure each of those members wholeheartedly appreciate that.

I know that now you have closed that offer but still I believe you are someone who send merits to all those posts which are merit worthy posts. I truly respect you for whatever you do, and it's great to read your this post because it cleared some doubts of the members about the number of sMerits a merit source gets. I hope in future you may help the deserving members with merits even if that offer remains inactive.

I've not been too conversant with the meta board as well. I  literally can't detail so about merit sources as you just did but if I can get involved with my little ideal on your question, I think merits are generated from the same source and which is then allocated to each merit source forum member to distribute the merits accordingly.
The Merit source forum member who distributes the merits to the deserved quality posts are usually reputable users who has gained a lot of trusts while participating in the forum. It's usually by personal delegate then the aurhory probably to the recognition of Thymos would approve a suitable candidate for it.

I don't think so base on my understanding, every merit source has his own monthly allocation rate which may differ from each other, if am right.


I don't think its a lifetime source, but as long as the source keep to the ethics for the fare distribution of the smerits received, there wont be issue on that, also, i perceived of recent, we have a drop in number of the merit sources by one, and we still have an additional member who got confirmed to be a merit source as well, nothing is permanent in life.

In my understanding drawn from what I have read from many merits sources in many threads, they do not have the same smerit allocation, and some users' monthly smerits could be so much while others could be annoyingly low. The reason is best known to theymos, but upon request with evidence of usage of the ones you were given, I think he can adjust the allocation based on his discretion.

As for being a lifetime merit source, I think it is possible if you maintain a good membership/reputation and do not renege from the reason why you were given. But of course, if you are no longer active on the forum, what is your worth? For this, such a user's merit source status may be withdrawn.

There are other offences which may not be plain that could cost users their merit source status as well. So it could be slightly similar to that of the DTs but not as rampant as them.

Gaaah!!  Thanks for all the compliments, but lately I've been such a lazy-ass merit source and feel incredibly guilty because of said laziness.  The position of merit source is strictly a voluntary one of course, and I could easily just tell Theymos I don't want to be one anymore....but I vividly remember the days before the merit system came into existence and I know how important it became in slaying account farmers who had god-knows-how-many alt accounts making zero-value posts all over the place and in general making it much harder for shitposters to rank up, thereby disincentivizing them from even trying.

So I'm happy to help worthy members rank up.  It's just that when I'm browsing through threads, most of the posts I'd consider merit-worthy are being made by Legendary members.  Don't know if anyone else agrees with that, but I guess everyone has different standards.

By the way, it isn't a question of whether I 'deserve' my monthly allocation of sMerits; it's a matter of whether I can unload all of them each month, and lately I haven't been doing that.  I will strive to do better.

As a beneficiary from the times you did reviews, I would say you were instrumental to my scaling the ranks and was very open to everyone that applied at some point.

Am sure a lot of users would have felt a bit uneasy when you announced on your having to stop the reviews but, it’s understandably so. One can only imagine just how many of those pms that were coming in, how much you’ve got to read and what judgments you’ve got to give. I don’t see anything easy about that but, you did your bit and touched the accounts of many here.

Needless to say, you deserve a break from all that work and having to review logs of posts on several accounts. As one of the active merit source on the forum, I hope you don’t hand-in your position some day. Stay true Chymist.

---

OP, am sure you get your answers already. Nothing is permanent on the forum, even bans are subject to reviews in recent times!

It's a pleasure to tell the truth and all complainants about you came from core of my heart. I really respect you and try my best to follow you and read most of your posts. You're among those members whom I respect so much and I'm very fortunate that we belong to same profession in practical life!
No brother, you have never been lazy as a merit source, in fact I believe you have been doing very well all this time. You're the only merit source who not only send merits to good posts but with your post history review thread you've helped other members to improve their posting quality.

I was pretty weak at quoting other members posts and I used to quote wall of texts, but after your suggestions and reading your posts I tried my best to follow the way you quote others posts, and now my posts look better.
Yes, you've been dong that and to be honest, you've helped many worthy members to rank up as a merit source. Yes, it's true that majority of good posts are made by Legendary members but there are some ranking members who also try their best to make good quality posts and merit sources like you are helping those members with sMerits.

