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40 merit for this reply (http://archive.is/FWZBP),



29 merit for this reply, (http://archive.is/ZLyO0)



20 merit for this reply (http://archive.is/aDnNV),


All merits send to Dice-Bet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=950218), is it not merit abuse? since there are btc involved.

There's possibly more btc involved besides that 6000 satoshi or maybe the merit sender is just very fond of dice-bet. I've seen people who gives merit to people they like even when the post even deserve that much merit. He even wears the dice-bet signature. That's too much merit sent tho.

I saw this conversation on Dice-Bet chat room today, the admin of the site who is mike have sent user Miraeos a total of 5 merits after Miraeos said that he would need 4 more merits in order to rank up his account to member rank on bitcointalk, check screenshot below for proof.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2385931 - Mirae ( Miraeos on Dice-Bet )
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=950218 - Dice-Bet ( Mike on Dice-Bet )

https://i.imgur.com/j9t0Emm.jpg

So basically Mike just sent 5 merits straightaway to this user Mirae on this post after Mirae pointed out to Mike that he needs 4 more merits to promote to member rank.

https://i.imgur.com/CWlyBtR.jpg

Blatant merit abuse! Pretty sure it's a big cycle of accounts are involved here. People send a high number of merits to Dice-Bet account which are further distributed to rank up members as per the screenshot. Who knows if they have actually bought those merits in bulk. Definitely worth a tag.

That was 10 merit post, when they Dice-bet was first starting out but the merit Dice-bet recieved is from sponsors ( so bought? but they are affliated though, so its basically like a ICO thread getting 50 merits from a alt, that wouldn't be abuse. )

But otherwise the merited post to Mirae is merit abuse. I don't think Mike (Dice-bet) knows if this is alright on bitcointalk, probably his first time on here considering he doesn't really know how to put signature in a code box one time I asked him about that.

ooh god no merit abuse  :'(
jesus grow up

Based from the post above. What you did is a form of Merit begging which in relate to Merit abuse as well (as per my own understanding).


Merit is not regulated per se. Well, let's wait if these users will try to explain their selves out.
As for me, this a red tag worthy.

I stumbled upon this today:

The link leads to this post

Which leads to these posts receiving 30 Merit each:
Not only does this go against everything Merit stands for, it's also totally off-topic, and worst of all: it's a Merit source (#2 most Merit sent) doing this.

Update: it looks like QuestionAuthority was removed as Merit source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4523027.msg47171759#msg47171759).

lmao "form of Merit begging"
what a joke this is, wanna give me red tag, sure go for it

Merit abuse by the merit source. :-X

I don't think this is right thing to do by one of the most merit source burn all those off topic merits and merited comments. >:(

Can some one confirm QuestionAuthority  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=72795)merit source or not ? Its seems high merit transaction abuse on his profile (IMO). I am really disappointed that 30 merit only for "nice" comment.  
Just noticed now, he have made a thread about merit giveaway (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827596.0).

---

Even there is strong proof they, should not get tag ? Its seems they are plying with merit. Although evidence provided by staff but I think enough to tag them.

Yes,he is a merit source.You can verify that in Most generous merit senders, all time (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat) where the user QuestionAuthority is in the second place.

And also you can visit Merit System Upgrade (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827596) which was created by QuestionAuthortiy as merit giveaway thread then he later turned into an merit source but still he is following there for quality posts to be merited.

You are entitled to a negative feedback retard. Don't act like you're doing something that isn't against the rules. Grow a pair and make an attempt to earn merits instead of begging.

But is he abusing merits? I don't know why these merit beggers aren't tagged yet.

Idk about Raja_MBZ, Last of the V8s, xhomerx10 but the other 2 guys don't really deserve 30 merits. The ulrich_zh guy posted "nice" thrice just to get more merits. While its a good thing that QA doesn't spend insane amount of time thinking whether or not he should give 1 merit to a user unlike other <insert other insane merit sources who overthink too much here>, QA shouldn't just shove his merits to hoe's out there. I mean, we get it, you are rich, stop showin' off. We don't want a bitcointalk version of Trump(we already have theymos and cyrus), otherwise before you know it, Stormy Daniels would come here accusing you of sexual merit abuse.

