I'd love to be able to give out 5-8 merits to some exceptional posts (but I would reserve such a large grant to ranks lower than Hero), but previously there was no way I could do this and still have enough sMerits left over to merit all the other good posts I see.

Thank you for checking my meriting history for the last 120 days.  I haven't even been a merit source for that long--I think it was at the end or middle of september when Theymos added that batch of 36 new sources.  I've been trying to spread out merits to deserving posts (and NOT just the really good posters on Meta who don't need them to rank up) but always ran out of sMerits even when I became a merit source.  That's why I had to ask Theymos for this favor, which I'm grateful for, as well as for his reply here.  I may disagree with some of his administrating tactics, but he's no dummy and I've seen worse administrators. 

I'm on the hunt now mainly in Economics/Speculation, Meta, and Reputation, though occasionally I stray far from my usual sections.  Yes, I definitely do have a lot of sections blocked, but that's because there are only so many hours in the day to read and write on bitcointalk, and I just find some sections too spam-infested to even bother with.  I would be tickled pink to be able to merit a good post by a Newbie in Bitcoin Discussion, but trying to find one of those is incredibly difficult just by searching and reading through posts--that's why there needs to be some sort of reporting mechanism.  The individual threads don't seem to be effective.

I will say this again:  ***If you're a lower-ranked member and think you or someone else has made or found a post that's gone unmerited, drop me a PM and I'll take a look.***  I've made the offer in other threads, but got zero takers.  In the PM, just write something like "Merit?" and then a link to the post.  I'll either merit it or I won't, but you can be guaranteed I'll look at the PM, the post, and most likely the member's post history as well.

I'd love to hear more about these same things, but I'm going to tell you something.  People from all over Asia and Africa are writing on this forum all the time, and they're mostly very generic statements and don't give the reader any clue as to how crypto is being used in any of those places.  I was trying to figure out the extent to which bitcoin and Dash specifically were being used in Venezuela, where they're actually having a hyperinflation situation, and all I've ever seen were the news quotes from Hydrogen.  All the comments added nothing to any of it.

Maybe I've gotten too cynical, but I don't expect a lot from the lower ranks in terms of a serious discussion about bitcoin in the 3rd world.  This, unfortunately, is what we usually get:


And so on.  Maybe if you start threads in Serious Discussion or Ivory Tower, there may be some merit-worthy discussion, but not in most of the other sections.

So have you asked any of these people if they've ever heard of or used bitcoin?

That's good, because I was going to bump this thread like I said I would when 2019 came around, and here we are.  Bitcoin right now is $3805 per the preev rate.  And man, if you're still predicting roughly $80k by the end of the year....I don't know, man.  We're a hell of a long way away from that right now. 

I'm hoping for the best, but I'd still be willing to bet that you're wrong.  We'd have to hear some seriously good news and have some heavy buying by investors with deep pockets for bitcoin to get anywhere near $80k.  I still have this thread bookmarked, so I'll check in at the end of 2019, k?

Ouch, that hurts.  I thought you loved me--you even bought me dinner and a movie before coitus.

Seriously, why not make a thread about something like this so that the community knows what's going through the mind of a merit source?  Though I didn't anticipate the outcome, it turns out that it was a good thing I made my 'gripe' public, because 1) Theymos acted, and 2) We're all discussing the changes that got made, and all of this is out in the open.  And yeah, my first inclination was to PM Theymos, but I've never done that, don't think he likes me all that much, and didn't think I'd get any sort of response.  I'm sure he gets tons of PMs daily, and I don't know how he responds to them.  Cut me just a tiny bit of slack, eh?

Yeah, I'm glad o_e_l_e_o (I hate typing out his name) got made a source, and because of the sMerits Theymos gave me I was able to merit that post of yours I mentioned.  I didn't get anything near a mega-grant of sMerits, but it'll last me for a while and it was much more than what I had before.

I've no clue as to what Theymos is thinking along the lines of adding new merit sources, but he obviously surprised me by adding new ones yesterday.  I thought it'd be a while before he'd do that, so you ought to make an application thread if you're really interested.  You're another member who I think knows good posts from bad, so I'd support your application.

Props to you.  You were the other one along with o_e_l_e_o that I was wondering about.  You two seemed to have the strongest applications as of late. 

Didn't think Theymos was going to tweak anything so soon, or add any more merit sources this soon but he's surprised me yet again.  Pleasantly.  Good luck, bro.

I don't want to clog up this thread with a discussion about this, but when Theymos tweaked the system in September, when a lot of Jr. Members were busted back down to Newbie rank, there were a lot of them trying to make the best posts of their lives in Meta, hoping to get that all-important 1 merit.  And usually the posts weren't all that good anyway; they were just longer.

The merit system was designed to suppress the shitposters from ranking up.  I really don't want to merit the one post that's decent from a user whose post history is 99.9% garbage.  I might do it if that one post was good enough, but it'd be a tough decision--because I don't like to see shitposters getting merits.

Which doesn't make sense grammatically and I have no clue as to what he means, really.

