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Regarding the merit system, the only thing I would change is the visibility of who grants the merits to the public. In other words, we could see which merits were assigned, but not who assigned them. This would prevent merits from being denied to those who truly deserve them or being granted without proper evaluation.

For example, if Alice and Bob are in a debate, Peter, who is a friend of both, avoids taking sides. However, this wouldn't happen if his stance were secret, as Peter wouldn't face issues in positioning himself impartially.

Additionally, the so-called 'snowball effect' would be avoided. For example, if Satoshi assigns 100 merits, many people would follow suit without even evaluating the post and would add more merits. On the other hand, if Satoshi were to support an opposing position, users, even if they disagreed with him, would tend to remain neutral for the most part. If the merit system were anonymous to the public, people would simply rely on their own judgment and wouldn't be influenced by others' actions.

The staff could always continue knowing who sends the merits to prevent abuse of the system.

Your idea might sound good, but that will lead to much more merit abuse than any positive effect on the merit system, and saying the staff will be the only ones to have full access to the merit history database is giving them a whole load of work, which they don't have all the time in the world to go through. Your suggestion is similar to what's already existing with the karma system on Altcointalk; I don't like that pattern.

And since your suggestion is because of who deceived merit to be denied of the merit that doesn't have anything to do with who is sending merit, some people give merit based on post quality, irrespective of who posted it. Why are there others who might want to take a careful look at the user before dispensing any merit? None of such can be improved by hiding who sends merit to whom.

If there was supposed to be a change in the merit system, it would have occured long ago. There have been so many merit system suggestions in this board yet none is considered not because they are not making sense but because what has been in existence has already been there so why make changes for a specific individual opinion about the merit system?

Consequently your idea of merit spending being anonymous is very much a back boned to what you're trying to avoid.

Sometimes topics have to be reported severally before mods could see it and take action imagine this busy people coming to look at each individual merit score? among the millions of active users.

Why would this complicate merit abuse? Seeing or not seeing who grants merits is inherent to the quality of the publication. If you, as a user, notice poor publications with excessive merits, you could still report them to the moderator. Regarding the other point, do you really believe that some people haven't refrained from giving merits to avoid reflecting their stance? Do you think there aren't publications that receive merits just because Theymos did it, for example?.


Merits on Bitcointalk are essentially a voting system, and voting-based systems tend to work better when anonymity is preserved.

I don't understand why merit is used for right and wrong thing? merit is used for post quality, information and constructiveness. When someone disagree even it's wrong, but they have a point, they deserve to get merit. It might be exception for something like "mathematics" where 1+1 is always 2, if there are people who have different answer, they're all wrong.

From my observation, merit is less likely to occur  a conflict with other users, trust list and feedback are.

It is not a good idea.

Making it not possible to be traced so that the merits can easily be abused by people easily?

No staff has posted about merit abuse before but some users has been given neutral or negative trust before for massively sending merits to their alts. So you do not want this to happen ever again?

I agree. The development of the merit system took some time, just as it would take some time to make changes to it. Given that it has had good results, even if not perfect, I doubt very much that changes will be made in the future, as I don't see a pressing need, and you don't know if the changes would turn out worse, like the semi invisibility of merits, which as _act_ says could lead to abuse.

Why do we need a copy of what is obtainable on the other forum, I believe this whole idea is motivated by the karma system on altcointalk and why should both the merit system and karma system function the same, each one of them has its own unique features that set it aside from the other so for that, things are ok the way there are with the merit's system, and what ops should understand is that it will take a whole lot to change a system that has proven to be very effective and improving the overall quality of contents here on Bitcointalk.

You lost me here itself. Merit system is not that deep, there is no evaluation and there is no 'deserving of merit' users. Even if one user likes particular post and gives it merit even though it could be shitpost in someone else users eyes — it's fine.


There is this karma system on altcoinstalks and I don't like it specially because it's anonymous. Plus, merit system being public helps in avoiding merits farming between alts, as sooner or later farmers are caught.


That'd be burden on staff imo, it's better if it remains public and those who care about this abuse stuff, use their Sherlock Holmes techniques and figure out things and let everyone else know, and rep system take care of rest.

Edit: I guess I had brain fart while writing this comment, so I corrected some stuff.

I don't think anybody does this
Or I personally don't do this.
What I believe it does is it draws attention to the post and you would want to read why it's worth such merit or any.
Seeing someone I respect giving a post 50 merit doesn't mean I would merit it without seeing what's interesting about it.



It would. Merit abuse would be as easy as breathing.
Just give two merit to different post of the user that looks okay and nobody is going to be suspicious
Easy to farm your alt account without been called.
Yes the current merit system has its flaws but no system is perfect and it's doing just fine( improvement shouldn't be in anonymity).

