I think people are missing the point of the merit system. It's to stop the worst of the worst from ranking up just by posting rubbish, not to punish higher ranks. If you write complete trash then you don't get merit. Stick to claiming bounties. If you want to be able to earn by posting then I think you should have to be qualified to do so and I think getting ten merit would be a good aptitude test for that. One isn't, especially some of the crap people are getting merited for.


This is why I'd prefer a higher merit requirement to get a signature. Anyone can get a solitary merit whether they beg or buy or trade it. It's real risky giving one merit to someone because that's all they need to be able to earn here and they could be a colossal shitposter who just makes one half decent post or has in fact copied it from somewhere and that's something you've sadly got to be aware of. Requiring ten merit would lessen the chances of this abuse happening and them luckily getting one or two merit in whatever nefarious way won't matter too much, but when it's just one it's Christmas come early for them if they can get it.


He has said he may do that, but he also put my suggestion for a new higher rank in the "no or net yet category" (though he also put the one merit requirement there so I have hope).


Bitcoin and Alt coin Discussion are both colossal shitheaps and trying to find a merit-worthy post in there is like trying to find an AIDS-infected needle in a fetid, decaying haystack. I hardly even bother posting in there because any half decent post is just drowned out by streams of crap from sig spammers and that's something that needs to change. As long as ICO campaigns can get away with paying people to post crap then nothing will change, especially not a mere one-merit requirement. To make a difference here we would probably have to remove signatures completely from everyone until they've actually earned a good bit of merit. Then we really would notice a difference in posting because if you haven't proved your worth here then you haven't eared your right to earn via posting.


Wat? So you're saying pretty much 99% of my posts are useless and shouldn't be merited? 99% of my posts are in Meta and half of them are probably suggestions of how to make this place better, one of them which was implemented recently, so I'm not sure why my contributions should be discarded or not be meritable.

How often do you plan to make changes to the merit/activity thresholds? I hope this alludes to more are possibly coming or you're considering it. Updating this shouldn't be a huge issue though, but you don't need to keep updating it if you link to my Ranks/Merit/Activity FAQ thread and I can keep that updated. Same goes for all the other rules and guide threads. As we've all said, just keep the message as brief as possible with the most important or frequently broken rules displayed prominently and link to everything else like guides or the history of the forum if you want that there. Just give them the bare bones of what they need to know and the smart or weary amongst new users will take the additional time to educate themselves further.


I think we should probably just go with the template I came up with but re-write it or add all the additional information theymos wants there. The most important info in bullet points is probably much easier for Newbies to digest or understand.

Babies don't cry forever. They soon get bored or tire themselves out, especially when the realise their temper-tantrum isn't working, but I said this would happen. I'm sure if theymos ever makes more restrictions they'll all be back again here crying in Meta. I hope the next one is removing Junior's signatures completely because one merit isn't enough to be able to earn here and cheating to get it will become rife. Ten merit is obviously ten times as harder/expensive and would have a much bigger impact on spam. 


The user that merited him also merited 11 for this:


Something is going on there.

1 merit is fine for Junior. A small ask for the reward of moving up a rank, but it's not sufficient to get a signature and start earning here. We should try ten merit and becoming a Member before you get a sign and see how that goes. I think it would help enormously, but we could keep upping the requirement over time if it's not helping much. I'd really like to see how many users could get 100 merit before they can start earning here though. That would really sort the wheat from the chaff and the shitposters from the great posters. Only those who have contributed something significant here would be able to earn then and the forum would be a much better place for it.

I think this is too long and filled with needless information. 90% of Newbies won't read it let alone understand it. Just keep it simple and concise and give the most important info but include many links to further/in depth information so the info is there if they do want to investigate further and so they're not overloaded by text or things they don't even understand or care about. You could put half of this stuff in some other thread that is linked to and they can read that if they wish, but most will just gloss over it if you're trying to give them the entire history of the forum which isn't necessary for a welcome message.


We should probably get rid of half the rules here if you don't care that much about them. Most of them aren't enforced or to standard that is effective such as ban evasion. If rules aren't gong to be enforced properly then just get rid of them as it's a waste of time for staff and some users are punished unfairly whilst others get off completely free or given a free pass. I don't think getting rid of rules is something we should do but rules are useless and become a joke when they're barely ever enforced or just selectively.


The majority of people who come here these days speak very poor English. They're not going to understand half of this. You could cut this down to a much simpler sentence or two that gets the point across.



