They will just increase the Bitcoin mining difficulty to use it up.

All fiat currency held in bank deposits is virtual. People need to understand that, and then maybe they can open their minds to crypto-currencies,

There is an even worse possibility. Just imaging that the edited post now contains a glowing report for a scam coin. This can be seen as approval for the coin, and if the merit comes from a well respected member of the forum, it could mislead newbie "investors".

Lets step back to the 1970s for an analogy.

If you wanted to become a toolmaker, you didn't just turn on a lathe and start chopping away at metal. If you did that you would certainly mess up the work, you could damage the lathe, and you could even lose a hand or your life. What you did was to learn about the tools and their operation. You would take advice and educations from the craftsmen,and start with simple projects.

Gaining the most from Bitcoin Talk requires you to understand the tools that are available here, and to work with the many helpful members to master their use. The fact that it requires mental skills rather than physical skills doesn't really make it any different.

People who say they are leaving a forum never seem to go, they seem to hang on hoping that they will be noticed.

Those who actually leave just go, and they usually shut the door quietly.

There is a big problem at the moment in this forum. Spambies seem to be desperate to scratch the odd merit, and they  don't use any creativity or research ability. Instead they seem to think that starting a thread with an over-posted topic is a good way to gain merit, so they make some trivial alteration or twist in a concept, and add that to an over-polluted board. Old established member ( ie. people who have been here for more than 6 months) are pretty fed up with wading through the flotsam and jetsam emanating from the passengers here. This is why you can see direct comments by TMAN being merited for example.

The spambies need to realise that their pollution of the boards is creating the situation, and increasing their disadvantages here.

It's pretty obvious to all except the spambies. At the moment the forum is on life support, and many of us are trying to ensure that it isn't turned off. It isn't helped by the fact that so many spambies are depriving the boards of oxygen.

Oh how I wish that we could.

I believe that all my posts are of high quality - even the deleted ones- so why haven't I got over 5,000 merits?

 Quality is a subjective rating, and most of us have distorted perceptions of our value to the community. One of the advantages of the merit system is that it introduces some reality into our perceptions of self-worth. Instead of complaining about the merit system, use it as a barometer to fine tune your opinions and communication skills.

The excitement of finding another source of merits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkXcqH9-FL8

This looks like a great improvement to the security here.

Now, please could we have email confirmation of new registration applications, and a restriction that only one account can be associated with an email address. I am aware that it is easy to circumvent these restrictions, but it adds some more difficulties to the bot signups.

"Sir" is derived from the word "Sire", or "seigneur" in some other countries, and it was a form of address used when talking to a feudal lord, possibly a knight or a baronet. It was used by the serfs. It doesn't really have a use in the modern world other than as an obsequious form of address used by a shop assistant or waiter.

Does that work? We need to advise the girls so that they can avail themselves of the concept. I entreat you not to hide this under a bush.

It sounds like a good labour saving device.

You don't have to look through hundreds of posts in a hunt for the odd meritable one. I've actually broken ther scroll wheel on one mouse.

I see you didn't edit the useless quote out of your post.

I tend to award merits on impulse, and I often think I should check to see what I've done. I must dig out the link and bookmark it.

"Sir" used to annoy me, but I've got used to it now.

"Merit" has become annoying.

"Newbie" is the latest one, but only when it is used to refer to a spambie.

I've had duplicate posts created when I have been having connection problems.The forum software usualy blocks the second post,but a couple have crept through. I usually edit out the text in the second one, and add a mod request to delete it.

You can't report your own posts, so that seems to be the only way to handle this fairly rare problem.

Well if this continues, I expect that Theymos will stop the half life generation of sMerits, remove all of therm from existing wallets, and leave it to the merit sources, and possibly create some delegated sources.

Unfortunately the spambies are getting a merit. A single merit is far to low for such a major advantage. They are being given the merit by their puppet masters if they are alts or slaves. They also can receive a merit from a generous member in the mistaken belief that they are helping the forum by being sympathetic to the poster's plight.

I think Theymos has got quite a difficult  situation with this. By allowing account sales and bounty spamming, he has created an environment where account theft can be rewarding, even for short term use. The environment allows for the front running of account sales, and also the attempted scam sales of accounts that are merely inactive, and not available for sale.

I believe that the primary responsibility must be the preservation of member's accounts, and this is obviously a factor that Theymos considers to be important.

Maybe there should be a sticky that alerts members to the dangers of insecure use of their accounts here, and the ways that they can protect them.