[recovering the account using the secret question, is its cause]

This is what I learnt today (lucky that it caught my eyes)...

Just to make it clear for the OP, a normal password & email change doesn't lead to this but instead "recovering the account using the secret question, is its cause".

I was about to reply the post then I though to create this new topic so that I can get attention of theymos and also can help few readers to know to be careful about using their secret question feature.

If you haven't lost your password yet or you have regained access to the account, don't set the secret question, it can be a hassle. Make sure that you have the email set to an email address that you can access. That will make everything so much easier and will not require the long recovery process.

- My suggestion (no pressure) is why not then remove the secret question feature from the profile setting page? This will help to save unnecessary locks.

i.e: To secure my account when I joined I did set my secret question. A fairly advanced user like me will do it always. But after seeing this post I am feeling lucky now that I will never touch the secret question section. There are/will be many members who are/will not aware of this and they will be locked easily. The way I see account hacking and locking is happening I wonder what would I do if my one get hacked. It really is frustrating to see people are trying to recover their account from months and still unsuccessful (some have really legit proof).

The forum is lacking organised FAQ section IMO.  

EDIT:
Please advice how do I remove secret question since I already set up one 

[that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with]

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

Do not beg for merit excessively.

This was a very simple message when theymos explained about giving merits.

And these are the translations (I might bring you more in future) we are seeing through out the forum.

Why the negative feedback? Flodner is a friend of mine, am I not allowed to send him some merit? :/

He is a trusted friend he asked for some merit and I did.

Translation: Award merits to friends

...mostly i gave my merits to who gave me ?

Translation: Award merits who send your merits

Because meriting is not prohibited and everybody are free to distrubute theri¹ merits to everyone without any reason etc.

Translation: Awarding merit need no reasons so keep awarding.

PS: It's a parody post. Merit abusers, please do not use it as a reference ground for your merit abusing activities.

Update:
New translation 1: Award merit to the bounty managers to show your appreciation/like of the project.

¹distributed their

[BIFY - ICO PR AGENCY on bitcointalk.com]

Lately I am watching project development board. What I noticed is, a lot of brand new /    Newbie accounts everyday posting services which conflict the forum interest. One of it, is bumping up service. When I see any of these topics I report IMO this is the best I can do. I noticed a lot of members also want to report them too. Hence I have created this topic to keep a log for these bumping service abusers. Whenever I will encounter anyone doing such thing I will add them in this thread. It will be easier for you to report them (the topic) too.

Here is the one I found few mins ago:
BIFY - ICO PR AGENCY on bitcointalk.com (archive) - reported

Hello!
My name is Vladislav, I represent the company promoting of ICO projects on the Bitcointalk forum.
Is it interesting to you that your thread (ANN / Bounty) will be constantly in top place 24 hours a day?
This will give you the fact that your project will be constantly on view and will attract more attention from investors and bounty hunters.
We constantly up it to the top in order to attract attention to your project.
We have the cheepest price and I can show you an example of a project with which we are currently working.

Price for 1 thread:
- 1.5 ETH per 1 week
- 5 ETH per 1 month

For example please write PM


My email - pr@bify.io
Telegram - @bifyio (https://t.me/bifyio)

[it has been about 6 months since my account was hacked and I sent proof.]

it has been about 6 months since my account was hacked and I sent proof.
Legendary account got hacked - 4 months gone - Admin is Sleeping - Wake Up Admin
Account Hacked - No Response From Theymos/Cyrus - Please tag account

Background
Sadly I see a lot of accounts to get hacked. Poor account holders create alt accounts and try to recover their hacked account with the staked bitcoin address (if they signed one before). Unfortunately, if they do not sign a bitcoin address then they never can recover their lost account. I would like to thank Tomatocage for this great idea of recovering BitcoinTalk account.

The current system for recovering a hacked account is manual. I assume we do not have many mods too so obviously it takes a lot of time to get back a hacked account even if you have a signed message on stake your bitcoin address topic.

