Bitcoin Forum

I was recently informed (through telegram) by one my telegram follower that I have received 50 merits
I immediately checked and behold, there it is, 50 merits for a bounty thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5110391) that I started and managed.
I checked the person who gave me those merits and it seems he has also gave 50/25 merits on another bounty threads.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=158287

The weird thing about this is I have no record of this guy being on that particular bounty campaign. (see spreadsheet here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18OptIdGglfOJqCyZ30q0DWfdmZPsIOhERiUFnC1eRJg/edit?usp=sharing)

Any thoughts as to why this guy gives out this much amount of merit?
One member of my telegram group said it could be a hacked account. (Tho, I don't know how to prove that)

BTW, Merits has basically no use to me.
Check my profile, I don't even sign-up for signature/bounty campaigns anymore. I rarely even post.  ::)

Maybe theymos will now consider what we have been saying all this while, all airdrop smerit should be burned, majority of merit abuse involving large number of merits is coming from this guys that received those free airdropped smerit. The issue of bounty managers receiving huge sum of smerits on announcement thread or worthless posts is becoming too much. Could be, merit traders have found a new way to fool the forum.

I can see where you are coming from, but I really don't think it's necessary. You can see from suchmoon's thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5042503.0) that we are destroying around 4 times as many merits as we are distributing, even including all the airdropped merits that are being used. Similarly, as time goes on, airdropped merit becomes an ever smaller percentage of total merits, and merit sources effectively become the only source of merit.

As to OP's question, I always assumed users gave bounty/signature managers absurd amounts of merit as a way of trying to buy their favour or improve their changes of being accepted to the current or future campaigns.

Imagine if Theymos decide to rollback all ranks counting only the earned merit so far, should be fun.

To get legendary rank now requires a Legendary mission, a user shitposter with his post history now with the merit system can't rank up

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=158287;sa=showPosts;start=0

If he/she does this for that very reason, I doubt that'll happen. Seeing as all of his/her posts are just 1 liner  :-\
He/she is lucky to have ranked to Legendary rank way before the merit system were introduced and implemented.
BTW, I have already sent private message to the person involved. Still waiting for his/her response tho.

It would certainly be interesting to see. I've argued against it in the past, and I am still in two minds about the whole thing. On one hand, there are plenty of shitposters at all ranks, including legendary, who would never reach their current rank (or indeed even rank up above newbie) since the advent of the merit system. But on the other hand, retroactively demoting people based on a new system seems a bit too much like ex post facto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law) to me. Maybe a good April Fool's joke for tomorrow?

I think a nicer solution would be to change the requirements for displaying a signature to 1 (or preferably 10) earned merit, rather than total merit. That way people aren't getting demoted, but the shitposters still lose their raison d'etre.

It might be the buyer or his/her alts are registered to the above bounty campaigns.

You might not need them, but, it has a purpose why it was given to you and there are many good members in the community who needs merit.  Since it is now in your hands, hope you can use them to our local board for merit circulation.

Tomorrow is April 01, 2019,  let's just wait for it ;) 

Even though we don't know the main reason why that guy sent you merits, it's still a relief to know that those 50 Merits (25 sMerits) has been handed in good hands. Members like that guy (who gave you merits) are those members who still don't find the importance of Merits since they already reached the maximum rank. You better find good posters and distribute your sMerits than to let it burn someday.

I see this Merit delivery between accounts 1, 2 and 3, there is an element of Intentional Form.
In this case someone does something intentionally, I can conclude, there are negative and positive things, (@notthematrix) want to show and to achieve a goal.

If I see, in this case it is a form of deliberate intention, action (@notthematrix) is expected to cause something. If not, then he won't do it. He wants.
For example:

1. Deliberately conscious of certainty.
2. Deliberately ejects.

In this case, the factor that connects you and who sent Merit, behavior with cause (quality) where:

1. the result of what is intended (@notthematrix). This can be a special offense or not.
2. You don't chill but it is a place for you, the result of this must arise or occur.

