Bitcoin Forum

Is merit spending becoming more and more scarce lately?

I couldn't surely be the only one noticing this. Most of the time, I find posts worth meriting, but I can't, because in most cases I have zero sMerits, something that was rare to me in the past. I know about reporting them to some threads, but it gets tiring if I can't even have 1 sMerit every other time I see a post.

Not that I am a perfect merit earner or poster. I am just an average member and from this perspective, to me, it seems there has either been;
A. Depletion of spendable merits among members like me due to low merit circulation.
B. A drop in the number of active merit sources.
C. A drop in forum activity.

Could some folks please help us with the stats? @LoyceV, @DdmrDdmr @tranthidung

Theymos could you please look into this? I don't remember the last time you approved new merit sources.

It's true though but not all your points listed above are totally correct. The possible cause of the low merit supply, may be due to some members holding their spendable merits. Or there's just not much meritable posts from their own point of view to merit. Also, the no of merits source has reduces lately, with some being inactive or no longer available on the forum. And as far as I'm concerned, there have been so many merit source applications over the years but non of them have been approved till now. I guess the admin has some reasons for that decision. But still, it wouldn't make any sense if members are holding their spendable merits. Yes no one has the right to tell you how to spend your merit, but holding them back is totally wrong because if others had held them, you probably won't earn them.

As of your last point,the forum activity haven't actually dropped because using the LoyceV activity stat,
past 7 days, you will see here that there's a total of
Past 24 hours Past 1 hour https://loyce.club/active/7d.html
Which seems to be a good stats of the forum activity. So the low merit circulation may probably be from the reasons I stated ( holding of spendable merit and low activity of merit sources). I hope the admin visits and approve some new merit source applications.

Sources may be spending more of their time looking at the newer members of the forums posts and meriting them?

Since you have find a post that worth to be merited, but you don't have any merit, it means drop in forum activity isn't a problem. Drop in forum activity is a problem if you don't find enough good post that need to be merited.

It's true the current activity was drop since 2022 by half, but I feel like the distribution was fine than this year (weekly merit stats (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5487738.msg63765208#msg63765208)).

https://imgvb.com/images/2024/03/22/0083896e086fa8ba47595d8e61a2956d.png
https://ninjastic.space/

I think it's not because lack of merit sources, but it's because most people share their merit among their own gangs or locals. This is why users outside from the gangs or locals won't receive merits. Imagine if new approved merit sources are among of those gangs or locals? merit distribution will increase only in their own gangs or locals, which means the problem won't be solved.

The problem will be solved if:
1. Encourage all users to send merit without need to check the names, locals, gangs etc.
2. Promoting the best #1 users into merit sources.

I think the merit source are not enough anymore. When demand is more than supply scarcity happens. Approving a merit source in some of the active locals that doesn't a single merit source will go a long way in solving this recent scarcity.

I will say this also because o_e_l_e_o and Ratimov are gone and no more posting or sending merit to anyone on this forum again. There will be some merit sources that will also be like them. We can see how Ratimov was generous with merit before he went bad on this forum, the merit he sent to developing members makes merit to flow very often at the time.

I do not think that there is any lack of sMerits. The data above is related to the last month/3 months, but comparing it to the number of posts, annual performance, and previous halving data, all indicate a lack of activity, not Merit, but it is normal.
If there are any topics that you think deserve merit points, you can report them to the merit sources.

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alternative merit sources have been added


There are 108 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 32890 sMerit per 30 days
Friday, 22 March 2024 (CET)

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

Yes, what you said is true, because for the fact that a reputable and well known popular forum user such as Hhampuz who is not supposed to lack merit could lack smerit to send as shown above, then it's actually a clear sign & prove that your investigation about merit decline was indeed correct, of which I think we need an urgent solution to this, and I'm happy some users have been able to give possible solutions to this menace,  Hence, I will be very happy if Sir Theymos could possibly grant the forum one or two new "Merit Source" 29 days from today as a gift to the forum as we mark/celebrate new Bitcoin Halving.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/03/22/J7MJg.jpeg

Who is in support of my idea?

 It's quite concerning and I've also observed that the way merits were flowing as at last year has kinda reduced a bit and one would be tempted to ask whether there are no good posts being made that are worthy of being merited anymore because according to the data @huheblack presented, it shows merits abound.
 Just wanted to ask; is it possible that if a merit source, for one reason or the other best known to them, decides to leave the forum, that all the smerits in his coffers be transferred to another source? Or will they go back straight to Theymos or they make sure they spend it all before leaving? I'd really like to be cleared because things like this can also make for a free flow of merits if they are done.

I think the cost of merit has not become scarce lately because the most respected post in the forum is undoubtedly merited, as I hope you know very well.

