Well Pmalek actually did that, i assume you somewhat missed his post above, i will quote it for you below, i am also of the opinion that more users should be encouraged to join in the merit system (giving and receiving), though it is clearly understandable if a user doesn't really care about such, and then users who have such criteria that a user should be involved in the system before earning merits from them could also likewise skip their post in relation to merits, except it is a post of extremely high quality, just as Pmalek highlighted below. Having said that, we will see over the coming weeks if OP is the type that hoards merits; and God Meta has been somewhat free from newbies making a lot of threads about merits, so i really hope you're wrong and we do not go back to that . Here is the post i spoke about earlier:

They are a good source of extra income, but i really wouldn't call it a reliable source of income, do not get me wrong, i know some campaigns pay quite well and the value could really be high for some users based on their country of residence, but that doesn't eliminate the 'uncertainty' around campaigns/bounties such as: quite a lot of bounties do not pay their participants, and for the ones who pay, they give out worthless stuff, as for signature campaigns, they can end quite abruptly, with no notice at all, now imagine being on the receiving end of any of these scenarios if you rely solely on one of this source of income.

I know there have been quite a lot of complaints of late from active reporters that users aren't getting banned after being reported for plagiarism, but do you think there is actually a new rule to it? Personally i do not think so, i think if there was, the forum would have been updated on the whole matter. Don't you think it could be that most of the mods who handle ban cases have prolly been busy with real life issues and all, maybe that is why they usually miss the first or second report and then act on it when so much of their attention has been drawn to the issue (mind you, i am just assuming that could be it).

I don't think so too, no disrespect to Athletico Madrid but i believe City will be too strong for them and i expect the champions of England to progress to the next round, Athletico will come into the game with a defensive mindset for sure, just as they always do, and i think that will be their own undoing as City will throw everything at them and get a couple of goals. Having said that, if Athletico are to have any chance in this game then they must change their philosophy of parking the bus, if they come into this game with that tactic, they are going to get beat pretty well.

I do not see how that is a problem, the both of them are the most comfortable players in front of goal in the team, and quite rightly they are the two players Conte will want to see the ball on their feet in front of the opposition goal, cause they will more often than not make the net to bulge. Look at it this way: the whole team does their job well, Kane and son combine and score, no problem at all. What i think is Spurs' problem is inconsistency, they find it hard to win numerous games on the spin, they either win today, draw tomorrow, lose in a forthnight, and then win again afterwards, that is being erratic at its best and that is what will cost them a top four finish this season, cause in my opinion, 4th position is Arsenal's for the taking.

To be honest i do not really agree with this part, fresh graduates or whosoever doesn't need to learn about Bitcoin in a school to understand the network or to harness its benefits, there are more than a million materials to choose from in order to learn about Bitcoin, there are books, varieties of them for that matter, one is 'Mastering Bitcoin' by Andreas Antonopoulos, there are so many videos on youtube and other platforms as well, there is also this forum and many more.

Having said that, even if this is to be implemented, in some parts of the world it is going to be somewhat difficult to get teachers on the subject, people who do not have sufficient knowledge about Bitcoin could take up the job and start spreading misconceptions and fake theories which will affect prospective learners.

Another thing is safety, when Bitcoin is learnt in physical groups like a school, people could easily lose personal info of their wallet like their seed phrases and thus lose their funds, for example, since the teacher is prolly going to be teaching novices about Bitcoin, he could prolly be a scammer who will teach them how to buy Bitcoins into their wallet, but he himself would keep a copy of their seed phrase, and with that steal funds from the students, maybe i am being paranoid, but it is possible, i believe Bitcoin should be learnt individually, without the help of a personal teacher or mentor.

Absolutely, the role played by Nigeria in crypto adoption in Africa cannot be overemphasized, whether the IP addresses indicating Lagos are from other states in Nigeria, that doesn't matter, as long as it is within the shores of our dear country. I expect crypto adoption in Africa (more specifically in Nigeria) to continue growing sporadically, Nigerians for example are very enterprising and industrious people, so it was always expected that we will jump on this network and completely harness its benefits.

If we are to be honest, it is our government that is making things difficult for us and giving us a bad name to the rest of the world, every average Nigerian youth is somewhat creative and curious for knowledge, and i am pretty certain that the highest percentage of Nigerians involved in crypto are the youths, the more the government tries to limit us, the more we find escape routes to success. This growth will definitely continue, as sooner rather than later people who are ambivalent about the network would be convinced to join when they are exposed to its benefits.

Congratulations mate, users experience different speed levels in their quest for a new rank, yours might have taken quite a while, but now it is finally here i am pretty sure it now feels like the wait was actually worth it. With the introdiction of the merit system ranking up has little or no shortcuts, so a lot of it is on the level of quality displayed by individual users, so well done in getting to this stage. Legendary rank might seem far now, but 'more of the same please' and you'll be there eventually, congratulations once again.

Alongside the tean that will be champions, the team that will finish fourth is also yet to be decided, Arsenal are in the most favorite position to end fourth at the moment, but Spurs and United are still close to Arsenal, and even though i don't think anything dramatic will happen that will take either of them above the gunners, it still doesn't rule out the possibility of it happening.

Having said that, as far as the title is concerned, City remains my favorite team to win it, credit to Liverpool for fighting back so hard and making the end part of the season very interesting, but i expect City to just edge them by the finest of margins.

