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I love this new merit system. And I see its use beginning to form a new type of economy here, anyone else see it?

I'm not talking about selling merit. There's been a lot of talk about such but I don't think many transactions are occurring. What is happening is that as everyone spends their merit there becomes significantly fewer people that have any to spend. So the sources become fewer and more centralized and the competition to get merit increases.

Feels like an economy on the verge of recession. Fortunately, merit isn't worth much!

In the first place, merit system is not a type of economy and not also a new form of economy here in forum.
Merit system is a protocol made by Theymos in order for the users in this forum to make a quality post. The new system wants to achieve excellence!

merit system reduce or limit the amount of users on this forum who has no serious intention on bitcoin. It doesnt mean that the new comers doesnt have the right to enter but rather they are reviewed to rank. I find merit system a good innovation in this forum. The existing users forced to limit their low quality post or topic and focuses more on an interesting one to gain merits, but recently, it is abused. The new system (merits), takes over signature campaigns and the managers requires/ in favor of users with merits. Because of this, users will farm merits to their friends just to earn the bounties. With this, the true meaning of merit system is sad to say void.

Don't get the idea of comparing the merit system currently being seen on the forum to an economy of any sort. The number of merit sources will only increase as ranking up is already getting harder. The major takeaway here is the fact that ½ of received sMerits can be sent out again, making it look non exhaustible, as long as post quality is up to the mark.

P.S. Meta would've been a much more suitable section for this topic.

With the system merit.menciptakan economic growth in this forum is true. Because not a few users who already have a lot of merit misuse it and they sell it. With so merit became economic growth for them.

I wouldn't compare this to an economy. It does seem like the competition to get merit increases but the merit sources are just going to keep increasing. Comparing this to an economy is a bit of a stretch.

The problem is, we can see a lot of a quality posts in these forum but did not receive any merits like your post here. I believe the thread is only sarcasm.

Merit couldn't compare to economy because it's just a kind of system that only use in this forum. It is only the basis of checking the quality of post, thru this it will clean the presence of scammers or spammers. Merit is a new system that I think just needed much more improvement because like others said, many people here are producing high quality post but still they didn't earn merit.

the only good thing about this merit system is that they do not see the quality post so it's very hard to rank often those who are merit are those who have long been in the forum why they have implemented the merit if they can not even focus I do not care about the merit that's because people who start with bitcoin just do not know how to make a quality post. I just hope my bigysn will have the chance to rank and learn to make a quality post because we are newcomer.

I might be missing point here but the thing is we will get some sources each month depending upon the your hoarding of the merits (not advisable) and depending upon how much you spent on curating others.

Each time you curate others you get 1/2th of the merited sMerit. Thus it keeps the balance of you and the circle will keep going on and on if you are also getting curated by others. Obviously if you dont receive anything then you are not capable of sending either. Thats the rule I believe. It cant be defined as economy but way of rewarding each others.

I though that merit  is  a part of new ranking system to avoid  spammers and non senses post in this forum its a way to decreases those   veteran in this forum WHO's making a multiple account  what economy  I can't see ito

I think selling account and merit was prohibited in this forum but the practice still going on for long and didnt see any improvement yet, but the economy of merit that started to decreasing is good because people tend to spam less since we only can spent half of the merit we got from the others which make it harder to gave merit to everyone and it become less and less by the time. Other than merit source which can give merit anytime they wanted  ;D ;D

This system at the moment, has not shown all its merits (I believe). Even if the user tried and wrote a good post or created a useful topic - he might not get the merits. Now it is practically not realistic to get a new rank, because of Merit, but I believe that in the future the quality of the community will improve.

I haven't even noticed. I simply give merit when I feel like it. I haven't read much of the thread in meta but I don't think merits would even require competition since it's supposed to replenish anyway. There sure are only a few members who can generate it "out of thin air".

Merit system in this forum should not be compared with the economy. Merit is bough in to the forum to give quality posts so that people are ranked based on their work.

But in this system some peoples are not recognized and merited for their good work even though they have given very useful information. So this point should be considered to improve the merit system.

but the merit system does not change much to the post spam, even still many post spam done by new people

We are all here to learn and to contribute to promote bitcoin and not to just earn without thinking of the real concept and the real reason why we are here. Actually, we are all thankful that we do have the Merit system that teaches us more to develop our skills to know crypto better in deep and comprehensive way and not just in investing and doing campaigns.

While I love the system, there are a few flaws in it that I think could make it better namely the merit distribution.