How's that the system's fault.
You chose not to nobody forced you not to a Send a merit.
Nothing states that you have to send merit to every post you feel deserves it.
That's trust and reputation.
Their history has shown this and people are not forced to merit
They did on their own
What's the issue with that?

For me, the OP's proposal is nonsense. Why do you perceive people as those who do not have their own opinion? Satoshi gave someone a hundred merits, so what? Should everyone repeat it like sheep? I am against it. Everyone has and should have their own opinion. In the same way, why be afraid to support someone if you see clearly that one of the disputants is right? This is cowardice and adaptation. I laugh a lot when I see such people who are afraid to say something from their account against someone. In your case, OP, it is better to be without merits at all, since the fear of being guilty will manifest itself in you in any case. In addition, secretly sending merits will create a sweet opportunity to send merits to your alternative

Peter should grow a pair, and realize Merit doesn't mean you "like" or "agree" with a post, but it's meant for good posts. I've received negative feedback a few times because some users don't understand how either the Merit or the Trust system is supposed to be used. That's okay, that's why they're not on DefaultTrust.

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Your proposal will increase Merit sales and Meriting alt-accounts.

I don't think sending merits is a reflection of a situation. If your friend is monitoring your every action and blaming you for it, it's better to change him/her rather than change the system.
Regarding the 'snowball effect' it is good as long as replies are not ranked according to merits.

This shows that you don't actually know the essence of the merit system. When I was a newbie, I made a controversial post and legendary members were bashing me, among those that criticised me also gave me 4 merits. That left me with a thought, why disagree with me and also meriting the same post you disagreed with. That made me actually understand that a post that people disagree with can also earn your merit if it is informative or teaches a new idea. It could simply be the audacity of the user making the post.

Again, if you give merit because you are taking a side in a debate or you want favour, you are using the merit system the wrong way. It also shows that you could be using the trust system the wrong way too.

The merit system is fine this way, think of other things and leave the merit system for now.

Why are you curious to change the current merit system? It seems your idea will increase merit abuse. Because when we can't see who sent merits, abusers will take advantage of it. I don't think merit senders are influenced by other merit senders. When they think that post deserves merits, then they proceed. The current system is pretty good to me. I don't like a more complicated merit system or any other changes. Because earning merits is really so tough, so the merit system should remain as it is.

Do you want merit moderate by the forum moderator? It's quite impossible for them. They are even working hard to reduce forum spam; they don't have enough time to look at each post and merit the sender.

It's interesting point, but people still could be influenced in other ways. For example, reading reply by other member.


It would be additional burden to staff, who probably already have their hands full with persistent spammer (who use AI/chatbot) and SEO spammer.

The staff have a lot of work on their hands cleaning the forum and whatnot. Catching merit abusers and account farmers is more of a community responsibility, you don’t have to be a staff to do that. I like that the merit system is transparent, if it was anonymous like you are suggesting, account farmers would have been roaming free on in the forum.

I don't quite understand why the Merit system should be kept secret!?
It doesn't make any sense at all! I don't think you should be ashamed if you send merits regardless of whether someone else sends them or not, I don't think you should be ashamed if you send merits! Would hiding merits in plain sight make you feel safer?
Merits are and should remain free and visible to everyone, primarily to avoid abuse.
Hiding the way merits are awarded from everyone would cause thousands of other accounts to appear like mushrooms and would be incredibly abusive. As far as I'm concerned, but I don't decide, this idea is really to be rejected.

Don't be offended, my friend, it's just my personal opinion on your topic

Peter has clearly misused the merit system. We're supposed to use merits fairly, without playing favorites. Just because someone is your friend, it doesn't mean you should ignore their mistakes. If Alice or Bob has done something wrong, you should judge based on who's right, not who's your friend.

Introducing this merit system will only increase the workload of moderators on the forum. Honestly, I don't see the point of such a system. Even with our current merit system, some people still manage to abuse it. If we make the merit history untraceable, it will be even easier for them to exploit it. To me, I think this forum is fine as it is. I don't see the need of making any changes. Such changes might bring flaws in the system which are not meant to exist.

No matter how hard you try to make the merit system perfect, there will still be merit abuse. However, this your suggestion will only increase merit abuse and promote high rate of alts in the forum because merits becomes untraceable. We all have different ways to qualify a post that deserves our merits.

I hate it when whoever merit my post is invincible like that of altcoinstalks. The only thing that Theymos should do partaking to merit is to add more merit source to the available ones, and increase those merit source that needs more merits.

