Bitcoin Forum

According to forum stats (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats) there are around 7800 new posts daily.
We already have a button to report shit posts to moderators but what about good posts!

Merit Sources and other members are doing their best but it is practically impossible to cover all forum posts (49004464 till now)
Many of them already started threads inviting members to give them links to unmerited high quality posts, so why don't make it easier for them by adding a "Report to Merit Source" button!

The idea just came to my mind and didn't think of it too much but here are some headnotes:

- only members with 0 sMerit and 50+ Activity can report.
- each member can report one post/day.
- merit sources can ban a member from reporting if they find he is abusing the system.

Another alternative is to create a bot like Piggy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=188198)'s notification telegram bot (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5023605.0).

advantages:
- we don't have to wait for Theymos approval (he is busy enough right now).
- any member can join and help merit sources.
- DTs may help by negging abusers.
But this will require cooperation with DTs to negg abusers.

Any suggestions are more than welcome.

Why not build yourself a bot to do this. I'm sure if it's closed from spam then the merit sources and others will be wanting to use it.

I'd suggest a minimum of 10 merit and 100 activity to be able to report there...

or... and this is a radical idea that will blow your mind so please make sure you're sitting down... apply to be a merit source :)

Seriously though, I like it but...

• I doubt theymos will have time to do it.
• Will end up with lots of spam from users reporting their own posts.
• Nobody will report other people's posts (trust me, I know).

Anyone begging for merits, or using such a facility would go straight onto my ignore list.

This is a good idea to have merit for the buried HQ posts.

We need to restrict the users from reporting their own posts if this system implemented (Still alt accounts can do the job),but merit sources are going to see this is worthy to merit or not,so good to have in my opinion.

This has been suggested before. The problem is getting users to qualify, and if I look at the posts you've Merited, those wouldn't be choices I need to receive from someone as suggestions.

This is old data, and probably an average. In the last week (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032314.0), 124,306 posts have been created (17,758 per day).
However, if you look at patrol (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=recent;patrol), you'll see most posts are not worth reading.

I'm already using this from my LoyceMobile (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1903546). I create a post, and delete it a few seconds later. I find my notification later on:

Just know we have daredevils here that are ready to abuse any system introduces. But below are some additional suggestions that's if the button was to be introduced.

• Each post/reply can only be reported to merit source once. That's to say if a post has been reported before and someone else is trying to report same post, an error message will appear.
• Only unmerited posts/replies can be reported and it has to be some days or maybe weeks old
• To be qualified to report a post you must have merited one before [with a minimum] depending on your rank.

When you hit the report to Merit Source button, how would Merit sources be notified? Would there just be a page somewhere with a compiled list of posts that people thought were deserving of merit? When I read this, the first thing that came to my mind was god awful PM spam, if you aren't proposing that, I don't think its a terrible idea. I don't imagine it'd be implemented by the forum, but as others have said, it is a tool that a third party could create.

Something similar was discussed here: re: Posting in forums with moderators who give no smerit? Solutions? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5081670.msg48559492#msg48559492)
The idea behind merit is to freely give it to whatever post you encounter that has a decent enough content. Placing them in a queue for review (with or without restrictions) is basically morphing the streamline process of posts into a queue of posts which will lack context. Context (i.e. posts within the same thread) is often important to determine the value of a post, and a post in a queue would lack it.

Besides, it kind of feels inappropriate to give posts within that queue up to 120 chances of being merited (one per potential view of a Merit Source), whist regular posts that are not on the queue would have a much lower chance of being spotted by so many Merit Sources (although there is always the rest of the forum members).

On top of that, the number of posts per day is not really of 7.800, but rather more in the line of 25K (and descending) daily posts (official stats are not performing a recent view on this indicator, but likely an overall all-time average). Of course you could say that the figure would be much lower with the restrictions you suggest, but then it would certainly need to be an inner development to become a tightly coupled solution (i.e. no chance for bots to even be considered).

I would prefer not to try to device a system to bring posts to the attention of Merit Sources, which is a very small group of 120 members, but rather, in any case, try to push the Merit System again into a more dynamic environment, where the weight of the Merit Sources is much lower than currently stands.

Merit awarding is a personal decision, and I don't want to waste time looking at other people's ideas, or attempts to help friends.