Maybe not for you bro because you Hero, but us lower ranks still want to ascend higher.

it shouldnt be a competition though.

people should just get involved in a constructive way which doesnt mean a guarantee for merit reward.
Forget about merit the same as we used never take much notice of Activity.

There are merit sources who will feed the system with merit and if everyone spends their sMerit the system should feed itself.

OP is right.  How does anyone expect the Philippines to collectively rank up and boost their GDP?  Seriously, the only people who care one iota about this are the fools who are trying too hard for all the wrong reasons--the ones the merit system was designed to retard the progress of. 

All of the threads about how hard it is to earn it and how unfairly the one-brain-cell shitposters are being treated means it's working out just fine. 

I've heard there is a real merit economy on the black market, but people don't seem to like talking about it a whole lot on bitcointalk. 

Haha. If anything the Merit system is keeping the expansion of the Philippines GDP in check.

I hope you're not implying that this thread is of the "shitposter" variety. I'm not complaining about anything, just making and observation about where this could be headed. It's a great thought exercise in the economic growth of this new system.

The fact that the Merit System has generated a new kind of posting activity, that was totally unintended, is hilarious if not fascinating to watch. The Meta board has to now be one of the top three boards for forum traffic. And for no reason other than this is were the threads about merit reside.

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Sir, an economy is created out of anything that is traded. Stocks, goods, bananas, cigarettes (in a prison). Merit certainly falls within this category. E.g., you offer good content that I find useful and I give you a merit in exchange. And given that we're talking in the Economics board of this forum, discussing how the Merit system, as an economy, will grow and consolidate is really interesting discussion.

I wasn't referring to you as a shitposter, HabBear. 

Lately it's been my pattern that I start commenting in one of these threads about merit, and then I end up ranting about shitposters in general.   This is something I probably need to seek out a good therapist for. lol. The problem is that these idiots are noticing that a lot of merits are being handed out in meta, in topics about merit--so they think they're going to score here with their garbage posts. 

They don't realize what the problem is, how bad their posts are, and that their chances of getting merit points are akin to winning the lottery whilst recuperating from a lightning strike.

My opinion is that the merit system will not change anything. This is an attempt to regulate content. In conditions of freedom, this will not have the desired effect. Somebody make money, that's all. Bitcoin has proven that any attempt at regulation is doomed to failure. Perhaps need to rely only on natural selection.

@OP 1 merit = 100$ in 2019  ;D
Two scenarios are possible:
1) shitposters will realize that their rank will never increase and they will give up and leave forum
2) shitposters will realize that they are doomed to be junior members and they will create more accounts and spam more.

I can observe the post contribution is becoming respectfull and meaningful. Thread is analised and post is contributed refering more sites, news and articles. This reduces the number of spaminig posts. Hope the merit system is not abused. I could come across a thread moderaters listing out those who misused giving merits to alts. The motivation behind bringing this merit system is not obeyed. Spend time in contributing informative, quality posts to help the forum.

Your scenarios don't cover everyone who is not a shitposter and is not a regular recipient of merit - let's call this group "the middle class".

Don't you think there's a consolidation scenario that's on the horizon and approaching us? If the consolidation of merit spending is great enough it will effectively halt the promotion of members to new ranks. This may not be a bad thing, I'm just eager to see if others see this coming or not.

And your scenario 2) will only be pursued by the very few people who are literally, insane. People will not continue to create more accounts once they realize that the only way to rank up is to receive merit. They'll get bored and leave...which is the merit system working as designed!

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Black markets are, sometimes, the "freeest of markets"...but I don't condone buying or selling merit. The buyer would be getting screwed!

Yes, merit system wants to achieve excellence which must have, quality post on this forum is much needed.
But the merit system will never be effective 100 percent as many people are not giving merit to some post that deserve to be merit.
Most of the people here are giving to those who are faous especially in META!

The competition to get merit will definitely increase. I would love to see how merit percolates within the bitcointalk ecosystem. The merit sources may be limited, but it is not just they who decide which posts will get merit. All those who earn merit also get smerit which they can distribute.
I don't think it should be compared to an economy in recession. The merit economy is more capitalistic (users/market rewards you) rather than socialistic (everybody advances in rank as long as they are around for a long time)

I’m with you in this area. And since not all wants to give merit to posts i pity the new comers since the chances for them to be promoted to the next rank is very small. Yes good posts are being merited. By how many? How many merit do they get? 1,2? How many merit will a newbie need to get promoted?

