Bitcoin Forum

And rules guiding the forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0

    With that said, Prior to my first post I never had any interest or any excitement of merits, in fact I had basic knowledge of it but as I found out I got more than 10merits on that particular post.

I think I remember you from your introductory post as the woman from South Africa who doesn't want to be tied to the kitchen, but wants to learn about Bitcoin. It's good to see that you are still around.

When it comes to forum rules, there are just a few you need to keep in mind at all times. Don't plagiarize, don't spam with low effort and valueless posts, don't share links to viruses or phishing sites, and don't post multiple posts one after the other. Those are the things that can get you banned.  

WHY NEWBIES PLAGERISE:
1. Unawareness of the consequences of plagiarism in the forum:
A user with the full understanding of the consequences of plagiarism in and outside this forum will likely not plagiarism. The victims of plagiarism are mostly people unaware of the severe consequences of plagiarism in this forum, these are mostly newer and lower ranking members. 

2. Posting to impress:
When one begins to post to impress other users, he/she will tilt off his/her abilities. This will result to creating unnecessarily lengthy posts, and in the quest to maintain quality throughout the content, will result to plagiarism. 

3. Little/No knowledge on the subject of discussion:
This very act results to an epileptic composition. Whenever, a user deviates from his/her core essence, he'll definitely steal to be relevant. This will lead to emergency research that will definitely birth plagiarism. 

4. Hunting for merit:
When the purpose is no longer to discuss, learn and impact, the purpose is dead on arrival. In the hunt for merit, a user will unconsciously involve in spamming and plagiarism in order to get the desired goal(merit) 

5. Not knowing methods or rules of citation:
Most users not only applicable to newbies may not know the conventions of citation(intext, outtext, quotations, inclusion of url). If a user don't know this, the issue of plagiarism will become secondary. Factually some users will make it a habit to copying someones work verbatim and in the end include citation, thinking it is right.  I will be happy to see someone open a thread on the various ways of citation. 

6. Lack of Confidence:
Self low esteem can lead to plagiarism. When you don't believe yourself let alone your work. When you feel everyone's work is better than yours, when you want to be everyone else. This will give you the conviction that you are second to all, hence you will tend to plagiarism to be standard. 

7. Geographical differences:
As pointed out by @Lucius on my previous topic, he is of the opinion that why people plagiarism is how strict or lenient plagiarism is in their different countries. 

Quote from: Lucius on July 28, 2021, 01:02:50 PM

I believe that there are big differences between people from different parts of the world regarding the perception of plagiarism - home and school education play a big role here. 


8. Laziness: 
Sometimes a plagarist will be aware of the crime he is about committing, but due to laziness to cite the authors, or emanate a fresh idea, he/she will deliberately plagiarise. 

HOW TO AVOID PLAGIARISM:

1. Read the forum rules before posting:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.msg7955645#msg7955645

2. Be Original:
One of the hardest thing to do in life is to live another man's version of life. If you toe this lane, you will end of being a learner throughout your stay here in the forum. When you are your original self, you will discover a part of you that other people will tend to plagiarise, either your tone, your humour or intellect. This will create a niche for you and plagiarism will cease to be part of you.

3. Post only when you have value to add:
Avoid jumping into every discussion, maybe in the quest to completing your weekly task. If you engage in a discussion you don't have value to add, you will see yourself paraphrasing and summarising people's comments to produce yours. Though you might not be punished because of this, but it's also a bad habit.

4. Always be conscious of plagiarism:
When you type with the consciousness of plagiarism, you will overcome what is called unintentional plagiarism. You will likely fall a victim if you don't consider it during your work.

5. Don't post immediately after a research:
Ensure you don't post immediately exiting a research room. If you do, you might likely find it difficult to differentiate your personal ideas and the ones gotten from research that needs to be cited.

6. Have a good time management:
All your works, written, audio, visual etc represents you. If you did it hastily, no one knows and will defend your weakness. Always give your best even when no one is watching, there might not be a second chance. Therefore, always use a good time to prepare your work, if there be things to be cited, you will have time to do so. By this plagiarism would be avoided.

7. Test run your work with plagiarism checker:
That feeling you have when you run your work through a plagiarism checker and discovered that your work is 0% plagiarised and 100% unique. This is what your indicters use, it will be cool you use it on yourself to know the quality of your post before publishing.

8. Cite the real Authors:
If you used someone's intellectual property, it's not big deal, cite the real owner and move your way.

     Citing myself as an example with my first post on the forum, I have come to realise that searching for knowledge should come first before any other thing in the forum.
Merits should come when you make a good post, so focus on making quality and educating posts than looking for merits.

Newbie account talking about knowledge>merit, which looks to me like yet another merit fishing attempt.

