I don't know if this is an intended consequence, but it would seem that this excludes almost any non-English speaker from higher ranks. Am I incorrect to see this as a little bit unfortunate?

Obviously if nobody can understand what you are saying there is no reason for you to merit, but there is many (I assume) that deserve merit in other languages, and a very significant minority of our community are non-English speakers.

Let me know if I am looking at this incorrectly, because I very well could be misunderstanding the current situation in the "Local" boards, how they are "valued" by our lovely staff, etc.

The limits that are in place seem pretty solid for combating this sort of in-grouping; that being said almost all of the users that have known each-other a long time are already legendary and therefore have no incentive to hoard merit points among themselves in order to rank up.

Right now the system is being cheated and taken advantage of by users spamming around nonsense; they are ruining the forum for everyone else. This is, in part, a counter-measure against that; of course it will come with it's own problems, but as long as it remains a net-positive then we are in business.


I suppose it is unlimited if we were able to stick around forever, but we have a finite time to live so effectively there is still a limit on the distribution; I see your point, though.

I do not see a problem with the majority of the points going to the best contributors, based on their merit, do you? I do not think new accounts contribute much more than 5% of the wisdom, nuance, creativity or information around here. Should an uninformed spammer be a Hero member?

The points are meant to be valuable, but yes there will be fluctuation in the sources/amount created in order to maintain a happy medium.



You're missing the point; there is no longer an "expected" time, just by going through the motions and taking advantage of the system. You will never make it without merit-earning posts.

100 sMerit/Month is not unlimited; it is 100 sMerit per month. Merit sources are the only way for there to be an increasing amount of merit distrusted around the forum, in order to compensate for the necessary merit needed to rank up new accounts at a reasonable pace. Without a Merit source we would just be trading around merit until sMerit has depleted.

I am interested in the "It is not allowed for merit sources to sell their merit", as this implies it is "allowed" for other users to sell their merit.



I think I addressed this above? ^


Ranks now matter more than they have recently, I don't understand why you hope that be to a mistake. Do you believe there are more than 14 members each month that are deserving of ranking themselves up to hero, based on the merit of their contributions?

Yes, however this is sort of like saying "If everyone stops using the trust system the nobody will gain trust ratings." While this is the case, it is a moot point, because it is not going to happen.

There are sources, and these people will continue to use the merit system even if they are the only ones doing so; this will of course monopolize merit in an unfortunate way, so it is in everyone's best interest to use the system as intended, rather than ignore it as if it were never mentioned.

This will makes ranks more valuable, disincentive spam and I highly doubt the 3-seconds it takes to merit someone will deter almost anyone. Are you that constrained for time?


No, merit does not decrease; the merit you send comes from your sMerit, which is a separate count; you have an initial amount determined by your rank and you acquire more by receiving .5 sMerit for every 1 Merit you receive.

Since the addition of the two new Sub-forums under the Other section, "Serious Discussion" and "Ivory Tower" I am wondering if the campaign rules ought to be amended, or do you intend on qualifying posts in those sections for payment?

I'm going to assume that posts in this section will not be counted, however I think it would be impressively revolutionary to be a signature campaign that promotes usage of these sections even without it directly displaying signatures; seemingly, it may just be an "investment" in the right place since users in this section aren't there to mess around. It's possible you already have considered this and see this as nullifying the entire purpose of these sections, which is definitely something to avoid; I'm very curious to hear the campaign stance on these sections, especially if it is contradictory to my assumption.

I can't help but feel like you're trolling me right now. If you're not just messing with my head then you must've misunderstood what I was asking about. I was referring to the negative sMerit I had sent out as a test, not my Trust/feedback; that being said I also only have 1-negative trust-rating and it is from a random with no reference, rhyme or reason as far as I can tell.

At any rate, Theymos has fixed my merit discrepencies and I'm back in the game same as anybody else. Thanks for being responsive, Theymos. Gleb, do I have more than that single negative trust that I am not seeing, or did the joke go over my head?

Now that all of my negatives have been removed, the positive smerit I have sent to counter-balance those ratings remain and my total sMerit is currently sitting at -6.

Is this something I am to overcome myself, or is it possible to get my other "test" merits removed?

I was pretty excited to get used to the system, but now it seems I'm at a pretty sad disadvantage for using the system properly, because I foolishly was testing the bug before posting about it uninformed.