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/03goodgrief-140922072838-phpapp01/95/good-grief-1-638.jpg?cb=1411372092

I really don't see the harm done here. It's not like QA (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=72795) was handing out merits to his alt accounts, so he can sell them for more on the open market. Also, @LoyceV the Wall Observer thread has been off-topic for quite sometime. In fact, it is no longer moderated by the staff. It is currently moderated by infofront (http://infofront). But he only deletes some troll posts from time to time.

Merit is supposed to stop shitposters from ranking up. "Airdropping" 30% of Full Member onto spamming Newbies just because they posted at the right moment goes against this:

The 30 Merit on higher ranks makes less of a difference than it does for lower ranks.

I have replied (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827596.msg47060709#msg47060709) on his giveaway thread. I post about his merit distributions, he is doing well But his way is wrong. So for explaination I gave few example. But unfortunately some one thinking I replied for get merit (Lol). However it's not looking good to me his merits distributions. I replied there why I am not agree with him. I know he don't care about red tag or whatever. But he have no right to distribute merit on wrong hands, since he is a merit source. I don't care about his own smerits.

However I don't want to bother myself on this case since he is experienced person and I am new.

Well, the last instructions that I was given by theymos was as follows:


All a shit posting newbie really needs is 1 merit to be back in business. And what pisses me off is that I thought that I was following instructions; yet that very day, someone started a thread in meta complaining about my taste and implying that I was engaged in some kind of "merit abuse." I am really tempted to start adopting QAs approach since it sure beats sifting through thousands of shitposts to try and find a few posts here and there to dole out 2 merits to. This is a great deal of work and for the most part it is thankless. The only gratitude that seems to have come my way is from those shit posting newbies that I happened to merit. I'm not certain about QAs case, but I didn't even raise my hand and ask to be a merit source. I was drafted. And now I know there is a whole troop of people monitoring my every merit transaction just waiting to breath down my neck.
As long as a merit source is not going to benefit monetarily from giving a merit, It isn't merit abuse. Leave us the fuck alone!

I disagree: I get to help improve this forum! I get spammers banned, abusers tagged, and contributers merited. That's all the reward I need.

Who's "us" in the statement above? I'm a Merit source, I barely search for posts to merit, but do it anyway when I stumble upon anything worth meriting. I haven't seen anyone attack me on my choices of meriting users.

Well, it appears that your source merit either wasn't upped to 250 a month ago like me, or you are just letting it expire. Theymos gave me instructions to try and do my best to distribute all of it. I'm doing the best that I can; yet have already had complaints. I really despise this statistic. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendban Now I am on the list that appears to point out merit abuse suspects. I was originally very honored to become a merit source. But now I feel that my reputation is at stake with every single merit that I am obligated to distribute. I know that I only have black trust at the moment. However, I keep checking my trust rating to make sure some DT member doesn't decide to red tag me because they feel that I am being "abusive" or derelict in my duty.

Last time I checked, I had 200 per month as a source. Lately, I've managed to empty it on many days, and even got to touch my stockpile of "my own" sMerits. Getting rid of all sMerit is difficult, especially since most of the time I only give 1 Merit.

I don't let much source merit expire. Let's compare the amount of Merit we've sent:
Mine:
http://loycevsbasement.privatedns.org/Merit/history/img/459836_red.gif

Yours:
http://loycevsbasement.privatedns.org/Merit/history/img/452769_red.gif
The graphs show this:
Both graphs look quite similar.

It seems different Merit sources have received different instructions depending on when they received them.
Can you share the link to your abuse-thread? I haven't noticed anything wrong with your meriting (but I also didn't look into it).

