Merit system for newbies (benefits)

[deisik]

The idea consists in giving new members a certain amount of points (let's call them benefits for simplicity), which they can use to reward users helping them here. It is sort of reflection of the merit system working in reverse order. The purpose of the proposed system would be twofold. First, it is drawing the attention of the long-standing members to the problems of the new user, and second, likely making the latter more constructive by providing a feedback mechanism. So this system would run in tandem with the merit system. You're welcome to discuss my proposal here. Just in case, this is not my idea, it was suggested by user PhuketSunset in this local Russian topic. I only formulated it and brought it here

A quick and dirty fix would be forbidding Legendary members to grant merits to other Legendary members (it is a waste of merits)

Not a bad idea but should you consider those account farmers who will actually benefit by this? they will get more opportunity to give merits on their other accounts might as well they only create new bitcointalk account just to collect those merits. With this issue I don't merit system will serve it's purpose properly and will only tolerate farming of accounts.

I thought it over and I think there is a solution

This problem can be tackled in the following way. For example, when a user registers here, the new account will be credited with 100 benefits. But they would be useless as such. Users could only give them to a higher-ranked member (those who help them), and only Legendary members will have them converted to s-merits (they can receive only benefits while newbies only merits). The advantage of such system is twofold. First, there will be an organic source of new s-merits, i.e. no more s-merits printed out of thin air (while benefits should be converted to the same number of s-merits), and, second, forum "keyboard warriors" could easily trace the flow of benefits from lower to higher ranks as well as flow of merits in the opposite direction. What is your opinion, guys? I think this could work out

[veleten]

The idea consists in giving new members a certain amount of points (let's call them benefits for simplicity), which they can use to reward users helping them here. It is sort of reflection of the merit system working in reverse order. The purpose of the proposed system would be twofold. First, it is drawing the attention of the long-standing members to the problems of the new user, and second, likely making the latter more constructive by providing a feedback mechanism. So this system would run in tandem with the merit system. You're welcome to discuss my proposal here. Just in case, this is not my idea, it was suggested by user PhuketSunset in this local Russian topic. I only formulated it and brought it here

A quick and dirty fix would be forbidding Legendary members to grant merits to other Legendary members (it is a waste of merits)

Not a bad idea but should you consider those account farmers who will actually benefit by this? they will get more opportunity to give merits on their other accounts might as well they only create new bitcointalk account just to collect those merits. With this issue I don't merit system will serve it's purpose properly and will only tolerate farming of accounts.

I thought it over and I think there is a solution

This problem can be tackled in the following way. For example, when a user registers here, the new account will be credited with 100 benefits. But they would be useless as such. Users could only give them to a higher-ranked member (those who help them), and only Legendary members will have them converted to s-merits (they can receive only benefits while newbies only merits). The advantage of such system is twofold. First, there will be an organic source of new s-merits, i.e. no more s-merits printed out of thin air (while benefits should be converted to the same number of s-merits), and, second, forum "keyboard warriors" could easily trace the flow of benefits from lower to higher ranks as well as flow of merits in the opposite direction. What is your opinion, guys? I think this could work out

Think there could be a Nmerit (Newbie merit),yes
it could be distributed among all  the new members during the registration,maybe all the current accounts up to the Jr.member rank,included -100 Nmerit each
the Nmerits can only be given to hero and legendary members,who recieve half a sMerit for each Nmerit they get,
also maybe introduce some badges people love so much aka top newbie helper or something equally shiny
in ideal world this should get higher ranked members out of their ivory towers more often to help newbies
although I'm not sure if it is possible technically or solves problems with multiaccounting
but it should be much easier to trace connections between such,for sure and we are here to brainstorm and suggest ideas-it's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes

[deisik]