I learnt from one of my topic that theymos wanted to give us an experience of being anonymous. But with current registration system, we are asked for a valid email address. The leak of the system is, you can create a BitcoinTalk account with an email address that is not even your own, the system do not verify your given email address. The idea of not verifying the email address is, to keep the user anonymous¹.

It is obvious that theymos wanted us to use our Bitcoin address for account registration and maintaining the BitcoinTalk account. May be when theymos (actually satoshi) started the forum that time SMF did not have registration with Bitcoin, login with Bitcoin feature. I doubt if still SMF added this feature.

I guess improving the registration system and login system will help us to avoid the unfortunate account hack issue of the members. This will also automate the entire account recovery system or may be we won't even need an account recovery feature.

The proposal
I have two proposals. Let me be very quick on describing them.

Proposal One Inspired from ledger neno affiliate signup and login page


Registration process input fields

^{Click here if unable to see image}

Instead of the email address field ask for the username.

Once the user submit the data then give the user a Secret Key (system generated) and advice the user to keep the Secret Key safe. Because for login they will use this secret key. It's like losing your 12 phrase of your bitcoin wallet. There will be no need for account recovery.

Login input field

^{Click here if unable to see image}

Proposal Two Inspired from a-ads affiliate signup and login page

Registration process input fields will be only your Bitcoin address.
Additionally the registration page can ask for a username.

Login input field

^{Click here if unable to see image}

At the time of login always ask for signing a message in the Bitcoin address that was used for registration and authenticate that message for login. Again there will be no need for an account recovery.

Limitation
Applying first proposal will be difficult (not impossible) in my opinion because every existing user will need the secret key which we do not have now. It is easier when a system starts from the initial stage.

Proposal two is really possible to add with our existing system. Give enough time (may be 6 months or a year, really a long time) to the current users to add their Bitcoin address with the system. Those who are regular they will do it easily and those who are not regular and discover it after the new login and registration system will be implemented, they can use the stake your bitcoin topic and use their staked BTC address to recover their lost account manually. Keep the stay logged in feature so that the users won't need to go though the sign a message process every time to login with BitcoinTalk.


Conclusion
If we can adopt with any of the above proposed registration and login process then account hacking will dramatically drop (may be zero) also the mods will not have an extra load of manually recovering hacked account or lost account.

PS: Apology for my messed up formatting

¹ Does this mean when we create a blockchain.info wallet, we are not actually anonymous? They verify our email address.  

My local time around 16:35 (GMT+6), BitcoinTalk from my side was offline (error: 502, ray id and etc in on the screenshot).
I checked with "Down for everyone or me" but it said the site is up. I am wondring what could possibly go wrong that only I was offline.

PS: This is first time I have taken an initiative to record the error. Before I when the site was offline for me, I actually did not bother to take a note or bothered to valid if it was only me.

[vizsafe]

The user vizsafe (Still Jr. Member) received 50 merits on March 13 from Cassius (Legendary member) for a post talking about an ICO which is Vizsafe.com (archive). The post eventually reference to a medium post at the end.

If you visit the post page (archive) of the user vizsafe then its crystal clear that the use is spamming the forum only for Vizsafe ICO. Now I do not care if the ICO is legit or not but my question is receiving 50 merit from user Cassius legit or not.

User Cassius must be related to user Vizsafe and favoured Vizsafe with that 50 merits however the evidence is very weak IMO.

I would love to hear your feedback on this topic and based on your (around 100 votes) feedback I will add both users in my TAGGING MERIT FARMERS topic and eventually I will red tag these users.

PS: I will urge some DT members to have a look on these accounts.

Merit summary for vizsafe


^{Click here if unable to see image}

Merit summary for Cassius


^{Click here if unable to see image}

[almost everyday]

^{Click here if unable to see image}

# If you check my profile you will see almost everyday is my birthday  (Including today)
# I am even writing this topic from future  (Age -2)
# oh yeah, I love this cake. This is why I change my day of birth almost everyday with the current date whenever I get time 

This is where I play with this feature everyday...

