I actually got excited when I read this. Not because I'm planning to throw $1,000 at a quilt, but because it feels a little bit like I've been a part of the journey, albeit to a minimal degree, but it has been fun to watch the thread move along. I'm about a whole day late on reading your reply here, which means that the quilt pictures should be coming any minute now; not trying to rush you, or put you on the spot. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product, because the first pictures had me skeptical that it would even look good. The last pictures you sent had me a bit more convinced that it was going to be a quality end-product. Now that it's done, I'm ready to see it in it's full glory.

Please link the auction within this thread when you have begun the thread.

I have my doubts about the willingness of these users to auction at such a high price, so I'm interested in a multi-faceted manner. I'm curious of the starting price for your auction, the amount of users that will get involved and what kind of interest this is going to drive in general. The collectible section has gotten pretty stale over the years, not to say there isn't wonderful things in there, but it mostly seems like the same things over and over again. Obviously there is reasons for this, there is interest, the market is there, etc.; I'm just saying it would be nice if this could somehow catch fire in the collectible section so that there is some new opportunities around here.

We're up to 80 merit sources at this point. That means you've got to be somewhere in line for processing. I've already given my endorsement, but it seems kind of silly that there is no way of knowing whether or not you've been viewed, reviewed, processed or rejected. The only answer you will be aware of is if and when it is a "yes". I would like some more transparency on this front, as it leaves less room for confusion and us sitting here in a daze. I imagine you haven't been accepted, because I haven't seen an increase in your merit sending; plus this thread is still open and being bumped.

The first batch(es) were probably, if I had to guess, done in some kind of order of necessity. Local-boards probably are getting priority as theymos originally mentioned. I would assume theymos is trying to spread the sources out based on their activity, which is going to make it increasingly difficult to become a source that primarily roams around the "main" boards. I'll quit my rambling, I just wanted to give my opinion on there being no notifications or information on the status of your own application, besides what can be described as an educated guess.

Side-Note, why do you think they seem to come in batches of acceptance rather than one at a time? That behooves me a bit, unless theymos sets aside a particular chunk of time to bang out a bunch of applications and always manages to find multiple sources within that pile.

Yikes. I'm not so sure you do understand my concerns. I'm not so sure you understand what reasonable concerns should be in this scenario, either. Unfortunately the very first thing I see when I click that link is :

That is not a comforting sign when a new service is popping it's head into the market. The campaign manager you have selected for your campaign is somebody that has been banned in the past. This is a new account they have created, and thus they are evading a currently standing ban. What this means for you, is that your account manager could very easily disappear at any moment. Ban evasion is a banable offense AFAIK, so if they do get banned I wouldn't expect your funds to be returned; Especially considering the fact that their original ban was due to begging through unsolicited PMs.

Out of pure curiosity, what criteria were considered when choosing a manager for your signature campaign? I'm wondering if you have read these threads or any other threads in accusation or connection to your manager -

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1528178.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1073373

It seems rather hypocritical that you cannot have negative trust in order to be a participant in the signature campaign, however the campaign manager has multiple, valid negative trusts. I presume you are paying this user, so I can only think to ask one question; why?

Originally there was a merit requirement on this thread, but that was removed and I can't imagine a reason other than it being similarly hypocritical, as the manager has never received merit, either.

For example, I just took a peek at a single accepted campaign participate jakezyrus (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1080167) and what I found should not make you happy in the slightest. They have never received a single merit point, which can be overlooked if their posting habits are just being overlooked by those without merit to give. This is not the case though, because a look through their most recent posts shows their last 3-posts (linked below) are all the 1000th+ reply in a megathread, buried deep within the depths in spam. One of them is actually the 2500th+ reply, so that's even more egregious. Spoiler alert, their posts don't get better as you keep digging. Would any one of their posts be the type of post or the type of exposure you are looking to accrue or pay for?

In fact, not a single one of the accepted participants have received a single merit since it has been implemented. This should stand out when you have multiple hero members posting in your campaign. One of the accepted participants has only posted twice in the past 3-months and one of the posts was their application to your campaign.