The idea consists in giving new members a certain amount of points (let's call them benefits for simplicity), which they can use to reward users helping them here. It is sort of reflection of the merit system working in reverse order. The purpose of the proposed system would be twofold. First, it is drawing the attention of the long-standing members to the problems of the new user, and second, likely making the latter more constructive by providing a feedback mechanism. So this system would run in tandem with the merit system. You're welcome to discuss my proposal here. Just in case, this is not my idea, it was suggested by user PhuketSunset in this local Russian topic. I only formulated it and brought it here

A quick and dirty fix would be forbidding Legendary members to grant merits to other Legendary members (it is a waste of merits)

Not a bad idea but should you consider those account farmers who will actually benefit by this? they will get more opportunity to give merits on their other accounts might as well they only create new bitcointalk account just to collect those merits. With this issue I don't merit system will serve it's purpose properly and will only tolerate farming of accounts.

I thought it over and I think there is a solution

This problem can be tackled in the following way. For example, when a user registers here, the new account will be credited with 100 benefits. But they would be useless as such. Users could only give them to a higher-ranked member (those who help them), and only Legendary members will have them converted to s-merits (they can receive only benefits while newbies only merits). The advantage of such system is twofold. First, there will be an organic source of new s-merits, i.e. no more s-merits printed out of thin air (while benefits should be converted to the same number of s-merits), and, second, forum "keyboard warriors" could easily trace the flow of benefits from lower to higher ranks as well as flow of merits in the opposite direction. What is your opinion, guys? I think this could work out

Think there could be a Nmerit (Newbie merit),yes
it could be distributed among all  the new members during the registration,maybe all the current accounts up to the Jr.member rank,included -100 Nmerit each
the Nmerits can only be given to hero and legendary members,who recieve half a sMerit for each Nmerit they get,
also maybe introduce some badges people love so much aka top newbie helper or something equally shiny
in ideal world this should get higher ranked members out of their ivory towers more often to help newbies
although I'm not sure if it is possible technically or solves problems with multiaccounting
but it should be much easier to trace connections between such,for sure and we are here to brainstorm and suggest ideas-it's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes

I think benefits should solve the problem with account farming efficiently and effectively

Granting them or receiving them won't rank up your account directly, so it doesn't make any sense to create new accounts just to accumulate more benefits. But this doesn't make them useless either. If granted to a Legendary member, they will be converted to s-merits (and I think 1:1 conversion will do just fine), and then it is up to the Legendary member what to do with his s-merits thus obtained. I think there is nothing wrong if newbies could give their benefits to other ranks apart from just Hero and Legendary members. You can learn a lot from lower ranks too even if you are a Legendary member yourself. The whole idea is about creating a self-sufficient system where the number of s-merits is more or less automatically regulated (via new accounts and assistance of Legendary members receiving benefits)

[marlboroza]

The idea consists in giving new members a certain amount of points (let's call them benefits for simplicity), which they can use to reward users helping them here.

It is very bad idea. Newbie can help newbie. Lots of newbies can help newbies and probably they will just abuse it. On 1 honest newbie I am pretty sure there are 100 abusers.

but how many merits have you given to novice members yourself?

Vod gave kmdr 3 merits for constructive post and look what happened after it:

Interesting project. I have joined Telegram group & registered on website.

Joined airdrop.  Is there any more info on the project?

Joined but in Telegram the /airdrop command does not bring up any form?
(the @bcshopiobot bot)

DIW Token seems to have a good solid team behind it. I like the Secure Digital Vault feature.
Registered & joined Telegram channels.

So you can't really blame him for not giving merits to newbies.

I think I did the same mistake

[deisik]

The idea consists in giving new members a certain amount of points (let's call them benefits for simplicity), which they can use to reward users helping them here.

It is very bad idea. Newbie can help newbie. Lots of newbies can help newbies and probably they will just abuse it. On 1 honest newbie I am pretty sure there are 100 abusers

I don't get your point here

Yes, lots of newbies can help lots of other newbies, so where's abuse in that? What's wrong with that at all in the first place? As I explained in one of my previous posts, actually exactly in my previous post just above yours (I advise everyone to read at least my posts here), giving benefits for the sake of accumulating them (just as creating new accounts) is meaningless. They will make sense as a remuneration for genuine help or info which can be easily seen by a Legendary member who accepts a benefit to be converted to an s-merit in the end (and who himself can be supervised by the forum "conscience committee"). The longer I think about this system, the more I'm convinced that it should be fucking effective if properly implemented

but how many merits have you given to novice members yourself?