Not a nice list to be on :( Do you know who was banned? It's "just" 29 Merit in 180 days, it's very well possible a user received 5 Merit per month from you, and got banned for plagiarism later on.

I retract my statement against you. I just glanced at your merit history, originally, and obviously looked at it wrong. (Probably because I am being overly defensive.) I can now see that you are very busy.


The thread wasn't originally directed at me. But I was reprimanded none the less. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031029


The bulk of it went to anunymint (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2189580). He was originally banned for multi-posting. It was turned into a permaban for ban evasion. Since his opinions are very unpopular, and he doesn't take any steps to hide who he is when he tries to return, his new alts eventually get banned. However, he has had stints were his new alt lasted for several months before given the boot. I gave him merit because one can definitely see his posts take a good deal of thought; although with all the links and conspiracy theories, many fall into the category of TLDR.  :D

Those two are ridiculous. In his merit giveaway, he has merited users Full Member and above. I have seen some lower ranked users had also submitted posts. If QA was in hurry to award merit, s/he could find some users from that list too.

If they complain about amounts, tell them to complain to me. It's best if sources try to exhaust their source allocations, even if it means giving posts higher amounts than is typical. If you have 150 source merit and you only see 3 merit-worthy posts in a month, then I'd rather you over-give each of them 50 merit than let the merit expire. That way there are more people capable of sending merit, and the "merit economy" is less top-down.

If a DT member tags you for something stupid involving merit (ie. probably anything less than selling merit), then they're not going to be a DT member for much longer.

Aside from that, if people complain about whether things deserve merit at all, then that's something to perhaps think about, but if you conclude that they're wrong, then that's that. You don't need to stress about it or defend yourself constantly. It's conceivable that someday you and I will end up disagreeing too much about this stuff and I'll remove your source status, but it's really not a big deal.

The topsendban list is just a first indication of abuse, and many excellent people are on it. Your place on there acts as a sort of benchmark: eg. chandra12 has a similar score there, but whereas you are an extremely active merit-giver with a diverse selection of posts merited (most of which anyone would agree with), chandra12 only has two large merit sends. His behavior in comparison to yours while having a similar topsendban score is what creates a strong abuse impression.

I appreciate the work of you and other sources who take it seriously!

Thank you for the encouraging words. I'll do my best not to fret. It's the curse of an INTP personality type. I'm always second guessing myself.  :)

Thanks for clear everything. So I don't think we should highlight merit abuser on future is there isn't strong evidence of merit sale. Obviously spend merit is better than dry it. Especially for merit source. I believe merit source aren't involved with sale or abuse. On the other hand they are doing a job like without salary ;). However I am going to delete all negative feedback from merit abuser since admin are not encourage.

That is list of accounts who sent merit to accounts which are banned, nothing else. Just ignore it.
Nonsense.
I don't see any reason why anyone should tag you. You are not:

1) selling/buying merit
2) exchanging merit between alt accounts
3) ranking up alt account farm which will be later used for all kind of shady deals(scamming, payed bumping etc) which is anyway very hard to prove unless it is obvious

Perhaps if you disagree with how someone doles out their merits, the proper term is merit carelessness, rather than abuse.(If no financial incentive seems to be tied to it.) I really don't think QA handing out merits in a giveaway on Wall Observer is abuse. Although I do agree it is a bit careless.

Yes QA is little bit careless about spending smerit. Its clear that his intention isn't abuse the system or involved with sale or trade. Because even he didn't join signature, its means he isn't greedy abut it. I just got all point from admin reply. I am glad to see that admin care about members. He don't like to dry smerit due to unspent. Obviously this is a good intention.

However I will not lock this thread since admin reply here with few important things. So others peoples will able see that. And I almost clear about aim of admin regarding merit system.

He should be removed as merit source in my opinion. He seems to be mistaking merit for candy that he will give to anyone who asks for it.

