PhishLabs, the data source behind the link in the OP,  has an update report, and now places the mark at 68% for phishing sites using SSL (see https://info.phishlabs.com/blog/apwg-two-thirds-phishing-sites-ssl-https). Although their data for some Quarters decreases in percentage, it’s fair to assume that SSL certificates is a non-trustworthy indicator on its own, and that the assumption needs to clearly be demystified.

Ok, maybe I should have added in the OP that it would be better not to give the answer here on this thread until the poll was over … I’m not too keen on self-moderated threads myself, so I did not take it into consideration at the time.

What might be an interesting idea is to have (better) polls of a kind every now and then, bases on BTC (usage, security, etc.) and Forum topics, perhaps with different levels of difficulty based on the content. Ideally, these polls would belong to threads where you could not post in, at least until the poll was over. Additionally, it would be nice to get forum-wide attention, thus the place for them to be announced would be in the top quadrant, following the style used to announce the Art Contest.  Results could then be broken down by rank. Just an idea …

There are two common scenarios that can take place when somebody doesn’t know something: They really don’t know (and therefore might inquire at some stage to find out), or they do know, but have got the facts wrong (and therefore may take longer to change their assumptions). Perhaps the polls can be a fun way to approach this to some extent.

In this specific case, I wanted to get a sample (very small it turns out, and likely biased – as in answered by those that do know the answer) of how people understood Merit works, in a mechanism that has a correlated, yet less known and visible element: sMerit. In an ideal scenario, it would be an indicator to a possible reason for not sending merits (by some people), but we’re not going to get that answer here. 

I remember during my first weeks on the forum that a new thing was coming to town: Merits. I had no idea what it was, nor did I really bother to look into it until sometime after it had rolled-out. sMerits seemed like a misspelling or Merits, and at first I believed that many of the profiles I saw had a handsome amount, displayed in a counter, that indicated the amount of Merits they had to keep or hand out at will. It took a while to understand the system, and I presume that happens to both Newbie accounts, and woken-up accounts.

Note: Count (as in the to keep count idiom) and Counter (object) I believe can be used here indistinctly her. I used counter, as in visualizing the physical number on our profile, or on the left side of our posts, acting as a physical counter, rather much like the lap counter on a scalextric.

Es imposible no dedicar recursos a I+D en este terreno si ves que tu negocio está en peligro real de sufrir un revolcón en los próximos años. La máximo de si no puedes con tu enemigo únete a él se aplica, y todas las grandes corporaciones con dos dedos de frente están dedicando recursos a ello, en muchas ocasiones de la mano de sus partners tecnológicos (consultoras).

De la misma manera que dedicaron recursos al Big Data (no vaya a ser que tuviese algo que permitiese adelantar a un competidor), ahora con más razón deben ponerse las pilas, ante una amenaza de cambio del paradigma en su modelo de negocio.

Just wanted to know what people in the Beginners & Help board think happens when you Merit someone. Lately I’ve seen a few assertions (even from Legendary accounts) that are startling, so I just wanted to get the general knowledge pulse on this one.

Which of the assertions in the poll is correct?

Se supone que la web de Maze es abierta, aunque posiblemente no esté indexada por los buscadores. No he logrado dar con ella para ver qué información publican. De hecho, ya han dado una lista de 8 empresas que son sus próximas víctimas de estas prácticas (ver https://www.ibtimes.sg/warning-after-pensacola-maze-ransomware-target-eight-companies-hackers-release-list-36137).

Ya no es que puedas perder todos los datos del servidor si no llevas una excelente planificación de copias de seguridad y su correspondiente plan de contingencia, sino que pueden llegar a publicar datos de la corporación como elemento de presión para que la compañía pague …

This is the same data that is represented in the article referenced in the OP, but in BTC (despite what the chart’s title says – it doesn’t seem to adjust properly when switching between VES and BTC):
It tells a different story … BTC trades on LocalBitcoins in Venezuela seems rathe stable since June 2019, and a third since the beginning of year. Of course BTC has doubled in price this year (in relation to a stable FIAT).

All in all, interpreting with precision a chart of the kind when both the currency (way more in a single direction) and BTC (way less) have wide shifts in their relative value, is not a simple task.

Note: Historical data in VES is only present since halfway through 2018 (in BTC it goes back to 2013), when the Bolivar Soberano was reconverted from it’s prior form.

I’d say that 1 is correct, but 2 and 3 aren’t, since the max(0, 0 – activityCalculusResult) would be 0 (the max function, as is, would return 0 when compared to a negative value).

