Bitcoin Forum

Since it has been decreed that you need at least 1 merit to become a jr member, can we also make it that if you get a certain number of activity and don’t get blocked then you can earn merit? I think there are a lot of standard posters that go amiss.

My upsuggestion: if you reach a thousand activity without any merit, the first merit gets gifted to you. It seems sad to see some members will be here over a year and never earn merit. I think it’d give people hope to stick around for longer...

But arguably, if a poster has not been noticed for a year, and has been posting regularly to rise his activity, there is something wrong with either the poster or the system. I’d say the former is more true than the latter, and would prefer a higher amount of weekly merit circulation on the whole, with more people involved, and let things come naturally.

I am in the same position. It is really frustrating to have done over 100 posts and never received a single merit. But I guess one day I'll crack the code and get merit. Just trying to learn more and give value.

Well yes there aren't that many merit sources at the moment and much merit to give either... They're quite limited on what they can do.

IT seems that there are some meriters who give to the same circles of people very time too. Some who are a bit of a renagade in their merit giving also but I reckon a lot of merit sources don't want to get into trouble with the community by sending high amounts of merit all of the time (which to some people might look a bit suspicious).

My op was more on the meh users that you see, some people who struggle with english or even to write posts that make people wnat to merit them. Sometimes a conveluted reply, while accurate, might not encourage someone to merit it (especially since it's a kind of seal of approval on that post)...

I think the forum has always been about quality and definitely not quantity..
Gifting a merit to anyone user with 1000 activities without a merit would just be encouraging such poster to go back to the low content posts/replies that never gave him/her merit in the first place...
The problem is definitely not with the system,but with you..
You really cannot blame the merit sources or users for not giving you merits,because apparently they haven't seen any of your posts worth meriting

And judging by the op's suggestion you have about 900 more activities to go before we "gift" you a merit

theymos has directly encouraged on sending high amounts of merits in case you can't spend all your source merits on due time. Therefore, there is nothing to suspect.

I think there will be no one without merit if s/he has 1000 activities, only exception is bounty hunters with reports. Or the repetive answer in altcoin board.

The opposite makes more sense: If you manage to reach 1000 Activity without earning a single Merit, you should be banned.

Do you have examples? If I look at the top 20 merit senders (http://loycevsbasement.privatedns.org/Merit/all_users_who_sent_Merit_2018-11-02_Fri_10.04h.txt), they've sent Merit to respectively 779, 198, 491, 203, 365, 346, 415, 333, 646, 415, 389, 489, 366, 258, 416, 120, 612, 149, 336 and 84 different users (the list is much longer). This doesn't look like merit is being sent to the same circle only, although it makes sense that the same people produce higher quality posts and thus receive more Merit than others.

This is a compilation of merit give away threads; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3048258.0 it was last updated march of this year, so most of the activities and contests would likely be closed by now.

Merit was created to be earned for quality posting giving it out to members for failing to get it over long period of time defeats the purpose.
- More merit sources.
- Merit sources in local boards.
This could increase the merit circulation.

There are about 119 merit sources,loaded with Smerits,which also gets reloaded at the end of every month..
And not all merit sources spend their Smerits within this monthly circle,so there is more than enough merits to give and even allow to waste/burn
Such users can earn merits on their local boards,merits are being distributed in every section/board of the forum..
A user doesn't have to be perfect with English to earn merits,once your idea/post/reply is a wee bit coherent,if it's worth a merit,it will definitely get one

Have we stopped banning people from the forum now who post repetitive replies? Much like the plagiarists that get permabans?

And what theymos says and what others listen to and follow are two completely different thing...

3 years without a ban is something to celebrate. Especially since there are quite a lot of users, even legendaries, who end up getting banned from the forum for a week or two...

If you achieve 1000 activity without getting a single merit then there's probably a good reason why they haven't got any and shouldn't be automatically given some. Merit was designed to stop people moving up ranks solely just down to activity and without contributing anything worthwhile or of substance and if we just give away merit for x amount of activity then it kind of defeats the purpose of it in the first place. Besides, I'm sure most users would have given up long before they ever get any where near 1000 merits, and for those that don't ever get any they can just purchase a Copper Membership (and maybe they'll even be more ranks in the future - Silver and Gold etc).