@Joy_learns_crypto is there any connection  between you and EzeBitcoin2002, another newbie that came to Beginners & Help section looking for some easy merit, and plagiarizing while doing so. It's just that after I called him out for plagiarizing, he suddenly disappeared (probably expecting that I will report him which i forgot to do) and your account was created.





Dunno, maybe I am wrong and I am just too paranoid, but I smell BS here

I want to understand more so that I cannot take someone else's content and use it as mine that's why the little I can give that's what I give.

Dunno, maybe I am wrong and I am just too paranoid, but I smell BS here.

<…> Firstly I would like to say I am also doing my personal work on plagiarism, I'm not too good in that. I want to understand more so that I cannot take someone else's content and use it as mine that's why the little I can give that's what I give. <…>

Firstly I would like to say I am also doing my personal work on plagiarism, I'm not too good in that. I want to understand more so that I cannot take someone else's content and use it as mine that's why the little I can give that's what I give.
Even before coming to this forum, in my school we have been taught about plagiarism in the research project we were given, they made it clear that its a criminal act to take another persons content and use it as mine.
To the accusation, I'm really shocked and speechless to say the least, I don't have anything or any link with anybody bearing Ezebitcoin and I don't see any resemblance between me and whoever the person is, so I would keep this brief and say no I am not Ezebitcoin and I don't have anything to do with the person.

     I found out about merits from posts I see from Newbie's like me searching and crying for merits, saying merits are not shared properly, or wanting to know about merits so soon without even participating in the forum or reading the forums rules and regulations.

If you view the forum as some sort of "job" where you complete some basic tasks and get paid, then you will almost certainly be disappointed, and the forum administration will not be sympathetic. If you do make money using the forum, then it will be through innovation and entrepreneurship, not any sort of mindless busywork.

Forum rank

When you start out, you are a Newbie, and you will run into various annoying limits. These limits will be reduced to the point where you shouldn't usually notice them after you have participated in the forum for a few weeks. If you are on the forum to talk, then that's all you really need to know about rank. Don't worry about it too much, and you will eventually rank up.

If you want to maximize your rank, then you need to increase two statistics which are listed on your profile:

• Activity, which is maximized by posting once per day on average. Posting more than that is useless in raising your activity.
• Merit, which is gained by making good posts.

If you make ten thousand posts in a week, your activity will be capped and you will still be a Newbie. If you make ten thousand useless posts over any period of time, you will gain zero merit and you will still be a Newbie. You can rank up only by making good posts consistently. It's quality over quantity.

When trying to write quality posts, a lot of people act as though they're writing a book report for school: putting facts that we already know into their own words. Nobody wants to read that, and you will not get merit for it. Moreover, the length of your post and the quality of your English are only minor factors. In trying to write a quality post worthy of merit, you should offer new ideas, personal experiences, or perspectives that other forum users will actually find new and interesting.

Firstly I would like to say I am also doing my personal work on plagiarism, I'm not too good in that. I want to understand more so that I cannot take someone else's content and use it as mine that's why the little I can give that's what I give.

Merit system works properly after its kick-off in January 2018. More than 3 years and a half, it works to

• Help good members rank up
• be a barrier to prevent spammers to rank up

If you see any complain that merit is distributed inappropriately, such complain mostly come from spammers / bounty hunters who have less or zero contributions. Without contribution, no merit.

I will tell you a very simple trick on how to avoid plagiarism, and not later cry for the fact that there was a ban.
Just write. Don't look anywhere at other sources, don't copy from anywhere, close all pages, and write your post. I doubt that it is possible to fully remember something exactly with the original so that later it would pass for plagiarism (I exclude memorization). Write in your own words what you think, ask, do not try to be what you are not.

Plagiarism is not really something to be compared with the criminal act and if your school taught in that way then its wrong way, plagiarism is ethically wrong so no one should practice it but as long as they are giving credits to the original creator then its okay.

Also there is a lot of confusion between plagiarism and getting inspired by!

~

...
Surely if merits does not affect rank, there would be no such thing as like that back then as we all know that there are just those users that are just here in the forum for the sake of earning.

All these being said, I wish to advise my fellow newbie's to seek for knowledge first before talking about merits. Merits should come when you make a good post, so focus on making quality and educating posts than looking for merits.

Having merits to be implemented first before ranking up is a huge help actually to help spammers or those who shitpost just to rank up faster. Back in the days, chronic account selling is the reason why spammers or bot keep popping up almost everyday that's why sometimes the forum can't take the loads of these and sometimes undergo on a maintenance for a couple of minutes or even an hour if I'm right.

~

<snip>
All these being said, I wish to advise my fellow newbie's to seek for knowledge first before talking about merits. Merits should come when you make a good post, so focus on making quality and educating posts than looking for merits.