It will be quite an exodus if all of those players leave the team all at once, and personally i doubt they will all leave at the same time, i have not seen any speculation linking donnarumma out of the team of late, i think he is happy at PSG, he is getting good playing time even though he has a strong competition for his position in the person of Keylor Navas, but he still gets the nod to stay between the sticks more often than not, so i think he will stay.

Having said that, the situation with Mbappe looks all but settled as i believe he will leave the team at the end of the season, it looks like Madrid would be the ones acquiring his signature. As for Messi and Neymar, they looked happy many weeks back, but a lot has changed in the past couple of weeks, after the humilating exit from the CL, and receiving boos in their sebsequent league match, that can tell on their mentality, they could prolly feel the fans aren't on their side, and that could result in an exit, but nothing is certain yet.

Xavi isn't the sort of manager to underestimate teams and allow complacency to set it, so i absolutely do not see him doing that, Barcelona are still in their resurgence stage thus every team is a competitor to them as they try their best to always make a statement whenever they step out on the pitch of play. I expect Barcelona to win this and progress to the next round, they have shown quite a lot of quality of late to tell that they will be too strong for their opponents.

Having said that, i know based on Barcelona's level in world football, they ordinarily would not be happy winning the Europa league, but in this present circumstances, and with what the club has been through in the past year, i believe they will take this one with smiles if they win it, and start competing for titles such as the laliga and the CL with the big teams again next season, just as has always been the case.

That is not an issue or a problem, here is the reason why it seems your activity is stuck:
So all you basically have to do is just wait and continue contributing on the forum as normal, when your next period is complete, your activity will be updated, if you want to know all about activity, check this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2766177.0

Merits is a very subjective issue, so if you are looking for a general criterion for giving them out, then i am afraid you would not find any, every user has their own personal criteria and you prolly should have yours, and that will help you to give out merits effectively when you see posts that meet your criteria.

But mind you that merit sources for example would prolly have a more lenient criteria for giving out merits since they get replenished every 30 days, and source merits not used up within that time get decayed, so they definitely would give out more merits that a user who isn't a MS. I said that so as you fix your criteria you understand that you might always run out of smerits, thus you make sure you give them out to a post you really like.

Having said that, the forum really doesn't care what you do with your smerits, just do not sell them, and do not give them to your alt accounts.

If that be the case, then make good use of the search button, you should know its use and importance by now, and as for 'finding your way through', things on the forum aren't as complicated as you are making it seem, just garner sufficient Bitcoin/forum knowledge, and you use it to communicate here.
You do not have to go as far as youtube to get knowledge about the forum, again, just use the search button.
No user is obliged to be nice to the other, just do not break the forum rules and that's that, you might want to wear a thicker skin so you do not have to worry too much; and NO, you did not break any rule.

And they did just that, they did not just get one, but two goals, Aubameyang and Araujo have given Barcelona a two goal lead as they are now in the dying stages of the first half, a very excellent display from Barcelona in this first half, they have clearly been the better team and they deserve to go into the break with this lead. Like i said before today, this is Barcelona's first real test after their resurgence, and they are absolutely bossing it, an awful amount of credit must go the way of Xavi and his boys for not giving up on this season, i hope they see this one through in the second half and take home all three points.

I second all of that, i mean Arsenal deserve that fourth position for how they have played this season, they started the season slow, but once they picked up form, there was no looking back from them and that is why they are where they are at the moment. Manchester United have had an 'up and down' season, they are very erratic, and they stand no chance to finish fourth this season, and when that happens it will sum up the sort of bad season they had, with no CL football for them next season, they could prolly lose one or two quality players and will struggle to allure quality players to their team in the next transfer window.

It was very well needed, many weeks ago i actually thought Juventus would not be able to qualify for the CL next season, but they have fought well and are now in a position that will take them to the CL next season, they just have to maintain it, i know they would love to be 1st position but the seria A is not like it used to be some seasons ago when Juve just runs away with the title, last season Inter did the magic, and this season is even more competitive with Ac Milan, Napoli, Inter and even Juve all seemingly gunning for the title, this is actually what we want to see every season, except you're prolly a Juve fan.

Yes, though i am not so sure, but i think the number of people who use completely/solely decentralized means are in the minority, i know everyone tends to go for that which suits them and is more convenient, but from my years in the network i think people need to sacrifice convenience for safety, security, anonymity and privacy, if it will take you some stress to protect yourself and your funds, then i think one should do it, the most convenient means most times in this network is usually the least secure; like for example, when people choose to use weak passwords so it be convenient for them to remember, not knowing it is a very wrong/bad thing to do.

And how many of such 'new tech' have we seen in the past, and where did they end up, do you remember when ICO and the rest were just as popular as DeFi and others nowadays, but what happened, we found out quickly that most of all these 'new techs', new projects and all are just being moved by hype, and when the hype slows down, that is more or less the end. When talking about actual utility, you are basically talking Bitcoin, it does not have to be receptive to all of these new stuffs coming into the market, cause it is already useful enough in itself to be used all around the world, most especially as a currency, what i mean is: a payment method.

How many of these new coins you are fascinated about is being used as a currency? Mind you, i am not questioning your love for new projects and their likes, but they are nothing compared to Bitcoin.

Quite a lot of users overlook the search button, if it definitely wasn't useful, then it wouldn't have been there in the first place, if forum users use the search button more frequently, then many threads will not be repeated.

Good topic, but i do not know if it will be useful in the long run when this thread leaves the first 3 or so pages, users would still repeat such threads again, so what is most important is that users should make use of the search button first before starting a thread, only then will they find already existing threads on the topics/suggestion they want to make, and compilations of already existing threads like the OP.