Before the merit system, we could call it account farming. There are several ways to farm account without breaking any rules.
I agree with your point but it makes no sense to rank up them. Don't we have enough merit sources. 119 isn't small, IMO. Along with that there are some users like you/who sent sMerit in qualitive posts. Then why will anyone be skipped without merits when s/he has a lot of activities.
Also, there are some users who sent sMerits on local board. In addition, with the span of time, more users will be merit source. Will not it solve the problem? I think after 1/2 years, everyone with quality will get merit for ranking.

I agree. A thousand activity without any merit means that in almost 3 years the user hasn`t written anything that would`ve been appreciated by others as useful, constructive, interesting or at least funny. How can you encourage such a user with a merit? And he`ll receive the next one when he`s on the forum for 6 years? The forum creates equal starting conditions for everyone. Just someone tries and uses their capabilities, and someone chooses the path of laziness or destruction. And I don`t see any prospects in the last ones, let alone endorse their behavior.

I don't like that suggestion.  If you've been here a year and are posting consistently and still haven't earned a merit, that's a problem with your posts and not the merit system. 

And just a specific suggestion to the following member:
I wouldn't call you a shitposter by any means, but I took a look at your post history and the things you write tend to be pretty bland statements, like the following:

The above is just a general opinion that really won't help anyone be more informed and most people won't find it even the least bit interesting or entertaining--and when you're posting something like that in a thread full of shitposts and people just giving canned responses to the thread title, not only is your post not going to get merited, it's not even likely anyone is going to read it.

Yeah I'm just gonna pile on jackg here to say that the suggestion, while well-intended, is not really solving any problem that I can see.

But how about this: if someone can survive to 1000 activity with 0 merit AND not get called a cunt by TMAN I will personally grant that user 1 merit if I'm still around in 2021.

I've seen an account with 350 activity and 0 merit. It is just a bounty poster. Imagine this person going out of bounty discussion section, isn't it embarrassing if someone noticed him/her? Especially when someone will judge its activity.

I've already seen some users with large amount of merits received, and some of them have already lost interest on posting here. If a genuine account user just wanted to join a discussion, ranking up will not be a big deal for him/her.

Giving us the option to hide our activity and merit on our posts will be a better suggestion, IMO.

That's a good suggestion. The crave for merits is increasing by the day, and it comes mostly from users who put in little effort into getting it.
It was designed to encourage and reward quality contents, but has been the main topic for spam and redundant threads.
We should maybe pit emphasis on some other profile information, the most important which I think is the trust rating.
Topics on how to earn positive ratings and recover from a negative one would be welcome.

I can't see the OPs point of view, and how gifting merits for longevity would improve the quality of the forum.

This is not true, no amount of racked up merits can dissuade someone from posting here on the forum,it actually even spurs one on to make more posts, engage in discussions and assist those who are having issues ranking up..
 A user can be inactive for numerous reasons,busy,vacation,work,out of the forum for good, etc... But for a large number of merits?,no,it just doesn't make sense to me, go through the preceeding posts after the OP, a lot of users have raked up more than a thousand merits(including air dropped),and the OP is one of them..

Merits are here to encourage good posts/posters not take them away from contributing on the forum

A thousand activities for a merit doesn't sound so motivating to me or anyone without merit for that matter and  I have seen certain top members that hasn't reached that mark. For me i think the problem is that some unmerited members are yet to come up with good posts and some who has unfortunately go unnoticed and when such posts are not noticed it doesn't get merited. I think the merit sources should go over threads from time to time to see these posts in order to merit them.