And I'm a bit confused because you said you couldn't qualify for the best post because your account doesn't look like you don't have sMerit. If you don't have sMerit then I think you don't have sMerit because you failed to earn new merit. Owners like your account are of good merit, they can earn merit very easily and they have sMerit.

There is no shortage of sMerit, as you will see if you look closely. Because every 30 days, 32890 sMerits are produced. That seems enough to me.
You will also see that the quality of posts not eligible for any reason can be applied for eligibility. If he applies, he is given a minimum of two merits from there.
You can share @fillippone [Merit]Share your best posts/threads with Fillippone to be assessed (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5412657.0).

I think you understand man. thank you.

Yes, you are right, but we can't catch it We have to drop it because he won't come back with his account, and Mary will not be given to anyone. o_e_l_e_o case is different, it has to be accepted.

For your information unlike some of us not everyone will like to constantly share or apply on that @fillippone thread for his Quality post to be merited. And if you don't know, there are quality posts that have been summited there for over a month or two or even more if am not mistaken that haven't gotten merited and this is not because @fillippone is not attending to his thread on daily basis but because the number of submission per day exceeds him alone to deal with and as such takes a very long period of time for posts summited there to be merited.

And in most cases those posts could be there and still not get merited outside fillippone's thread. This sinto tell you that for a truth the number of members has exceeded distantly the number of merit sources in the forum and a need for new sources to be approved is now undeniably necessary. Just like someone above said, demand has greatly exceeds supply and Theymos need to look into this for an even circulation of merits across all boards.

From own observation of merits circulation was captured after the ban of mixers that was how the activity of merits reduces till date and just as few people already said, we have countless of merits source application queuing right there coupled those people who reduced their activeness since the elimination of mixers and most of these people are merits source and are inactive to look over people's post.
Although I can't really emphasized on that but there is low performance in activity lately in the forum, but still only few members are distributing their merits unlike other people and if theymos decides to increase merits source then we can see more merits flying across post unlike before, I do receive merits but currently do not earn as regular. The thing is attention is being focused on other forum, so most people hardly finds time to read post across here and you know nobody can just come and started spraying merits without them reading across post that are useful.

Nice observation OP, but "what turns its front view to you is turning the back view to another person." This adage can be interpreted as the fact that what you are experiencing now is not being experienced by other people and I can assure you that some who never got the merits more when you were getting it might be getting it even better now, time changes.

The merit-sources addition or subtraction may not be the main cause of this even as we wait for the statistics you appealed for. The change in the mood of sending it may just happen as I have seen in many.

One thing I've also noticed about Bitcointalk members is that they are so sentimental and this may lead to sending merits based on odd factors like; your current campaign, reciprocity, and general behavioural changes among others.

I can bet to this that there had been forum users who had have the thought to make this post but because of sanction conciousness they decided to die it within themselves. So, I appreciates you @logfiles for taking the bold step. I also hope I wouldn't earn sanctioned for commenting on this thread as a just common member ranks I'm and also with the fact that it's my first time posting in this board. 🙏.
Meanwhile there had been curious newbies who had been lamenting so earnestly about how they had been unable to earn merits on their posts. Although I'm not defending to say the newbies are right because a deserve constructed post would always earn merits which I keep urging the mates to keep up doing to their best in contributing helpful post to the forum's.

So I hope the alarm of @logfiles would be put to considerations as he's speaking the mind of many forum users.

We went from 286k posts per week (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032314.0) to 32k posts (https://loyce.club/active/7d.html) since 2018. That's a massive reduction.
For full raw Merit data, see merit.all.txt (https://loyce.club/Merit/merit.all.txt). The number of Merit per post is a lot more than than it was in 2018. But there was much more ICO spam back then, so just post numbers don't show everything.

I think I agree with your observation because I have also noticed that there are many good posts on the forum that deserve to get some merits but no one is meriting those posts. The one reason that comes to my mind is that the merit sources are much busy and that's why they might not be able to give much time to read all of the posts which deserve to get some merits.

I believe that the only solution we may have is to vote for some new merit sources on this forum, in fact I believe the forum needs some new merit sources. I have personally supported @Icopress's merit source application and I believe new merit sources like Icopress could support those posts with some merits. I hope that Theymos should consider appointing new merit sources to help those unmerited posts to get some deserving merits.

In order to be talking about a descending trend, we’d need a succesion of multiple subsequent months following a descending pattern. Whilst february 2024 has been the worst month is some time, and it may mark a trend from there on, on its own, for now, it’s just a single point of data with lower than usual numbers.

Looking over the aggregate data since January 2022 we get the following results (I’ve excluded the current month due to it being incomplete):

Note: The above data can be filtered on the Merit Dashboard by board if anyone wants to look at those numbers at board level.


We can observe that:

- February 2024's Awarded Merits are way lower than in prior months, and the number of related TXs is at a minimum in the selected data timeframe (2,4 K TXs less than last month for example).