The problem is fools think they are the only wise people in this world and everyone else is a fool. They are wise in their own eyes as they say they are and they have no problem in lifting up their own chairs. They think that this forum has been created for only wise people like them and everyone else who is not passing their own personal standards is branded as idiots.   

I also was thinking the same. Now people can open more accounts and +merit each other account or people who know each other will give +merit. I see mostly people  not interested to give merit. Now it is so hard to upgrade rank

I was supposed to be member right now but since merit system is under implementation, I can not do anything but to wait, if there are, people to give me merit. I only need 10 merit but even a single merit is difficult to acquire. I agree that merit system is becoming an economy here. There are people, i dont know if this is true, selling their merits. If this continues, many would stuck to junior member ranks and the higher ranks gets wealthy while the lower ranks gets fewer income.

lol. We need a ICO for MeritCoin. It needs to be on the exchanges! Everyone pump and dump some merit.


But seriously yes the new system of merit has made merit a lot more valuable but you can still earn merit if you make good posts so it is not that bad. It will help improve the quality of posts on this forum.

Merits are difficult to earn now especially so, most members with sendable merits don't like to give their merits to others. This will just create many posers because members with higher ranks with higher sendable merits could just make another account and send their merits to those accounts.

Merit system is not a new economy in this forum but this is the new system to eliminate or to control the users like those who have a many accounts that depending the number of post to rank up but right now it is depending on your merit to rank up and the merit was also depening on the quality of your post if it is good or not and also if someone who want to donate thier merit to you that is the purpose of merit is this forum.

Introducing Merit system into the forum will make it difficult for members to upgrade their account. Because the forum interface is confused to get users to give Merit to others because there is not a Merit button friendly. If you want to deploy the Merit system then first improve the interface of the forum to make it easier for people to give Merit.

Merit is a system where people in the forum give to other users for them to somehow give them credit for post that can help this forum and other users.

I don't think merits should be compared or seen as an economy in this forum. It should be used as a reward for someone who gave his/her effort in posting constructive and good quality posts. This is not a competition but rather a encouragement to users to compose and construct constructive and good quality posts but the thing is, some people thinks that this merits are one of their assets/products that can be sell in exchange of small amount of cryptos. Also, there are lot of good quality posts out there that didn't get enough attention and given merit points they deserve.

There are so much flaws in this mechanism, just like this forum, it's centralized.
It's prone to abuse of power, not in the spirit of decentralization, but more about want to protect top-ranks circle.
I wouldn't be surprised if merit will be used as commodity in the future, people will buy them in order to rank higher.
I wouldn't be surprised if more linked accounts created, simply because it's more valuable to give it to their other accounts.
The best system already exist! It's Reddit!

You can do so much more, you can educate yourself on Bitcoin and crypto currency and that will lead to you being able to offer more value in your posts, which will lead to people appreciating it and giving you merit.

People have given me 2 merit on this thread, and that's only because I asked a question and started a discussion that hadn't occurred yet...I brought something new. You can do that too.


And it's this attitude that led to the Merit System and will likely keep you from reaching higher ranks. You see this place as employment, not a community for learning and teaching and debating.

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Cheers for that.

This thing is so new that it's not yet had time to reach its full potential of changing behavior. Give it another month and you'll start to see some changes. The increase in Newbie accounts prior to the Merit System was astonishing, I've been here years and I'd never seen anything like it.

If your therapist writes you a prescription I know a good Pharmacist.

Haven't we overflogged and clogged this Merit issue? I think we have and therefore we should move over to productive concerns here. Just roll over to the Meta subsection it is filled with threads on merit this and that. This is becoming irritating.

OP's comparison of the merit system is a big miss on the target discourse. It's like comparing oranges and piano. Two totally different entities. Perhaps he did that for title sakes.

Brother, we are in the same boat. I was very excited back then when I only needed a few activity points to rank up. Then, the unthinkable happened. I immediately went thru threads or post relating to this "Merit System" and how the process will be. At first, just like the other users, I don't really like what has been implemented since I'm a few inches away from becoming a Sr. Member (adding up an additional requirement is such a pain in the ass  ;D). As days go by and reading what other members feel regarding this new rule, I have just realized that it will still have a positive effect on me being an active member of this site:

It will be an upgrade in terms of post quality especially those that are in the lower ranks whom previously and frequently spam post. If they don't want to get stuck as a Jr. Member or Member they will work hard to earn these precious merit points. Also, it will definitely reduce the hoarding of accounts.