If you think that certain members should be allowed to suggest the awarding of merits, then use my suggestion to create delegated SMerits. That way I could give source merits to people I choose, and let them award those smerits. maybe on local boards for example.

The number of boards on the forum correlates in one way or the other to the number of merits sources we have(currently 119),so I doubt that so much HQ posts that deserve merits actually does escape or skip away from their sight,except maybe in some spam sections were threads hardly stay up for long
This method would surely be abused and I doubt it'll help,cos the fact one user feels a post deserves a merit and reports it, doesn't mean the merit source who handles it would feel so too
For now I doubt anything needs to be changed about the merit system

Damned if I don't like the idea, too.  All of your reasons are valid as to why it might not work, but even if people were reporting their own posts, they still could be good.  And if such a system were created, perhaps a "reject" button for the merit source would be viable if a post wasn't deemed worthy of merit.  Kind of like a "bad report" thing with the report to moderator function.

Part of me thinks that not enough people do enough reading on the forum or care about other members getting merit, much like you said.  If I got a report on a post, I'd certainly have to check that user's post history to make sure that they weren't just making a single good post amidst a sea of bad ones in order to rank up to Jr. Member, for example.  It could work, though.  I'm pretty sure there are a lot of posts that are going unmerited and probably even unseen.  

I'd actually like to hear Theymos's opinion on something like this.  There really isn't any system in place whereby merit sources can find the hidden gems.  We've tried individual threads, but those turn into shitfests where shitposters point to a bunch of garbage posts they've made.  Actmyname had one going for a while, and even with the threat of a neutral feedback marking them as a shitposter, people were still asking for their garbage posts to be merited.  

If there was a "report to merit source" button, I don't think it'd take too much time to decide yes or no--as long as there's no pressure on the merit source to respond to the report.  There shouldn't be, since merit sources are all volunteers.

I wouldn't mind this so much.  I know stuff like that would happen, but it seems like it would be fairly easy to just glance at the reported post and decide whether it was merit-worthy.  For individual merit sources, maybe a "block reporter" button would be a good idea if a member reports too many shitposts.

If we assume that merit sources are senior members, then the message that I'm getting is that those members are not reading the posts in the forum. This may be the root of the problem, and tinkering with the merit system won't help. What is needed is encouragement for senior members to post more and be more active, and for threads and boards to be cleaned, so that members can spend more time reading than they spend ignoring.

Personal attacks and criticisms amongst senior members doesn't help the forum, and can push valuable members away.

I wanted to write a post how we don't need theymos to try this, and we/you/I/someone can just create a thread, but it seemed quicker to just do it. See: Report to Merit Source (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0) Let's try this :D

OK, I bookmarked that page and have it on watch.  And dammit, I'm now out of sMerits.  But props to you for doing this, and we'll see how it works.  I still think a button like the report to moderator one would be the best option, but at least you're doing something creative that may have a shot.

Why does it seem like my source sMerits never seem to get replenished fast enough?  It always seems like I never have enough of them.  Is Theymos giving fewer sMerits to the last batch of merit sources he added in September (or whatever month that was)?  I'd be happy to give out more merits per post, but the best I can manage right now is about 2-3 without running out of sMerits--whether they're source merits or the ones I've earned.

Maybe Theymos will read this and heed my prayer that I can get more sMerits to give out.  It's not like I'm giving them all to Legendary members, either.  I'm trying to help out lower-ranked ones as best I can.  Anyway, thanks LoyceV.

It would be a nice decision if it's actually implemented because a whole lot of great post has been miss my merit sources well this is not to say they have not been active but it's below the amount of users on the forum and on various sections so post can easily be missed but if like how moderators are assigned to section merit sources are assigned to section and there attention can also be drawn to a post

I hear this a lot, but it took me hours of focused searching to find 10 good unmerited posts by relatively junior members for my merit source application thread. Every time an offer has been made by merit sources to point them in the direction of these great unmerited posts, they only get tumbleweeds in return. suchmoon's offer (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031461) has been up for almost 4 months and has found a grand total of 4 posts. We will see how LoyceV's new thread performs.

In short, if you are seeing a "whole lot of great posts" being missed, then please(!) link us to them.