- The number of Merit Senders for February 2024 is 959, which is lower than previous nearby months, but aligned to months before October 2023.

- The number of Merit Receivers for February 2024 is 1.460, pretty much aligned to other months in the selected data frame.

Additionally, browsing over the column labelled nToNew in the Global Summary (https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ddmrddmr/viz/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/GlobalSummary) tab of the Merit Dashboard, it seems that the number of newly weekly merited members (merited for the first time) is pretty aligned to previous historical data.

On the other hand, the number of posts is decreasing as per data shown on this thread, so there’s that to consider.

From a macro perspective, I’d say March 2024 is an alert to some extent, and a data point from which to observe what happens over the coming couple of months in order to determine if a trend is taking place.

Note: The above does not mean that, on a more granular level, certain boards may not be having their specific trends going on in the background.

I stopped playing with merit data many months but about 4 years ago I saw something shady happened with merit distributions. It became worse last 2 years.

If you look at general distribution, that can be nearly the same, no big changes but the general distribution does not mean Sendable Merits are circulating, distributing fairly in the forum.

If it is a loop between local users for sMerit distribution, generally if you don't belong to actively internal merit circle, you will feel like sMerit nowadays (recent months like about last 2 years) will be more scarce because you actually received less than previous years.

So what are loops and merit holes?

I know how you feel but please take it easy  :D

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They are not main reasons and if they are main reasons, the merit system fails.

The sMerit distributed among regular posters vary greatly from month to month. Sometimes such regular posters can gain a lot of merit in one month, but will lose a lot of merit income in the next month. I mean, they are not consistent in the quality of their posts so many people may tend to ignore their posts for quality reasons and not meeting their standard.

There are 108 active merit sources currently with a total merit gain of up to 32,890 sMerits per 30 days as hugeblack said, but their merit distribution activities may sometimes be lower due to personal reasons. Previously the merit source was 109, but now it is only 108, it is decreasing.

With my observation, which might not be 100% accurate, and also in agreement with what @yahoo62278 has said, there are fewer merit sources on the forum now compared to before. That's why the merit circulation has dropped. The other merit source on the forum seems to be focusing more on newbies and other lower ranks who have good quality contributions to the forum, while higher ranks are not considered high priorities. When I was still a newbie, up to my senior member rank, I received merit almost every week, but I don't know what changed lately (maybe am not as active as before or the quality of my post dropped). I do come across some quality posts too, and I can't give merit to them because I lack merit. If admin can approve the request for some of the pending merit source applications, then merit can circulate more. 

The forum users do not vote for merit sources, reputable users apply to be merit sources and Theymos picks from the applications in the pipeline, when he feels there is a need to add new MS to the forum. There are quite a lot of good users who have applied to be MS's and they have been waiting for a long now, but nothing doing from Theymos and i can't really say why; many of them deserve the "job" and they would greatly improve the merit system.

If I'm not wrong then the ones who applied for being accepted as merit sources need some type of support or you can say vote of the forum's members. If I'm not wrong then Theymos also considers that support as a positive aspect of someone's application and he's wise enough to know that the forum members opinion also matters when it's about betterment of the forum.

There is always need for merit sources but it takes time to know that who could be a better merit source and when Theymos is 100% sure that who would be good as a merit source then he could appoint that member as a merit source.
I have seen those applications and I have supported most of those applications because I also believe that the forum needs some new merit sources who may help out the members of the forum that need those merits. There are so many good posts by the members of the forum who are merit-worthy and those can get merits when new merit sources are added to the forum. If I'm not wrong then Theymos is also keeping eye on the applications and in near future he may announce the names of those members who get accepted as merit sources.

Yes!
I like the fact that you were sincere enough to include the last part... I Remember seeing a user complain of not getting merits anymore like they use to (I can't recall who it was) but the responses that they got was nothing realistic at all.
I meannnn... How's that supposed not to be tiresome? Reporting your own post plus every other post to get merited, then some garbage and thread-derailing post, all at the same LIMITED time ?? Is this how bent the system has become overtime?....I'm a type that does alot of reading too... Isn't this conflicting already? Haven't y'all seen the impact for as long as this have been thriving?
oh Ratimov, Leo; why's death so inconsiderate? "For when a good man dies, his expectation will perish, And the hope of his offspring cut short"
so you mean we all gotta belong to some internal cycling circle?.. "Things won't get any better"...i see.

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

The thing about theymos is that the man is filled with surprises and from the little time I have spent here in this community I have to notice that theymos always give in the needs or want of some  requests here only when he deem it necessary so I think he is still in slumber mode or maybe drinking a cup of tea over the scarcity and also the multiple line of merits source applications waiting on his approval.  

I believe the skeptical chymist is the right person to ring when it comes to issues of requests and granting approvals, he can better explain 😉 theymos nearly made him cry when he constantly requests merit refill and increase from the man  ;D  ;D