Yes, there will be flaws in every system and people will find a way on how to abuse it. But, I believe that the moderators of this forum have already action plans before this system is implemented.

Merit systems has good effects and bad effects, merit system is for the good of bitcoin promoter and organizers to minimize poor quality of posting and also minimize bitcoin accounts to be promoted or similarly all accounts of bitcoin will stagnant especially like us, as new member or a newly born fan of bitcoin, and as one of my mentor says, that our chances to be promoted today is only ten percent compare before.

There is no direct connections between merit system and our economy, merit system is only beyond bitcoin management. And when the merit system of bitcoin starts and implemented, I was noticed that there are some selling of bitcoin accounts, especially rank between member and full member, because they explain me to buy accounts it is because there is no chance to be promoted because of the merit system. But I refused to buy bitcoin account because, I was totally afraid the rules that only one account in every person allowed and multiple account is not allowed.

yes that is the purpose of merit here in forum .but some of the users here in forum is bias which is they share merit only if they like the work or performance of users even though the user is high ranked, and some of users here is priotising there alts , that's why don't assume to receive  merit from other users. Even though you have a good quality post.  .'because they have no time to check your post, and in fact there's no chance for us to rank up .
 

Well, if you say that this economy feels like it is on the verge of recession (or should it rather be collapse?), how can you say that it is in fact growing? Besides, I don't see how it contributes to more competition in any constructive way. As far as I can see, most merits are given in Meta for posts and threads about the Merit system itself, lol. You can see many insightful posts in Economics which don't get any merit at all. To sum it up, I don't think that this system is economically viable and healthy, though it is still kinda required to keep the amount of shit contained.

Because you are in Hero ranks, you don't need much merit unless you want to be a legendary.
In my opinion, this merit system cause much harder for newbie and Jr. to ranked up.

I wouldn't see it as a "currency" to be honest. For me its like... being not that big active here.. more reading, impossible to get and without Merit your are exactly what your meritnumber says: nothing.

So I stick with this Jr. Member stuff until someone likes my content and gift me with it. Right now I do not see exactly if the merit-system will work out, but time will tell I think.

I think this system can reduce the number of spammers, and so someone tries as much as possible so that they can improve their rank, by making quality posts, so they get merit from every post he makes and get the value based on the knowledge he has by providing the best solution for its input on some threads associated with bitcoin or other questions, but on the other hand there may be some people who abused this system, surely you yourself know what I mean.

I have the same thoughts. Although the implementation of merits is an addition to the forum, it has not developed a new economy. A lot has already expressed their concerns towards the merit system and we are yet to see the effect of it and whether it is going to be beneficial for the forum. By saying that it has created a new economy, it would mean that there is some management of the "resources", and there has been production and consumption of it; which cannot be related with the merit system. It may have brought about new behaviours - people trying to fish for merits, merit farming and the like but not an economy.

There are already actions on the move to prevent those kinds of people to abuse the merit system. We can see in meta section that there are those threads where users report abusers. When a default trust member sees that topic and has proven that the accused is really abusing the merit system, they will get a red trust from them. I think it is enough action in order to punish them.

Merit merit system will become better. And it's good that ocheg community members reported on abuses committed with merit.I really like that decreases the amount of spam and everybody wants to write a quality post.

Users are not encouraged to give a stamp of merit. This will lead to the fact that any quality of posts does not guarantee an increase in the rank of the account. The trust system will not protect the forum from spam. This can only be done by company managers who will not accept spammers.

I don't really know how merits are distributed. If there is a selected group of people that has the power to incentivize people, then it is an economy. I hope that this power would not be used as a means to profit.

It's really tough to have this system and much even tougher for BCT member like us who have low ranks. It's really hard to rank up and i just admit the fact that i am too late to know about this forum.

actually I have not really understood with this merit feature but I try to learn and mengabil conclusion of what I can get and I think merit almost equal to post quality appreciation system that can be given by others who know your posts good and quality. which I do not understand what will be obtained if our post get merit from others ..?

How much merits are worth depends on your personal situation. I was one step prior to Sr Member when the merit system was introduced. Previously, you automatically reached Sr Member when you passed 240 activity points. Now I have 266 activity points and am still Full Member instead.

Need to read about this new merit system to better understand it. Even do not know how much merits I need to receive the next member level?

It's good, this merit system to become a member of this forum is motivated to make useful posts and quality. It's just that the system seems to hold the position, because sometimes posts benefit us, but not in accordance with the others. because everyone has their own opinion.