Well, I don't see this to add any meaning to the forum or even makes things better neither does it look pretty fine for me, the system is already good and making it decentralized in a form where we wouldn't know whom is sending or receiving the merits makes it to increase the chances of jeopardizing the merits and making in the favor of those whom they knows more better while others suffer for nothing. It is better it remains centralized where everyone sees whom is sending and receiving, and if there are any connection of accounts it would easily leads to sanctioning and penalizations.

Really, the only intention of this post is to reflect my thoughts, as the title suggests, understanding the collective mindset of 'if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it'. It’s 100% valid and logical, but it’s also true that even if we don’t want change, it’s always good to debate these topics.

I don’t know why some people think this is based on an idea of some kind of karma system, when the only thing I proposed in the thread was to stop showing publicly who sends them.

Some others think that certain merits given are not subject to ideological evaluations, but rather to posts with quality content. Example: users with thoughts like 'if you support what I think, I’ll give you merits,' or 'giving merits because I support their stance'.

+5 merit:

Regarding the abuse of merits, I don't believe that hiding who grants the merits necessarily fosters the abuse of them. This can be mitigated with more consistency through the use of codes. It would even be more effective than a user (human) manually reviewing names and posts.

Codes can be created to identify scenarios of merit abuse that often follow this pattern:


If this pattern of the orange circle repeats, or if the majority of the merits do not go beyond the orange circle, it would be considered a possible merit abuse, which is then reported to the staff for evaluation.

I honestly don't see how this would change or improve anything regarding merits system.
Merits should not be used for supporting or not supporting any members in forum.
In fact, there is a good chance I can disagree with something that is written by specific member, but if the subject is interesting and sparks discussion than I could sent him merits.
I also don't support herd mentality and I won't send merits to any post just because a bunch of people, satoshi, theymos, loycev, or anyone else sent merits before me.

Although you don't do it, we are aware that these types of behaviors exist. Many cannot escape the herd effect because the desire to align with a group is a natural instinct of humans, and this affects critical thinking. An example would be Trump's memecoin; just because someone renowned endorses an idea, it tends to bias the thoughts of the majority, consciously or unconsciously. If that memecoin were created by user77, someone nobody knows, it wouldn't have the same impact. That's why I proposed my idea to mitigate biases.

It can be a blind meriting action when a user follows a famous user, but it can be merit abuse. If you see it as abuse, send your report to forum moderators or admins or create your thread in Reputation board.

Meriting is emotional too and if you are in a good day, you can be more generous with meriting than usual. You need to try to merit posts that deserve merit because it has good quality and contribution to forum community.

You can see abuse in contests.

Theymos wrote it in the announcement of merit system, Merit & new rank requirements. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0)

You sound vague here! what do you mean by voting system? the number of merit on a post determines it's authenticity? or it's used to choose what's ideal and what's not ideal ? merit system is subjective to individuals so what you consider the merit system for is obviously against the perception of the masses.


It would likely make it worst, judging from already existing cases. A merit system of 2018, here 2025 to be changed towards sentiment is obviously not going to work.

It's hard for OP to agree to this.

I can remember seeing a post from a newbie that was merit hugely by 1miau if can remember but this didn't attract others to merit the same post, he's perception was very different from others so this whole thought seems to be centered on one thing subjectivity.

Example: Alice presents a problem, Bob earns several merits by responding with a possible solution. Peter, some time later, presents the same problem and goes directly to Bob's response because it is the most supported one. This is what I mean when I say 'merit-based voting system'. As for the other point, when it is visible who grants the merits, it opens the door to the 'authority bias' effect.

Merit abuse doesn't follow a single pattern  Codes are not created for their thoughts or subjectivity.
There are People that merit certain group of people not because they are abusing the merit but that's what they find interesting
Imagine a user mostly based in the mining section
Their merit circle Would be small.


Another does the cost worth the perceived results?
Simplicity sometimes is security
If it gets too complex we may start seeing bugs (literally and not literally)




Oh we already have something like this
If you suspect an abuse, just post it on reputation board and case closed.



Mind you, I'm not against improvement just believe anonymity isn't the way
Even Bitcoin is a public ledger  ;D.

A Good POV.

I'll make you a promise: if satoshi Merits a post, I'll send it 42 Merits. And if satoshi makes a post, I'll do the same :)

If that s the case please start sending bitcoin donations instead of merits to post creators and test your theory.
I don't care what other people are doing.

Let's make it a double, if that happens and you send 42 merits than I will send 84 merits :)
Seriously now, I was thinking in past tense, someone could sent a bunch of merits in year 2018, 2019 or later after implementation of merit system, but that is not making me to send more merits.