Why even say things like this and the above when they're really just not true (unless you've got some huge changes planned on how people can earn here)? Unless things change to how ICO campaigns can operate here then users won't be disappointed. They'll be overjoyed by being here and how easy it is to earn from doing little to nothing. People can still get paid for either copy and pasting posts or writing mindless drivel that is text-spun over as many accounts as they like and requiring one merit isn't going to stop this. People who are farming hundreds of accounts copy and pasting with bots are never looked into so is that what you call 'innovation and entrepreneurship'? This just seems like a hollow threat that won't be enforced just like half the other rules so it's pointless even saying unless we're actually going to be cracking down on the huge abuses here which are only going to get worse the longer we do nothing about them.

I lost all my bets I put on but did pretty well in the predictor after falling down the table quite a bit last week. Four correct scores and back up into the top five and only three points away from first position. Burnley turning over Bournemouth 4-0 was a shock. I said they might bounce back with this game and being at home where they're usually strong at but tried to play it safe with a 1-1 draw. Luckily few people even backed them to win. Can't say I'm looking forward to any game this weekend other than the Chelsea / Liverpool one.

I doubt he'll be going anywhere. He'll either just create a new account and learn from his mistakes or just abandon this one and fire up one of his half a dozen alts he's been farming.


A truly quality poster would have no problem in rising through the ranks as we saw with nullius, but it's next to impossible for a shitposter to get anywhere past Member now. One merit is easy to get and most will manage that whether they beg, buy, trade or steal it, but they're not going to be able to achieve or afford to buy 100 merits to become a Full Member.

The thread you created is pointless, but the feedback also seems kinda harsh. I'm sure vod will consider removing it, especially if you contribute something of value here (other than just copy and pasting pointless facts into a nonsense thread).  


I wouldn't say it's a vendetta against lower ranked members, but shitposters, who have single-handedly ruined this forum, so you can understand why some people are frustrated with all the lazy spam here.


I'd rather be entertained than have to read some barely decipherable drivel from someone who is only posting to either gain merit or get paid. Maybe they should join in with the fun. Probably the only way some of these users will actually ever get any merit.


When you get some merit maybe you can throw op one his way?

I think it would be fairly easy to spot people selling merits en mass. Most merit sources probably won't want to risk their account or reputation being ruined for a little bit of cash and I think most will get busted sooner than later. It would probably be far more profitable to use that account to earn from signature campaigns or whatnot anyway. Why don't you add more donator ranks like Silver & Gold Members? If people are going to the trouble of buying accounts and merit then why not let them legally buy the benefits of the rank from the forum instead? Most people who sell accounts and merit here are just scammers with neither to sell in the first place, so lets cut out the shady middleman and eliminate the shady/scammy market. It might actually cut down on the needless merit begging threads and people creating content with the sole intention of trying to receive merits as well. We already have Copper Member with the benefits of being a Member so why not add Silver and Gold that have the benefits of Full and Heroes respectively? I don't see any negatives to this and the benefits are numerous.  

Holy fuck, how could I forget the classic "daily needs". Just actually search that in bitcoin discussion and see how much it comes up.


Sir is what you become when you become a 'knight of the realm' in the UK, but it's also just a title people give themselves to try command a bit of respect. It's pretty much one of the highest orders in England, and originally only the most 'noble' of society ever became one, but obviously it's an outdated institution now.


Yeah. Another one is 'gentleman'. I really don't think we need all this faux politeness and respect.

Or they're just a scammer taking their chances. Let me tell you that probably the majority of people selling accounts and merits these days have no accounts or merits to sell at all. They're just praying on the desperate and hope they get a few naive people to send them coins first and they'll then get nothing in return and there's nobody to turn to to get their money back. That's not to say merit and account sales don't happen, because they certainly do, they're just probably not as widespread as you might think and there's probably a lot more scammers looking for an easy scam then actual genuine sellers.

Please sir hilarious sir please unban my account sir I didn't mean to copy and paste all my posts sir I need that account to feed my family sir. Please sir I'm begging you sir.

Boils my piss when people use it every other word and practically as a replacement for a period (or a full stop if you speak proper English  ).

I'm willing to sell my 300 source merits for one Lambo.


Don't forget they're still going to need more merit to rise past Junior and above. I think Copper Member should just be some basic whitelisting function and it shouldn't get you a bigger signature. It's far too cheap and most abusers will just cough up for it. If we're going to let people buy the advantages of ranks then we should go with the Silver and Gold options I've suggested and make them sufficiently expensive so most can't afford them on their 200 accounts.


Yeah, it's only a matter of time before it becomes a mark or shame and a 'shitposter' rank. I hope most campaigns won't pay for it, but sadly ICO shitcampaigns won't care and will take whatever they can get.

So our posts become redundant once we hit a certain rank? We might not need them to move up a rank, but we may in the future if theymos implements another rank which requires x amount of merit, so stop being so self-centred. Merit is another way to see who are making the greatest contributions here, and that shouldn't stop being counted or become irrelevant once someone has achieved a certain rank.