Vod gave kmdr 3 merits for constructive post and look what happened after it

When I give merits to anyone, I check their post history. In fact, I was asked to give a merit to this user who has made 3 truly constructive posts (this, this, and this), but when I looked through his post history, it became abundantly clear that he is just a typical shit poster and bounty hunter. So it is Vod's fault for giving merits to someone who doesn't really deserve them. You can check whom I've given merits, and you will see they are all legitimate posters. And they are mostly newbies and junior members at that

[BeBlockTech]

And they won't rank you up if that was your point, so registering multiple accounts for the sole purpose of promoting a certain higher-rank member would be meaningless. I admit this is still a very raw idea but somehow I feel there is some sense in it. We should just find a way how we could create a positive feedback loop from newbies and junior members. That is to make the merit system complete by furnishing it with a two-directional feedback device (of which we have only one half)

Well, newbies can also earn sMerits by being given Merits, so that loop is already possible.

Still, this might be a good idea because there's currently little incentive for the older members to help out newbies knowing that they likely won't have any sMerits to give out (unless other older members see the random act of kindness I guess). The problem would lie in making sure the system doesn't encourage any more account farming, which is exactly what the Merit system hoped to combat, while making sure it gives enough incentives for older members to actually bother.

I personally think the Merit system is enough, except something has to be done with the scarcity (or general reluctance of awarding) of sMerits.

Honestly, these are my thoughts exactly

And I have to tell you that I don't feel like giving out rewards, so this is an apparent flaw, deficiency, or imperfection in this system. And making s-merits burn after some time is not going to change anything, at least as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather let them burn than give them to posters which I don't find worthy enough. And this is the gist of the matter. Old-timers here have become very pesky and meticulous about the quality and constructiveness (or lack thereof, huh) of the posts of other users, especially novice members. And this is where the benefit system could kick in and make the old-timers less reluctant. To sum it up, in addition to merits we also need a system that would incentivize higher ranks to share their s-merits with newbies

That's what I'm also thinking. Old members are not going to be giving newbies their merits. Newbies will be posting every day and never grow up in range no matter the quality of their posts. Making it more difficult than now to find a decent post on the forum.

Why not just ban the maker of low-quality posts?

Let's say a certain amount of users report a post that is not relevant to this forum, or low in quality, the maker of it gets banned for a certain period of time, let's say a week. If he restarts and that he gets banned again he will be banned for a longer period of time and so on, once he is banned for a certain amount of times the account would be permanently banned.

And to get rid of users with higher ranks that also make low-quality posts, -which are the one to blame for mods taking this measures-,  they could lose their ranks once they get banned a certain amount of times until they are back to 'newbie' and after that, they would also lose access to their account.

Because the only ones who are getting punished with this measures are those with lower ranks, we will never receive the needed merits to grow up in rank no matter the quality of our posts because no one is going to give it to us, but those with higher ranks can still keep posting crapy posts and nothing happens to them.

[BeBlockTech]

And they won't rank you up if that was your point, so registering multiple accounts for the sole purpose of promoting a certain higher-rank member would be meaningless. I admit this is still a very raw idea but somehow I feel there is some sense in it. We should just find a way how we could create a positive feedback loop from newbies and junior members. That is to make the merit system complete by furnishing it with a two-directional feedback device (of which we have only one half)

Well, newbies can also earn sMerits by being given Merits, so that loop is already possible.

Still, this might be a good idea because there's currently little incentive for the older members to help out newbies knowing that they likely won't have any sMerits to give out (unless other older members see the random act of kindness I guess). The problem would lie in making sure the system doesn't encourage any more account farming, which is exactly what the Merit system hoped to combat, while making sure it gives enough incentives for older members to actually bother.