What kind of abuse do you mean? The merit system is transparent and yet it is being  abused regardless of its transparency, do you really think that making the system anonymous would solve any problem, it wouldn't. The reason why this would not work is because,
1, Members on the forum knows how the merit systems is working already therefore changing it now wouldn't stop anything because the members that are abusing the are still on the forum.
2, abuses can be done more if the system becomes anonymous compare to now that it's transparent.
3, Bitcointalk don't have to copy the same feature that is operating on Altcoinstalks.

If that will be happend please mention me and i will be add some Merits there too when i have some at this time.
If satoshi makes a post again here on the Forum the whole Forum will be going nuts on that and i guess that it will be change everything  8)

@mcdouglasx
Your idea is not an improvement to be honest , if that what you have written will be implemented it takes no 24 Hours if it would be abused.
So from my side there is NO for that idea , at the moment the merit system is very transparent and everybody can see whats going on  , it could not be better.

Oh, that is genius of you. I thought you wanted to rant like others, but it shows you understand what you are saying. We are all humans, and I believe that human nature will always play out in the current merit sharing no matter how we pretend, so the "give me, I give you" and other sentimental sharing would be stopped by that because you can't know who is who.

But I doubt this happening since it is not coming from the so-called reputable members, it is dead on arrival. Many will not even care because the current structure favours them.

Not necessarily, as more than once I merited a post that I don't agree with and so did many other forum members.

Regarding your suggestion, I don't see what it could bring as merit was introduced to simply make it for shitposters much harder to reach higher ranks.

OP, I dont really agree with your point of view.  Why assume people cant think for themselves? Why be scared to publicly support someone if you genuinely think they are making a good point? At the end of the day, we all see things differently.  Just because someone influential takes a position doesnt require everyone else to fall in line.  We should think critically and have confidence in our own reasoning even if it means respectfully disagreeing at times.  After all, constructive debate is how we challenge assumptions and arrive at truth.

As for the merits, there is a reason why they were made public. Primarily to prevent abuse. As many have already pointed out.

If there is anything that merits history have done really inin the area of interest this Forum and how members play their roles to become worthy of receiving merit's, for sure this development have increased the quality of this forum but the quality of accounts and reduction of Spam and alts accounts farming here in the forum, so for sure the merit's system helps to expose a lot of things and also keeping the forum clean from both accounts farmer's and spammers.

I literally don't think that will be the most effective way to distribute merits to post that truly deserves to be merited, and weren't. Because the daily increase in the number of forum users and yet a static number of merit sources over the years has been the major reason why though merits are distributed, but it seems not to go round to all deserving post. Because this public visibility of merit display has been one of the major tool to prevent merit abuse by forum users.

If he is afraid of been question for taking side while voting, then he literally shouldn't vote at all, because just as Bitcoin is transparent, so is it's forum and everything about it ought to be transparent, just as the current nature of the forum.
Hence, I totally disagree with everything you just said above regarding your suggested merit improvement, because that has never been the reason why good posts aren't merited, but rather a lack of enough merit sources.

This topic is so subjective, and it’s clear that I raised an issue that, from my perspective, is as follows: "The visibility of who grants the merits can influence or coerce ideas". If someone tells me this doesn’t happen, I think we have different worldviews, because I have always observed that the intervention of authority figures influences certain groups of people in any social sphere.

And yes, I know the masses repeat that "this fosters the abuse of merits", but just as I expressed my opinion, I also presented a possible solution. However, no one provides a precise or technical reason why this problem cannot be mitigated with code, given that there aren’t infinite ways to abuse merits. Generally, these types of problems are mitigated by websites without largely relying on users.

In any case, let’s assume the majority is right simply because they’re the majority. We would be entering a context similar to the one I propose to avoid in this thread. And yes, I know someone will say, "If the majority says so, it must be true". Well, this is not entirely correct.

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Let’s make the most of this thread and turn it into something we can all learn from. Share the techniques that are used to abuse merits that come to your mind, so that whoever reads it can recognize these patterns and report them.

i give merits to whatever catches my fancy. ive merited both sides of discussions, ive merited people who i would have a beer with and ive merited others i would cross the street to avoid.

and i prefer it being public knowledge. i mean its a merit. its not some secret to be kept, its to draw attention to a post with it. so i want to know who it is drawing that attention to a post.

Theymos is in the best position to make/improve/cancel the merit system if the need arises. He watches over the activities of the forum almost each day if am not mistaken. With or without the merit system, there will always be an abuse in any system. Hiding of the username of who sends merits to who doesn't sit well with me because that is where the main abuse of merit will happen because i can decide to send 100 merits sequentially to a user and no one will notice that it is an abuse because my identity is hidden.