^{Click here if unable to see image}

PS: Inspired by the post - Thanks for the Cake... I Guess

[Investigation and Evidence]

Even knowing it's abusive they don't mind to repeat it?

User trumpman, I already left a redTrust for abusing merit (Investigation and Evidence ). As I always leave a 2nd chance for their acknowledgement and then with having a log, I remove it (T&C).

However the reply in PM seems like they think they can do whatever they want? Really?!

^{Click if unable to see image}

Earlier...

^{Click if unable to see image} PM:1

^{Click if unable to see image} PM reply.

Seems like they feel proud of what they are doing  


EDIT:
Looks like the user does not bother having redTrust

I understand where you come from though so feel free to leave that negative review.

[For really newbies: Some topics/articles worth reading to understand Bitcoin and BitcoinTalk]

Just read this... LOL

If "official" Bitcointalk is Buggy why should I trust BTC?

Archive

I have seen similar thinking (wrong) from many other members. They think BitcoinTalk is Bitcoin, being a member of BitcoinTalk is involving with Bitcoin.

Folks,
Bitcoin is a currency. Think about the fiat currency we have: Dollar, Pound, Euro etc. Using Bitcoin you can trade (buy/sell goods) same as using fiat. One of the difference among many differences between Bitcoin and Fiat currency is, fiat has physical existence and bitcoin is digital. Read more about Bitcoin FAQ

On the other hand, BitcoinTalk is only a forum. Satoshi (creator of Bitcoin) started this forum so that people like you and me who love Bitcoin can hangout with each others.

So please do not mix up Bitcoin with BitcoinTalk.

Mixing up Bitcoin with BitcoinTalk is like mixing up Facebook (today's biggest social media) with the entire internet.

Edit: Inspired by vit05's comment.

For really newbies: Some topics/articles worth reading to understand Bitcoin and BitcoinTalk

BitcoinTalk It is just a forum started by Satoshi. Read his/her welcome message here.
-------------------------------------
Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ (Archive)
FAQ: Everything you need to know about forum 'activity, account ranks and merit (Archive)
Reading the stickys on the meta section is really enough.


Bitcoin It's simply is a currency like currently we have our fiats (i.e: Dollar, Pound, Euro).
-------------------------------------
Bitcoin.com FAQ
Bitcoin.org FAQ

[F**k everything, it's better to buy some Bitcoin.]

Just stumble upon on this topic, the dude is asking what to do with the bitcoin sent from his friend.

I remember, sometimes around in 2011/12 a friend of mine first told me about Bitcoin. A crazy one, always ignored by everyone else. I guess we all have this kind of friend. They play a good role for the gang but no one listen to them.

That friend of mine used to do part time stoke trading. All day he used to sit in front of his computer. We did not have any clue what he was doing. End of the day we used to hear he lost money LOL.

Dude was frustrated. One day he was shouting saying, F**k everything, it's better to buy some Bitcoin.

That was it. No one never did say him anything neither him bought any Bitcoin.

I wish I did some research back in that time 2011/12. My cryptocurrency experience would be a different one.

PS: I got involved with BTC in early 2017 (January).

Please delete the topic. it was a mistake posting here.

Thanks

[New new rank requirements]

It's obvious on the New new rank requirements topic, everyone is just posting and posting.
Not sure how many of them understood the whole lot. I am still struggling to understand the new requirements. It's too much to understand though.

Previously all we had to keep in mind that make good posts, members will merit your post and the merit will help you to rank you up.

So to rank up...

Activity	Rank	PROPORTIONED
Merit	Rank	PROPORTIONED
Politeness	Rank	?
fMerit	Rank	?
Imagination	Rank	?
Virtue	Rank	?
Coins	Rank	?
Karma	Rank	?

I have more on the topic itself...