I can probably work my way back up to positive numbers, just wondering if anything can be done?

It seems theymos fixed the negative bug already, or at least temporarily; it now gives a message of "Invalid Amount", same if you try to give someone "0" merit.

That could've gotten dicey real quick, what will be done to the merit that was gained (regardless of the insignificant amount) through this method? I'm sure there are a handful of lower-rank members that already have ghastly amounts of merit.

Theymos, bug : Sending negative merit increases your spendable merit, please advise and fix.

I tested it on another user, gave them negative my total spendable increased. I gave them back their merit and now my contribution is +0 merit to their post, which is funny at best, but definitely something I'm sure you're already looking into.

Lauda got my Merit for answering Vod's question; it seems like there was another user that agreed with them about opening in a new window, too; seems strange that you'd be so technically literate and be unaware of this. I might be the butt of some intense sarcasm right now if I'm not careful.


They are either hand-selected, randomly sorted out of a hat, or there was some sort of automated search that grabbed some metric as a representative of "merit" (trust, views, etc.).


I do not know what you mean, it is necessary to rank up your account and there is a finite amount of it to around at any given time by only a finite amount of sources and those of us with initial merit. How then, would be become disregarded in any manner? Do explain.


Wouldn't the already in place Trust system be sufficient to handle this sort of thing? It's clearly unacceptable and we already have a place for untrustworthy or malicious activity.

It is going to be interesting to see how this system plays out now that it has been implemented (at least temporarily, although I don't know theymos to take back features). I'm not excited at the idea of ranks being "volatile", but this could be very solid incentive to not risk your rank by posting thoughtless nonsense.

From what I can tell the lower ranks have next to nothing to send in terms of merit, so account farming is only going to be significant to the degree that the account farmer has higher ranking accounts. This would seemingly be a very good tool for drawing out alts to some extent. I imagine people with many alts would be hesitant on the trigger when sending merit to themselves, and when they do it would probably not last long. It is obviously something we frown upon, there are people that act as "watchdogs" and it will presumably just not be worth "farming" merit.

I'd like to know how activity and merit play into one another, because if Merit determines your rank now then is activity simply used to determine initial merit? Apologies if I'm being naive or illiterate.

Last night I cashed out a small amount of coin just to cover some daily expenses, because long-story short the bank I use to deal with my bills and such did their best to complicate my week; this caused me to have a need I am resentful about, cashing out some of my coin. I was extraordinarily upset about this, because of the fees I assumed I would be coughing up just to move my coin.

To my surprise I used the minimal fee as you seem to have done as well, and to my surprise I got an almost instant confirmation; it took a couple hours for the remainder recommended confirmations, but without much fee or time there it was.

It seems the absurd fees lately have caused an extremely significant chunk of bitcoin users to migrate over to SegWit, Alt-coins temporarily, and as TryNinja has pointed out the hashing power has increased as well. We're lifting strain off of the 1MB blocks, while also moving those people to less constrained methods of sending, 2MB Segwit, Forks, Alts, etc.

This adds up to, less people everyday trying to funnel themselves through that small 1-MB hole.

The Pharmacist is not earning from 2-signature campaigns simultaneously.
They are not breaking any forum guidelines, rules or signature campaign criteria.
What is your point?

There has not been a single instance, as far as I know, of any current DT member tagging someone that applied for the same slot in a signature campaign as them and that person even remotely being considered competition for that slot. Do you have any evidence that these people are "busting their competitors and gain fame to have slot"?

They do not have a monopoly on signature campaigns, or the participants; they literally would not even be relevant to signature campaigns if the signature campaign managers themselves did not grant merit to these ratings. This tells you that the campaign managers probably agree with these ratings, for the most part, and if this is the case you would not be getting into the campaign regardless of their rating; it is just saving campaign managers a few seconds per spammer.

Anyone that puts forth any effort whatsoever into their posts or time around the forum is unaffected by these ratings, unless you consider the positive affect of scaring away spammers or forcing them to improve.

I don't see the problem.