In this case the theory arises again.

1. Intentional theories
2. Will theory

Meaning: in this case I think the consequences will arise; that is to say, you can't avoid it, you can only imagine it. This theory focuses on what is known or imagined by (@notthematrix), what will happen when he will do it.

It would be insane. Because, a legendary is contributing to the forum far longer than the merit system exists. It is very much possible that a hell lot of posts created by him/her in past were worth of merit, but it were not awarded any. Now, if only the earned merit is considered, it'll be highly unjust to the old posters.

For example, there was no merit system in 2014. But, if this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=792805.0) was created today, it probably would have received some merit. This is how many of our old threads are merit less, because they were created way before the merit system.

Nice to see you coming out first before it gets more complicated and lead to a merit abuse accusation. I don't know if notthematrix did this deliberately or not but looking at his merit history in his BPIP record (https://bpip.org/profile.aspx?p=notthematrix) it's his first time to ever send a merit and all of that 125 merits the account has sent it was all given to Bounty threads. Let's see we might be dealing with a hack account here from a user as I don't see any reason why a member who has not sent merits in his stay would waste it to bounty threads not unless he intentionally wants to waste it all.

I am seeing second time someone is complaining about received merit. First case I have seen on reputation. However you clear from your side that you are not involved with abuse. I believe it because really no need 50 merit now.

However I don't think we should take seriously about merit sender. At least he is spending his airdrop merit. OP should spread your merit around the forum. Holding merit doesn't benefit for you. So why not help other people's?

I don't think sender should be tagged or any other action against him. Just say congratulations if someone spreading his Airdrop merit.

Maybe, but I don't see this as a huge issue.  If you haven't given out your airdropped merit already, you probably never will and I highly doubt there's that much still available to abuse even if it were all used for that purpose (which it won't be).

OP's situation is just a consequence of people being free to do what they wish with their sMerits, and I have no reason to doubt his story.  Not everyone realizes the value of merits and a lot of people just don't care about the system.  It's really only the shitposters who could earn more money if they were able to rank up who obsess over merits.

Yes it would.  But there would be a lot of pissed off Legendary members being demoted in signature campaigns, and they're usually not the ones making the garbage posts and all of the problems around here.

If we update the figures I’ve drawn-up in the pastconcerning sMerit circulation, we get:

 600.000      sMerits Initial Airdrop
-350.129     sent sMerits (Merit Sources and regular forum members)
+175.065    Min estimate generated (first halving taken to its maximum theoretical degree, and not accounting for all the other halvings which I cannot estimate)
--------------------------------------------
424.936   Total unsent sMerits (aprox. *)

(*) Not all is really sendable really, due to inactive users, banned users, and so forth.


Now Merit Source pool is currently of 20.855 sMerits per 30 days. Being conservative, and taking into account that the pool size has varies over time, lets say a bare minimum average of 12k has been sent each month since the beginning of the Merit System. That would mean that at least 180.000 of the sent sMerits were originated by Merit Sources .The remaining 170.129 (350.129 – 180.000) would come from the Initial Airdrop and halvings.

So even in the “best” case scenario (no halvings), there are around 600.000 – 170.129 = 429.871 airdropped sMerits in user accounts (*).

After 15 months of the Merit System, I don’t know how likely they are to come into the scene, but they also constitute a risk for merit trading. I would think that, after 15 months on non-usage, they should be withdrawn from the accounts on the basis of avoiding risks and not being into the Merit game anyway.

theymos raised his opinion in early days after activation of merit system that he don't worry too much about merit abusers because they soon will out of sMerits to abuse.
He even don't suggest to tag abusers who abuse insignificantky with negative trust due to the same reason above.
However, over time, due to some huge merit abusements, he actually take off all those abused merits, and removed bad merit sources.

