My question is:  did you just wake up from a long nap to find the merit system now exists?  Have you missed the many, probably 100, threads in Meta already discussing the merit system and all the advice for people who want to earn it?  A new thread like this is completely unnecessary and just bloats the forum with more nonsense.  And your capitalization of the word merit is extremely annoying and there's no need to do that.

tl;dr: This has been discussed to death already.  Lock this thread to prevent spammers with zero merits from coming here and sharing their opinions on how to earn merits.

I'll agree with this, but I don't think the staff is supposed to be responsible for making this forum like some fucking child's birthday party, hiring clowns, hanging balloons, and leading people in singing songs and so forth.  That's not the purpose of bitcointalk.

On the other hand, I have to admit that it was the drama around here that initially drew me to the forum, because other discussion forums (not about bitcoin) I've been or still am a member of are far more regulated, censored, and boring than this one.  So my answer to the question is "no".  This is one of the least boring forums I've been a member of, especially in sections like Meta & Reputation.  I wouldn't exactly call myself a drama queen, but a lot of what happens around here amuses me to no end.

Sweetheart, this forum is full of tech nerds who probably know how to access genres of pornography that I probably haven't even heard of--and they know how to do it for free.  There's a better chance of hell freezing over than anyone paying you a single satoshi for some erotic writing.  That style of sexual stimulation was all the rage in about 1889, but we're now living in the digital age where every fetishistic thing you can imagine can be bought or bootlegged and downloaded without spending any money.

I just got hollered at for saying this in another thread, but the people who frequent bitcointalk are far more interested in holding onto their bitcoin than they are in spending it on frivolous things, especially things that can be gotten for free.  This is in addition to the fact that you could be a total scammer just looking for horny perverts to hand over their crypto.  You have no reputation on bitcointalk and there's no reason anyone should trust you to hold up your end of the bargain.

I didn't make any claims that he/she broke any rules, just that I highly doubt there's going to be much demand for a service like this, an opinion that I stand by.  If you can prove me wrong, I'll eat my hat.

That isn't quite true.  There are trolls on the internet who love fucking with people who are passionate about something--doesn't matter if it's Audis, fountain pens, comic books, or bitcoin.  Their mission is to draw attention to themselves in a negative way, because to them any attention is good attention, and they're obviously not getting enough of the healthy kind of it in real life.

So just because you see someone trolling as hard as they can against bitcoin on a bitcoin forum, it doesn't mean they're being paid by anyone to do so.  I used to hear that a lot on the conspiracy theory websites back when I visited them (before I figured out that doing so was affecting my sanity).  People would say that if you don't believe WTC7 was taken down by nanothermite charges, you're being paid by the US government to spread disinformation and so on.  But although that's certainly one possibility, it's remote, and Occam's Razor would suggest that people are doing this for their own pleasure.

Don't know about that.  A person who does such things certainly knows how to save money on travel expenses, although he probably doesn't have much income and money to invest with.

That's the best solution, which a lot more people should avail themselves of.  That ignore button is worth its weight in gold, so to speak.

I un-ignored the altcoin section briefly because I had to see if I could check a member's older posts in sections that I have on ignore, and stumbled upon this thread.  Here are some of the first posts I've seen thus far, and these are why this section needs heavy moderation:


Responding to OP:  I wouldn't buy $5 worth of most altcoins if you had a gun to my head.  Bitcoin hasn't even made much progress as far as merchants accepting it, and it still remains mainly a plaything of speculators.  And shitcoins?  IF people are speculating in them, i.e., pumping and dumping them, that's all they're ever going to be good for.  And eventually people are going to figure out that they're not worth owning at all--not for the short-term, not for the long-term. 

They're not going to get used for anything, and anyone can create a new altcoin so there's no scarcity value in addition to lack of utility.  They're fucking doomed, but the market insanity hasn't died down yet. 

Your account was registered in 2014, but I can only view posts from April 2017 on.  Where are all the other posts you made?  Did you delete them because your account was purchased or hacked?

Either way, with gems such as
....which showcase your brilliant, analytical mind I'm sure you're a strong contender for one of the open slots in Chipmixer.  Let me know about why I can't see your earliest posts, OK?

Your observations are incoherent.  I literally have no idea what you're trying to communicate--that's how bad your English is.  You were already on my ignore list and I made the silly decision to look at this thread anyway.  My mistake. 

The only thing I do understand about this thread is that OP is looking for merits and not trying to communicate anything useful or even intelligible.  Go back to whatever you've been doing for the last year and three months since you registered and don't try to spam for merits in the Meta section again.  It's not appreciated.

Where are all your posts from December 2016-August 2017?  Did you purchase this account at some point?

From looking at the posts that I could view, it's obvious you're a complete shitposter and my guess is that at some point you copy/pasted something from somewhere and passed it off as your own original work, i.e., you plagiarized a source.  That's the reason most people get bans like yours.  Did you do something like that?

Also, if the kevingreen account is permabanned for plagiarism or whatever, I would request that a mod permaban the Uzoma2018 account as well so that it doesn't become part of a ban evasion scheme.  I'd like to find out why the kevingreen account got banned, but I'll likely tag the Uzoma2018 account if this is a permaban.