I gave you a couple of meits for this post.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5059147.msg47394250#msg47394250

The award was really for paricipating and supporting the Bitcoin Talk community. I can appreciate that it can be difficult for new members to participate, but you can always ask questions to help to improve your knowledge. When I joined I think I was a bit of a nuisance with my questions and suggestions, but the forum members were very helpful, and I did learn a lot in thse early days. I just wish that I had learnt that some of the online exchanges were trustworthy, and that I had used them to buy a few thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin when it was less than $50. :)

I agree with the majority here. If a certain user reaches 1000 activity without a single merit, then there's a problem for sure; but with the user himself/herself, not the merit system. Chances are, the user is a shitposter/spammer; or both. I heavily disagree with them being given 1 merit just because they reached 1000 activity.

The current merit system is good enough in my opinion. We probably just need more merit sources.

 
No free merits should be given on basis of activity. It will again encourage activity based spam.
Those who got the desire ultimately find the way. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5065990.0)

1 merit is really not that hard to find if you are really contributing in this forum.Newbies who are creating thread in Meta saying that 1 merit is impossible actually want free airdrop of rank/Merit.

The problem is not only getting 1 merit but instead it is also about how one could rank up. Even you I think could attest about it in your thread Finally a turtle crossed the finish line (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5057502.msg47275930#msg47275930) where you have gone some hard days before you rank up. Besides, you are a good poster and only few numbers of users here that has reached a posting skill like you.

Probably it will be a war cry to us to promote ourselves here. In fact I have some complain also regarding with the merit system during the earlier days of my tenure in this forum. However, I learn not to cry for it over and over again.

It was not only me, I feel those newbie posting in this section just to get merit. I know they have done it wrong and they were just impatient to get at least one merit. But, they will not going to learn anyway if we will tolerate it also on giving free merits. So, let us just say to continue what the admin wants for the new comers and let them feel that learning is still the best way to be here in this forum. But, after getting some basics helping some users to rank up would be ideal.

Even if the current merit sources exhaust their merits rather than burning it unspend will make huge differences and more merit sources will be good to have.So people who are applying to be a merit source need to think that they have enough time to analyse the post in different sections or don't be a merit source.

I mean, there's probably a reason on why some of the merit sources doesn't give out much merit, especially to the lower ranks. Maybe it's just that most of them doesn't see much quality content to actually give their merits to? I don't know if lowering their post quality standards is the right move here.

Every newbie who isn’t the alt of someone comes here with no knowledge of the forum and little to no knowledge of crypto.

I lingered in the cryptospace for a few months before making an account here. Other people probably aren’t as enthusiastic.
There’s also the thing if newbies now have to buy copper membership if they want to join a signature, this wasn’t the case when I joined and there weee a lot of campaigns offering spaces to newbies which is what kept me here for the first few months while trying to get my head around bitcoin.

Let’s face it though, if I had my way and the 1000 activity = 1 merit, the altcoin section would be gone too... The major altcoins like litecoin, eth and dash could still happily exist here just not the bounty campaigns with millions of pages or the icons which are likely to scam at any point. (Most of them are anyway).

While that could be true, you can almost easily differentiate the people who registered here on bitcointalk solely for collecting bounties, to those who registered here for their genuine curiosity about bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general. The former tends to usually immediately spam posts for activity points.

That is now a different problem. I think might we should lower merit requirement for rank up. But in reality the question will come why you want rank up here?
If you say for gaining knowledge, then you do not need to rank up.
If you say for taking part in discussion, then again you do not need to rank up.
If you say for earning, you just frowned the community here and now community wants you to prove your worth.


In reality, those hard days never made me impatient. I am always  gathering hints and I become more refined .




That's the key, impatience will not help you to get get Merits.

I see an excuse for moving merit requirements down, however I also see an excuse for moving merit requirements up too.
If you’re getting to a point in your head when you’re thinking that way, they’re probably about average then.

And that’s true about rankings.
You demand more respect in the amount of reliable trust feedbacks you have probably more so than the ranks on here a lot of of the time...

Most people come here with a thirst for knowledge and wealth. A lot of people come here just after one which is the point where it never really works out... if you’re here only for knowledge, you shut off a lot of the forum and if you’re here only for wealth then there’s clearly going to be some problems.