Investors tend to sell off losing investments toward the end of the year as they can write them off on their taxes.  Stocks usually go down in December as a result, but bitcoin has been flat--not a surprise since I don't think a lot of bitcoiners mention anything about bitcoin on their tax forms. 

This interest rate hike has been a long time coming.  People have been getting cheap money for years now, and it's no wonder the stock market exploded in the past decade.  I looked at the DJIA today and it's down quite a bit, but I was actually surprised it wasn't down more.  The Fed has been reluctant to raise interest rates, because they've been trying to stimulate the economy since 2009 and don't want to pop the stock market "bubble".  It's not really a bubble, but if they raise rates too much, too fast, the market could crash pretty hard.

Congrats, let's spread 'em out.

So do you think he increased allocation to more active merit sources perhaps and decreased allocation to the less active ones?  Theymos will probably stay silent like the invisible hand of Adam Smith that moves the merit economy, so I'm guessing that's what he did.  I too am curious about who the new merit sources are.  I suppose if they don't reveal themselves, they'll eventually get outed in that thread that does it mathematically.  I forget where that thread is, so I can't link to it at the moment.

Edit:
Lol, thank you.  I'm a bit slow at remembering where I see things on this forum and forgot the title of that thread.

Well I don't know if "broken" is the best term to describe the state of the DT system, but it's definitely a fragmented bunch among the DT1 and DT2 members.  Some are active in tagging members who need tagging, some don't, and some haven't even been active doing anything here for quite a while.  Then there's the disagreements and bickering and so forth--so the type of report button suggested in the OP is definitely not going to function well.  

Exactly.  I don't monitor that section much, but I think some DT2 members do and they tag scammers if the accusation is presented with convincing evidence.  I negged a couple of members recently but had to remove a neg because it looked like the guy was trying to make good on what he owed but couldn't locate the accuser and didn't expect someone to buy something from a very old sales thread.  Anyway, that section should be monitored by DT members, but I think it's gotten inconsistent lately.  I could be wrong about that, but I've seen some accusations with evidence where nothing was done by DT members, so it's hit-or-miss.

I do my best to tag account dealers; Vod's been covering the lending section for years; actmyname and Lauda (formerly DT) had the merit abusers for a while until that went out of fashion; not sure who's got the actual crypto-scammers covered because I don't check who gives what feedback much.  Suchmoon, LoyceV, and marlboroza I think.  I'm not sure how active DarkStar_ is with handing out negs.  Who am I missing?  Honestly I have a custom trust list and am not even sure who's on DT2 anymore.  

Edit: Cryptodevil is another DT2 scam hunter, but he works in sections I have blocked. I think he's pretty active along with xtraelv, who isn't on DT as far as I know.

Holy shit, yes I did!  Thank you, Theymos, I appreciate it.  I got your PM and suchmoon's, and I'm assuming there's been some more sMerits put into circulation, and that's great.

Now I'm going to keep an eye on LoyceV's thread and see if there are any newbies with good posts, but I'm going to do some hunting on my own tomorrow.  Good deal, made my day!

I've been doing that in some threads where I can't merit them, like here and here.  One of the posts is by o_e_l_e_o, who is definitely not under-merited, but the other post was from a member I'm not familiar with and thought that his post made sense and looked like he at least put some effort into it.

OK, I appreciate that (especially from QS, who has never heard a good word spoken about him from me) but I'm not asking for personal merits in this thread--I just want more sMerits from Theymos.

I'm going to see if I can merit those posts I linked with what I just got.

Edit:  I only had 1 sMerit, so I gave it to the lower-ranked member (Coyster) and o_e_l_e_o got a merit for his post from TryNinja.

You know I thought about sending him a PM, but I didn't think that would be effective for some reason since I'm pretty sure he gets tons of them, and I know he reads threads in Meta. 

Plus I wouldn't mind reading some comments from other merit sources about how their monthly allocation is going.  I think Jet Cash said in a thread a few days ago that he had something like 100 sMerits or more, and I've never had anywhere near that amount.  As I said, I don't know who's slacking or what other sources are doing with their sMerits, but I'm chronically short.  I very much want to participate in LoyceV's new thread and sure I'll be able to do so in the future, but I just need more source sMerits.

No, it's not OK in my opinion and I thought it was pretty well-established early on that it was either against the rules to do so or at least was common knowledge that it's extremely frowned upon.  I also think some members have gotten tagged for doing so--in fact, I'm sure of it.

Giving a merit to an alt account is misusing the merit system.  It's like being on a corporate compensation committee and approving your own raise.  Sketchy at best.

Hope that got your attention, Theymos. 

I respect that you made me a merit source even though I did not ask to be one.  I'm trying to give merits to the lower ranks (Newbie-Sr. Member), but I'm always falling short of sMerits.  Always.  And I've earned quite a few sMerits from my own posts, and those are all gone now too. 

I would absolutely love to give something like 5 merits to a great post, but as it stands I feel like I have to use my sMerits in an ungenerous, miserly, ass-squeaking, and niggardly way.  Can you please, please, please up the amount of sMerits I get?  If you take a look at my meriting history, you can see what I'm talking about.  I give them out in dribs and drabs and I'd like to be able to give them out more liberally. 