Edit:
So you're saying that the reason I don't see any posts between the time you registered in Dec. 2016 to Aug. 2017 is that you had all your posts deleted?  Also, have you not learned how to properly quote a post in all the time you've been here? 

In addition, you did not answer my question as to whether you bought this account.

No, the real reason in his case is very, very clear:


And this should be in its own thread, not this one.  Cryptobulls.exchange/abhi7pund is obviously a shitposter so bad that he got a ban, which is a rarity around here.  It's good to see mods taking action against spammers like him.  If he's not bright enough to understand what was written in the ban message, he has no place on this forum.  This isn't one of those special schools for mentally disabled internet users.  Perhaps he should leave bitcointalk altogether and go out and search for such a place.

Yeah, I don't know about that.  Human beings are not computers, though a lot of them rely on emotion far too much when making decisions.  Logic ought to rule the vast majority of our decisions, but it's extremely hard to keep emotion out of everything.  Whatever problem Lutpin is having in real life is probably, my guess is, causing him some negative emotions and is also causing him to act out of character by not paying campaign participants on time.

Both of these things are true, which is why I left him negative feedback.  His recent actions were pretty much a textbook case of a lack of trustworthiness.  It's not like him to act like he did, but the truth is that he did screw a lot of people over.

Well, when Bill Clinton got the blowjob treatment from Madame Lewinski, everyone in the world was focusing on his reputation and ability to continue running the United States.  I never heard a peep about him not picking up the tab for the dry cleaning of her cocktail dress.

Also, I haven't kept up with every aspect of this drama to date.  Have the campaign participants of all of Lutpin's campaigns been paid, or only some of them?  I think he paid 777Coin and Bitvest but I don't know what other pies he had his fingers in.  Lightlord certainly shares some responsibility in this debacle, too.

This is precisely why I gave up on visiting any of the altcoin sections.  I was acting as a bitcointalk vigilante for a short time, reporting those "great project" posts, but there are so many accounts making them and the sheer number of those types of posts being made is mind-numbing--and very frustrating when you're trying to report them all. 

You could easily focus just on one ANN thread, make 100 reports, and then come to the realization that there are about 200 more threads which are being bumped with the same kind of spam.  There really needs to be multiple mods there who actively patrol new posts to see if they pass the sniff test of being legitimate vs. being bump-spam.  In fact, even if there were 3 mods working in 8 hour shifts doing nothing but that, it probably still wouldn't be enough.

The scope of the problem is mind-boggling to me.  This is why Theymos needs to tighten up the rules for bounty managers & project developers and/or create new rules.  The whole altcoin section is nothing but a shitfest, and it's starting to infect the rest of the forum.

I've heard this same line of argument with the precious metals aficionados, that when anyone (not necessarily even big institutions or whales) express a bearish view, it's only because they want to buy cheap gold/silver.  I am very skeptical about this.  If some really big players were buying up tons of bitcoin right now, the price wouldn't keep dropping the way it has been, probably not even if they were OTC transactions. 

I did watch the video, and it does give some decent evidence that this is happening.  George Soros and Jamie Dimon are scumbags of the highest order IMO and it wouldn't surprise me that they'd do exactly what the video and OP are claiming.  Dimon was one of the players who got the entire world in trouble with the housing crisis back in 2008/09.  However, I don't happen to think this is occurring on a large scale, i.e., that this kind of diversionary tactic is being committed by a lot of firms or whales.  It is indeed unethical to do so. 

They might be setting up "crypto trading desks" but I'm very curious as to how much crypto they're actually buying.

He's not doing that because he knows damn well he'll get that account red-tagged immediately and then it'll be worth nothing.  He also knows damn well how untrustworthy it is to sell a legendary account, especially if there's any positive trust on it.  It could easily be used to scam someone based on that account's previous reputation, and if it's sold it'll most certainly AT LEAST be used to enter a sig campaign whereupon the new owner will probably spam the forum for all it's worth.

If anyone can identify the account up for sale, I'll gladly tag it.

Robo, you and I have done deals together, and I've always respected you.  That absolutely sucks that you got banned--and I'm sure they're not going to make an exception for you as far as un-banning your account, though keep your fingers crossed about that.  You've never been the shitposting type of member who's usually the one asking to get their account back and I'm sorry to see it's come to this for you.

It was a bad decision on your part to do what you did, though, even if it wasn't you personally who did the plagiarizing.  Anyway, if you're gone for good I'll miss doing the occasional deal with you.  Peace out, bro.

Yeah I know, right?  I've seen other members here do this, including aTriz if I'm not mistaken.  This is another example of why the "shitposting for pennies" statement that I hear a lot on the forum just isn't true.  These aren't small amounts of money we're talking about, especially if you live in a country where 0.001BTC (that's just a random amount) has greater purchasing power than a place like the US, Canada, or the UK.  

For some people it's worth it to outsource the posting for whatever reason, but this case with Robo definitely underscores how risky it can be.