Wrong, wrong and wrong again. The trust system cannot be "anchored in clear rules, equalized for all", because it is as it sounds "trust"; you cannot force someone to trust you, and you cannot control those that do not trust you. You're not going to get someone removed from DT by disagreeing with their ratings, because in all feasibility those ratings are at least partly the reason they are on DT to begin with; these people will only be removed if those that put them there feel they are no longer, trustworthy. The Trust system will not be removed, because that would cause chaos unless it is simultaneously replaced by something better or at least equally bad.

Your reasoning for Lauda not being tagged by actmyname is weak.
Do you believe Lauda is a shitposting spammer? They do their job better than you do yours and yours is much easier.

Lauda was not tagged by actmyname for being a shitposting spammer, because they are not a shitposting spammer. There is no fear or exploitation, you are digging. Instead of flailing like a toddler during a tantrum, analyse yourself and get your rating removed. This is an option in front of you, improve your posting quality; do not be angry that your terrible posting quality is not satisfactory.

They are not judging you simply on the quality of your posts, if I were to take a guess at their reasoning or justification I would probably arrive at the fact that you guys are maliciously posting in this manner in an attempt to farm signature campaign income. This is not how the forum is intended to be used and therefore they feel you are abusing the forum, tearing it to pieces, lowering it's value and making it impossible to find a post worth reading. You are putting obstacles in the way of everyone else enjoying the forum as it is intended to be enjoyed for your own financial gain. You are willing to harm everyone else, while not reading threads, ignoring rules and guidelines, posting disingenuous questions and everything else that comes along with it simply to make a quick, unsustainable, buck.

I agree with these ratings, if you at least followed the guidelines and rules you wouldn't receive these ratings. The quality of the post is not necessarily the problem, it is (among other things) the intention behind it, the frequency and how it affects the experience of other users.


I was unaware that BTC Risked counted as an additional rating until I reread theymos' post about trust just last night; I've got to agree, because it was obviously intended that the greater the amount scammed/risked the greater the trust-factor. It doesn't do us very much good if the threshold is such that it will not commonly be reached, and in such a way that it will be insignificantly incremental. At the point where this would be activated the additional trust rating would be irrelevant.

I seek only campaigns that align with my interests; I have had many opportunities for higher-paying signature campaigns, however I do not enjoy their products, services or criteria, therefore I do not even apply or I outright decline. It is quite amusing how bitter you are, knowing you will not be accepted and being resentful because I take whichever is the best opportunity in front of my face, which does not necessarily mean higher pay. If a better opportunity arises and you do not make an effort towards it then you will never progress.

I will keep in mind that you will never let me into your campaigns, but I would probably not apply for your campaigns; you argue with your participants more than any manager I've seen and your campaigns are the shortest-lived.


I don't know why you're calling me a liar, but I'm going to assume that it is because you lack the conceptualization of the word "hope". "Hope", in this context meaning that it would be ideal if all of our interests continued to align properly, which would allow all of us to continue doing as we are doing and being satisfied by it. If you know something that I don't, then please enlighten me, but as far as I can see you are making baseless, childish accusations.

This is a Signature Campaign thread, if you'd like to make accusations either throw me a PM to discuss or head over to Meta/Scam-Accusations to complain.


I don't see any need for you to write this post, so I guess we're both confused. You are adding nothing to the discussion, conversation or thread with this. Interesting that you felt compelled to edit my quote, instead of allowing it to stand as I wrote it, the extra punctuation wasn't necessary.

It's called a conversation, by the way, normally when somebody says something you say the thoughts in your head that are relevant and productive. I noticed he said he's sick of spammers, I threw it out there that I don't believe myself to be a spammer.

Would you care to point out any examples of me being a spammer?

Your logic is profoundly lost on me, can nobody self-proclaim any virtues or description of their own habits? If I said "I am by no measure a blonde", would you then say that this makes me "look" like a blonde? Even though you cannot see me, so "look" is very incorrect, maybe something closer to "seem", "appear" even "read".


I clicked Post, instead of Preview, my mistake

I feel like I am receiving too much attention in this thread and I honestly have no clue what the reason is.

OP, I apologize for the extracurricular posts that you now must sift past in order to do your job. I am PMing the two folks that seem to take issue with myself, and hopefully this can stay out of your thread moving forward. It was not my intention, although I felt that I should address what was being said.