---

I don't check the account, but I doubt that hacked account owner will do this for non-sense purpose.
Why the owner did that to disclose that the account is a hacked one?
The account owner actually sent out 125 sMerits within 4 minutes
Woke up on 27 March and sent out sMerits one day later.
https://bpip.org/profile.aspx?p=notthematrix
Last posts made in March last year, 2 months after the beginning or merit system, so it was long enough to know what is merit and its function. If the same owner did not send any merit 2 minus after merit activated, it is unbelievable that one year later, the same person sent out 125 sMerits in 4 mins.
All proofs show that it is likely hacked account.

---

Lots of sMerits destroyed on nuked, perma banned (plagiarised or hacked) accounts.

I heard about huge merit giveaway in the situation of different kinds of deals between members. It happens that in such situation a shit post or stupid one get like 50 merits.But your situation is something unique to me, I hear of such case at the first time indeed. I do not even know how to explain it.

If it will be made, demotions on all ranks will happen, but I like your ideas.
Then all will have a fresh start, really fair start.
If you or someone have been here 4 or 7 years ago, you can have enough understandings on crypto to help others, then receive merits, and rank up again.
If you or someone are unable to do this, it is clearly you are luckily ranked up to high ranks without ability to contribute anything to the forum. It worths almost the same as brand-new or newbie.

I really like the idea o_e_l_e_o. Separation of the rank level from the possibility of display signature and combine it with the number of earned merits would be a great solution (much better than deranking all high ranked users who didn't earned any merits).

Thanks to this, we would avoid "punishing" users who deservedly gained their rank before introducing the merit system. Today we can not treat everyone the same because many of Legendary users undoubtedly contributed a lot to this forum in the past when there was no merit system and they surely deserved their high rank (even if they didn't earned any merits last 15 months), but there were also many of them whose contribution was zero and they got ranks thanks only to activity. Unfortunately, today checking who really deserved his rank and who did not is not possible at all.

Such a separation would have the additional advantage - it would significantly reduce the phenomenon of account trading, because it would no longer be profitable to buy high accounts, without the "earned" merits.

I think the motive of this person was to bribe you with Merit so that when a spot for the ongoing campaign you are running opens up, and he applied, you would add him to it. But thank God, you are one of those people who are incorruptible.
It was an outright abuse of Merit by the sender.

Maybe this is a test for April 1 and theymos script started to work a little bit earlier ? :D

But on the other hand it looks like account is hacked. I feel really bad for the owner, if he sees on Monday that all of his merits are gone and thinks that this is just a Aprils Fool's Day joke, but later realises he was hacked.

This is the worst defense statement. What happened to their contributing power after merit system implementation?
ok, if you want to say they are not active now (though nothing stop you to meriting old posts) but will you still agree on Activity Based Demotion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3193801.msg33102398#msg33102398) i.e removal of 1 airdropped merit for 2 activity gained , after the implementation of the merit system.


I am interested in knowing what kind of deal is done here. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5123258.msg50363129#msg50363129)

Just because someone is no longer active or as active as they used to be, doesn't mean their previous posts or contributions should be devalued. We certainly shouldn't be looking to punish older members who took a big risk on bitcoin in its early days. Given that there have been 433 days since the introduction of the merit system, under your proposal, a member gaining maximum activity would have to have gained 216 merits just to break even, let alone thinking about ranking up. According to https://bpip.org/report.aspx?r=mostmerited, there are only 226 members who have achieved this. The purpose of merit was to stop shitposters being paid for shitposting - it wasn't meant to derank or limit the vast majority of members, which is what your proposal would do.

I still think the neatest solution is simply to change the requirement for a signature to earned merit. No one would be deranked, inactive legendaries would get to keep their legendary status, but shitposters who had their signature grandfathered in would no longer be able to get paid for their shitposting.