CONCLUSION
All these being said, I wish to advise my fellow newbie's to seek for knowledge first before talking about merits. Merits should come when you make a good post, so focus on making quality and educating posts than looking for merits.

Actually it is pretty hard to gain merit if you do not have any enough knowledge, though some users might give you since giving merits are subjectively done, it's still rare to happen. As you can see, those that has lots of merits here are very knowledgable to a lot of things and they have really helpful and posts that has really sense.
Giving time to gather some knowledge is like investing, it is really good in the long run.

Knowledge should be the main focus for all newcomers. Now, I know that hunting for sig campains and playing day trader is more atractive, but in the long run, getting a good knowledge base is what will help you remain here for a long time to come. And that's the main thing, to make this a lifelong interest, not a weekend hobby.

Yes because your mission here in the first is to understand how it going in this forum and learn the rule and regulations <…>

Top senders to permabanned users, last 180 days
•	235: fillippone
•	100: Ratimov
•	57: CryptopreneurBrainboss
•	45: Welsh
•	42: DdmrDdmr
•	38: LoyceV
•	32: JayJuanGee
•	29: ETFbitcoin
•	25: OgNasty
•	21: The Pharmacist
•	20: hugeblack
•	18: Vispilio
•	15: Rruchi man
•	14: Plutosky
•	14: alexrossi
•	13: vapourminer
•	11: Quickseller
•	11: COOLCRYPTOVATOR
•	11: amishmanish
•	10: lovesmayfamilis
•	10: bitmover
•	10: paxmao
•	10: xandry
•	10: dbc23
•	10: Qunenin
•	10: NotATether
•	9: Pmalek
•	8: o_e_l_e_o
•	8: Halab
•	8: Mpamaegbu
•	8: RainbowKun
•	7: Jet Cash
•	7: CryptocurencyKing
•	6: Zilon
•	6: El duderino_
•	6: GeorgeJohn
•	6: Daniel91
•	6: cherry11800
•	6: PrimeNumber7
•	6: kxwhalexk
•	6: LFC_Bitcoin
•	5: Smartvirus
•	5: nakamura12
•	5: klarki
•	5: gbianchi
•	4: babo
•	4: sheenshane
•	4: Magicalking
•	4: kaggie
•	4: Ethan151

<…>

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendban

Note: The focus above is on the Receivers on (s)Merits, that at some later point get banned for whatever reason. The Senders are generally faultless in the above context. The more people they try to merit, the likelier to hit someone that is going to ultimately be banned (specially, unfortunately, if the merited profile is of a lower rank).

All these being said, I wish to advise my fellow newbie's to seek for knowledge first before talking about merits.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendban

Note: The focus above is on the Receivers on (s)Merits, that at some later point get banned for whatever reason. The Senders are generally faultless in the above context. The more people they try to merit, the likelier to hit someone that is going to ultimately be banned (specially, unfortunately, if the merited profile is of a lower rank).

Edit:
To exemplify that receiving merits does now warrant getting to know your way around, and getting banned is still an open option regardless (in the context of @Gboyalhaji’s comment).

Nevertheless, I am quite surprised topping this chart I ne we actually cared about as I tought i wasn’t involved in.
A little busy with IRL stuff atm, I’m going to figure out what happened.

My guess is that those accounts that got banned is because of plagiarism. No doubt about it.

<...>

Actually, your overall ratios are good, considering all the awarded sMerits (as of last Friday):
-   Overall sent sMerits: 15048 to 873 users
-   Overall sent sMerits to banned users: 459 to 19 users

In fact, there is nothing wrong with that. The task of any merit source is to evaluate useful posts and ... that's it. We do not guarantee that the user to whom we have sent merit will always adhere to the rules. I believe that it is worth worrying only if you sent merit to posts containing plagiarism. Then you should work on your attentiveness and more carefully check the posting of users before evaluating it.

Newbie account talking about knowledge>merit, which looks to me like yet another merit fishing attempt.

Dunno, maybe I am wrong and I am just too paranoid, but I smell BS here.

The knowledge is what brings the merits, if you observe what's ongoing in the forum, you'll realize that those that are knowledgeable in specific areas are those who get merited easily because they tend to produce more quality content based on their exposure in that area. What that means is, if you want to get merited, get yourself educated.

You obviously need to know what you are talking about to get merited. You need to sound knowledgeable and professional to be taken seriously. But even people that don't know a lot have managed to gain plenty of merits. What you don't have in the knowledge and experience department, you can always make up by being helpful, respectful, and eager to research and learn. 