What is the relation of merit to economy? Economy is a term of country business area that help everyone to produce wealth, to offer services and pay by money, teachers wages, the income of the household, products and goods, the import and export of some items, that can be summarized to economy. Economy is all about capacity to produce wealth. Merit is far from economy. I can't sense any relation with economy/merit. Maybe, unless if merit sell by one it can be an economy for own interest but it is forbidden.

There are numerous people here on the forum who make shitty posts in signature campaigns and bounty campaigns just to earn some crypto. Lately, the forum was filled with a good number of shit posts which annoyed many people and this is why the merit system was introduced. I can notice the difference as well since the number of people in the campaigns are getting decreased. Although there are people trading merit, it wont take longer to eliminate such users and I am sure the forum will then be cleansed.

Yeah, give it some time and this forum will definitely back in its shape.

Just a reminder guys, yapping, and complaining about how hard to level-up your account won't do anything! What the moderators implemented is for the good of the community. They won't change anything and what's done is already done! They are just doing their job on how to make this forum site better and be clean from spammers, shitposters and the like.

We are maybe low level and will have a hard time just to earn those precious points, but it will definitely improve our post quality and behavior in this forum. Also, do not condemn higher accounts just because of they already reached Hero or Legendary status, it's not their fault if we joined the site late compared to them.

maybe you are talking about the demands of having a merit, well that is one of the repercussion of this merit system. for us to rank up, we almost literally beg for anyone to give us a single merit. but we should not be whining about this, we should look at it as a chance to uplift or improve better posting and comments. some are finding ways to contribute informative threads which is a better way to earn merits. it is like hitting two birds with one stone, we earn merits and we have contribute something to improve this site, as we all know, posting is the main source of earning bitcoin, which will eventually attracts more company that seeks service to boost their products via signature campaigns. 

Merit is a system that prevents undervalued posts and spammers. Through this merit, more posts will be valuable and interesting that anyone can get any idea. Merit also can be used also to prevent those cheaters and multi account on doing shit posts just to promote their rank in an easy way.

Yes that's why it was put in the first place. To prevent shitposters from taking advantage of this forum. Many have been caught already. But there are still who got merits for shitposting and I'm sure that the global mods are having their hands full banning and negging those who are taking advantage of this new system.

Those multi accounts cannot sustained this merit system because I'm sure that they will be reported and all their multi account will be banned and they can't just created new accounts because they will be having a hard time ranking it up.

application of merit system that is applied for a goal that is in terms of improving the quality of posts from all members in this forum very influential on the level of mindset that is owned by the members in this forum. I think with the merit system there will be a fositip impact of post quality level where every member in this forum will be better conceptualized in making a topic or post that will be submitted.

Well, I have to hand it to the people who thought about this. It really is a great course of action and has clearely helped a lot on influencing lots of people to at least make an effort on putting some thoughts into their posts. Although there are still a lot that are spamming the forum with useless posts and a lot more that posts are really hard to understand since they force to speak English even when they are having a hard time with it. Yes, I get it, practice makes everyone improve. But this forum isn't a practcing ground for people learning engkish for the first time. They can stay on local boards if thet want. But even so, I am seeing an improvement with the forum contents which is pretty nice if you ask me.

I do not know if this is correct after all the sources generate new merit every month and more sources will be added in the future, what it is going down is the amount of merit in control of the non merit sources, every time you spend a merit you only generate half of it, if the distribution of that merit was perfect and no loss occurred then that means that merit that was created at the start of the new system can generate an additional merit, eventually the merit from the sources will eclipse that amount but it will take time.

What I'm saying is the people who receive the merit will become fewer and fewer because the distribution of sMerit will not be as broad in the future as it was in the beginning. This means that the people with merit to spend will have a lot more threads competing for the same merit point, thus constricting/consolidating the market place and leading this "economy" into recession.


Because having merit represents wealth and status on this forum. An economy can be created out of any relationship of supply and demand, it doesn't have be strictly the selling/buying of goods and services.

I'm not talking about selling/buying merit, I'm talking about the supply/demand for something that represents wealth on this forum.

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This post is a perfect example of why middle and lower rank members don't get merit (and why centralization of merit will occur in the future). This post is reasonably well written, it provides a complete response to a question...but the question it asnswers was never asked on this thread. Portotoi here just posts a generic response that has nothing to do with the discussion, let alone adding any value.

Because this post is off topic and doesn't directly add to the discussion on this thread it's (technically) a "shitpost".

