Bitcoin Forum

This is going to be just a quick post (might probably be seen as a rant, trust me it's not ;D)

I'd just like to ask about how I noticed most merit sources don't think of causality. Take this post for example (which is mine, how surprising) :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5083733

Over 20 merits has been distributed to every other post on it. Not that I question that decision, there are definitely "some" nice answers.

But it did made me think of this issue. An example to explain what I mean :

A great answer on stackoverflow.com is going to get a lot of upvotes, but a good amount of people do realize that the answer was never going to exist if it weren't for the question, so the question also gets upvoted.

I'm not asking for merit, I'm just asking people to remember this for the future posts they might encounter.
This doesn't just go for technical ones, a lot more similar analogies can be mentioned :

Controversial opinions that generate killer counter-arguments.
"Good" posts that help build a much "better" answer from another user.

I think you get the idea, cheers!

I get your point, and I found a post of yours in that thread that I gave you merit for--I don't frequent that section, so I never hand out merits there.  Mostly that's because a lot of the technical discussion is over my head and I don't benefit from reading it. 

You've gotten a lot of merits so far, so don't let it ruffle your feathers if everyone else gets merits in a thread that you started and you didn't get any.  Sometimes it just happens that way, and I don't know anything about the politics of the technical discussion section, i.e., if there's any sort of popularity contests going on.  Just keep at it and you'll keep earning merits.

The simple answer I guess is, people give merits to what they want to. There is no obligation or set rules on distributing merits.

But considering that post you linked, it is understandable to reward those who help out members who have queries and inquiries, rather than meriting the one which made the inquiry.
If you look into some of the altsections there are posts which sparks uo debate, and some of this threads turns into spam mega threads with similar discussions going back and forth.
A post is not judged by the quality of reply it gets, but the quality behind the content.

I think overall the opposite is true - thread OP's tend to get more merits than some good answers a couple of pages in. Take a bird's eye view at this. You're a good poster and in the long run you'll get your due share of merits even if individual posts don't get merited as you would have expected. We are micromanaging merits way too much as it is, let's not overcomplicate it.

Thanks! And I'm not frustrated about this, like I said some posts there are merit worthy, and I understand like @Upgrade00 said


but I just wanted to maybe remind users, especially merit sources that have a lot of merit to hand out, of the causality effect. If you think a post was great and merit worthy, it doesn't harm to ask "Did the original post, or the post this person quoted cause this one to be this good?". So instead of giving 10 merits to one worthy user, 8 merits to him and 2 merits to the catalyst might cause both of them to keep making quality posts.


I know I am... Not being a merit source unintentionally makes me merit very little, and much more rarely. I would really love to have your merit source micromanagement problems :D

Speaking for myself personally, I try to avoid giving merit to users I see starting lots of threads that look like cries to receive merit. I’m much more likely to give merit to users that respond to the topic for that reason. Not saying I always do, as sometimes I like a new topic of conversation, but most of the time I prefer giving it to people who respond with thought provoking or helpful answers. Giving merit to users who start a thread for an actual project that interfaces with the Bitcoin blockchain is also a favorite of mine, although they are few and far between these days.

Apply to be a merit source and/or use the merit faucet in my sig.

At the risk of sounding cliché I have to say - merits are not scarce. There might be some distribution challenges but theymos can produce any number of merits at will and he adds new sources once in a while.

I thought about making a topic

"A List Of Things You Can Make Lists Of To Get Merits"

This is true, and we went through a period of users creating topics just for the sake of it in hope for some of that sweet sweet sMerit. However, the OP does have a point in that thoughtful or thought provoking questions do not get the sMerit that they likely deserve. I've merited threads before or even replies which ask thought provoking discussion. However, I don't think meriting a thread just because good discussion became of it is the right way to go about it. Only if the question is asking something which isn't overly discussed or if it is its approaching it in some unique thoughtful way.

Personally, I don't care too much of the motives behind making a thread/post. If it has useful, thoughtful or unique discussion then I'll likely merit it. I'm not going to judge people on what I think their intentions are, and even if I knew their intentions were to earn merit as along as its a quality post I'll reward it anyway. Same goes for rank. That's irrelevant to me. Same goes as rewarding a user multiple times for different posts. I couldn't care less about the limits we sort of impose on ourselves. I tend to try, and avoid that and just give users the damn merit that they deserve whatever the reasons, rank or anything like that.

That's the  beauty of the merit system though. You can do whatever you want, and you can have whatever merit policy you determine.

Agreed. Everyone doing what they feel is best creates it’s own balance of the system. No one method is perfect so it’s great to have different viewpoints.

Can someone please clear me on this, taking the topic used by  KingZee above as a case study, it was a question he asked and from the replies his question got & they go merited, we can say it was a good questions.

now from the quote above, is it advisable to merit a question based on the good replies when you see one because I think I rarely see questions get merited. I personally don't think I have merited a question.

