Fair enough that you are attempting to figure out the new system, and I understand how there could be a bit of frustration by the whole thing, and even seeming like starting over, in some regards, especially if you are half way through a rank, but then you only get awarded the minimum merit for that rank - as if you just got promoted to that level.



o.k.  So you are acknowledging that there is more than one purpose for merit.  Yes, we can concede that Legendary members no longer need to rank up; however, they can be rewarded for good work, and they can also give away smerit after they receive merit, then they receive  .5 smerit that they can give to someone else.



I am sure that we are going to be seeing how this plays out, and I doubt that Theymos is locked into this situation if he concludes that it is not working out as planned - but in any event, you seem to only be focusing on the ranking up aspect.. which you already concede is only part of the new smerits system.

If someone gives you 10 merits, then you are at 110, and you have 5 additional smerits that you can give away.  When you give away the smerits, that does not substract from your 110 merits, it only subtracts from your smerits, which is a separate pool.

Only if you are a merit source.  Otherwise the only way that you receive new s-merit is by receiving merit from others. 

NOT


Seems like you have a groundless objection, and a proposal that comes off as resentful merely because legendaries have been awarded with Merit.. (or grandfathered in).


By the way, merits and smerits are not the same thing.  

Likely the vast majority of the readers of this thread see the bullshit within that rating system, but I know a lot of smart people who really buy into the dictates of authoritative sources.  So I think that there are a lot of folks who are going to get fooled by the nonsense contained within that ratings list.

I find it difficult to conclude that there is something missing because Gavin chooses not to participate in this forum?   Does he want to vouch for Craig Wright?  Or does he want to fabricate some emergency that bitcoin is broken if an immediate blocksize limit increase is not accomplished?  No one is stopping him from participating, but if he is spreading disinformation and making up shit, then likely peeps here are going to call him on that, no?

Thanks...

First time that I actually saw the raw data, and NOT that it makes me feel any better... but good for others to have access, too.

You seem to have a misunderstanding because if you give merits to others, you are giving from your spendable pool, and such spending does not take away from your actual merits that are shown on your page.

I have some similar thinking as you in this regard.  

I will give you an example from my personal life, without being too personal.  I was in the military, and I recall that they had a system that allowed you to go up in rank based on a number of criteria... at the lower ranks there was a certain degree of automation, but as the rank became higher, there was some combination of factors, including how well you were liked, your performance appraisals and some tests that you took.  I recall that at a certain middle rank, I was promoted above and beyond my peers mostly based on my really high test scores and my meeting the basics in other criteria; however, I am pretty sure that the higher ranks did not like me or my getting promoted before several of my peers and would have never promoted me, if their assessment were to carry more weight.

So in that regard, I kind of agree that there may be some need for newbies to still be able to move up in rank without having to kiss any butts (yet I do not know exactly what the threshold should be, but it seems that there is some need for some automatic promotion for merely doing your time and posting and not getting banned.. hahahahaha.. that would be good).

I agree with you about the what the fuck, regarding Cardano and EOS...

Maybe someone could post the actual report here or link to somewhere that we would be able to see it?  I have not seen the actual report because it is behind a paywall.




Another good point.... 

Even if Toxic was a bit wrong about the scope of his criticism of Weiss and his use of inadequate supporting materials, he still makes a valid point that it should be pretty fucking clear that Weiss don't know shit about what makes blockchain valuable based on their ratings of B to Ethereum, C+ to Bitcoin and C to Dogecoin.  Evidence enough.  

Merit explained:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0

You are a very generous fuck, Hairy...   So, if Biro Bob got 5 merit points from the two of us, then he would have 2 spendable merits and half left over, but if he receives one more merit point, then he will have 3 spendable merit points (as long as he does not spend them too soon).  You are correct, there could be some ponzi feeling to this, but sooner or later guys and girl are going to be running out of spendable merits, seems like.. unless they happen to be designated as a "source"?

I reciprocated, but I was hoping that someone would give a merit point to Biro Bob, so we could call it teamwork.

hahahahaha

Now I am starting to see why "they" call you Toxic.

You are getting all worked up over nothing.

I may have called these Weiss raters "experts" but surely I could have placed quotes around such a designation because I was only referring to them as "experts" in the traditional financial markets sense, and not really conceding that they are true experts, especially in terms of what they would consider to be valuable in a blockchain, and surely, they would not place much value upon decentralization, and that is truely what brings value to bitcoin above and beyond traditional systems and also beyond other cryptos who only feign decentralization rather than actually accomplishing such in any close proximity to bitcoin.


Your preaching to the choir, Toxic.  


ditto

I just gave you a merit point, so let's see if one more person could give you a merit point, then probably, you should have one spendable merit point from the combination of the two merit points.

I think that we are all learning about this, and I think that you are correct about the one spendable merit post that is based on your activity in the past year... something like that. 

It seems that each of us receive spendable merit points by however many we were initially issued and by earning merit points from others. So, if we receive two merit points, then we will have one spendable merit point to spend.

I think that only members who are designated as "sources" can earn more spendable merit points every 30 days based on whatever level of source was granted to that member.


Edit:  I got this wrong the first time around, so I tried to fix it to be more accurate... I am still reading through the merit points thread.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0

Frequently, I attempt to think about my profits in conservative ways and also my costs in generous ways, but even if I give those benefits of the doubt, I still have profits that are way beyond what I would have been happy with, minimally.  So extra profits that are like icing on the cake.  I would have been happy to average 6% profits per year, so even with my down years, and various mistakes that I have made, I am easily averaging over 4x per year... that would be 400% per year.    Therefore with so much greater equity than expected, it becomes much easier to go into a kind of zen place.




There are surely fun ways to look at this whole bitcoin matter, and I have been learning a lot - even when I get some of the predictions wrong.


I'm not sure if I think of it like that, but I do feel some kind of insight regarding bitcoin and there seem to be so many smart people who do not seem to understand what differentiates bitcoin from other cryptos and from other asset classes.  Even the Weiss rating bullshit from today kind of demonstrates that either smart people do not understand bitcoin or they are purposefully engaging in misleading behavior...

How the fuck do they give Ethereum a B and bitcoin a C+ and Dogecoin a C...   Makes little sense, except that they are making shit up, and in the end, the fact that some of us can see through the bullshit, we are going to continue to invest in bitcoin and we will profit from such ongoing better than others insight.  In other words, some folks are going to get mislead by the bullshit that ended up coming out of the supposedly objective and professional Weiss rating system.



I think that subliminally I may be on the same page.  I try to tell myself that I am not competing with anyone except for myself, but I do get some feelings of self-righteousness when I see some failures coming from some of the other more centralized projects that are trying to elevate themselves to bitcoin status or bitcoin 2.0 status. 

For some reason, ducks seemed cuter in this context.   

Yes... Roachster.  Famous for reading out of context.

If you had not noticed, bitcoin remains in a very volatile market in part because it is a seminal product in a paradigm shifting asset class, and further the market seems to be very immature - thus more easy to manipulate prices up or down. 

We can also consider the price correction from $19,666 to $9,222 to be within normal boundaries of a product such as bitcoin, even while it can be quite painful, stressful and uncertain to ride out the UP and DOWN waves.