I'm sure it's not April fool.

theymos definitely have clear understanding about that he/she is doing.
I tried to understand to figure out all these modules and their points. So far this is where I stand...

|Module name|	|Understood?|	|Know How to Calculate|	|Additional Comment|
|Activity	Yes	Yes
|Merit	Yes	Yes
|Politeness	Yes	No
|fMerit	No	No	How does uid and 1103515245 play it's role?
|Imagination	Yes	Guessing	Is this the number of images posted by a user?
|Virtue	Yes	No	So the less virtue someone has the better he/she is?
|Coins	Yes	No
|Karma	Yes	No

I admit that I need to study the Conway's Game of Life to understand the rest of whole lot.

These whole lot will take few hours for me to understand.

PS: Anyone please can help me with my red painted ignorance or you can ignore it thinking it's an

Thanks

I am still digging for the Conway's Game of Life

[✅🔵 [ANN][ICO] 🤑[200$ AIRDROPS] 🤑🔥 NutrioCoin.co - NUTRITION AND HEALTH 🔵✅]

I am doubting the legitimacy of this project

All the users please take extra caution (in my opinion)

1. Checked the domain creation date: Few days ago (2018-03-23T00:41:34Z) the domain has been created. Today is 27th March 2018
2. Who are these people (all of them) in the team? There are no linked to verify the persons are really in the team or not. I tried google search and seems like nothing there as well.
3. Pre-sale starting in less than 2 days!

Most-likely, someone behind this whole scam planning stuff. Created a website, created a BitcoinTalk account, Created a telegram account and trying to get some ETH from the innocent lazy people out there. This guy/group will surly scam peoples hard earning money because of your ignorance.

PS: The whole post based in my opinion, I might me wrong judging them but some of the clear evidence I can not ignore. My advice is dig a little before joining the project. If you find satisfactory then go for it. I just wanted to enlighten the community with some facts.

Good luck.

Edit:
✅🔵 [ANN][ICO] 🤑[200$ AIRDROPS] 🤑🔥  NutrioCoin.co - NUTRITION AND HEALTH  🔵✅ (Archive)

[Case#2]

I will lock this thread once hilariousetc or any DT member notice this issue...

Here is my msg... thanks

I think I found a campaign too when I was looking for merit abusers on one of my thread: Clearly merit farming/trading is happening.

Would you care for the campaign information?  @hilariousetc

@hilariousetc: I am trying to get your attention again... since you are a DT member (if I am not wrong)

Case#2 Click to open
allowance1219, pigheadbig, gomei and choubao0514
with colacat1111, helloge, juicejoyce and doudou1110  

I have tagged all of these user with redTrust please see their trust pages. I also left enough evidence to hold my ground. These users are heavily involved with merit abusing.

All connected to this thread [ANN][XAS] Asch | Decentralized Application Platform Based on Side-chain . So, I suspect something wrong with this thread too.

For any other information to open up the scam I am willing to spend my time. just ask me.

Thanks

[This is a locked topic.Any update in the future will be posted under this statement]

This is a locked topic.
Any update in the future will be posted under this statement

I will teach you how to create and design a complete website - Live online classes
Almost FREE of charge!

Also will monitor you live while you are designing your first complete website

I am one of the co-founder of Creative Designs UK (archive). Me with my other partners are running this business since early 2013 (Ref: whois lookup). We manage everything online even our staffs work for us remotely. We used to do this business very seriously before but from last one and half year we have built other businesses. So, in this business after paying the freelancers (staffs) when we keep some small profits in our pocket, we are more than happy.

A sort story behind this business: Back in 2008 after my graduation I started working in a local IT company as Software Developer (Web and Desktop application). Then I moved to England. At the beginning life in England was hard. For some extra money I used to design/develop websites for locally known people, friends and family while I was doing regular jobs (in Sainsbury's and other here and there. ref: LinkedIn Profile). Years after I had some regular customers, I thought to brand my website design and develop business. In 2013 with one of my friend I started Creative Designs UK.

The reason of the above introduction is to establish a trust in between you and me that I am very much qualified for the claim I am making on this service post. You will receive 100% in return of the trust and money (if paid) you will put to do business with me. It's the promise from a gentleman.

