Merit Suggestion - Use as "Mod" Points for Posts

[rehydrogenated]

My idea is that merit should have more of a purpose than merely being required for ranking up. Merit could also function as a post moderating system where posts that earn merit can be viewed first. So spam and useless comments fall to the bottom and the best comments rise to the top.

You could switch between the "merit" mode and "normal" mode if you wanted to see all comments in the order they were written.

[Mind Control]

Based from my latest post from another thread:

However, there is a possibility that not all good quality posts get merited. So by having filters, we cannot guarantee if the posts with merit is a quality post and we might miss good post just because it does not have merit.

What if a very informative/quality post does not get any merit? It will fall down along with the spam and useless posts. That would result in checking both the filtered thread and the unfiltered. Also, this is a forum with discussions, so the posts should be kept in order so that readers can follow where the discussion is going.

[Jet Cash]

The real solution is to get rid of the spam and useless comments, or at least to discourage them.

[rehydrogenated]

Based from my latest post from another thread:

However, there is a possibility that not all good quality posts get merited. So by having filters, we cannot guarantee if the posts with merit is a quality post and we might miss good post just because it does not have merit.

What if a very informative/quality post does not get any merit? It will fall down along with the spam and useless posts. That would result in checking both the filtered thread and the unfiltered. Also, this is a forum with discussions, so the posts should be kept in order so that readers can follow where the discussion is going.

Well, wouldn't the good quality posts be in the same predicament as they are now? Lost in a sea of bad comments nobody is reading?

[juicyjanet88]

My idea is that merit should have more of a purpose than merely being required for ranking up. Merit could also function as a post moderating system where posts that earn merit can be viewed first. So spam and useless comments fall to the bottom and the best comments rise to the top.

You could switch between the "merit" mode and "normal" mode if you wanted to see all comments in the order they were written.

Firstly this is probably a lot of work and so won't happen. Theymos doesn't have a lot of time to invest in to making such wholesale changes. Also it raises a lot of problems, what about merited posts that quote non-merited posts, should these be shown, how about the quote?

[FrueGreads]

My idea is that merit should have more of a purpose than merely being required for ranking up. Merit could also function as a post moderating system where posts that earn merit can be viewed first. So spam and useless comments fall to the bottom and the best comments rise to the top.

You could switch between the "merit" mode and "normal" mode if you wanted to see all comments in the order they were written.

Can't you do this already with the merit stats function?
If you go to your profile and click merit, and then on the "menu" click merit again (because on my case it shows my posts that were awarded merit, but I can "go back one level"), you can see the merit stats link.

I think this might work as a direct link for what I'm saying.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats

After this you can view top merit topics; top merit replies; top merit users, etc.
Isn't this what you wanted? I know it's not the same as being viewed first, but this way you can still filter posts by merit if you want, so it doesn't have to be a default for all users.

[Vod]

My idea is that merit should have more of a purpose than merely being required for ranking up. Merit could also function as a post moderating system where posts that earn merit can be viewed first. So spam and useless comments fall to the bottom and the best comments rise to the top.

That would work in a forum where you could merit a post without losing something.   Here we are limited to the amount of merit we can give, so we can't merit everything we like. 

I'm sure the numbers can be adjusted if needed.

[rehydrogenated]

My idea is that merit should have more of a purpose than merely being required for ranking up. Merit could also function as a post moderating system where posts that earn merit can be viewed first. So spam and useless comments fall to the bottom and the best comments rise to the top.

That would work in a forum where you could merit a post without losing something.   Here we are limited to the amount of merit we can give, so we can't merit everything we like. 

I'm sure the numbers can be adjusted if needed.

Other sites have made it work very well. I am a very active member of Slashdot. You have limited mod points and it worked for a long time (the site isn't what it was a decade ago as far as technical conversations). I do think all merit should be x10. You should get 10x more merit points and 10x more should be required to rank up. Then you would be able to merit many more posts.