Merit source rework

[nutildah]

Lots people here are so hypocrits on making merits use strictly yet using it on ass licking purposes.

I can tell you're still big mad that your mini farm got busted. But whats the point on carrying on. You're not exactly winning the hearts and minds of anyone, and you're not going to change anything, or anyone's opinions about anything.

Because he is goddamn @LoyceV, he can do whatever he wants even construct an unofficial guidelines for trust system and enforce it to everyone like its the rule in forum.

He's not just smarter than you, he works way harder than you, and that is why he is LoyceV. He doesn't "enforce" anything and uses the trust system rather sparingly compared to many other DTs.

Also, Smerits don't expire (decay). I think that's a reason why most users don't give out their smerits. If it's possible to make smerits expire after, let's say, 120 days, it might probably encourage users to give out their smerit instead of letting them expire.

For me personally, nah. I would rather let my merits expire than give them out to shitposters or tryhards that probably have 4 alt accounts.

[LoyceV]

shout out to LoyceV. He has responded to many of my posts in agreement, but I'm yet to receive a single merit from him in 3 years.

I checked: you're right! I would argue Merit isn't necessarily for posts I agree with, but that doesn't really explain why I "missed" you (while I've Merited 3244 other users). It wasn't intentional, and you're not on my Ignore list. I now went over some of your posts to see which ones I can Merit.

[Pablo-wood]

A fair distribution is a dream for all low ranked members.

Can you give me a definition of what you consider "a fair distribution of Merit"?

I will share my personal experience, before I ranked up to full membership. I applied for a rank up thread where I got skipped twice even though I meet the exact requirements others who got their needed merit to rank up applied for. I had to delete both posts after I got defined upon reapplying.

Also I discovered in previous times people got merited based on effort, quality, projects or solutions. And majority got theirs through mere effort but this days effort no longer count. Effort must match with 100% accuracy.

[LoyceV]

Also I discovered in previous times people got merited based on effort, quality, projects or solutions. And majority got theirs through mere effort but this days effort no longer count. Effort must match with 100% accuracy.

Sending Merit based on "effort" would be like rewarding for participation. If something is a lot of work but not useful, I'm not Meriting it. If it's useful and didn't take a lot of effort, that's a win-win

[Alpha Marine]

For me personally, nah. I would rather let my merits expire than give them out to shitposters or tryhards that probably have 4 alt accounts.

You can't possibly tell me for a whole 120 days you didn't find any merit-worthy post to give merit. I know the quality of posts on the forum is down, but not that bad. There's something I read here where Themos said something like its better to give a post 50 merit than share it with shitposters.
You can say you didn't see the post, but there are still good posts in the forum that deserve merit but are not merited, and in 120 or 150 days, you'll definitely see a lot of most like that.

People complain about the drop in the number of post,s but I don't see that as a problem because Id rather see 10 quality posts than a bunch of shit and irrelevant posts. However, if quality posts are merited, I believe the number of quality posts will increase. People will put more effort into making their posts that way keeping the forum alive.

[nutildah]

For me personally, nah. I would rather let my merits expire than give them out to shitposters or tryhards that probably have 4 alt accounts.

You can't possibly tell me for a whole 120 days you didn't find any merit-worthy post to give merit.

You're right, I can't. I just checked BPIP and I've sent 850 merits in the last 120 days. Its not like I'm not trying.

I know the quality of posts on the forum is down, but not that bad.

Its atrocious. Possibly the worst its ever been since the introduction of the merit system. 90% of threads these days are just heaving loaves of unreadable garbage. This is because 90% of accounts on the forum don't have anything interesting to say. They may as well be bots.

Every once in a while a new / new-ish account will surprise me by writing something unique or interesting, and I am sure to reward them with merits.

[Jatiluhung]

For now I feel there is still nothing that needs to be improved. Because to get Merit, we actually just need to try to be better at making posts that are truly useful for those who see or read them.

But one thing I would like to suggest is about the Merit Source which is no longer active. I think if there is a Merit Source that has not been active on this forum for more than 1 year. Then it's better to raise a new Source of Merit.

And I have seen many applications from users who really deserve to be a source of merit who have applied to become a source of merit.

Or I think the forum can also choose a new Merit Source for users who really deserve to be a Merit Source. Even if the user does not apply as a Merit Source through the application to become a Merit Source.

Although I know that many users only have average posting quality, including me. But I also see many users with very good quality posts and are also quite consistent in maintaining that quality.

[Mrbluntzy]

If something is a lot of work but not useful, I'm not Meriting it. If it's useful and didn't take a lot of effort, that's a win-win

Every member don't need to have the same criteria for choosing a merit worthy post, that's why there are different merit sources and they all have their different criteria of meriting a post. Like you have your own criteria but you might not get to see every post that you would find worthy for its relevance and that's because the forum is wide. Regardless, you still give out houdreds of merit to worthy post every month which means you are still doing better. Some members have loads of Smerit for long time without giving out.

What I was thinking of suggesting in that the merit system should have a specific period of time which it should allow Smerit to live before is dies off. According to the instructions that appears when giving out merit, I read that unspent Smerit will decompose if not spent but it doesn't decompose. Maybe if there's a specific time given for its decomposition, members could be motivated to distribute their Smerit thoughtfully to good posts.

