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1  Other / Off-topic / Re: Bad eating habits on: September 04, 2024, 06:02:11 PM
Sugar, carbohydrates and salts
2  Other / Meta / Re: Could the merit system demotivate lurkers? on: September 10, 2021, 06:03:21 PM

As it is though could there be a possibility that it could demotivate a long time lurker and take away from the creative process?
Your posting ability isn't affected by the number of merits you have. You can create new threads or reply to existing ones in all sections of the forum expect Serious Discussion and the Ivory Tower. 

Maybe there can be some fun interactive quizzes or games that test how well someone understands the technology, philosophy and the economics of bitcoin? Would it be a possibility to earn some merit when playing these games?
You would surely get merits if you created such games and shared them with the community. It is possible to earn some from solving them as well, but it depends on if the OP or community believe what you did is merit-worthy or not.

Here is an example of Bitcoin crosswords that soliton used to make a few months ago.

As long as there is serious discussion it is fine as it is. I thought that people who have more merit might be listened to more than others. I.e. a popularity contest.

That cross word puzzle is excellent! I like it! I was thinking that having games for all age groups can be an excellent and fun way to teach about Bitcoin. Let's be honest: A lot of the aspects of Bitcoin can be hard to understand for the general public.

I will be looking at making a few games. I will post those when I have something worth showing.

If someone else would like to make games feel free to message me. Graphic design, sound design, script writing, ui design and programming is needed to make games. I was thinking games that range from simple jump and run games for kids, educational games for kids all the way to adult games. The goal is to have games that teach while they are fun at the same time.
3  Other / Meta / Re: Could the merit system demotivate lurkers? on: September 07, 2021, 09:21:03 AM
I understood your post, as I wanted to contribute according to how I understood, I observed something that confused me.
You registered 2013, that is about 8yrs now. Did you take a break or you were lurking this while?

I followed all the major technological changes, developments and debates about implementations, forks and other topics. I didn't read the forum every day though if that is what you are asking. The epic "I AM HODLING" post was made before the merit system. I love to re-read that sometimes. I think this post embodies some of the Bitcoin culture and passion. The post was so genuine and we all felt it at the time.
4  Other / Meta / Re: Could the merit system demotivate lurkers? on: September 06, 2021, 11:56:40 PM
I disagree with your conclusions, and your premise, however you appear to make a well thought out argument that should provoke discussion. As such, I have given you sufficient merit to become a junior member.


Thank you for my first merit! I will cherish it. I am always happy to contribute and I am looking forward to the day when I will gift my first smerit.

I was always under the impression the Bitcoin philosophy meant the barriers to entry are supposed to be extremely low to empower and give financial freedom to anybody who seeks independence.
That sounds all good and well, but barriers to entry for a form of money?  That's just not possible.  You have to have money to own bitcoin; the empowering aspect comes from not having the banks or government involved in your financial transactions, not the owning of bitcoin itself.

And note that bitcoin and bitcointalk are two different things entirely.  Things are rough on newbies--at least as far as ranking up and some other restrictions--because this is a discussion forum with a long history of problems caused primarily by new members.  As far as a lurker who has something really important they want to share, there's absolutely nothing stopping them from registering here and posting about it, especially not the merit system.  A member at the rank of Newbie can post whatever they want except for images (and there's a time limit between posts), so I don't see what the problem is.

The reason why I started to contemplate about the merit system was because I wanted to order flyers from the guy that makes everyone's flyers for their campaigns. This is when I realised that it wasn't possible for me to post images in the forum anyway.

Why do you need money to own bitcoin, when bitcoin is the money? Smiley The low barriers to entry to bitcoin is exactly that what you say it is. It can't be regulated and is a trust less system. It can be used by anyone in the world.

By barriers to entry in the bitcointalk forum I meant the ranking system. I do understand why it is there and I like it as it is because there probably isn't a better way. I am just pointing out that it might lead to users making posts and content just for the sake of getting some more merit, while a lurker who might have something useful to post might be disgruntled by it. I hope this makes sense.

Perhaps some other lurkers can chime in who have been lurking but not posting much. What do you all think?
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6  Other / Meta / Re: Could the merit system demotivate lurkers? on: September 06, 2021, 08:06:17 PM
If merits shouldn't matter to a user perhaps I don't understand the reason for having it in the first place.

If merits are not "needed" to participate why have them?

Not needed for genuine users. Definitely needed to slow down shitposters, as Rikafip already pointed out. So adding additional ways to earn merits is not really necessary and could even have a detrimental effect if e.g. shitposters could get merits by cheating in the quizzes you proposed.

Perhaps I should have named the title of this post "Why awareness and understanding is vital for Bitcoin" instead. My point is that posting to try and satisfy the merit system will not always lead to better quality content but will instead lead to people trying to satisfy the human limbic system instead. It is the geek version of girls posting quite revealing content to instagram or tiktok for likes.