I personally think the Merit system is enough, except something has to be done with the scarcity (or general reluctance of awarding) of sMerits.

Honestly, these are my thoughts exactly

And I have to tell you that I don't feel like giving out rewards, so this is an apparent flaw, deficiency, or imperfection in this system. And making s-merits burn after some time is not going to change anything, at least as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather let them burn than give them to posters which I don't find worthy enough. And this is the gist of the matter. Old-timers here have become very pesky and meticulous about the quality and constructiveness (or lack thereof, huh) of the posts of other users, especially novice members. And this is where the benefit system could kick in and make the old-timers less reluctant. To sum it up, in addition to merits we also need a system that would incentivize higher ranks to share their s-merits with newbies

That's what I'm also thinking. Old members are not going to be giving newbies their merits. Newbies will be posting every day and never grow up in range no matter the quality of their posts. Making it more difficult than now to find a decent post on the forum.

Why not just ban the maker of low-quality posts?

Let's say a certain amount of users report a post that is not relevant to this forum, or low in quality, the maker of it gets banned for a certain period of time, let's say a week. If he restarts and that he gets banned again he will be banned for a longer period of time and so on, once he is banned for a certain amount of times the account would be permanently banned.

And to get rid of users with higher ranks that also make low-quality posts, -which are the one to blame for mods taking this measures-,  they could lose their ranks once they get banned a certain amount of times until they are back to 'newbie' and after that, they would also lose access to their account.

Because the only ones who are getting punished with this measures are those with lower ranks, we will never receive the needed merits to grow up in rank no matter the quality of our posts because no one is going to give their merit to us, but those with higher ranks can still keep posting crapy posts and nothing happens to them.

*What I mean by that is, like we all know, no one likes to be giving something away (even if it has no value, people like higher numbers and don't like newbies), but they have no problems with reporting something they don't like. So, instead of 'giving' merits for the quality of the post, taking something away that one already own for low-quality posts will have a way bigger impact on the quality of the posts. And so everybody, and not just those with lower ranks, are going to think twice before posting any crap...

[BeBlockTech]

Is this system creating an incentive for users to give merits to other users? Even if it does, I don Because I think this is the problem that encompasses all other problems.

In an ideal world established members "should" give merits to newbies who are making  high quality posts, but is there any incentive other than goodwill? Are they penalized if they don't give merits? No, because this would be ridiculous and impossible to implement. Do they have a direct impact on their experience in the forum as a user (similar to how reddit actively rearranges posts based on upvotes)? A no to that as well.

In my opinion, if we can't address that, we will never get the merit system running as it was intended.

I think that how this is designed will only have as result more stupid comments all over the place: "I didn't get the merits I need, let's give it another try" with some other crappy post or duplicated ones from somewhere else. No one should get rewarded for making a decent post, the point of posting something in a forum is that it should be valuable to everyone, otherwise, don't make a post. And also, in no time bad souls are going to start taking a profit out of this, asking people for money to give them merits, and beggars will also start begging for merits. Start banning the makers those crappy posts, and you will have a decrease of 75% of low-quality posts in no time...

[marlboroza]

As I explained in one of my previous posts, actually exactly in my previous post just above yours (I advise everyone to read at least my posts here)

Do you know why merit was introduced in first place, why recaptcha has been implemented, why this forum has rule "joined type posts are not allowed"?
It is because of newbies who thought it would be good idea to farm hundreds account to sell them and because of newbies who thought it would be even greater idea to abuse campaigns with 50+ accounts writing nonsense all over the forum.
So here you go, 1 more reason why I don't agree with you. System is good there is no need to change anything.