Lately I am thinking why not I share my knowledge and experiences of my IT skills to others in need (Giving back to the community). People pay thousands of dollars and tremendous affords and time to become an IT professional and here, after being a qualified IT professional with years of experience I am wasting it. Honestly speaking earning money by being a software developer or doing any other IT job is much harder than doing a business and being your own boss. However I also admit that not everyone is wearing my shoes. There are people who are designing a logo for $5 while I am writing this service post (sadly).

What you can do with continuous practice and after completing this course:
1. You can create/design a static website. (i.e: Blog for yourself or for anyone else)
2. You can work as a freelance website designer.
3. You can work in a IT company as a website designer. (ambitious case, search for website designer job and you will see the salary)
4. You can even start your own IT business¹ if you have an entrepreneurial skill like me. (ambitious case, you will hear the story of starting Creative Designs UK)

Course contents^{^}
Section 1: Getting Started (Course Introduction, basic tools, introduction to HTML/HTML5, HTML Tags, Saving a web page)
Section 2: Explaining basic HTML Tags (Heading, meta, paragraph and breaks, Bold and italic etc)
Section 3: Starting with CSS (Basic CSS rules, CSS styling, Inline and outline, Fonts, Fonts styling, color and sizes)
Section 4: Working with Images (Image types, how to insert image, Image attributes etc)
Section 5: Hyperlinks (Types of hyperlinks, Linking to other pages, CSS and hyperlinks, HTML lists and navigation bars etc)
Section 6: Detail CSS Layouts (Box Model, Comments, Positioning, floats, Styling HTML 5 tags etc)
Section 7: HTML4 and HTML5 tables (Tables, Row and Col span, alignment, colour, images)
Section 8: HTML/HTML5 Forms (Form Layouts, Email, URL, Search, Placeholders, Required, Passwords, hidden fields etc)
Section 9: Setting up your first website on the internet (Websites and Domain names, How to host a website etc)
Section 10: Designing your own first website (A complete website design²)

Price
Website design training - All live classes online: Free³ (Not entirely: To eliminate the time wasters a small enrolment fee of $5 when pay in BTC. $10 for other options of payment: Paypal, Payza)
Monitoring while you are designing your own website (A complete website): $160 Paypal or Payza. (20% off when pay in BTC) or you can sell your sig space to me for four weeks. (Minimum member rank^*)

Payment information
BTC address: 1GyLCQSgcSMN3oCDP6qitZ8b3sABP6wjaF
Paypal/Payza address: info@cdesignsuk.com

Some important information to maintain discipline
#Since I am just starting the course I will start with only 10 candidates. So this will be the first batch of 10 students.
#Once I will have first 10 confirmed payments (For BTC at-least 3 confirmations) then I will lock this thread. I will refund the rest of the payments (for BTC I will not pay the transaction fee, for other types of payments I will just refund the money)
#At 31st March GMT 23:59, I will lock this thread (even if I do not see the 10 paid candidates. Check countdown. I will start with even if I have a single student)
#I will then contact with the candidates in PM for their contact details and will be updating with the course starting day.
#Duration of course² will be two weeks. Monday to Friday. GMT 21:00 to GMT 22:30
#Classes will be conducted using live Google Hangout. Your system (desktop/laptop) should be properly configured for that.
#If you miss any class then you are responsible for not knowing the missing contents. However you can pay a small fee for the recorded video of the missed class. (may be $10/$20 per class or more/less. I am really not sure now. I will decide if any actual situation raises like that.)
#For monitoring while you are designing your own website: End of the course a schedule will be booked after receiving the asking payment or service (BTC/Dollar or bounty)
#Please be serious and take as much as you can from me if you enrol for the course. If you push me more then you will learn more.

How to apply?
There will be two step process
Step one: Reply on the thread comment.
1. BitcoinTalk username
2. BitcoinTalk profile link
3. Give a short reason of taking this course, minimum 220 character.
4. Do you want me to monitor you while you will design your own first website: Yes/No
5. You will accept my simple T&C: Yes/No

After posting the comment as soon as possible make the payment.

