It's totally "normal" even though I don't think that such treatment is right.  Vod's response was a little bit harsh, but this has been the fate of everyone I've seen trying to recover their hacked accounts (not the thread-locking but the ignoring part).  Vod has even volunteered to help with account restoration if I'm not mistaken, but his offer was met with silence.

You're damn right this forum is a real mess, and this is only a part of it.

Congrats, and it seems you ranked up the right way and showed that it can be done--we all know damn well that there are 1000s of noobs who think they have no chance in hell of ever reaching a rank higher than Jr. Member (and for many of them, that's probably true).

This is how the merit system is supposed to function:  it's Darwinian, and only the best and most worthy members are going to increase in rank, while the rest will linger as the kind of chimps who are so low on the social ladder that all they do is groom the alpha monkeys to avoid getting their food stolen and their ass kicked.

Word.  Everyone should be learning that lesson around here.

Jesus Christ, that sounds like some of the worst techno-business-gobbledegook I've ever read in my life, and I checked the mirror for signs of complete stupidity just now and found nothing.  Shit like that could only have come out of Silicon Valley and the only purpose of such is to baffle potential investors with bullshit instead of dazzling them with brilliance.

But hey, I could be wrong.  I did not have my spectacles on when looking in the mirror just now.  Also, this is making me desperately crave a tiny sample of whatever they're smoking.

What is this "golden mean" of which you speak? 

I'm also finding this thread to be extremely entertaining, though I'm sure it will end, probably resolved to no one's satisfaction, at some point.  Where will I go and what will I do with myself at that point?  Where have all the silly troll personalities gone?

If a member is asking a specific question and gets the answer he's looking for, I think he ought to lock the topic just out of courtesy, but that's just my opinion and I'm sure there are good reasons for keeping a thread like that alive.

What I think should be standard is that a topic should get locked automatically after a certain period of time of inactivity.  Since necrobumping isn't allowed, dead threads ought to be locked to prevent people from bumping them.

Yep, there's always going to be that.

That's true, and there are a lot of threads that should remain unlocked IF members are still actively posting in them.

Yeah, I just caught him plagiarizing another one:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5066518.0;topicseen, which is straight from this article.

Amazes me that people think this is OK and that they're not going to get caught.  It's unfortunate because the one I found had some pretty interesting info in it, and Mister99 could have done what Hydrogen does, which is to quote the article with a citation and then provide a little discussion-opener on it.  

Thank you for that link--I'd never seen it because I have B&H on ignore.  But I think the forum needs actual rules and not just suggestions (regardless of how good those suggestions are).

I'll trust you on that one.  Bitcoin personalities are among the things I'm extremely ignorant about, just like politics.  I suppose I should care more, but I just don't.

Ah, rumors.  Those are the only things I know of besides actual news that affects the price of bitcoin.  Also, a link for this particular rumor would have been a good thing for you to provide, but people don't seem to have that much courtesy these days.

In addition, anyone who holds that much bitcoin would be insane to dump it all onto the market at once--unless they're hellbent on not maximizing their potential profit.  Mutual fund managers who sell big blocks of shares in a particular stock don't usually sell it all at once; they sell it in smaller blocks over a period of time so as not to overwhelm the buy orders and thereby drive the price down. 

I tend to think this is a load of horse hooey.  I'll believe it when I see it.

Well that's exactly how I'd summarize the info given in this article--and it sounds very strange and very, very ambitious.  It almost sounds as though he's planning on building a cult compound or something of the sort.

But hey, people with grand ideas built Las Vegas in Nevada, and that state does have a bit of a reputation of having a maverick mentality.  If I'm not mistaken, it's one of, if not the only, states in the US where prostitution is legal and one of only a few where organized gambling is legal.  Makes sense that this guy Berns chose Nevada as the state in which to do what he's planning.

Yeah, but I'm just wondering what exactly "a private city with a blockchain system" really means and what it would actually look and function like.  Nevada still has laws, as does the federal government. 

In addition, this statement is the absolute truth:
I get the feeling that this project is either way ahead of its time or might be doomed to failure at any point in the future.  But that sure was an interesting article, and I'll keep this on my radar.

Thanks for checking it out, and that was my opinion on it from the beginning.  I'm not surprised at all that I came across something copy/pasted (that's happened many times before), but I'm disappointed that had that been the bitcointalk member's original work, it would have been worthy of merit and it would have been a pleasure to give merit to a Newbie.  As I've said before, it's really sad that you have to check for plagiarism before giving merits to lower-ranked members.

Eh, I don't completely agree with that.  If you're copying words from another site, you should cite the source and ideally should provide a link for the reader to verify it.

Bitcointalk really, really needs some sort of style guide, like an MLA Handbook specifically for bitcointalk--not necessarily as a standard of how to write posts, but at least a set of guidelines for citing sources when quoting material that's not your own.  Right now it's a hellish mixture of opinions as far as what constitutes proper citation and what constitutes plagiarism.