Note: In the same package, we should probably include perhaps the question on airdropped derivate sMerits, unused for nearly 2 years. These could suddenly gain a "utility" for some of those who haven’t found one yet for them (to "contribute" towards avoiding the de-ranking of other accounts).

The Total Time logged in is probably a non-tweekable SMF feature. I found this thread where someone inquired as to the specifics of its calculus on SMF:
https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=496342.0

Aparently:


If I’ve read it correctly, those accounts are very possibly constant scrapers (or constant something or other), querying the forum. The algorithm, which is not described in the above quotes, may be adding-up many petitions from multiple sessions on the same account, rendering those extremely incongruent numbers.

For example, My scarper Alt account has a logged-in time of 54 days. The account has been active for just over a year, and is active around 12 hours a week from two different simultaneous sessions. 1 Session over a year would add up 26 days roughly (12h*50 weeks/24h), so 2 sessions querying at the same rate would add up to 52 days (that is my 54 days, give or take).

If we take the first account from the list (@btcnfan), that account has been active for 491 days (give or take). The total Logging time for that account in that period is 4909 days. That could mean that the account has been actively querying the forum for those 491 days from 10 different sessions.

This is all conjecture though, but the forum sure knows if they are bot-type-1-query-per-second-multiple-session type accounts.

You mean a new thread I figure (you already made a post), and I assume on Beginners & Help. Simply go to Beginners & Help and on the top right part of the screen click on "new topic". I suggest you provide information on the transactionId so others can look into it.

There should be around:

32.697 accounts that contain "crypto" - that is 1,2% of all accounts - (29.303 around a year ago)
Out of which:
22.706 start with "crypto" (20.486 around a year ago)
5.765 end with "crypto" (5.168 around a year ago)

The above is not crossed with banned and/or inactive, but does show the number of accounts with "crypto" in the name.

Note: I derived the current information from LoyceV's complete List of all Bitcointalk usernames. The "around a year ago" is derived from a full BD created by @piggy at the time.

Además del tema potencial de desSMetirar, también está el tema de desmeritar (ver Reducing (removing) airdropped merits for those who didn't earn 1 single merit). Es decir, la cuestión es si se ha de hacer algo o no con las cuentas que no han ganado ningún mérito que no sea del airdrop inicial.

El asunto no es baladí, dado que, de aplicarse algún procedimiento de actuación, podría conllevar a que gente perdiese su rango (de hecho, a mansalva). Aunque @theymos no está convencido de intervenir, sí que ha indicado en el citado hilo su propuesta. Básicamente sería la de ir reduciendo los méritos que uno obtuvo del airdrop inicial con el tiempo (no los recibidos como consecuencia de que alguien te hubiese meritado). El ritmo a restar, si lo he entendido bien, de 1 mérito airdropeado por semana, pero sólo si estás activo (ver re: Reducing (removing) airdropped merits for those who didn't earn 1 single merit).

No creo que suceda ahora, pero cada aniversario del sistema de méritos tiene más número de que suceda. No sería un baneo, pero si un buen meneo a status-quo de los rangos, de proceder ….

If may be good if you provide your thoughts in the OP, in order to open a debate as to the specifics you want to discuss …

Venezuela has a galloping hyperinflation as we know, which causes the population, the fraction that can, to move away from the Bolivar, and shift to the USD when possible, to the extreme where the USD is a common currency for everyday life in many areas.

Additionally, those that have a bit of technological background use crypto (BTC and others, including stablecoins) in order to try to slow down the impact of hyperinflation on their savings, and, if possible, skim a percentage from the benefit (if any - not going to happen this week for example) in order to live off it, or at least complement their household incomes. The proportion of the population that is capable of managing BTC is not massive, but large enough to show on LocalBitcoins a a trend for those who dare venture the crypto path.

Note: Forget the Petro (a government centralized invention that bears no value outside its borders, and little within).

Si, veo que TMAN ha mantenido su palabra, y se ha acordado de los compromisos adquiridos a expensas de que su fuente de Méritos comenzase a rellenarse este ciclo.

¡¡ Enhorabuena a @ LUCKMCFLY !! Para haber empezado a ganar méritos este verano (sólo 1 antes), es un buen ritmo el seguido.

This is a pretty sensitive topic, and normally once one achieves something (i.e. rank), taking it away is like a whack in the noble parts, followed by a stampede over the ego area just above.

Removing airdropped merits and/or decaying them for all profiles would likely do more bad than good. Many profiles would be de-ranked in any scenario, even more so in the second one (decaying merits), extending over to native Merit System born accounts too (i.e. Jr. Members with 1 Merit or Members with 10 earned Merits could be re-ranked.)