Got no idea how merit-givingly active I am in comparison to other merit sources, nor do I hear any other merit source complaining about their monthly source allotments, so I don't care if you increase any other merit source's monthly sMerit number.  I just want more so I can give out more.  I would respectfully ask you to consider my request, and I thank you in advance for doing so.

Someone give this post a merit for me, eh?  

I'm all out of sMerits, and I'd better be gettin' some source sMerits soon, else I'm really going to start to get cranky.  I don't know what's up with this source supply--it's definitely not enough if I'm having to use up all of those plus all the ones I've earned in a matter of days, and I don't even give individual posts more than 2-3 merits usually.

I'd probably give a merit to this post as well.  Maybe I'll check back when I get topped up if I can remember to do so.

I fully support your application, and all I had to do was read the thread title.  I know you know what a good post is vs. a shitpost, and I would have no worries about any shenanigans on your part.  Hopefully Theymos adds more sources, gives more sMerits to those sources, and that we can all figure out a way to find the under-merited posts.  I think you'd be a good addition to the merit source crew, and good luck.

Theymos's time seems always to be the excuse for these things.  Can't he either delegate some duties to staff or get some volunteer help here? 

We all know damn well there's no lack of coders on bitcointalk, and I'm pretty sure some of them wouldn't mind helping out.  We already see that in the way that quite a few members, on their own time, come up with detailed suggestions about solutions to some of the problems the forum has.  That way Theymos wouldn't have to spend any more of his precious time creating a fix from scratch and would only have to review the submitted code and either reject it or accept it and then implement it. 

I don't claim to know how Theymos spends his time, but it does seem obvious that he ought to get some people involved.  He can easily do that without relinquishing any sort of control over the forum, if that's the problem.  The problem is I have no idea what the problem is with him.  lol

OK, I bookmarked that page and have it on watch.  And dammit, I'm now out of sMerits.  But props to you for doing this, and we'll see how it works.  I still think a button like the report to moderator one would be the best option, but at least you're doing something creative that may have a shot.

Why does it seem like my source sMerits never seem to get replenished fast enough?  It always seems like I never have enough of them.  Is Theymos giving fewer sMerits to the last batch of merit sources he added in September (or whatever month that was)?  I'd be happy to give out more merits per post, but the best I can manage right now is about 2-3 without running out of sMerits--whether they're source merits or the ones I've earned.

Maybe Theymos will read this and heed my prayer that I can get more sMerits to give out.  It's not like I'm giving them all to Legendary members, either.  I'm trying to help out lower-ranked ones as best I can.  Anyway, thanks LoyceV.

Damned if I don't like the idea, too.  All of your reasons are valid as to why it might not work, but even if people were reporting their own posts, they still could be good.  And if such a system were created, perhaps a "reject" button for the merit source would be viable if a post wasn't deemed worthy of merit.  Kind of like a "bad report" thing with the report to moderator function.

Part of me thinks that not enough people do enough reading on the forum or care about other members getting merit, much like you said.  If I got a report on a post, I'd certainly have to check that user's post history to make sure that they weren't just making a single good post amidst a sea of bad ones in order to rank up to Jr. Member, for example.  It could work, though.  I'm pretty sure there are a lot of posts that are going unmerited and probably even unseen.  

I'd actually like to hear Theymos's opinion on something like this.  There really isn't any system in place whereby merit sources can find the hidden gems.  We've tried individual threads, but those turn into shitfests where shitposters point to a bunch of garbage posts they've made.  Actmyname had one going for a while, and even with the threat of a neutral feedback marking them as a shitposter, people were still asking for their garbage posts to be merited.  

If there was a "report to merit source" button, I don't think it'd take too much time to decide yes or no--as long as there's no pressure on the merit source to respond to the report.  There shouldn't be, since merit sources are all volunteers.

I wouldn't mind this so much.  I know stuff like that would happen, but it seems like it would be fairly easy to just glance at the reported post and decide whether it was merit-worthy.  For individual merit sources, maybe a "block reporter" button would be a good idea if a member reports too many shitposts.

Your threats are meaningless here.  Obviously you don't understand a lot about the forum here, else you wouldn't be spouting all of this nonsense.  Suchmoon has given out a lot of negs (but I think I'm still the alpha negger), and I can pretty much guarantee that none were given without a reason.  Some DT members might disagree with each other about certain things, but any DT member who consistently makes bad calls when leaving negs get booted off DT.

All the negs you see on suchmoon's trust page are likely retaliatory feedback, same as mine.  Suchmoon hasn't scammed anyone here, nor have I, but that doesn't stop anyone from claiming what they want to.  The key is whether there's a valid reference link with the feedback.  

I don't know a damn thing about Minex, but if suchmoon suspects it's a scam and that you're shilling for it, he/she's got every right to neg you.  Get over it, because as you've been told, trust is not moderated, i.e., complaining to staff about your situation isn't going to do a damn bit of good.  This is how we keep the forum clean.

Nobody makes money by giving other members negative trust.  You might not understand this, but people are motivated to do things by reasons other than money.  How do suppose such a thing works, anyway?  You think people somehow earn money by leaving negs?