The lack of judgement here is really off-putting from my perspective. I would have liked to have seen a more reputable manager, accepting higher quality participants with less hypocritical and more discriminatory rules/criteria. In my opinion, it is much better to be extremely selective in this process. This is your business, and I'm sure you would like to see it succeed; you will do more harm than good if you allow this signature campaign, with this manager and these participants play out as it currently is. I'm honestly here to help you and be as straightforward as I possibly can. What questions and criteria did you use to set-up the framework for this signature campaign?

The biggest question here is : Do you see anything I have mentioned as a problem?

Bitcoin jumps and falls in price every single day. There are highs and there are lows. My best guess, would be that traders with tremendous BTC holdings are testing the support of Bitcoin for future trades, investment information and to get a better idea about what kind of market they are operating within. This recent price fall definitely has something to do with the fact that a bunch of people invested money into Bitcoin without any knowledge or genuine interest besides their desire to get rich; these people scare easily and when they jump ship they flood the market with their coin and this drives the price down.


Can you explain this a little further? I don't know if you were just pulling this randomly out of thin air or if you believe there is something valid behind it, but in any case I would beg that you clarify this point.

It definitely seems like a possbility, as it has happened in the past. The market values are just whatever someone is willing to pay against whatever someone in possession of BTC is willing to accept for it. Circulation would seem to have little to no correlation with the value of BTC, because otherwise we wouldn't experience these absurd price dips and spikes with similar volumes.

I guess I am just confused by the premise and conclusion. I wish that users would go more into detail about what they are putting forward, because this is how real conversations are had. You very well have an opportunity to teach me something new, and probably many others if you are able to back your statements up. This in itself would be impressive and probably something I would merit; I don't normally run around handing out merit tips, but it's just a side-note and hopefully some incentive for you to take me up on my suggestion(s).

This user already has red trust and is posting multiple threads that are baiting negative trust for no apparent reason. I already replied to another one of their threads and reported them to  a moderator. I'm hoping that they just get muted, because this is malicious, obnoxious and they've already been all linked together. I don't know why the owner of these accounts is just spamming the merit board, literally begging for negative trust. It is nothing except a waste of time for everyone involved and a waste of forum resources.

I click threads like this, hoping that it is going to be satirical, humorous or interesting in someway. It's always unfortunate when it is just someone being a low-quality troll.

It is either not the original owner of the account and they have a gripe with the account owner, or they might be testing some "auto-post" script, since they are doing so with multiple accounts.

I don't mean to put you on the spot by any means, but are the criteria something you are willing to make public, or at the very least share with me in confidence? I'm very interested in hearing what these are. I'm not sure if you are open to negotiation on these criteria in the hopes to improve them; not that there is anything wrong with them, but there is always room for improvement. I was unaware that you had official criteria, and I feel like they may assist me in meriting posts, or figuring out which deserve it.

Indeed hugeblack seems to be knowledgeable and active in the right ways from what I've seen. I've actually sent merit to hugeblack previously as well, so I guess I had my hand in ranking them up as well. One side-effect of the merit system is that each of us will be responsible to some degree for the rank of others from now on. This means that there is an element of endorsing this user ranking up, and that's something that concerns me greatly, ultimately stopping me when I consider applying to be a source merit. I want to get a greater handle on the entire merit system, because running services such as this invokes tremendous responsibility.

hugeblack, I believe has applied for my sMerit review thread and came up short (or hasn't been reviewed yet, I don't remember), but they scored on pugman's Q&A thread that I help run.


I'm happy that you're able to wear your own avatar. Normally users waste the opportunity and put something related to a campaign. Your avatar gets me a pretty good laugh each time I see it.


Do so responsibly.
As long as you contribute to the community you will be able to maintain a supply of merit to maintain the service.

For what it is worth, the delay worked and the custom fee worked as well. I like that you have set a maximum fee of 3%, because that saves anybody from accidentally giving you an absurd fee on accident. Your website has been very user friendly so far, and I've received back my coins without fault.

I have to admit that I was extremely skeptical at first, but I'm looking forward to seeing your site develop further and participate in future testing if need be. The way you performed testing was very generous and interesting.