I found this thread in which the OP was pretty interesting, and I was going to give him some merit--then I checked and found that part of it was copy/pasted from https://u.today/10-bitcoin-friendly-countries-that-legalized-cryptocurrency.

OP wrote this as the only indication that anything he wrote was taken from another source:

I reported the post as plagiarism.  Since this is similar to the situation with Rambotnic, who keeps pleading with me to remove my neg on him, I'd like to hear opinions on whether frozen2017's post in the linked thread above would be considered plagiarism.  It certainly isn't cited properly, and I'm convinced it should be enough to get him banned.

Indeed, and I think a lot of newcomers to crypto latch onto this "decentralized" word as some sort of holy grail to be achieved in every one of the world's problems/systems/structures, and it's just not feasible.  To give an example, the prison system in my state used to operate pharmacies at each prison and jail and did this for years...until they figured out that it is much more cost-effective to have all the medications get dispensed out of a centralized location.  That cut down on the staffing needed and improved communications.  Almost the same situation happened with long-term care pharmacy, i.e., nursing homes and other residential care facilities.  Sure, they all have Pyxis machines on premises, but all the scheduled meds come from pharmacies that resemble warehouses, with orders getting faxed in, technicians packacking meds up into blister packs, and pharmacists making IVs and checking the prescriptions before they go out the door.

Bitcoin is decentralized, and it's a unique concept for a currency.  Bitcointalk is not decentralized, and it's not a unique discussion forum. 

A lot of the top merit-givers happen to be older members, and many of them are also very good contributors and receive a lot of merits themselves.  That isn't surprising to me, but I get the feeling (well, actually he outright stated it) that OP thinks there's a "good 'ol boys" club of members passing merits between themselves for some undefined yet nefarious purpose.

OP, if you want to take a minute and look at the members I've given merit to, you'll definitely see a lot of recognized accounts, some of them merit sources, some of them on DT, but there are a lot of members below Hero rank that I've given merits to as well.  In my case, I actually try to avoid giving merits to Legendary accounts or Hero members who already have enough merits to rank up to Legendary and are just waiting to get enough activity.  Sometimes I can't help myself, sure, because there are a few Legendary members who make excellent posts that I feel compelled to merit, but overall I'm at least trying to target lower ranked members for merit.

Jet Cash is exceptionally generous and has that type A personality that makes him want to be a doer, and he's doing a great job being a merit source and trying to help the forum in general. 

There may be members who only trade merits back and forth between their buddies, but I don't think that's the norm for merit sources.  The sad fact is that it is extremely difficult to find posts made by lower-ranking members (especially Newbie & Jr. Member ranks) that would fit the criteria of being "just good".  There are so many members of those two ranks nowadays that certain sections are flooded with posts by them, and they all tend to be generic, uninteresting, usually poorly-written, and sometimes even plagiarized.  I'm sure a lot of merit sources have a hard time sustaining the motivation to keep searching for worthy, lower-ranked members to give merits to.

I have Jet Cash's "Snow Eagles" site bookmarked, but so far there are only a few members on there, and the site needs some serious improvement before it becomes useful.  I'm speaking for myself only here, but I'm more than happy to reward a Newbie, Jr. Member, or any rank below Hero with merits IF the post deserves it and IF I can find the post.  I have fairly high standards, but not impossibly high.

LoyceV is correct here:
and here:

Plus Tomatocage hasn't been active in months and, as was pointed out, his escrow service has been suspended per the message in his signature.  Even if it was the real Tomatocage account, there's been some suspicion that whoever is controlling it now may not be the original owner who earned all that postitive trust.  Glad OP backed out before he got scammed, which I have zero doubt is what would have happened.

Again, when you post things like this it's common courtesy to provide a link so people can read what exactly it is you heard about.  I'm interested in this topic, as I've had dealings with TD Ameritrade and would like to know the extent to which they're getting involved in crypto--and it's a bit rude for people to start threads like this only to have people required to search out information in order to give an opinion.

TD Ameritrade already provides the ability to buy and sell stocks and options.  I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "Bitcoin mine".  Again, a link would be very helpful here.

This is a problem I think a lot of bitcoin/altcoin investors (at least the ones around here) run into, because for whatever reason they think crypto is a get-rich-quick scheme, and it's not--especially if HODLing is your strategy.  Thus they end up buying crypto with money that should have been put away for rent/utilities/daily living expenses/whatever.  That's when what OP describes as "lethargy" sets in, which I interpret to mean impatience that the price of the crypto you bought isn't increasing in value fast enough.

Anybody who's new to trading would do well to follow OP's points, because they're valid--and it doesn't matter if you plan on holding for the long term or are just short term trading.  Be careful about acting on what you read on websites (including this one) and those idiotic trollboxes they have on some exchanges. 

