IntroductionThe new Merit system was introduced in the forums to try and improve the quality of discussion. Users need both Activity and Merit to reach the next levels on the forum. Merit is earned based on quality of posts, while Activity is earned based on quantity of posts.
DiscoverabilityThe Merit system can function as a really good discoverability mechanism if done right. This is a data point for the forum. Forum posts, unlike say Reddit posts, don't have an upvote/downvote feature. However, now they do have the +Merit feature. This means each post has a 'score' associated with it, which can simply be the sum total of all the Merit received by a post.
This can really help surface good content. This is because the default content today is sorted chronologically. Some of the older posts that may have been really good are lost. There are great threads with 100+ or even 1000+ pages of content. If you're new, it is very hard to wade through all of them. Merit is a great way for you to find good content.
Say there is a price discussion thread. It has tens of thousands of pages. However, a few of the posts with some evergreen content, for example a valuation model or mental models to think through what gives Bitcoin value, are valuable to the community, and likely Merited if they deserve it. New forum members can see these posts more easily.
Suggested ImplementationI would suggest the following -
- For every thread, have a button that says 'Show only Merited Posts', which would only show the posts that have received Merit
From a discoverability standpoint, I see this working as something similar to Reddit Gold. Sometimes, there are hidden gems that get downvoted due to groupthink (think about Greg Maxwell posting on r/btc, for instance). Someone gives a Gold to a really good post and it stands out. But more importantly, I can see all the gilded posts of a subreddit.
We can implement a similar type of discoverability on the forum. For example, in the entire thread discussing Merit right now, it's 50+ pages. It's hard to go through the whole thing. I'd like to see the Merited posts, because it is a filtering mechanism. This should help the forum moderators filter through suggestions as well.
Benefits- Discoverability
- Easy to Catch Merit Abusers - if everyone can see bad posts getting a 50 Merit, you know something may be off (selling Merit, multiple accounts, etc.)
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