True, sMerits are allocated to merit sources based on the scalabilties and the efforts of members in a particular board which merit source is situated upon to spread sMerits base on the  effort ness thriving of members quality posts which is prioritized to the goal of the platform.
And being a sMerit source can be determined by members reputations the effort ness being contributed also prioritizing of the primary aim of the forum. So, if a reputable member deviates from his Worth in the forum, the trust in the sMerits source can be withdrawn from him.
In as much time forum isn't a personal owned firm and not a government firm to say we can always stay here until retirement or doing how we want, trust can always be declined on any negative attitudes of members.

Well, I don't think @Samreomo is just laying compliments, it's the truth. Although I've been a beneficiary to some of the merit sources we know, but I think if there were a chart made for highest number of merits from a merit source, you would be topping that chart. For me, there are actually quality posters who aren't legendary members but may not be so consistent and as such it could make you a bit confused. I remember going through a thread where someone said the gambling section needs merit sources too because inasmuch as there are spammers there, good posters can also be found but the thing is most of these sources may not have the time to start searching. You could decide to unload your smerits there.

Legendary tend to speak/ post based on their experience and knowledge - that's more meaningful than the average user who is trying to build an account and earn merit from here and there. So it's true that more experienced user who rank highly have more meaningful quality posts than others - but I'm also not generalizing them all to be the same.

The posting quality standards for each merit source are very different. They can sometimes consider posts like mine to be quality because they contain elements of argument, facts, or so on. Some of these others are ordinary posts that are of no use being given merit even if your rank is Legendary.


There are several merit source on the gambling board - but more often than not they distribute the merit on specific thread. The main problem is probably the quality standard of the posts - I mean, they really struggle to find good posters in the many thread that already have hundreds to thousand of page.

What you are saying is nothing but the truth, there are some certain things in life that comes with age and experience. There things you will never understand until you get to certain age and level in life. Here in this forum account ranks is what show how long and how dedicated someone has been in this forum. There are many threads that Legendary Members come across and have learnt from and contributed on that new members can't easily access. Most lower ranked members don't usually have the time to go and read those threads to enhance their knowledge only few does dedicate their time to go in search of these threads and go through them. Getting to a legendary rank is no easy thing I must confess, so there is a clear difference in their posts when compared with that of a lower ranked members, no matter how knowledgeable the lower ranked members are. Just like you have rightly sated lower ranked members has many things distracting them and one of it is growing their account to a higher rank.

if you are struggling, and you think it might be useful for you, you can join me trying to deplete my backlog of posts in my thread:

[Merit] Share your best posts/threads with Fillippone to be merit assessed (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5412657.0;topicseen)

if you fancy having a bunch of self-submitted "good posts", please go on!

Merit courses are tasked with distributing some merit to quality posts on the forums every month, that can motivated the quality poster and all merit sources fulfill their responsibilities.

Theymos gives Smerit to all Merit Sources accounts at a certain time every month. again to distribute merit for that month. We know that for every 2 merits received, 1 Smerit is auto generated, but distributed Smerits to  merit sources are  by Theymos.

Once someone is a merit source, he is not a source for lifetime. Merit source list is updated every month. If a merit source is inactive in the forum for a long time or does not distribute the Smerit given to him, then he is removed from the list of merit sources.

Oh boy...
For example, this user (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1056600) is on the 109 Merit Sources list since 2019 and is still there. And there are others like him. So we can conclude that it's better not to write something when you don't know much about it.

Halab - thank you. If you never told - then maybe I never knew that @baba0000000000 is one of merit source appointed since 2019. Based on the merit information - this user has spent 258 merit so far and received 288 merit. From the merit gap you receive and spend - then it is clear that he is one of the merit source on the list. @baba0000000000 has been inactive since September 19, 2019 and has not spent any more sMerit since then. But the question is - why doesn't the admin replace it with another user?