Hey, that is where the abuse of merit will happen even more than what it is now, don't even try to argue it because there is no point there. If i were you, i'll go through the replies of each person in this thread and see what each person is saying then you can agree with the majority instead of continuously making arguments.

I like this response, straightforward and without beating around the bush or ambiguities about why you prefer it just the way it is.

If the staff are going to monitor a forum with thousands of activities and over 5000+ daily merit activities, who is going to clear up the spam? 

The merit system is serving it purpose of keeping shit posters at the lowest rank and that was it primary objective. If it's not broken, do not fix.

Merit is highlighed in green color since the merit system kick off.

• Merit & new rank requirement (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0)

Forum staffs and community members can see it with third party sites like BPIP by typing a username, clicking on the user profile and at the right side, you will have following stats.

• Favorite profiles to send sMerit to
• Merit Fans of fillippone

DdmrDdmr has a tool for it, but he stopped it in his merit dashboard about some years ago when this feature was stopped to support by another platform. I failed to know what he called it, so I can not search. If DdmrDdmr see this post, he can give you more information.

When I'm looking for good posts from a certain Merit user to dump some Merit on, it's easy to search for posts that already received Merit from different people. Especially if the posts are in a language I don't speak.
I wouldn't call it "herd mentality" though, it's just being lazy while having too much sMerit :P

Merit system has flaws, that's true but the perfect system can't be created because there is always a room for abuse. If you change the visibility of Merit, who send to whom, then you won't be able to visit someone's profile and see whom they sent and who sent to them, which doesn't sound like a bright idea because this way, Merits can be abused. Your idea has a cool side and that's what you mentioned but it has a negative side too, which I just mentioned along with some other users. Does the pro outweigh the con? I don't think so.

I thought that Merit moderation would be a good idea but then again, it wouldn't work well. Imagine that I sent someone 6 merits and the receiver posted a really good post. The problem is, someone might report me to the moderator because according to them, the post wasn't good enough to receive 6 merits but I think that it was good enough. Now it depends on the moderator whether it was good enough to receive 6 or not. This is getting dubious and problematic.

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I think that the way it Merit system works now, is okay. There is not much to improve without significantly bad side effects.

Merits are like an achievement of a sort; I feel good when I get merits for my posts because that makes me think I'm contributing positively and people are liking my posts. I would not want that to be hidden from the public; I would love everyone to see what I have achieved in the posts of mine that got merited. The merit system brought a change in the forum as a whole; it helped everyone in acknowledging the good and bad posters more easily because, more than 95% of times, those who have more merits or have been receiving merits regularly can be considered good posters.

One more point is that when the system was introduced, users were airdropped merits based on their ranks at that time. So, if a user had received 1000 merits in the airdrop being a Legendary, and now they have 1050 after so many years, how would someone know if they have earned all those merits or received them in the airdrop? I know, you can argue that their post quality can be checked, but isn't it easier if the merit history is visible to everyone?

Lastly, about merit abuse, moderators or staff members aren't the ones who catch and punish merit abusers, it's mostly DT members, and if only moderators are allowed to see merits and merit histories or users, you can't expect them to catch them because we only have a handful of them, while more DT members and users are willing to do these things.

Take no offense but if the Smerit you have is too plenty and you are lazy to send out to the particular profiles that you like, why not send 1 each to any post that has some quality in it? I have seen some users that frequently give 1 merit each to post that had some quality in it but when they see very high quality they will give more than 1. If you do it often, it can help you not to be lazy again.

A quality is quality and a shitpost is a shitpost - there's no other way around it. No one is required to drain their source merits.

I've also had unused source allocation a few times; personally, I'm not going on an Easter spree on underserving posts just to empty my source merits; it's better to let it burn.

The anonymous system is a copy of the Karma version of the other forum, altcoinstalks. Did you get this idea from altcoinstalks? They have their own explanation on this. When it comes to merit, it should be based on the judgement of the giver; with the Bitcointalk merit system, it teaches us to be independent with our judgement.

It's an additional workload for the staff.

I already answered this, Bro, in previous comments. I asked some questions and shared thoughts with more context, which no one has responded to. I don’t know why, if something has already been discussed, it gets repeated in a loop. Let’s move the conversation forward. I generally read all the context to avoid sounding repetitive and to contribute something new; otherwise, I would rarely respond with something that has already been said. Sometimes, it is us, the participants, who kill the threads by being repetitive.

I am not a fan of the current merit system, partly because of the two-tier system that has merit sources and non-merit sources. Giving merits to merit sources without regularly scrutinising their distribution beyond the bare minimum as stipulated by theymos, is something I believe was (and still is) a mistake.