Maybe because this is one of the only boards where anything productive gets discussed and is largely free of spam.


So? Neither do Politics and Society or Serious Discussion. Doesn't mean we shouldn't be meriting quality posts in there.



Or maybe there's only a handful of people actually making posts that are worth meriting. Lots of lower ranks get merited in here as well, that just isn't convenient for you.


Lol. It's not.

It's not the worst advice. You're certainly free to use "sir" and I'm sure many appreciate it or don't care either way, but most of the people I know on here actually don't like it when people use it. It seems more fake and sycophantic to me, and it's usually used when people are trying to suck up or apologise for something they've done wrong. You really don't need to use it. Just call people by their username and show politeness or respect in other ways if you wish.

Also, why are you assuming everyone is a sir? There are over 42 different genders and you are assuming we're one of two. #triggered.

Got a couple bets on today. Took Skybet's Price boost as I usually do of Man United, Palace and Leeds to win at 13/2. Put my free £5 bet on Leicester, Man City and Liverpool to win and both Fulham and Burnley games to end in draws. Not expecting it to come in but I like getting a bit risky with my free bets especially at good odds.


By headlines he probably means some idiot he saw post some baseless speculation somewhere. Wish people would stop calling or speculating for managers to be sacked after they lose a couple of games. Poch is going nowhere win or lose their next game. Spurs could easily win the league within a couple of years and Poch is probably the man to do it with them.

People whinged and whined like buthhurt babies and requested the same thing when ranks and even the merit system was first introduced, and things calmed down after a few weeks. The same thing will happen here and they'll need a while to calm down from their temper tantrums and dry their eyes, but after that and their rage has subsided the threads about merit will become less and less. I think the info and rules should be shown to Newbies upon sign up though like I proposed with the Newbie Welcome message. I think that will help and stop a lot of needless questions and threads asking the same stuff when the info can already be found. People just need to be directed to it.

Depends what you're asking. I think it's fair enough to go from Newbie to Junior Member (though I wouldn't be against it being five or even ten merit), but I don't think Junior's should be able to get a signature from a solitary merit, especially when it is so easy to just beg or buy or trade a single merit. I personally think signatures should be removed from Juniors and to get one you need ten merit and to become a Member. That would cut down on a lot of abuse and make it ten times harder to be able to earn via signatures here and hopefully it's something theymos will consider. I don't think anything is set in stone here either and it would be simple to require more merit and maybe that will happen if it becomes clear over time that abuse is rife and not really stopping many spammers.

Of course people are going to give merit to posts they agree with, but there are numerous factors that are involved in that decision. If someone makes me laugh or has entertained me then I might give them one for that because at least they've put some effort in, but spammers shouldn't be getting merit for utter shitposts and as long as that isn't happening then good, but I'm not going to not merit a post because someone might have an issue with it for whatever reason. Give them to whoever you want for whatever you want especially if they stand out to you for whatever reason and of course that is always going to be subjective.

People are just trying to nit pick things that are complete non-issues here. Big deal if you give a Legendary Member a merit for telling a shitposter to fuck off or for a meme that made you laugh. Legendaries don't even need the merits and if you're a merit source it's not like you've wasted a precious resource, but we're letting them know we enjoyed or appreciated the post amongst the mountains of mindless drivel and trash that are being spewed all over the forum. What about the hundreds of other merits we give for the hundreds of other quality posts? You're acting like this isn't happening and the merit system isn't working because we gave a couple of solitary merits for some memes or jokes to users we appreciate. Please. There are bigger issues here than this.

To be honest, it is kind of pointless having that sticky as it stands right now because neither admins are responding to these requests so all it's causing is just more PM spam to them and more frustrations to the members who are being ignored time after time. I get messages almost every day containing something along the lines of "I messaged both theymos and cyrus and didn't get a response" and it's annoying for me to have to respond to that as well. When I ignore them I get thrown under the same bus but there's nothing I can do about it and they ignore my messages about the situation too.

It's a similar situation with the ban email contact. I don't think that is being monitored at all, so it probably should be changed to say something like create a thread in Meta about it or someone should actually be employed to monitor the email address and respond to the people who need responses. It's pointless giving someone an address to contact when it's not even being looked into and mailing it isn't going to work. It's just wasting their time and giving therm false hope and causing more animosity towards both the forum and staff.
 


What is going to happen to those that can't prove ownership via a bitcoin address but an alt one, or those that can provide neither but can show plenty of other evidence to prove ownership? With or without the automatic system there's still going to be a lot of accounts that need manually reviewing, and this is why someone should probably be given the power to look into accounts now because someone is still probably going to need to do it with or without the automatic system.