This new system was definitely a good innovation to lessen multiple account and the possible outgrowth of the new workers here in Bitcoin, it promotes quality postings so you can have a better amount of merit to take but didnt they know, it also affects the prior workers cause the possibility for us to rank up will be more challenging cause you have a certain quota for every rank.

I was very impressed by this merit system.It will force you make some quality posts to  rank up to next one.Before this it's possible to farm a account.With respect to time the rank of the users will increase in past .But now you have to make quality post to get more  merits in short time.

Except nothing is being traded in this case. A trade is quid pro quo, something for something. That's not what is happening here. You haven't traded your merit for someone's post. The post exists whether or not you give it merit. This is like a street performer with playing a saxophone on the street corner with a bucket for you to place coins into if you appreciate the music. Nobody is obliged, there's no real incentive to do so either. It depends on people's generosity. So it's not an economy at all, it's a patron system.

That said, I don't like it. The main problem is there's no incentive to give merit to good posts, and that's probably why you see so little of it. It's a poor attempt to solve the real problem of low quality posts, and I don't necessarily see it doing a good job of it.

Merit system is made to improve the quality of our bitcoin, if this is said to be a new economy that I think is not right, because it has nothing to do with the economy. If said to have little rival in terms of level to follow the gift of i think yes. because now level up need merit, and it's not easy.

The problem is people are not inclined to give merits to junior ranks, apart from a few "altruists" springing up here and there from time to time. You can check many DT1-DT2 members' profile pages and see that they are busy rewarding each other with dozens of merits for meaningless posts in Meta, while there are quite a few decent posters in lower ranks who are unlikely to make it to the next rank just because no one gives them enough merits even despite the fact that their posts are oftentimes more insightful than those of who probably think themselves as forum elite. I mean much of the Economics board, for example, where these elitists and highbrows are not heard of simply because they have nothing to say.


Strongly support this opinion.

I do not care whether it is economy or not. The thing is it seems to be almost impossible to get one)) Probably that's why it has similarities with finance. Wealthy support wealthy, ordinary members just get by on what they have.  :'(

Yes, in fact Merit acts as a cryptocurrency which get "mined" by Proof of QualityPosting. It is a very deflationary currency. This however is a little problem since it may be too deflationary to actually continuing to circulate at some point. There are Merit sources, but I guess they are still not enough to catalize the circulation.

I understand that the merit system here is put a place to actually help weed out the bad from the good but we also have to consider the fact that it is now incredibly hard for newbies and junior ranked members of the forum to get merit as a lot of people are unwilling to give merit. This just leads to people actually paying for merit because they are finding it so hard to get it here.

What I understand is that Merit system was use to make quality post to have a quality environment here in bitcointalk. But the reality of ranking up is painful right now. Imagine posting for so long and updating your account, you will still not going to rank advance if your merit wont be able to hit a required number. Its really difficult nowadays. I've been giving away my Smerits but from the time merit system was introduce, I only received 1 merit. Regardless how long or informative your post is, people don't tend to gave merits. I think, giving is not practice in here. Some members to solve this is buying merits and even buying accounts. I hope this will be resolve in due time.  Please people, share your Smerits. Thank you.

Not everyone here can immediately see your post that's why it's not easy to get merits. What you should do is to share your posts in one of those threads where the author of thread is willing to share merits to lower ranked users. There are different ways to gain merit other than putting out a good quality post. Those threads can be found on the meta and services section. That's not 1 merit  you already received 10 merit from someone.

Absolutely right. I do not see that the new system of merit has changed something in this forum for the better. In fact, this is simply a limitation in access to the forum of new members, since new members will never be able to reach high ranks, say, a senior member. With the current system of merit, it is impossible to collect 500 such merits in ten years.

Merit is a strategy used in order to eliminate shit posters and spammers here in this forum. Everyone must really work hard  and work well  in order to contribute something informative and useful in this community, thus of high quality. The downside is that members here find it hard to rank up even they are posting worth merited. Not everybody here reads what a person have posted, for that reason merits are not given. The tendency is they remain stucked in their current rank. Others seem to not share Smerits. I hope they would give credit where credit is due. I mean, give merits to something which deserves it.

Definitely second this view. This thing called merits slowly but steadily turns the forum into an elite club. I'm okay with that if this is what actually intended, but if it is not so, then it certainly doesn't work. On the other hand, I see as much useless posting by low-ranked members as it was before the introduction of the merit system. If the goal was to eliminate spam, the effort seems to have failed. The amount of spam and useless shit is as high as it has ever been.