Having said that, I would be against an anonymous merit system because it will be open to abuse and would be counterproductive.

You are correct however making suggestions are okay because we have freedom of speech but I see no reason making all this suggestions because nothing is wrong with the merit system the only time people should start making suggestions about changing the current merit system is when the system is no longer good or is no longer reliable.

You are also right coming to look at each individual merit score among the millions of active users will be a very difficult job.

Technically being detective, you are suspecious that merit sources in the forum are being biased and not recycling public merits within a cycle which seems cheating, I guess that you mean?
Can anyone ever be righteous? I guess no. No me and not even you.
So therefore, only the bot can ascertain this unbiased merit circulation processes like that is when the system of bot is applied.
I have also had the thought of raising a thread like this proposing if possible, the bot can serve as merit distributors in the forum to keep it circulations a fair process.

Nobody is forcing you to spend and send all your merits, and in most cases members that receive most merits usually don't need them so much.
I am not saying that I am not lazy sometimes, and maybe we should focus more on quality new members, they are not often seen this days in forum.
 

Giving alternative voices an opportunity to put forward ideas is an important part of freedom of speech and also freedom of expression. Even if they are eventually overlooked they have a right to put their views forward.

I think by far the majority will state looking at individual merits is going to be a time-consuming process therefore cannot be viable because of the sheer numbers involved. Having said that, I believe having a two-tier merit system (where one group are merit source and the rest are not) is wrong.

Theymos said it's best if Merit sources empty their source. Even if the receiver doesn't "need" it, it allows them to sent Merit to others again.
My source just increased from almost empty to 272, because exactly 30 days ago I sent a lot of sMerit. It's an ever increasing pile of sMerit to get rid off.

Yes. But not to empty sources on profiles like Satoshi and other inactive big accounts; it doesn't help the merit circulation in anyway. I see merit sources still pushing merits on Satoshi and I wonder why...

How are these thousands of Smerits (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=3) on Satoshi going to help merits circulation

I used to think that this warning (we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future.) was real untill I had a look up on Satoshi's profile, nothing decays so all the smerits that profile got remains intact but that also is not a big deal.

As long as merit are not limited in supply, Theymos can always add more merits source and merits to the system then Satoshi's smerit shouldn't bother you, since those merit source are still going to send out merits we still have enough in circulation.

Moreover, shouldn't be the one wondering such because you're a staff and source, the more you dispense yours Theymos is probably going to increase it so you can spread more isn't it?

Even if Merit circulation ends there, the posts are still worth it.

It doesn't. But it's a drop in a bucket compared on the total of more than 2 million sent Merits.

How did you find that? Because the number of smerits can be seen only when we logged into our account and it's not possible to find in other ways but what you can see is merits which is earned and it's different from sMerits.

That's right, merit is unlimited and theymos can create infinite amount of merits so spending on Satoshi's posts won't affect the circulation in any way and if I am not wrong the merit sources alone can generate 33K merits per month and I would be surprised even half of them spend on posts. :)

I'm not concerned about myself, and I usually have plenty of Smerits to give out - I can't remember the last time I ran out.  theymos can also regenerate all lost Smerits, but it doesn't mean we should start distributing them to banned accounts; that doesn't improve the system at all.


Yes, posts are good no doubt about that, but we're talking about Smerits circulation limitations. Using Satoshi banned account to burn Smerits sources is not a good practice as a merit source.

I think the merit system isn’t inherently bad, but it does suffer from shortcomings. Merit sources should at least have a broad understanding of the topics being discussed within their region. Merits are far from fair in most cases. Legendary members often receive more merits for less innovative content compared to a newbie who might post something genuinely interesting and of higher quality. Sometimes, quality is overlooked entirely. For example, I’ve seen cases where a newbie discovers something intriguing and only earns 2 merits, while a Legendary member announces something like Electrum updating from version 4.5 to 4.6 and gets 20 merits.

I have seen similar scenarios far too many times. The example you gave about newbies or lower ranked members getting zero to a few merits for a worthwhile post whereas an established member get double-digit merits from multiple merit sources for making some posts that do not necessarily deserve to receive that many merits.

I understand this is all subjective therefore others will have alternative views but creating a two-tier system where some members are merit source and others are not, is not appropriate. Furthermore, merit sources operate almost without scrutiny as they do not have to explain nor justify why they distribute merits in the manner they opt to. The current system is full of shortcomings.