Step two: Edit the same comment with...
EDIT:
6. Paid in: BTC/Paypal/Payza
7. For BTC give the BTC address, for Paypal and Payza type the paypal/payza email address hiding some of the character of the email. i.e: masudulkabir@yahoo.com will be ma****ir@yahoo.com
8. Total paid amount.

(Please remember the first 10 paid candidates only. So you better be quick on your decision making if this thread gets much popular, I don't know)
PS: if the answer of number 5 is "No" then please do not send any payment. If you do then I will not make any refund.

Sample format of reply

Code:

1. mdayonliner
2. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1432468
3. Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem
4. Yes
5. Yes

EDIT:
6. Paypal
7. ma****ir@yahoo.com
8. $10 + $160 = $170

¹It's not that hard to make really good money once you know how to monetise your idea. Visit the pricing page of Creative designs UK, See the different options of website pricing. Truth is once you layout a website then creating one page and 100 pages are the same thing. Rest of the pages can easily be copy/pasted but see the pricing. Honestly speaking IT sector is one of the sector where the customers are still ignorant hence small works can give your big return.
²Monitoring excluded.
³Price will increase of-course for the next batch.
^{^} I am still working on the detail contents and will be putting all together in a sales page on my personal blog.
^* I am working on details. Candidates will be informed once it's ready.

Isn't it awesome instead of paying hundreds of dollars to someone for creating a website for you,
if you can learn the skills of designing a website for rest of your life?

[this investigation topic]

This is an out dated topic. I am no longer going to manage the topic. I gave up. Those already have redTrust for the reason of this investigation topic , PM me. I will remove the redTrust replacing with a neutral trust just to keep the log of my previous investigation.

Original topic archived for reference

[What about on selling merits?]

Asking for merit  receiving negative feedback
Giving merits to alt accounts receives negative feedback if discovered

What about on selling merits? It only says: disallowed but no clue about the penalty.

Any suggestions or update?
From common sense I am considering the penalty provably will be is  receiving  negative feedback. But I am not yet someone here to decide/assume, it will be an insult to all these people who are here from years with deep understanding of possible issues.

I have a thread where I am policing merit farmers/abusers and with evidence I am leaving them red trust following the forum rules. I need to be fair on my judgement.

One of them accepted that he/she sold merits. Although I left them a red trust but I think according to the rules I am wrong.
Should I remove the red trust knowing the person sold the merits?

Thanks

[Disclaimer]

Disclaimer
This is a private investigation and 100% biased free in my knowledge.
I would request DT members to red trust (if possible) the users listed in the cases.
If anyone in the list feels the justification is wrong then feel free to apply for red trust removal with your evidence.
This is a voluntary ongoing campaign to fight against the merit abusers, I would appreciate your positive feedback.

Case#18 Click to open
dance2009, winterrose, Big Game and valtin

Case#17 Click to open
xtraelv and Lafu

Case#16 Click to open
musdafakfl, macit800, BitcoinTurk, rasputincoin, onurgozupek, mhanbostanci, saulzaents, ozma03 , mstfprcn, Kalemder, krhnrhn, HakanYAZICI and srmecdes

Case#15 Click to open
Zoom2k, opium, Kuala Lumpur

Case#14 Click to open
Yet to be completed. Too big network of merit abuser.

Case#13 Click to open
laogeyi123, NeverArgueWithWF, urz42409966, huweiooo, shixd8899 | Added on 16thApril: bluesky338

Case#12 Click to open
mankeen, CryptoNine, Mr.Coinzer, SaaM78

Case#11 Click to open
xbiv2, JNiks_ZLisa

Case#10 Click to open
trumpman, Flodner

Case#9 Click to open
big.pharaoh, mohamed reda, LBX, hamade

Case#8 Click to open
NetFreak199, visionary, chixka000, identifyuser, alexberezov, Rexxxem, jk9694, dumbtool45, number37, blo8i

Case#7 Click to open
StallionMosquito - Sr. Member, zohaibh - Full Member, imrobo2 - Full Member
network with => gmughals - Member, ateebshaikh290 - Member, cheechu - Member

