The merit system is a great innovation here, and it seems to be working well. The only thing that needs to be changed is that members need to stop posting about it to try to earn merits.

I think this could be the best solution. I think it would be worth including your identity on another platform in your profile as well. Of course , if you have 40 alts on a dozen platforms, you may not want to do that. This could help to protect your content as well.

Well in my case it's pretty easy to tie all the names together. I own upr8.com, JetCash.com, and TalkMerit.com, and they are all registered under the Baronets reseller name. I own the .com of that as well. Obviously fittotalk.com is another of my names.

That is probably an unusual situation. There is an about section in the steemit profile, and it would be easy to include something like btalk - jet cash in there.

That's interesting. I gave my post it's own subject title, and when you quoted my post, it took that title for your post, and not the thread title. I didn't realise that SMF did that.

You were a bit slow there, I did that a while ago.

The other contact details box seems to be the obvious place. The important thing now is to make people aware of this if it becomes the standard here.

Well I didn't award the merit anyway.

What about the other bit? I've added my Steemit name to my profile as I suggested. Is this something that others should do if they are active on other platforms?

I was about to award this post with a merit, but I though I would run a quick plagiarism check -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3212384.msg33568423#msg33568423
The check threw up this post on Steemit
https://steemit.com/scam/@bgsux/3-ways-to-identify-an-ico-scam

Now I have to ask a few questions.

Are both posts made by the same person, or has the new Bitcoin member copied the post from Steemit?
How can I check the identities?

I've started posting on Steemit. So far I haven't created any similar posts, but what should I do if I want to? One of the rules of Steemit is that posts have to be unique, but I'm not sure how rigorously that is enforced. What would be the safest thing to do? The easy answer would be to include my Steemit account name in my profile, but there isn't a box for that. I'm going to use the other contact information box to register my name. Is it likely that this will be checked if there is a suspected case of plagiarism?

Remove him as a merit source as he is effectively selling merit, and this is banned for merit sources. He should be red tagged and/or banned as well.

Well you haven't got huge growth potential if you are going to bump old threads like this. Why would we want to receive private messages from you. In fact based on the fact that you have just joined the forum, and you already want to change things, I don't think I want to read your posts either. I suspect that the next ones will be complaining about the merit system, and the fact that it is stopping you from becoming a millionaire by June.

I'm extremely disappointed by the low uptake of members for the Fit to Talk English project. The number of newbies whingeing because they can't get any merits, and blaming it on the fact that their English isn't good enough, must be in the hundreds. The members that are mildly active on the site can be counted on the fingers of one hand. This doesn't help those with a genuine interest in improving their posting skills. I wanted to keep the site for members of Bitcoin Talk, but I'm now considering inviting some posters from other forums to join.

Does anyone oblect to this?

Exactly, and oversized quotes by lazy posters, and those horrible  horizontal pyramids, are offensive to most members here.

Infographics are for the kindergarten. If you can't read, and need pictures, then go to YouTube. They clog up the threads, and slow down reading. I put people who use them where they belong - on ignore. I really hope they don't attract new members to the forum, what benefit will the kids from junior school be for us?

I don't really care about the ones that are accurate, but it would be nice to know where I had got it wrong. I guess the mods don't wnt to get into a discussion about their judgement, and that's the reason for the lack of feedback.

That's what I've got at the moment, and I've got the hump over it. I think I only reported one post since I dropped so low. If I'm out of touch with forum policy, then it isn't worth bothering imho, and with no feedback, I can't tell if I'm being unreasonable in having this opinion.

I'm so tired of reading this type of comment. I dropped my standards from 'quality' to 'good', and I still have trouble finding posts that I like, and when I do, it's often a legendary.

Most posts suffer from foot and mouth disease. Don't engage brain, open mouth, and put your foot in it.

It isn't just a couple - it's quite a lot of members.

What to do with them? That's easy, you put them on ignore. As a very general rule of thumb, a person who is too lazy to snip a long quote, probably doesn't have anything worthwhile to say.

I must be spending too much time here. The girl who is on lobby support today has just cleaned my notebook, and she has made a good job of it as well. She claimed it was a health risk.

She used the stuff they use to clean the tablets. It's just as wel lit wsn't the car park guy, as he uses a jet wash.

I had to put you on ignore because you hit so many of my off buttons.

- Begging for merit - yes you are, whatever you say, that is the primary purpose of this thread.
- I don't know you, and you are certainly not my brother.
- Use of the word 'Sir'.
- Posting this thread in Meta rather than beginners.

If you want me to take you off ignore- read the threads about posting and board rules. Try to improve your attitude towards membership of Bitcoin Talk, and submit an appeal ticket in a month or so.

Activity is the only thing that initiates a rank update, and it is based on regular community participation over a period of time, and it has limits to avoid over-accelerated rank increases. Merit is a barrier to prevent spammers and other low value posters from increasing rank - it does not initiate a rank update in itself.