The design is actually quite nice, at least that is to say it is reasonably in-style around where I'm from with the age-group I am a part of. I like the scarf, and it's very interesting, because my girlfriend and I have been considering doing something extremely similar; we were planning on providing clothing products and a few other services/products as well. It is very interesting to see somebody doing what is so incredibly similar to what we are attempting to do will be something I'll be sure to keep a close eye on.

I wish you the best of luck, sincerely, and I will be keeping a close watch on your thread and growth. This will be one reference I will have to go off of when considering my own products moving forward. I honestly only have one complaint that sticks out to me as necessary; $25 seems a little bit pricey for a scarf in my estimation. After shipping charges this comes out to be a little over $30 in total, so it just seems a little skewed in the wrong direction. I understand you've gotta make a profit, but if it was even $25 total including shipping, then it would be a much more tenable option. The embroidery looks top-notch, though, so good on you for that.

I apologize for the delayed reply, I have been dealing with some transitional nonsense in my own life; doing some moving, helping family through the things and to keep a long-story short I can't be as active as I would like to be around here. I am still interested in dealing with you, and I have just started accepting PMs from newbie members so you should be able to communicate with me that way now as well.

If you still have the bitcoin, I am interested and willing to deal with you; just to be clear I am not paying for 0.00281075, I am paying for whatever amount I receive and using Preev.com's exchange rate at the time of receiving the coin. If you are alright with this, 17GFts7gLPthfVbKs2iGUuWYtsEKeNgLuh is my bitcoin address that I use around here, but if you would like a fresh address (as some users are more comfortable this way), I have no problem accommodating that request just let me know.

Shoot me a PM if/when you decide to send the coin so I know when/if to be looking for it's arrival. I'll send the Paypal as soon as it is received and I'm online.

I was hoping you would be able to just see my response to your thread so I could avoid having to repeat myself within a PM, however since I see you're replying to others while avoiding my item tells me that I haven't contacted you in the proper way; so I am attempting to play by your rules and I've sent you a PM with my Steam link to make contacting me as easy as I can possibly make it.

Feel free to respond within this thread, which I will be watching and keeping up with (I do not mind negotiations being public). You can also reply to my PM or add me on Steam to discuss further; my knife is currently on OPSkins, so do not be alarmed if you do not see it in my inventory presently. I can get it back into my inventory if you would like proof of ownership, however OPSkins is also a sufficient escrow in my estimation.

I'll be standing by, hoping you are ready to move further into this discussion; if you are not interested in my item specifically or if you are not interested in this kind of item then please make that known publicly to save myself and other users plenty of time, I won't mind if you aren't interested, but I would hate to continue waiting for a response when you have already given it all the thought you plan to.

You are wrong on so many levels here it is alarming, to say the least; There is no evidence whatsoever that 90% of ICO projects do this illegal service which you are proposing. You cannot just make things up and proclaim them as fact, because you assume everybody to be as underhanded as yourself. If you have evidence of specific or individual ICO projects doing what we are talking about then by all means show your evidence, call them out and action will be taken swiftly against them.

My assumption is that you can not produce a single instance of another current ICO project doing this, or even a past ICO project that was operating this way and the community knowingly allowed for it.

I'll tell you what is really funny, the fact that you are given an opportunity to explain yourself, correct your path and acknowledge your short-comings on this topic and still you spit in the face of yahoo, a respected member. You need to examine your behavior, because your ICO will be shut down, you will be tagged with negative trust for your actions and you will in all likelihood become barred from using this forum in any capacity.

Talking about it is okay, so long as you are denouncing it or exposing it; requesting it and performing it is what is not okay.

It's always a sad thing to see payouts get "lowered", although I have to say that this is going to be more positive than negative in my opinion. The pot may be smaller, but it also may be larger due to the increased interest now that people cannot simply purchase the max amount of tickets and be guaranteed profit into their account. This is a good move on your part, I definitely approve of this, because I've been wanting to purchase lottery tickets from you guys, but it has just seemed futile with the way things have been going prior. This will probably increase interest, definitely increase the "fairness" of the lottery and at worst it may lower the payout by an insignificant amount.


I noticed this in the other thread you have about your daily giveaway and yet another reason I have to hangout on your site daily. I'm going to assume this is different from the "rain" that falls in the chat, and if that is the case you guys hand-out more coin rewards than any other casino OR faucet I have ever seen. You guys do an extraordinary job at allowing people to get their hands dirty without even needing any coin to do so.