I'm guilty of this sometimes, and I know damn well it's a waste of my time to do so--but it's just so emotionally satisfying.  However, I'll keep your suggestion in mind because it's a good one.

I voiced support (likely in a fit of rage about something) for closing the forum to new registration a while back, but I don't really think that should happen as it would deny legitimate new members the opportunity to discuss things on the best crypto forum in existence AND it would likely lead to someone creating a competing bitcoin forum (assuming they could implement signature campaigns, of course).  I don't want to see either of those things happen.

There are some very good solutions to the spamming problem, but Theymos is just taking his sweet ass time about changing things.  At least we got the merit system and then the 1-merit requirement to rank up to Jr. Member.  That's progress at least.

I'm doing a horrible job of meriting newbies, though the number I've given merit to at least isn't zero.

I've been meaning to visit Bitcoin Discussion to search for noobs to merit, but I never can seem to muster sufficient motivation to do so.  I do visit Economics and, of course, Meta, Reputation, and Scam Accusations but posts made by Newbie/Jr. Members haven't really been deserving of merits.  I'm not someone like OGNasty who will apparently merit any member who shows evidence of the ability to string letters into things that may or may not resemble sentences, i.e., anyone with the ability to type or use speech-to-text.  I think if I and other merit sources were to lower our standards that much, the merit system would be irrelevant.  

I'd actually like to see a list praising the merit sources who've merited the fewest number of Newbie/Jr. Member accounts but who don't necessarily merit only Hero/Legendary accounts.  Such a list would be that of the most discriminating merit sources--and I mean to use the word discriminating in the positive sense, i.e., picky, or meaning that they only choose the best posts to be merited.  When you're among the top merit-givers to Newbies, I'm not so sure that's a good thing unless you're really searching out and finding the ones deserving of those merits.  God knows I haven't been able to find many.

Wow, your quality of English sure has changed since the last time you posted here.  I think you're trying to steal the account, have already stolen it, or got banned for something like copy/pasting in a section that I have blocked.  Previous posts were in perfect English.  What you just wrote above is broken-ass bounty spammer English.  I think they call that Spambonics or something, but the contrast is jarring enough to make me seriously question whether you actually own the linked account.

You said you won't mention it again, and I'm not prodding you to, but I think that's kind of messed up (though I'd have to read the comment myself to judge it).  To me, if you're visiting the B&H board, starting threads, and trying to help noobies you're a strong candidate for sainthood.  I can't bring myself to un-ignore the board, much less visit it, and not to mention even posting anything there.

I've seen the B&H section, and there are some things in this world that cannot be unseen no matter how hard you try.  I think if the US needed a more effective method of "enhanced interrogation" techniques, they ought to glue the terrorists' eyelids to their foreheads and force them to read the B&H section from beginning to end.  They would be singing like canaries after about 5 minutes.

You're a merit source and a legendary member here.  You're not some shitposting crackhead who'd gargle a dong for 1 merit, so I can't see why you'd be accused of such.

I don't understand the point here.  The total market capitalization has nothing to do with how much money is available--and you have to realize that the US dollar isn't the only currency in the world; it just so happens that when you state how much all the bitcoin available is worth, it's denominated in US dollars.  It doesn't matter if the total market cap exceeds all the dollars in the world. 

There have been single companies whose market caps have been greater than the GDPs of some of the smaller countries in the world.  So? 

And to those who say the bitcoin market is manipulated:  EVERYTHING is manipulated to some extent; it just depends on who is doing the manipulation.  If you think the game is rigged, don't play.  But there are enough bitcoin investors now such that there aren't too many whales who can single-handedly move the market at will.  Are there some?  Yes.  But that certainly does not mean you can't make money with bitcoin.

I wish more people took some basic to intermediate economics courses in college, because I tend to see a lot of ignorance and spouting of untruths around here.  The problem is that a lot of people are also ignorant and may listen to those who spout their own misunderstandings about how things work.  Ignorance then can spread like a virus.  Education is a vaccine for that, and I think more people should avail themselves of that inoculation.

I tend to agree with this, since I don't think the long-term bull market in bitcoin is over, i.e., it's going to go much higher than it is now eventually.  I'm not a fortune tell either, but I happen to not think this serious dippage we've seen is a dead-cat bounce and that we're headed toward a ridiculously low price like $200.

Lots of people were not super early adopters and didn't buy a pizza for 10,000BTC, but I think it's certainly true that one is still able to make money with bitcoin--just not as easily as it was in the first two years of bitcoin's existence.  But we could get big price spikes like 2013 and 2017 again, so if that happens (and I'm fairly sure it will), you'll regret that you didn't buy bitcoin while it was on sale in 2018 at $4000. 

Why is it that whenever I see opportunities like this I'm always out of cash?  The same goddamn thing happened in 2009 when I was 99% sure that the Dow Industrial Average was going to rebound from the insanely low number it dropped to (something like 6000 if I'm not mistaken, and I'm too lazy to check right now).  For those of you who do have some extra cash to invest, I'd say go for it now before bitcoin starts heading higher.