But that is just my opinion and I do agree that spammers and shitposters have to be kept out.
7  Other / Meta / Re: Could the merit system demotivate lurkers? on: September 06, 2021, 07:13:51 PM
Your post is an interesting read, you have good writing skills which you should share more on the forum.

As it is though could there be a possibility that it could demotivate a long time lurker and take away from the creative process?
I do not see how it can. Merits is just a small section of the forum, quality discussions used to be had long before it was implemented.
It shouldn't really matter much to a user, long term or lurker.


If merits shouldn't matter to a user perhaps I don't understand the reason for having it in the first place.
If people can get merit by posting not so funny memes perhaps it will motivate others to do so and turn it into a popularity contest instead?
In this scenario someone with more merit might receive more approval or a larger audience than somebody with better quality content but without a voice.


How about the interactive quiz idea?
How about off-line contributors? Are those people important?

Some users have been offering merits for things like being able to sign a message with a Bitcoin address. I'm not a big fan of it, since merit is supposed to be given to good posts and it's not really that difficult to make a good post.

But still, the bottom line is that no one needs merit to be able to participate in the forum so you're trying to solve a non-existent problem.

If merits are not "needed" to participate why have them?

I am not suggesting that the merit system is broken. I am suggesting that awareness and understanding is vital to Bitcoin. Even though these forums exist a lot of people choose to invest because of greed without understanding the underlying technology, philosophy or economy. While this may push the price up momentarily it also stifles innovation. I was thinking that awareness and understanding can somehow be also rewarded in a fun way. And btw understanding and awareness will push the price up far higher in the longterm than blind greed.
8  Other / Meta / Re: Could the merit system demotivate lurkers? on: September 06, 2021, 06:51:42 PM
How about the interactive quiz idea?
How about off-line contributors? Are those people important?
9  Other / Meta / Could the merit system demotivate lurkers? on: September 06, 2021, 06:44:07 PM
The merit system is excellent as it is in my opinion. It prevents spammers and scammers from creating accounts and flooding the server with unwanted messages.

As it is though could there be a possibility that it could demotivate a long time lurker and take away from the creative process?

If someone has been lurking for a long time and has suddenly got a lightbulb moment where they have an excellent crypto related idea but they would have trouble sharing it because they can't easily do so, because of the high barriers to entry.

I was always under the impression the Bitcoin philosophy meant the barriers to entry are supposed to be extremely low to empower and give financial freedom to anybody who seeks independence.

Could there be a way to reward lurkers and other people who contribute to the cause while still differentiating them from spammers?

Before I signed up to the forum in 2013 I was lurking for quite a long while. I was writing a dissertation at the time for my business management degree at university. I signed up to this forum because I was interested in asking a question about academic writing.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=147652.msg1568102#msg1568102

I did write the dissertation about bitcoin. The title of the dissertation was "Bitcoin - The Wild West of finance or the future of Money". The dissertation and the defence for which I held a presentation with prepared powerpoint slides went rather well. The university professors advised me strongly to not write about Bitcoin because at the time it wasn't well known and was only used by geeks or dark web markets. Against the advice of the professors I still went ahead with the dissertation.

I was desperate to ask my question about the dissertation here in the forum and I remember having to post in a special section for newly registered users first. All other forum sections were locked for newly registered users.

Doing something off-line like writing a dissertation or anything else to help the cause will obviously not get you any merit points. In this case you could be a legitimate person who has been religiously following the development and who has contributed to the cause in other ways. In this case you are useful but there is no way to determine if you are legit or not in the eyes of bitcointalk.

Sometimes I think back to the times when I would walk into Pizza Hut on buffet Wednesdays without a single dime or a way to pay for the food. I would take my laptop with me and start searching for work. I would have enough time to eat, receive work from clients all over the world, receive bitcoin nearly instantly and load up my Xapo Visa card with bitcoin and still have more than enough time to pay for the bill. There was nothing else around at the time that was comparable to bitcoin. Being able to receive transactions nearly instantaneously from any location in the world without barriers to entry is the very reason why I believe in bitcoin.

We all have fond memories of bitcoin transactions, I am sure.

Important aspects of bitcoin in my opinion include awareness, philosophy and understanding. A lot of people just like to speculate or invest into crypto without understanding it whatsoever. Maybe there can be some fun interactive quizzes or games that test how well someone understands the technology, philosophy and the economics of bitcoin? Would it be a possibility to earn some merit when playing these games?

Thank you for reading
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Let's say you want to buy an amazon.com gift card at a shop. You pay $100 for the gift card. The shop owner gets a 10% commission.
You go ahead and purchase an amazon kindle for $100 with said gift card. Where did the $10 suddenly come from?

Would gift cards be classed as pyramid schemes?
Ok, let's apply your business model to the gift card example. So, I come every month to a store and buy $100 amazon gift card, and every time I buy I get $200, which i can't use for another 12 months. After 1 year and spending $1200, now I have $2400 worth of gift cards. I wonder how long will it take for that store to go out of the business? How can that gift card reseller keep up with 100% bonus for every customer?

Two basic characteristics of pyramid scheme are here:
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