I mean seriously:







All given 30 points by QuestionAuthority. Giving it out to anyone who asks for it is reckless and it defeats the entire purpose of the system.

I think it is not needed. theymos didn't ask people not to talk about merit abuse or not to tag them. It's your choice.
theymos responded specifically in case of bones261, IMO.
As per the rules of trust (No mandatory rule almost), I can give positive/negative feedback in general terms and of course, the general terms include merit abusing. If a people can abuse merit system, s/he is not trustworthy in my eyes and there is no problem with tagging him/her. If you think, someone is abusing merit, why don't you tag him?

Although admin reply to bones261 but this is applicable for all. Not only for bones261, this is just example. Admin already mentioned, if someone not involved with abuse like buy sale merit then we shouldn't tag them. Otherwise it should not consider merit abuse according to theymos. For us we could tag that merit abuser not trustworthy, but if a DT want to tag then there should be strong evidence. DT just can't tag someone for that he don't trust. He is the responsible person and red tag will reflect on tagged profile. Since admin agree to spread merit over forum, then I don't think DT need to tag them also (if not involved with merit sales).


It's really not good that someone earning  merit by doing nothing and someone not earning even working hard. That's the main problem. Intention of merit to build decent forum, but people just think intention is rank up. So they are abusing it.

@LoyceV post edited.

That's not what theymos said (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5050263.msg47119519#msg47119519):
Saying they shouldn't be tagged by DT if they're not selling Merit isn't the same as saying they should be tagged when they do sell Merit.

In this case, many DT members should not be in DT for much longer. I can't remember how many profiles had been tagged because of merit issues (not selling). I think DT members have to review some of their judgements.

That's absolutely untrue. Abusing merit via alts falls under the acceptable category. If the system disallowed punishments for users that a clearly abusing it via alt accounts, then the system would be a joke and shouldn't exist in the first place.

Abusing merit via alts deserve an immediate RedTag, but let's remember about accounts being tagged for "begging for merit" which falls also under acceptable category deserving RedTrust but also a something stupid (less than selling merits) that destroy reputations of many users.

Sounds about right. We're replacing spam posts with merit begging posts; indeed a very helpful policy. Liberalism strikes again.

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https:%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fi2ARpvsAPsg%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&sp=a9cd2713c78e5028b7318870d0e6f6ee

I totally agree with you Lauda as it's not allowed, by rule, to beg for merit, but this statement from Theymos can be interpreted in many ways;
So what should be those stupid things involving merit, and less than selling merit that doesn't desrerve a Tag ???

@All.

This thread has lost track now. Actually "OP" is created for "dice-bet" abusing merit or probably bought and sold them. Instead of focusing on it, we are distracted to "QA" or in short towards "Merit Source".

Will not like to comment "QA" 30 merits giveaway but somebody dragging "bones261" for just giving 1 merit is unfair.
1. Merit sources are human they can do error to.
2. One Merit is the least amount they can give. If they like some thing, I guess they(or any forum member) can give 1 Merit without any need to defend himself/herself.

Actual problem I see the "Air dropped" smerits, that did not expired. After more than 9 months of the system, some user still have them and they are occasionally using them to promote newbie to Jr. member (might be there own alt accounts) or might be selling also as in suspected in case of Dice-bet.

It's really sad to see QA has been removed from merit source.  :'(. It's just happened because of his fan. I was replied only his thread that he shouldn't spend merit for like 'nice' reply. But unfortunately some of his fan strongly attacked me and insult too. My fault was, I had added my post link for example and they thought I am trying to gain merit. I have just tried to defend, really my intention wasn't make sound against him and I believe didn't.

Meh, on retrospect, I was just being hypersensitive. Now the main irritant for me is merit begging and having to double check posts for copy paste. :D

abusive people should be removed!

Removed means what?

If someone is found for merit abusing then they will get red tag but they are not going to get ban for merit abusing and when the merit sources found abusing or selling their merits all their merits can be removed.