[deisik]

As I explained in one of my previous posts, actually exactly in my previous post just above yours (I advise everyone to read at least my posts here)

Do you know why merit was introduced in first place, why recaptcha has been implemented, why this forum has rule "joined type posts are not allowed"?
It is because of newbies who thought it would be good idea to farm hundreds account to sell them and because of newbies who thought it would be even greater idea to abuse campaigns with 50+ accounts writing nonsense all over the forum.
So here you go, 1 more reason why I don't agree with you. System is good there is no need to change anything.

So you disagree just to disagree?

Okay then. If, by pure chance, you don't, then tell me exactly why you think my system is going to contribute to account farming. Don't be shy, tell me your reasons and I will listen carefully to them. As of yet I don't see how it could make matters worse. It doesn't in the least contribute to account farming since the benefits that I suggest to introduce can't rank up a newbie on their own. They are to give Legendary members (the ones sitting on most s-merits) incentive to promote really constructive posters to higher ranks. What's wrong with that? Or are you actually quite happy that the new users will be stuck forever in their current status? What is your stance here, really?

[marlboroza]

So you disagree just to disagree?

Okay then. If, by pure chance, you don't, then tell me exactly why you think my system is going to contribute to account farming. Don't be shy, tell me your reasons and I will listen carefully to them. As of yet I don't see how it could make matters worse. It doesn't in the least contribute to account farming since the benefits that I suggest to introduce can't rank up a newbie on their own. They are to give Legendary members (the ones sitting on most s-merits) incentive to promote really constructive posters to higher ranks. What's wrong with that?

Newbies will send merit to hero/legendary memeber(s)
Hero/Legendary will send merit back to newbie/junior member/full member over and over again.

You see, account farming isn't just one account. It's hundreds if not thousands accounts, if they have time to farm with such large number of accounts why do you think giving merit to them will make things better?
Recaptcha? Can be bypassed.
Email verification for newbie accounts? Don't see any, you can basically create thousand accounts with emails such as 1@com.com 2@blah.com 3@tat.com etc.
Abusers will create hundreds accounts just to send that one merit to "hero/legendary member who helped them" and they will open another account to send another merit over and over again.
Do you seriously believe that farming accounts in such large numbers are something new to forum and they are all brand new accounts? If so, you don't see bigger picture.
Abusers will always find a way, with this new system there is no way or at least there is very hard way, there is no need to change it.

Or are you actually quite happy that the new users will be stuck forever in their current status? What is your stance here, really?

When you say I am happy with newbies stuck forever, you mean something like this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2828412.0 right? Because I am so happy with users getting stuck that I am sharing merit with them?
Jesus, some guys here 

[deisik]

So you disagree just to disagree?

Okay then. If, by pure chance, you don't, then tell me exactly why you think my system is going to contribute to account farming. Don't be shy, tell me your reasons and I will listen carefully to them. As of yet I don't see how it could make matters worse. It doesn't in the least contribute to account farming since the benefits that I suggest to introduce can't rank up a newbie on their own. They are to give Legendary members (the ones sitting on most s-merits) incentive to promote really constructive posters to higher ranks. What's wrong with that?

Newbies will send merit to hero/legendary memeber(s)
Hero/Legendary will send merit back to newbie/junior member/full member over and over again.

Obviously, you don't read what I'm writing here

Even though you quoted the part where I advised everyone (you included) to read at least my posts in this thread to get an idea (or should I actually say a clue?) what I'm talking about. The system which I suggest here doesn't assume giving fresh accounts merits, or s-merits, or anything which they could use to rank their account up directly. Basically, benefits which new users should obtain at registration can be used only to reward other users for the help provided. It makes no sense to give a benefit to another newbie with account farming in mind because only Legendary members receiving benefits would have them converted to s-merits. Thus the latter will be incentivized to obtain benefits by helping newbies in a meaningful way (otherwise they will be quickly caught by the forum "justice police"). But if some Legendary member will be idly accumulating them without giving back s-merits, no one will be giving him benefits. It is a two-way street while the current system is only one-way. I hope this helps you better understand how this system is supposed to work. If you still feel confused, feel free to ask. Actually, everyone is free to ask