I will tell you a very simple trick on how to avoid plagiarism, and not later cry for the fact that there was a ban.
Just write. Don't look anywhere at other sources, don't copy from anywhere, close all pages, and write your post. I doubt that it is possible to fully remember something exactly with the original so that later it would pass for plagiarism (I exclude memorization). Write in your own words what you think, ask, do not try to be what you are not.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with that. The task of any merit source is to evaluate useful posts and ... that's it. We do not guarantee that the user to whom we have sent merit will always adhere to the rules. I believe that it is worth worrying only if you sent merit to posts containing plagiarism. Then you should work on your attentiveness and more carefully check the posting of users before evaluating it.

You sounds like you already know what merits are use for and I'm surprised that this your post looks on point. Well knowledge is power! Power can bring merit and create opportunities for one which is the sole reasons why we are all learning everyday. Once you stop learning them knowledge will be diminishing without cos. For me, I tend not to compare the two words cos merit is just a compliment for writing a quality posts... simple!

It’s no good to have a mindset in keep contributing to this forum just to earn merits. Remember, merits are just bonuses if your post has great value no matter if it’s short or long. Of course, most of the newbies and beginners here are having that mindset of “posting for merits”. It’s better to stop thinking about that and instead start posting or contributing here on the forum without any expectations in return. You’ll just be blessed if your post got merited, and it’s a great bonus. Your journey will be all worth it if you keep contributing without thinking about the merits.

The first post I made on this forum was a post of my introduction and also my set aside goals I want to achieve on the forum.
I got from the reply enough advise, Knowledge and guidance
Like Frequent asked questions https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2766177.0
And rules guiding the forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0
that has been very useful to me so far and I know if I continue to abide by them I will keep on going in the right track.
     With that said, Prior to my first post I never had any interest or any excitement of merits, in fact I had basic knowledge of it but as I found out I got more than 10merits on that particular post.
      I found out about merits from posts I see from Newbie's like me searching and crying for merits, saying merits are not shared properly, or wanting to know about merits so soon without even participating in the forum or reading the forums rules and regulations.
      Citing myself as an example with my first post on the forum, I have come to realise that searching for knowledge should come first before any other thing in the forum.
CONCLUSION
All these being said, I wish to advise my fellow newbie's to seek for knowledge first before talking about merits. Merits should come when you make a good post, so focus on making quality and educating posts than looking for merits.

Personal perception is what drives you to this I guess, but
am sure also that others do not have the same mindset that
you had, so to you "KNOWLEDGE" is the greatest, while to
others the merit and other incentives are the vital aspects why they are here.

Both merit and knowledge are good... It is not enough to be X, you must seem it too. I have been witness many times on how newbies posts are obviated from a general discussion because of their rank, although their input was interesting. And if knowledge is better, at least it is not so easily measurable, and bounty managers won't be digging on how much you know in order to participate in their campaigns.

CONCLUSION
All these being said, I wish to advise my fellow newbie's to seek for knowledge first before talking about merits. Merits should come when you make a good post, so focus on making quality and educating posts than looking for merits.

Merits and Knowledge has different use case. You can earn merit by having knowledge but you can't earn knowledge by just having merit here since merit is just a token of appreciation from a person that thinks your post is helpful to him. Simply merits is very subjective while you can have general knowledge without earning merits.

Many new are striving to earn merits by recycling others useful idea. The post is useful but since its repetitive, They will not gonna get merit out of it since merit sender think that it just an old idea.

<…>

That’s not really currently technically feasible with good results, and even if it were (hypothetically), it would still be the criteria of a conceptually centralized entity, as opposed to a potentially diverse and multiple criteria through forum members (granted that there is a lack of further diversity that many would like).

Conceptually speaking, the overall goal should be that a decent enough poster manages to rank-up at, more or less, the same pace as before the Merit System was introduced. That equates to, roughly, earning one Merit per day on average (a bit more on once transiting from Hero to Legendary). Whilst this is feasible for quite a few (whom often place quite a bit of effort and time), the majority of accounts do struggle, but no conceptual bot type AI would aid too much here, lest it should establish a low bar for meriting, thus prioritizing numbers and quotas over content.

Previously I didn't really care about the merit system because I only focused on the quantity rather than the quality of my posts.

Why newbie? Yes I think they are much easier to get merit even when they post for the first time in this forum after registering than me as a old member.

The definite step I have taken so far is to make sure that each post I make is much more useful than the previous one and that has given me some merit so far. So when I started ignoring quantity (post count is zero), then I started to feel like this merit system was working for me.

I'm sure sooner or later I'll be able to rank up like most of the good posters here.

KNOWLEDGE IS BETTER THAN MERIT

The merit system really helped people to improve their posting quality. I am always glad to see people posting about how merit system makes them improve their posting quality.

Ok I can only support your efforts and intention but in the end you have your own way to decide.