Ranks will have many different stories behind how they were obtained. Some are long time forum and Bitcoin contributors, others are posters that had an easy path merely by posting little more than "good project", and newer ranks have likely has to put quite a sum of effort into their posts, and so on.

A rank really has relative value, and what is more appreciated is the person behind that account. Eventually, we all build a persona, which is above the rank for those who know one, although rank is the facial value one sees on a profile as a newcomer.

Personally, I would go with a simple double entry for the merits, displaying total and earned.

Note: The amount of Heroes that have not earned a single is around 2,5K (the OP states 3,5K). See numbers in PMs to verify this assertion.

The chart is from early March 2019 (see https://howmuch.net/articles/investing-100-at-IPO). According to their methodology description, prices were taken as of 15/02/2019, when BTC was 3.593$. All values have logically shifted, but BTC is now at around 6.918$ (92,54% higher), so that would drive total value on the chart from 7.186.980 $ to 13.836.000$ … a minor correction …


Note: You should be able to post the image. Imgur is fine. Image file size (actual file, not dimensions) needs to be below 2.5 Mb.
In any case, this is a very reduced (just to show you) view of the image in the author’s article referenced above. Once you post it in the OP I will delete mine.

What the OP explains are simply features to watch out for when dealing with an account, especially if the dealing is related to trade, following a link, or interacting with them on a private basis. It is by no means cause for immediate call to action by means of Trust (with the ignore, one can do as they wish, since it is a private matter).

It is merely a caution one should have, and Trust should not enter the equation just because an account has woken-up and/or changed his password. Imagine doing that automatically to the account who’s Id=3, just because it woke-up … That would put us on alert to see what the account does, and act according to the account’s actions from there on.

More than threads per se, Piggy’s notification bot is meant to notify you whenever you are mentioned on any post in the forum. Unfortunately, the bot seems to have stopped working over the past four days, and there is no news on the matter.

Some people are in the process of developing or enhancing their other alternative solutions. As far as I’m aware there is:

-   Going back to the forum’s search engine, parametrizing the search  (i.e. username and variations + last 2 days + sort by most recent topic first -> + refresh every now and then manually). This is what I'm doing for now.

-    [WORKING] LoyceV's alternative for Piggy's @mention notification bot

-    [TelegramBot] Merit watcher and Mention Bot

It’s different to a like really, although it can intersect at times. I have definitively merited posts I do not particularly agree with nor like (although it sure is easier if you do), but that have a good narrative, or seem to be or potentially be useful to the community on the whole.

A like is more of a personal Boolean factor, where as a merit is probably a more multifactor type element (i.e. effort and/or well versed/argued and/or informative and/or novel and/or mind racketing and/or etc.), and not always awarded because you “"like" the post itself.

Note: Likes are also rather banal; merits require in principal a bit more effort to be obtained.

Basically you need to derive that information not from the message Id information (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg53358425#msg53358425), but from the page itself where the message is displayed (Bitcoin Forum > Other > Meta > Merit & new rank requirements).

The path needs to be parsed, and constitutes a text based solution (not an Id based one). On top of that, you need to do some cleansing when the moderators are included in the path (i.e. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5103501.msg49500922#msg49500922 has as a path Bitcoin Forum > Economy > Marketplace > Goods > Collectibles (Moderators: malevolent, Cyrus, hilariousandco) > [WTS] Old peseta coins and few 1800 coins. Whole lot 500 eur now.), or when a title includes a “>” character (which is not a subselvel).

It's what I do for the Dashboard, but there are some issues and I do not work with all path levels.

As I said, the output I create it's text base, not Id based.

Something like this :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hnuC0EadNbxm4gcK7GOTobCg-IWsOCAw1UCjunuIQlY/edit?usp=sharing

I only cleanse three levels in the path. The fourth is interesting to enter childboards, but I only cleans it for the Spanish local board (í've ommited levels 4..10 since they do not fit, and are not cleansed homogeneusly).

Every now and then, the data should be regenerated retrospectively to cover posts being deleted and moved. It's a bit of a p.i.t.a. so I only do it every few months or so.

¿Y ésto es realmente legal? Es un recargo brutal, que más que una medida de proteccionismo se constituye en una medida de usura, limitando en espíritu la libertad de cada cual para hacer lo que le venga en gana con sus bienes. No me extraña nada que la población mire alternativas en las criptomonedas, aunque el segmento con capacidad para ejecutarlo no sea el mayoritario.