The issues you raised, especially that in the second paragraph is very germane. It's a crowd mentality thing where others follow the trail of someone they believe has a better judgment than they've to bestow merit on posts. So, they see their idols meriting a post which they ordinarily wouldn't merit but merit it to show solidarity. If names of senders are blanked and made anonymous just for that singular reason, that would be okay. Sadly, doing that will invariably create room for more merit cheats by those who trade merit or merit their own alts. So, it will be like solving one problem to create another one. There's a counter effect to all that.

Have you forgotten or you don't know about DdmrDdmr's Bitcointalk Merit Dashboard (https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ddmrddmr/viz/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/PersonalSummary) where this data's are provided.

You can also use the Bpip.org (https://bpip.org/Profile?p=satoshi) to calculate how much smerit any user has by dividing the earned merit by 2 and subtracting the sent merit from it but for Satoshi he hasn't sent any merit from his earned merit.

Very much understandable and I also agree to that but however the subjectivity of merit sources are absolutely different, what makes no sense to you might be making sense to others that's just a general problem that the merit system has (subjectivity).

I also know about https://loyce.club/Merit/usernames.html and https://ninjastic.space/ where we have complete merit history for any user but it doesn't answer the question whether we can find out how much sMerit that one user got. It is only possible to know if we logged into the account.

Also, when the merit system was introduced, smerits also airdropped on random numbers. For example let's take mine now I earned 884 so I'm supposed to have 442 in total, and now that I spent 409 already, then I should have 33 remaining but here's what I have https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/10/xML0Z.png

You probably got one sMerit airdropped.

That's my point, we can't know how much sMerit someone got, and there's no way we know whether unused sMerit decayed. ;D

I don't disagree with you, you are a staff and you know better and as you said, no source would drain their smerit on shit post but there are some post that are worth meriting but will not get merit, instead, it's another post that will get merit, it make me to slightly agree to where OP said that if Satoshi gave 100 merit to a post, others would be influenced by it and would give out their merit. At last, what I also think is that, every member on the forum both merit source and non source have criteria for handing out merit, for example, you could see a post and it doesn't make any meaning to you, instead, you merited a different post on that same thread, then another merit source would merit that particular post that was not merited by you. Sometimes too, it is legendary or hero user that get merit often than junior users maybe because some source thinks that junior don't have enough idea.

All this is because we do not give the right weight and value to the sMerits we send, furthermore I often see that sMerits are also sent for sympathy (which is very wrong) but everyone is free to interpret things as they see fit. Maybe, just maybe! It would be better if even those who are not sources of merit should have Merit airdropped (e.g. 5 or 10 per month) so that the limitation (even if partial) of having to earn them first and then send them is lifted. Why do I say this? Whoever has a hard time earning Merit will have a hard time rewarding someone because they don't have sMerit This is obviously my personal opinion, whether I agree with it or not

If for any reason you do value what it means for transparency or visibility, you would know that this is a terrible idea. One that shouldn’t be conceived on your mind let alone be brought to light. Believe me, it’s what backs corruption in our would as we have it today. Ain’t no reason being political about this. I think it’s best as it is, where we get to see who sends what and to what post.

Besides, it’s not moderated as we have it and everything is subject to context. This is why the system works greatly and why your suggestion wouldn’t be of the best interest to what we have.

Your idea is good but may not be considered for action, since we can still have those that will abuse the use of merits for their own selfish interest, this one you're talking about is when there is an harmonized use of merit system and no cheating is being observed, but dealing with a large community like this where people can on their own choose on what to do and not, they can easily abuse the merit and claimed hey are not, since there is are not going to face being banned as a result.

I agree with you that some merits are given out of sympathy which I will duly acknowledge that it is not just an act of the merit source but users with the sMerits. Though I don't find it fair as well because it is not worth meriting a low quality post than a high quality one.
But I don't think anyone aside the merit source can actually decide posts to merit and not get questioned since he sources it in his own hard way of worth quality posts while the merit sources should remain unbiased because they are civil servants of the community at it respective boards in the forum that is ought to serve equity.
With the suggestion of airdrop merit, is it going to be specific on quality posts or the random posts including shit posts?

the sources of merit must still give merit to everyone, whether they are quality posts or low-quality posts. the reason is that each source of merit does not have infinite merits but predefined and must give them within the month. this is what I understood about the sources of merit since I signed up to this forum. on my proposal it is obvious, it would be ideal to give them to quality posts but each of us gives the importance of the content differently, what is quality for me, may not be for you.

You beat me down and make me surprised by writing this.