Let's look back further, with Satoshi Nakamoto contributions for bitcoin in particular and for crypto in general as well as his/her/ their dissapearance years ago.
I don't think there are someone who say that contributions of Satoshi Nakomoto is small, valueless, or devalued contributions over time due to growth of crypto recent years.
Yes, I agree with your suggestion.
Simply depend on campaign managers, if they require strict rules for their participants, shitty users can not be qualified enough to apply and join.

It’s more likely theymos will introduce a new rank than delete all Merit apart from Earned Merit.
Something like the following would be cool -

{New Rank}
Activity 2000+
Merit 2000+

This is cool but i think it could kind of be discouraging to new members unless merit circulation increases. Imagine joining as a newbie in this current situation where merit is hard to come by and you have to gather 2000+ merit to reach that rank  :o
Heck, i just have a little over 50 merits and i don't think i will even make it to 1000  ;D

This is very dangerous for you because it might be possible for people to judge that you have multiple accounts in this forum. But, I believe that you make this thread means that you also object to giving that much sMerit as well as this thread becomes a clarification from you so that people don't judge you with negative things about giving that much sMerit. I hope this forum admin can help solve the problems that you get now.

Looking at merits earned and merits received (airdropped) before the January 24, 2018 introduction of this new merit system are two different indicators based on different presumptions.  Of course, on a general basis there are a lot of threads and active posts that have not received merit for their posts prior to the introduction of the merit system because only a few members are going to go back and use their merits that way, and of course, some exceptionally notable historical posts have still received a decent amount of merits and attention drawn to them for such purposes too.

There is no injustice going on but just an overlap of two systems and some lack of consistencies, which is largely how th world works, anyhow.  Merits are not a reflection of objective goodness, even though there could be some of that going on, but there is also human subjective element going on too, as well as whimsical irrationality.. and sometimes not so good sides of humans shown through their use of their smerits. 

Of course, merit sources are held to a bit of a higher standard, but even then various irrationalities and whimsicality still might exist and might not go beyond theymos's level of detection or tolerance.

I definitely appreciate your calculations, DdmrDdmr, about how many airdropped smerits likely remain outstanding. 

I both disagree with your conclusory assessments that there is a lot of abuse potential with those dormant smerits or that theymos needs to do something about those outstanding unused smerits (such as decay them)...

As far as I know, on at least, a couple theymos has already expressed a degree of reluctancy to decay unused smerits, and I doubt that use of old/stagnant smerits has yet risen to a level that such decay implementation would have become warranted.  Of course opinions are going to vary in this regard.

Whatever you do it’s bound to be controversial:

On the one hand, airdropped sMerit was created in proportion to each one’s rank and activity, and therefore was respectful with both of these concepts that one gained historically. It is each person’s prerogative how and when they decide to use them. Some accounts will possibly be inactive for a longish period of time, and when they reactivate, they could well do with some sMerits to award.

On the other hand, 15 months of not using them is a fair amount of time, and the idea is not to hoard them. As often happens, the issue is not really the non-usage, but rather the potential mal practice that could become of it. Accounts that have not set the initial sMerit airdrop in motion may not really be bothered with the Merit System, and as such, may just let it be in their accounts, … or decide to trade with it. Of course, trade likely happens with non-airdropped sMerits too, but the aggregate potential amount of airdropped-smerit that exists is large, and perhaps a potential "risk" (i.e. underground sell of sMerits or accounts with them).

Perhaps if we encounter a period of sustained multiple proven merit abuse cases, then some sort of action may be required to reduce the risk, although likely only a small fraction of the cases are detected.

I don't deny that some merit abuse is happening and additional abuse is not detected, but in the end, I doubt that it justifies the implementation of a smerit decay policy...

Of course, unilaterally theymos could decide either way, and I imagine that he would be receptive to evidence that is based on both facts and logic - and such evidence would likely need to show more benefits coming from such policy than the negative aspects of taking things away.... and such evidence would likely have to go beyond the concept that there are "undetected" smerit abuse cases out there or that there might possibly be undetected smerit abuse in the future.