The audacity some people use to give information they are not sure about is alarming. That person isn't a staff or moderator and neither is he a merit, but he gave out wrong information with so much confidence.

Take it this way;
Whether he is replaced or not doesn't really matter. There's no definite number of merit sources to do the job. Theymos can decide to use lesser or higher number of merit sources. The emphasis is on how much merits is in circulation and not who are those circulating them.

It does matter, for what purpose the inactive merit source be still in the list if they cannot do the job, nothing. There are a lot of merit sources application (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5464174.0) ^{(and many more to mention)} that deserves in the list. I don't know what reason theymos is holding on that inactive sources but it doesn't make any sense more particularly if they are inactive on such very long time.

How true is the sentence 'sMerit is distributed to the source of merit by Themos'?

According to Themos, there are some users who are designated as Merit Sources, who generate a certain amount of Merit every month without doing anything. He is not interested in publishing the list of those users.

So, Themos is a person who has been nominated as a Merit Source, who has been in 109 Merit Sources since 2019. It is wrong to give merit to account in other merit sources by him.

sorry for my mistake. It seems that I have known something wrong all along. I now know the correct information. Thanks for pointing out your mistake. and special thanks to know us a information then @baba0000000000 is a merit source. coz i think mamy users like me don't know about this..

Halab has already proved me wrong so I think your further discussion on this point is unfounded. I think you want to get some credit yourself by criticizing  ???

Do you guys get paid or not 🙄
You are right, but still, I have observed that whenever a new person applies for a merit source job, a lot of local members and reputed members like most of the DT1 members (if the applicant is good) support his/her application by replying in the application thread. They write good words about him. I always thought they were doing it to change the mind of the admin or either make up his mind.
That's a clue for us 🧐 Now I will be observing threads created by legendaries to idealize what posts they are making that you think are merit-worthy. Haha Just kidding. I know we should not create posts for the sake of merits only.

Sure, but we have no idea if that helps and what criteria theymos considers when he appoints new merit sources. If positive comments and support can help and the community feels like the user deserves to become a merit source, they will write their opinions. But I am sure you have noticed there are many applications of users who never got appointed to become merit sources, at least not to our knowledge, and then there are those among us who became merit sources without even applying.

I admit, the support provided by the community regardless of position (DT, merit source, or regular user) does not have much influence on the admin's decision to appoint a new merit source. The admin definitely has his own criteria for selecting who meets the requirements and who is still in the consideration stage, but I know that many applications are still pending at this time. What is clear is that the community will only support it if they think the user's application deserves to be considered and appointed as a new merit source.

You did not understand theymos' writings.

There are forum members who are assigned as merit sources but they don't generate monthly merit. Theymos code and distribute sourced merit to merit sources with a cap of 30-month sourced merit for each merit source. It will be filled in cumulatively in 30 days for each merit source.

I believe theymos is not nominated himself as merit source. In early days, there are merit sources who receive PMs from theymos like forum staffs, some prominent members who contributed to fight against spam in 2017 like The Sceptical Chymist, actmyname.

First you don't understand writing of theymos.
Second your sentence is broken.
Lastly you did not share accurate information.

One year anniversary of merit system (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5101718.0)
Merit source observations (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5180975.0)

Of course that is up to theymos - but this will be important if for example the Nigerian local board or other active local board lack more merit distribution. If this wasn't important - then I would never get some users applying to be merit source.

Then you will definitely get some users spend 3 to 5 merit on posts that have no value or lack of value. It would also increase the number of merit in circulation - perhap due to compatriot, brother and sister, husband, wive, relative or something like that.

Let me give you an example...
If theymos wants 1000 merits to be in circulation, using 10 merit sources can mean that each merit source has 100 merits allocation. If one of the 10 merit sources becomes inactive, it is left for theymos to replace him or increase the merits of one of the remaining 9 merit sources to 200. Or he will decide to increase the allocation of the remaining 9 by let's say 10. I hope you understand my analysis. If theymos is not accepting new merit source applications, it means he has a way of dealing with it that we don't know.

Every system has its backlash, what you described above is already happening and we should just see it as a deficiency of the merit system.