I have my reservations and will most likely not have this as my primary mixer, for simple reasons such as the maximum is too low and this gives me a bit of a concern still. The idea that there is such limited funds involved in this project makes me fear that it may vanish at any time. The signature campaign will ease these concerns a bit, because the funds required for that are quite significant if you're running a campaign to any worthwhile degree. I think an increase in funds, maximum mix and forum presence in the form of a signature campaign without low-quality participants would go a long way towards increasing your reputation.

It is currently unclear how many reserve posts I will need to go through the posts at a comfortable compartmentalization pace. I'll figure it out as I go along and do as I normally do; I will designate each users submissions to a reserve post and then you will be able to quickly figure out if, where and when you are going to have your submissions reviewed. This makes it easy for me to organize and review, while also making it easy for you guys to keep track. I'll keep you posted.

It may or may not be a problem. I was simply trying to bring up relevant information and point out that our current system is able to be abused even if they are unable to self-moderate in a particular board. There just constantly seems to be something we are failing to consider, which leads to an exploit of some kind to some degree. Something fell through the cracks, and so those places where staff has decided that newbies cannot self-moderate on these boards are still able to be self-moderated. I'm just saying we need to be wary of our past mistakes and not to allow them to slip through in our future solutions and implementations.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3198529.0

I've been trying to post warnings on this users thread, they've already been tagged by DT members, but it's still annoying seeing them bump their thread, while deleting any critical comments. Freely allowing them to spam their scam, without anyone being able to jump in. I'm in full support if we're being honest.

If we are going to implement what you are suggest Milkz, then we would also need to take EcuaMobi's newest thread into consideration when doing so. It may be a little known fact, but there exists exploits that would enable a user to take advantage of a thread as if it was self-moderated, even without making it self-moderated.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3191518.msg33077273#msg33077273

I'm not sure about all of the nuances, or exactly how this would play into what is being suggested, but it certainly cannot be discounted if removing self-moderation from lower-ranking members is something that is to be taken seriously.

I bumped into a Jr. Member today that had a self-moderated thread, in which they were blatantly a scammer that was deleting any critical comments, reasonable questions or pretty much anything except for vouches (from their alts?) and self-bumps. After a few other members jumped in on their thread to warn potential victims they resorted to locking their thread. I imagine this user will unlock their thread when they feel it is safe.

TheQuinn suggested an auto-lock after X days without a post and I thought this might work nicely in conjunction with what is being proposed. Auto-lock after X days, not allowing lower ranking members to self-moderate their topics, fixing the loopholes as pointed out by EcuaMobi and potentially not allowing these members to unlock their threads as well. All of this would play nicely towards a more tidy and strict on newbies approach that would almost certainly benefit the forum in a major way.

I'm excited to hear that we have enough participants to qualify for a 3rd place prize. It is amusing to me that nullius has entered with a fictional character persona, and I believe nullius to be creating an entire fictional universe out of alt accounts. If they are not, then they should be, as the forum would be more entertaining if that were the case. That being said, it is also very interesting to me the new rules pertaining to alternate accounts. I think it is interesting that nullius is guaranteed to not win 1st place (unless there are undisclosed alts), and that someone else has a good shot at the increased prize pool this week.

Have you experienced any problems with the google forms or automating enrollment entirely? You mentioned that someone barely beat another user by .06 points or something like that, and I'm wondering if I missed something in terms of how posts are being graded and scored.

I'm in a similar boat to Joe. I haven't forgotten about you guys either. I was around for the initial round of testing I believe and I wrote up a nice review about how enjoyable the UI looked on mobile devices (iOS, more specifically). I have also come back to mix some coins through your service, because it's unfortunate that you gave people coins specifically to test Nested SegWit addresses and nobody did so. I sent .002 through, with a delay and a custom fee. No problems thus far, very clean, very responsive and transparent. I can really see you guys becoming a bigger name in this niche. I would like to see a bigger maximum mix, but I can understand that you're working with limited capital from the beginning. I wouldn't mind accepting a reward, but I certainly am not expecting one, either. 