It varies and it obviously depends on the question being asked by the OP
You sure do not expect any sane user to merit a question such as"when will bitcoin rise again","do you think I should hodl",instead of meriting such posts,i think it should be ignored,and the more such posts gets ignored,the less we'll see them.The spammers sure wouldn't agree with me on that ;D

But meriting a quality question,and not just a flat or bland question,but a sort of idea,supposition,postulation etc but wrapped in a sort of inquisitive manner isn't a bad thing to do, and as such questions would generate a worthwhile discussions below them.

You post history can be said to be exemplary and you have gotten good merit reward for it so you of all people should no better.

Well not to be much of an antagonist but IMO you have just created a feeling that you where only making post for the merits well either ways your post are nice

To the link you sent every merit that was awarded was well deserved you shouldn't be tripping over that issue

You got me, I absolutely want to run a full node just for the merit :D

I think @ETFbitcoin came up with a couple of good examples where the principal you mention was applied. I’ve found a couple more on the Beginners and Help board:

How to earn merit??  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5070524.0) (bad example that I wished to include deliberately, for an undeserved merited question).
Bitcoin clarification needed, please (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5082671.0)
What is Escrow? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5081513.0)

In my opinion, only the second case could deserve merit for the question, since it showed that the OP had some background on what he was asking about, and placed the question after thinking it through with a specific well versed focus (a bit similar to your full node question), and not a generic question with no prior research.

Questions can lead to answers in the line of analysis of scenarios, comprehension, real case usage, opinion, guidance and so on, but if it is elaborated not just on its own, but rather with a context that has been researched it can, as far as I can see, postulate to being merited. Simple questions on the other hand that denote an aroma of deliberate ignorance do not, even if the answers in the thread are merited in abundance.

I believe most of the replies in technical discussion board deserves a lot more merit.

Your question was nice and legit, so one merit would be reasonable to it. But the answers deserves more merit than the question, as the answers contains experience and knowledge.

As a bitcoin forum, imo the most important sessions are the technical discussions ones. I discovered this forum while trying to figure out how bitcoin works. How to claim a fork, how to send coins, how to keep my funds safe, sign messages etc etc...  Many good users discover the forum this way, and those kind of answers should be incentived.

Imo we lack merit sources in those sessions (technical support, tech discussion, alternative clients, etc).The discussions there are very good, much better than the forum average, and almost all of them undermerited imo.

The person who merited this post has a very very questionable merit history though, worthy of investigation even if you ask me.


I can agree, but would even include even further questions that ask something that is widely discussed and easily google-able. I'm only speaking for myself, but I generally only come ask here if I have something I couldn't figure out by myself. I fiddle a lot and have a lot of projects on hold all the time, especially recently because I'm trying to work on bitcoin related projects in addition to the usual stuff I do.

I've seen a lot of posts that generate discussion that still are either obvious plagiarism (I've reported quite a few of them btw), or just recycled stuff from older questions.. But a lot of other times a user is actually having trouble or asking something that can't be answered from the first google search page.

But I think I've done my part with this thread honestly. If a good amount of people agree that good interaction starters should also be remembered rather than just the caused comments, then I believe my message is through. Of course "good" is subjective, but what isn't in this scenario.


I could agree to that but the 25 merit for the 6 posts in my thread begs to disagree :D I think there's quite a few people on the technical boards, I've seen at least 4 merit sources distributing their points there. I usually browse the Support / Discussion section to see if I can assist anyone asking for help. But since I'm no merit source I generally help by helping rather than meriting..

But you still have a point because as opposed to other sections like Gambling/Rounds, Wall Observer/Speculation, and a few others, the Technical board does look pretty dry in comparison..

25 merits for 6 posts isn't much. Near 5 merits per posts. And they are technical posts (the main reasonl this forum exists)

I'm not exactly sure if I've merited a question, but I probably have.  It all depends on how deep the post is.  If you write a one-line question asking something, it's probably not worthy of merit.  But what if it was a question that made me chuckle?  What if it was humorous or witty?  Then I might find it merit-worthy.

One can certainly write a probing, in-depth question to something that's on everyone's mind, and that would probably be worthy of merit.  It's very subjective, but usually it's the answers, the good ones, that get the merit.  Someone can ask a simple question and get very good replies, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the asker should get merits as well.  I gave KingZee a merit, but it wasn't for his OP here, it was for another decent post he made. 

As an aside, I don't think KingZee is exactly under-merited, but I'd probably drop more his way if I visited the sections he posts in.  This is why we need merit sources who hang out all over the place.  I'm not sure if there's a merit source who's got the technical & development section "covered", but either merit sources ought to stray a bit from their hidey-holes (which I'm reluctant to do) or there needs to be broader coverage of all the sections of the forum in the way of more merit sources.  I'm not quite sure how the situation is at present, as I've seen no data on it.

Well,my amount of smerits available is very limited. I have gave almost al my smerits to my local board, which is extremely undermerited (Portuguese). I will try to give more to technical boards, however i  have something like 3-7 new smerits per week if I post a lot and receive a lot of merits....