Merit is for good and quality posts, not for low-quality posts. The merit system is not created to support shitposters with low-quality posts to rank up.
Things start with this topic Ideas for improving post quality? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2605767.0) and eventually come to this launch of Merit & new rank requirements. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0) Months after the launch of initial merit system, theymos made an improvement by demotion on old-era Junior members without at least 1 earned merit.
Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.0)

You misunderstood it. Merit sources don't lose anything if don't use all sourced sMerit within 30 days. The sMerit source will be refilled each 30 days, it's not big matter if you are inactive in sMerit distribution within 1 month. If you are too inactive after many months, your source merit role can be revoked but perhaps it's not too important with you when you are already very inactive in the forum a long time.

There have been countless threads opened regarding merit and what changes certain people feel should be made. The problem is, those that make the thread are usually coming up with a way that they might gain more merit from the change and not considering the whole forum.

IMO just stop worrying about merit and your problem is solved. Most of the people only worry about merit for campaign reasons, but if you actually put in effort and make some quality posts, they will be noticed at some point. We have so many merit sources who go through and send blanket amounts of merit randomly to users. We also have a few threads where people can basically beg for merit.

It's not hard to get them, just put in the time and effort and they'll start flowing in.

My English unfortunately isn't the best and I use a translator to be able to talk to you, and I think I expressed myself a bit wrong.
By low quality post I didn't mean that the post is full of rubbish or irrelevant topics, but simply a post that sticks to the topic but doesn't contain any topics worthy of being called quality, which however someone might agree with what is written and throw you a merit.
This happens often, especially on local boards, and there is nothing wrong with throwing a merit for such topics! Obviously everyone is free to give them or not.
I definitely wasn't referring to offtopic or gambling posts, they don't contain anything bitcoin related and you can hardly get merit points in these cases. Obviously if everyone gives Merit even to posts full of rubbish it becomes an abuse of Merit system

The problem with this is: if someone only puts in effort just to earn Merit, it starts looking like a school assignment. I could probably write a good post about knitting if I put in enough effort, but if it's something you're not interested in, why would you even start?

I think you aren't just meriting but it's also about the quality of the post he merited right?
Good! So it doesn't matter whether others merits it or not but for the fact it's quality and informative to you then dumping such merits wouldn't be a big deal. Again, I don't see merits to be that something to be hoarding back while it's meant for spending.

Personally, I believe the two-tier merit system is pointless as it does nothing for community cohesion by creating a distinction between those that are merit source and those that are not. In my opinion it should be overhauled completely.

We already know not all worthy posts receive merits, many are overlooked. The negative effect that might have on members probably cannot be understood as they try to rank up by making worthy posts but receive no merits. Without a doubt the majority of members here are using the forum to earn therefore they need merits to join campaigns. If the element of campaigns were removed, they would be posting elsewhere.

Are we really having the discussion whether or not the first post satoshi sends Merit to is going to be worth the Merit? ;)

Can I challenge you to share those posts (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0)?

No, who said so? Merit sources must not give merit to everyone, including those making low-quality posts. See what theymos said about it:


And:


I also remember theymos saying that when a person finds a user who is at least writing good quality posts and they need a push to rank up, they should give them more merit instead of 1 or 2 so that they can rank up if they deserve it, but he never said that merit sources or normal users should merit low-quality posts only to exhaust their smerit stash. What will be the point of the system if low-quality posts are also merited, allowing undeserving users to rank up when the system was introduced to stop them from ranking up because they don't contribute anything towards the forum's well-being?

This is easy to say when you reach some higher ranks, but lower ranks also want to have more merits to remove some of the forum limitations.
I respect members who put decent effort to increase their ranks, but I don't like anyone begging for merits.

Yet most of us had to go through school indoctrination education with school assignments ;)

If I were to start looking through the forum I would find plenty of examples.

Going further, in my opinion sharing posts in dedicated threads designed to have unmerited posts highlighted in order for them to receive merits would defeat the object if merit sources are unable to find the posts themselves. If instead of relying on non-merit sources to bring it to their attention (to evaluate whether the post deserves to receive merits), they should not be merit source in the first place.

I am in no doubt an argument could be made justifying all the reasons why those threads are important and how all merit sources are doing fantastic and important jobs but I see it differently.

There are of course exceptions to the position I hold. Without a doubt JayJuanGe (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=252510)e and vapourminer (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=33156) are two shining examples of merit distribution. They are the most consistent members that seem to go through new and old threads giving merits as and when they deem appropriate.

Allow me to disagree :P
As a Merit source, I can't and won't read all posts. I read what I want to read, and I read less than 24500 posts per week (https://loyce.club/active/7d.html).
The fact that so little posts are reported as being under-Merited, confirms that Merit isn't scarce at all.

What's stopping you from doing the thing you expect others to do?

Agreed, they're doing a great job in reading many old posts. I guess most Merit sources don't have the time for that. Being a Merit source is a thankless unpaid job with ever increasing workload.