Case#6 Click to open
Naitik and jerry29@

Case#5 Click to open
Rumhurius and striker7334 2.0

Case#4 Click to open
Morphling and yillusion

Case#3 Click to open
A. mrhelpful is confused?
B. Kousei23's possible connection with plucking23, Bruce1614, loading..., alexsandria, Ashong Salonga
And relation between Bruce1614 and kirito1614

Case#2 Click to open
allowance1219, pigheadbig, gomei and choubao0514
with colacat1111, helloge, juicejoyce and doudou1110

Case#1 Click to open
Joe-Niner, BarkingHawk and SparkyU

[Only submit posts/comments link those you think worth receiving merits. Please do not submit your own posts/comments link for the waiting list]

This is an outdated topic. I am no longer following this topic

Only submit posts/comments link those you think worth receiving merits.
Please do not submit your own posts/comments link for the waiting list  

Did I just disappointed you?  
You might be expecting to expose some of your own contents to receive potential merits from this waiting list (Will be added later on the first comment on the comment section). Just think for a moment. Can I really judge something from a neutral ground that is my own? For me I will see my contents are always the best and it's true for all of us even, same applies to anyone who we know, we get biased always. It's not our fault, it's in our nature. So don't take too much stress to fix it. English is my second language. When I write or say something in English, I give my best shot to it. Finding error from there, is really hard for me while I think I am doing just ok LOL. I hope now it make sense for you why I said not to post your own posts/comments link at the very beginning.

The goal on this post for me, is to use my sMerits in an honest way without any biased mental state. I want to be really blind on my judgements when I spend each of my precise sMerit to credit other fellow members on this forum for their quality contents. I will apply some of the improvising ideas in my mind on spending my sMerits because I believe some of these ideas will help me to fairly distribute my sMerits

I know someday (as long as the forum and my interest exists) I will be a Hero Member if not a Legendary because I am very clear about my reasons to be the part of this community. I love Blockchain technology and decentralisation. I wish I was a merit source but sadly I am obviously not a Merit source nor a high ranked member yet, with tons of sMerits, I am just a regular member in the forum with an intentions to leave legacy behind me. That's all.

I spend a very large amount of my time of a day on this forum. According to the system, on average 1hour 30minutes per day (even If I exclude 14 days of ban period + 17 days of vacation period, since I have created my account to today 20th March 2018). If I exclude the 31 days not logged in period then it's 2hours 13minutes per day! So, it's obvious I come across a lot of very good posts which I think worth giving merits but since I do not have sMerits I lose them forever all the time  
I am sure from now on, it's not gonna happen anymore for me.

 How it works?
Whenever I spot something worth receiving sMerits I add it on my "Waiting list". The order is FIFO.
If the comment/post already received any merit from someone else or sMerits from me then I move it to "Merited posts" section (2nd comment section of this post)
If you make any comment with any post link/s then I add the link/s  on the waiting list.
If any link/s turns out to be junk then I move it from waiting list to "Rejected list" (3rd comment section of this post).
I will update the lists as I go. So, any delays should be taken easily.
If you are someone with sMerits then you are welcome to pick any of the links from the waiting list and send your sMerits if you think they worth receiving.


 I encourage using below format when submitting your links

Code:

[table]

[tr][td]LINK1[/td][td]REASON FOR LINK1 (optional)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]LINK2[/td][td]REASON FOR LINK1 (optional)[/td][/tr]
.
.
.
[tr][td]LINKn[/td][td]REASON FOR LINKn (optional)[/td][/tr]

[/table]

[both ranking up and giving credits for your contribution]

Bringing Merit on the table was a great idea from the administrator. Anyone has a good sense (admit or ignore) can see the massive improvement on members activity without any doubt. It's obvious now that merit is playing a greater role determine both ranking up and giving credits for your contribution in the forum. The whole idea of introducing merit system is a success in my opinion however I think the application of merit needs to be revised or the members of the forum will keep misusing the system for their own benefits.