What sort of errors that are outside of my control are likely to occur on a DEX? The protocol(s) should have enough security and proof built into them that errors are prevented. Centralized authorities to reach resolutions are only necessary if there is dispute about what has been exchanged. This can be avoided altogether if done properly. I believe I disagree, but I am willing to hear more specifically what kinds of errors and resolutions you speak of.

Oh, in that case I heard Satoshi was looking to get some Merit.
They said send all of your merit to them and they'll be sure to return the favor.

That should about wrap up this thread. Lock it down, boys!

---

I don't understand why you would honestly clarify that point after you've been tagged multiple times and have most likely only been contacted by users looking to scam merit from you. I can't make it any clearer, but nobody is going to actually purchase your merit. You will only get scammers and unfortunate members contacting you about this. Anybody with integrity, ethics or morals would not participate in this kind of thing. Anybody that has half a brain would not pay that much for merit, even if they were interested in doing so. Please, just lock the thread and try another way of making a couple of dollars.

I hate to do this to you, but you've broken a rule by submitting multiple submissions before I reviewed the original. For this reason you can feel free to submit your posts again, but these won't be considered.


As long as I can understand what you are saying there isn't a problem. I try not to give people a hard time if they are struggling with a language. I just do my best to clarify and understand what they are getting at.


I'm sorry, but you've broken a formatting rule with the way your links are all tagged up so I'm going to have to ask you to resubmit your links after taking a peek at the local rules.

In my opinion, we should try to accomplish a 0% fee and only pay miner fees or whatever else would be absolute required. There exists the possibility of decentralized exchanges, and through a decentralized exchange it would make sense that 0% fees would be a regular occurrence. This would be my preference moving forward, I do not think that the crypto world needs more unregulated centralized exchanged that do as they please. They frequently get hacked, disappear, hold deposits and withdrawals; the list of problems with exchanges aside from the exchange rate is long. I would like to see more companies pushing in the direction of open-source decentralized exchanges as the norm.

This user's email address was changed recently.

This user recently woke up from a long period of inactivity.

I doubt this person is the original owner of their account, but that's just my first impression of their lack of care put into the account and the above comments being on their trust summary. I would be thoroughly impressed if anybody was willing to pay $15-$20 per 1-merit. That's mind blowing to me, if anybody is actually that desperate for merit.


I have no clue what this means either. You will send first after they pay, that means you will not send first, is that right? Your telegram is "merritfarmer", but I doubt you have access to any significant amount of merit.

All of this is hilarious to me, please nobody purchase merit. Do not trust this user. They have been tagged by DT members and you can expect the same fate to befall you if you participate in their nonsense.

Your question is not properly formulated in my estimation. Everyone is giving you advice on where to read more about this, and I suggest you do the reading they are suggesting to you. You are able to use the search function and find endless discussion on this topic.

I just have one basic correction, Bitcoin will never reach 21M in circulating supply. There have been too many bitcoins lost to missing keys, the genesis block not having private keys and things like this. Circulating supply is much lower than the amount in existence. Bitcoin mining will not conclude within any of our lifetimes, so I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you're planning on writing prophetic visions.

Your first submission has already received a few merit, and therefore I am not considering this to be under merited at this point. Your second submission read to me as a a regular conversational post with not too much being added to the discussion.


I do not care to merit advice for people regarding aidrops or bounties. These things are not interesting to me.


You have already received a merit for your first submission and therefore I'll leave that one as it is. I don't see it as under merited. I'll try to keep it short and sweet, none of these will be getting merit from me. You have a very pleasant posting style, and I'm sure I would be giving you merit in the future. I cannot give merit to everyone pointing out abuses of the merit system, and the rest of your submissions seem to carry merit. Continue doing as you are, you will rack of merit in no time.


Both of these posts are bad if your goal is to receive merit. One of them is the 1300th+ reply in a megathread. The other is a useless post about airdrops and it is a very thoughtless post. This thread was not created in order to merit anybody that stumbled upon it and has posted before.


This sort of service is shady and is not something I'm going to endorse with my merit. I would expect your satisfied customers to award you merit, but I'm not sure how many interested clients you will pull in with this service.