I didn't think it was garbage, but as I said, the merit was for the fact that the poster appeared to have done some research before posting. Maybe I was conned, but I think researching before posting should be encouraged.

I don't know which ones they are, as I have never stopped to read one. I fail to see why one needs a massive image to state a few lines of text. They just kill the thread for me, and I wonder how many people actually read them. It's also a waste of bandwidth, and slow down the thread loading. If you can't read joining up writing, and you need an infographic, then you could pull it down by clicking a link. That would be better than imposing an oversized image on most thread readers in my opinion.

There is an easy solution. Restrict new members to the beginners board until they make a number of posts ( maybe 10)

I've just awarded a point to a new(ish) member who posted in the beginners board. I decided to look through page 4 of that board, and I only found one post that I liked. Am I being too severe, or is it just that there are too many repetitive and thread bloating posts still?

I dredged this thread up from page 4, and I awarded one merit to the above poster for making a helpful post.

I think it is sad that nobody else commented.

Or the moderators could clean up the boards so that meritable posts can be seen and rewarded.

One thing to think about is that if a good post isn't rewarded because it has sunk into the swamp, then visitors to BitcoinTalk will probably not see it either. This means that the perceived value of the forum is diminished, and this can lead to a potential reduction in advertising revenue from the forum's advertising.

That's a bit of a condemnation of the merit system.

I find them unreadable and annoying, and I just close the thread when I see one. I think they are unfair to posters who follow the killer post.
If you need to create one, then please post a link to the image, and don't embed the image itself.

They are probaably preparing for the announcement of the FedCoin.

I gave you a merit for that post, and I suspect this will be another controversial award by me, so here is my justification.

The award was not really for the post, although it was precise and free from bloat. The award was for the fact that you had done some research before you made the post, and hopefully it will encourage others to do the same.

Do merit sources get sMerit or merit points. The idea of sMerit is that good posters should be able to evaluate posts, and award sMerit to worthy ( in their opinion ) posts. That should be a continuing ( but diminishing ) flow. The danger in decaying unawarded sMerit is that it can push members into awarding sMerit to posts that they feel are mediocre, or in dumping them onto historic posts. Neither of those choices is beneficial to the forum in my opinion. Also, it can take quite a bit of time to hunt around looking for quality posts, and I would prefer to wait until a reasonable post arrives in a thread that interests me before I give out points.

You could say the same about any asset - including Bitcoin and gold. However, my point is more about discussions where they relate to Bitcoin.

It's not that we don't bother with the boards, in my case I couldn't contribute, and I couldn't evaluate posts. The answer is for bilingual members to frequent the boards. Alternative a Romanian merit source could evaluate the posts.

Part of the problem may be that some of the alternative language boards are being reported as low value spam areas ( I don't know if this is relevant to the Romanian board ). If this is the case, then the members of that board should endeavour to clean up the posting.

I'm interested in quite a variety of things, and I enjoy taking part in discussions about them. I'm having trouble in raising any interest in a few of them here, and I'm a bit surprised, as I would have thought others would be interested. Some of the topics are -

Domain names -
Domain names are virtual assets, and also they are essential for the building of a website. Several registrars accept and pay in Bitcoin both for registrations, and for the sale and purchase of domain names. The value of Crypto domain names are increasing at the moment, and I would have thought this would be a good basis for discussion.

Bitcoin memorabilia-
Bitcoin is maturing, and there are many promotional items from its past. Some of these are collectible. There is an abundance of tee-shirts, hats, coins and similar items, but there have been some unusual items such as the Bitcoin knife, the wax seal for paper wallets, and the sneakers. I started a gallery here - http://bitcoinuncovered.com/bitcoin-memorabilia/ , and I would be grateful for some help in finding other items.

Gaming asset exchanges -
Gamers have been trading assets such as weapons and ammunition for some time, but I am starting to see an increase in the use of crypto-currencies to facilitate this. I'm not a gamer, but I'd be interested in discussions about the use of Bitcoin as a payment method.

There are some other topics, but those will do for the moment. I'm not sure which board to use for these discussions, I've tried a few starts, but the threads drop fairly quickly, and once they arrive on page 3, then they are dead. Is it just that there is no interest in the topics here on BitcoinTalk?

The merit system seems to be settling down, and I think that broadly it is a reasonable concept, and a useful addition to the forum. The only thing I would change is the maximum award per member per post. I think it should be reduced to 2. I suspect that the pattern of merit awards will be considered, and there will be some changes in the methods of creating sMerits and merit faucets. For example, if people are abusing their ability to award sMerit, then they should be deprived of that ability. It may also be useful for some members to receive one sMerit for every merit they receive if they are using the sMerits wisely.

 I would also like to see an end to begging for merits via the soup kitchens and food banks. A better solution is the closing of spam threads, and the merging of others, this would allow members to find interesting threads in the swamp. Moving other threads to more relevant boards like speculation, beginners, and political would probably help as well.

Another useful change would be a cap on the size of images. I've closed several threads because of oversized images, and this isn't fair to the posters with comments following the image.

I started this thread on the Meta board. Other members have added some good and valid points.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2890454.0

I tried that with the serious discussion board, but it didn't really work. I suspect this is becuse posts don't increase post count, and sigs aren't allowed.

Thanks for posting that. I like the concept that a thread is a public conversation amongst members.

I don't look on the frog pond ( Bitcoin discussion ) board very often. The threads are mainly about the same old topics about replacing banks, the price going up or down, China, Russia, does your dog like Bitcoin etc. The replies are usually the same old coments recycled as well. If it was kept clean, then it would be easier to find good posts, but at the moment, it seems to be quite a lot of work looking through the threads.

I tried to kick start the serious discussion board, but didn't have much success, it sounds as if I should go and have a look at it now,

Maybe the merit system ws introduced to reduce the dominance of immigrants to the forum taking over with their bounty hunting and sig spamming.