Initially, I thought Merit was a bad idea then I realised I was wrong. Few days ago I created a poll to get feedback from the community and the result changed my mind (Although, I believe I need more data to give the credit to the poll but I figured it out anyway).



I looked into deep and I can say, It's not the idea to be blamed it's the application which needs to be improvised.

You may agree or disagree with me but I would love to bring some suggestions on the table. To see better application for the Merit system, consider adding some of these ideas with the current system. I believe we will see better application for the Merit system then.

1. Giving sMerit to someone should have a limit especially when two person is giving sMerits to each others.
-Two individual with bad intention can easily take advantage if they do not have limit giving sMerits to each others.

Consider this example, how two person with having 10 Merits and 5 sMerits each, can really turn their 5 sMerits into 9 more Merits. Eventually they will end up having 19 Merits each from only having 5 initial sMerits each.

Suggestion: Bring a InOneGo limit.

-Allow giving only x amount of sMerits InOneGo to someone  for y amount of periods.

It's really a luxury to send total of 23 merits 21 times to only one person.

Example,
x = 1 sMerit
y = 1 months period.

If person A wants to give another 1 sMerit to the same person B then he has to wait a full 1 months for that.
Of-course the person A can keep giving sMerits to other members like C, D, E etc as long and his limit does not exits.

Note: We know currently person A can give total of 50 sMerits in a month to whoever he wants without InOneGo limit.

I guess experimenting with different values for x and y variable will give you a better answer finding what should be the applicable value for x and y.

2. For a Legendary member, receiving Merit should have a restriction or (may be just) don't apply Merit for them
-Merit is a form of evaluating a good post. For a Legendary member however in terms of ranking up that merit just became a waste.

When it's coming for Legendary case then merit is losing with its own use-case.

- You give merit to a Legendary you are wasting the limited merit source since it has no use for them on raking up.
- But if you do not merit their good posts then how would their good posts will get recognised?

Suggestion: Don't let the Legendary to receive Merits instead...

Honour the Legendary members by making them a Merit source. Not all of them of-course. Let the community choose who will be their merit source.

Create a criteria of the Legendary members  based on their recent activities. You need data of-course. List the selected group of Legendary members in a poll and let all the other members (except Legendary themselves) give their vote. Then chose top x number of Legendary members and make them Merit source.

Now, this might create another mess if these Legendary members start thinking that they have the power for forever. So, set Y period of time for these Legendary members to be a merit source. After Y period of time there will be another selection process for choosing merit source again. The same Legendary members who were merit source before can also be selected on the new selection process. Power will be distributed equally then.

Keep in mind that recent activities, Y period of time are vary vital for this polling system of choosing merit source from the Legendary members.

Now, question is how would we credit the Legendary members when they provide us great contents? Very simple, bring a special form of crediting feature for them. Such as "upVote" or "like" their post (or something like that which won't have any relation with ranking up)?


3. Accounts ever logged in or even has created from the same IP should not be able to merit each other at all.
-It's really possible that these people know each others personally, may be family members or so. They will obviously try to favour each others with merits.

I'm not 100% sure that the current system restricts creating account from the same IP but I doubt it has this feature. Otherwise we would not see lots of alts. It really is a shame that even higher ranked members are creating alts to take advantage of the system. Whatever is your reason, when you already have an account with the system then creating an alt really is an unethical business.

Anyway, if the system detects that account A and B created from the same IP or account A and B ever come across under the same IP then write a special set of rules for them.
-A and B can not exchange any sMerit ever
-The other accounts (c, d, e etc accounts) who, ever exchanged sMerits anytime with A and B will also be never able to give sMerits to A and B. This will prevent misusing sMerits like this... I (A) will give you (C) two sMerits, please you give 1 sMerits to him (B) situation like this and so on.


Finally, It's obvious that Merit system needs to be revised today or tomorrow. Some may say it's only a month or so, the system need more time to be tested. I do get it and agree with them however... A wise man once said, “All the waters in the oceans won't fill a bucket with a hole in it”

I guess you get the idea now.