I don't quite understand the "chasing someone else's dream" thing.  I think everyone's dream here is to make a profit.  The problem is that there are too many very slick-looking scams out there that really look like they have great ideas and an organized business structure....and then the forum scam-busters expose them as frauds.  I wouldn't hold any ICO token for the long-term.  Hell, I wouldn't hold any of those shit tokens for a nanosecond.

They way he did it was very clearly not enough.  If you were writing a paper for school and used information from an academic journal, for instance, do you think it'd be sufficient to say "I found this in a journal, here you go"?  Nope, and even though bitcointalk doesn't have guidelines on source citation, it should be obvious that you need to (at the very least) reference where you're quoting material from.  The best way to do it IMO is provide a link and put the quoted text inside a quote box just as if you were quoting a bitcointalk post. 

I think your estimation of the helpfulness of his posts and your definition of "a long period" are vastly inflated.  He registered in March of this year and most of his posts are straight-up gibberish.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I'd like to hear from staff.

I don't like that suggestion.  If you've been here a year and are posting consistently and still haven't earned a merit, that's a problem with your posts and not the merit system. 

And just a specific suggestion to the following member:
I wouldn't call you a shitposter by any means, but I took a look at your post history and the things you write tend to be pretty bland statements, like the following:

The above is just a general opinion that really won't help anyone be more informed and most people won't find it even the least bit interesting or entertaining--and when you're posting something like that in a thread full of shitposts and people just giving canned responses to the thread title, not only is your post not going to get merited, it's not even likely anyone is going to read it.

Looks like the original thread Rambotnic posted that was the basis for the plagiarism report was deleted, because I can't view it anymore.  I'm assuming a mod deleted it, but I'm wondering why he wasn't banned for plagiarism.  I don't recall reading a post by a mod on this issue, and I'd like to know what the deal is.

Having said that, when I hand out red trust wrongly I usually get dissenting opinions by trusted members (DT or otherwise), and that's definitely not the case here.  Most of them saw what Rambotnic wrote as plagiarized content just like I did--and I wasn't even one of the people who reported it to the mods.  The feedback is completely justified IMO, though I'd still like to hear a mod's opinion on this.

I don't know about that.  I think the fact that he's demonstrated that he can be trusted with money says a lot and should contribute to the "respect factor" fairly heavily.  Having said that, I don't have a high opinion of him as a forum personality.  I've flown off the handle at members before, but usually I can rein myself back in and I know when to stop, and if I think I've gone too far I will and have offered apologies.  TECSHARE does not know how to de-escalate disagreements or know when to stop. 

As far as the merit is concerned, I think part of that is a function of how active he's been.  For all my distaste for him as a bitcointalk member, he is intelligent and his posts are well-constructed (from the ones I've read, but those have mainly been the ones where he's in full Human Torch mode).  If I'm not mistaken, there have been periods of time where he's been relatively inactive, and it's obviously difficult to earn merits when you're not posting.  He's been a member since 2011 and has "only" 5724 posts. 

Which member are you talking about here?  TECSHARE?  Anyway, it drives me bonkers when I hear people make statements like that.  When I used to visit 9/11 conspiracy theory websites, I'd often hear people referring to proven scientific laws (and I fully understand that they're called theories) as "just a theory".

I agree with you there, and I've probably shared more personal information about myself in some of my posts than I should have.  Then again, I'm not in fear of anyone on the forum, haven't scammed anyone here, and I don't have anything worth hacking or stealing (lol).

I still have a hard time comprehending how I made it into the top 10--and that's not a humblebrag or compliment-fishing.  I'm genuinely baffled.  But if it's any consolation about the merit situation, Vod, you're still #2 in the most recognized list (which you designed the criteria for, lol).  

At least you've succeeded [I know you're joking].  Many members here really are only on bitcointalk to rise in the ranks for whatever reason (ego, power, & money are the usual culprits) and they end up failing miserably, either from ineptitude or being tripped up by greed or some other fatal flaw.  

I've been here for a few years and I know the WO thread exists, but with a red face I have to admit I have no idea what it's all about or why it's so popular.  I think I heard other members mentioning how it's a bunch of TA analysis being shared between a tight group of members.  I feel ignorant--probably because of all my ignorance.

Edit:
Hey, I don't have you on ignore.  I have a serious attention deficit problem (not joking), and I rarely read through entire threads when they get to a certain length so I probably missed something important in this one.  I'll go back and read.

Edit edit:  Heh heh.  I skipped over that post because of all the pictures, but I did just read it now.  OK, fairly good summary of the WO thread, thank you.

That's the best option, IMO.  And Bitcoin Discussion is one of the sections I have on ignore, but it's not because of members like him--it's all the stupid nonsense replies to threads started by people like him and others with nothing useful to say.

Hydrogen almost exclusively posts news snippets in the Economics section, but the big difference is that he sparks the discussion on them by posting some of his own commentary after the quote--and both the news quote and Hydrogen's input are usually worth reading.

If that's the case, I'd consider it to be spam and it should be deleted.  I've reported quite a few thread OPs that are just link spam disguised as a discussion, usually done by brand new members.