[vapourminer]

Or I think the forum can also choose a new Merit Source for users who really deserve to be a Merit Source. Even if the user does not apply as a Merit Source through the application to become a Merit Source.

yes. "the forum," ie theymos, has picked some people to be sources out of the blue in the past. whether that has happened this time is unknown (to me anyway)

[Smartvirus]

Also I discovered in previous times people got merited based on effort, quality, projects or solutions. And majority got theirs through mere effort but this days effort no longer count. Effort must match with 100% accuracy.

Sending Merit based on "effort" would be like rewarding for participation. If something is a lot of work but not useful, I'm not Meriting it. If it's useful and didn't take a lot of effort, that's a win-win

This is the right idea I would say. Let’s not forget that should we look at this towards participation, the forum is quite a large one and their are those who participate even in places that we might see to have less value or don’t seem to look at twice. Those would count for activities and in turn, merits would follow given the suggestion from the OP. That would drastically result in a decline in quality and an increase in quantity or as it’s used here, participation!

It’s a little not fair as it is, there is some bias but, it’s something we really can’t take out of the system you know, we can’t have it perfect as, there would always be a downside. Even Bitcoin ain’t perfect!

[JollyGood]

For now, I will not give an opinion on exactly how I would like to see the merit system reworked except that there should not be any merit source. The current system creates a two-tier member system (beyond the Brand new, Newbie, Jr Member, Member, Full Member, Sr. Member, Hero Member and Legendary members) therefore is counterproductive to the balance of the forum.

How would you like to see the merit system reworked?  Make distribution fair, remove merit requirements for level up, modify smerit > merit calculation?    Write now or don't complain if you don't like the new system.

[Jewan420]

From my point of view, I think the current merit system is correct. You said, if everyone is given sMerit, it will only facilitate the cultivation of merit farmers and the number of spam posts will increase. Even then, the number of alternative accounts may increase and instead of creating quality posts, they will start increasing the number of posts and run for promotion. Because then the number of sMerit will not be limited.

Many people may have complaints about the distribution of merit in the current merit system. I think that rather than changing the merit system, the method of merit distribution should be changed and improved. So that all fair posts get merit and the number of merit abuse or spam posts is reduced.

[Lafu]

Quote link removed because further discussion is impossible in that thread - it is locked.

Sorry Vod looks like i am late to the party here 
If you mean the thread from me i locked it because there was some off topic going on and the answers and opinions on this proposal were not good.
IF that topic should be unlocked to discuss that suggestion i will doing it , but there was already a lot of off topic going thats why i locked it.

The trust system is centralized - Theymos chooses the private lottery requirements.  The merit system needs to be decentralized for balance.   We should use this thread to discuss merit system replacements.

The trust system is not really the private lottery from theymos , the requirements for getting there are puplic.
On top of that it depends what User are making the right moves on his Trust List settings.

I've suggested that smerit automatically be distributed based on activity.
The higher ranked, more active members would get more smerit than the lower ranks;

This would be in my opinion bullshit , and i promise that we will see some Accounts will be getting nuts about the activity.
It is also not a good idea to give lower ranks fewer merits than higher ranks.

How would you like to see the merit system reworked?  Make distribution fair, remove merit requirements for level up, modify smerit > merit calculation? 
Write now or don't complain if you don't like the new system.

As already written by a few others , the Merit system on his one is ok and good.
Maybe a few tweaks would ok but change the whole system i guess that will be lead to other problems.

If merit exist to fight against spammer, why not the distribution came from reports? a good report will add 5 smerit, a bad report will reduce 5 smerit, and an unhandled report will affect nothing.

I like that idea to be honest but it will be then to 100% sure as nutildah has written that this would be abused.

[nutildah]

I've suggested that smerit automatically be distributed based on activity.
The higher ranked, more active members would get more smerit than the lower ranks;

This would be in my opinion bullshit , and i promise that we will see some Accounts will be getting nuts about the activity.
It is also not a good idea to give lower ranks fewer merits than higher ranks.

It would indeed be a roundabout way of creating more spam, which is what the merit system was intended to combat in the first place. However, instead of spamming for activity, they would spam for sMerits which they would give to their alt accounts.

Besides, the huge gap between merit and activity in older accounts is what gives them away as being bought or hacked accounts. When I see an account with more than 6000 posts and less than 100 earned merits, that's a red flag... at best they are just a shitty poster but more likely they purchased the account.

[goldkingcoiner]

I've suggested that smerit automatically be distributed based on activity.   The higher ranked, more active members would get more smerit than the lower ranks; this does not duplicate the activity value, as that is beneficial to the giver, while smerit is beneficial only to the receiver.   I have no ideas about the formula needed - that can be discussed

The Merit system was introduced to reduce spam, including spam from account farmers. What you're proposing would give account farmers all the sMerit they need to rank up by spamming, and I don't think anyone wants to go back there.

I agree.

If anything, we could do with a de-merit system that discourages spam even more than now.

Just off the top of my head: how about some kind of thread-monitoring AI that curates merits? Post is off-topic or is a generic filler post, user loses a merit. User posts something similar to what another user has posted, lose another merit. User posts too often in a certain time frame, lose a merit.  

That might encourage actually reading through the thread and making quality, unique posts.

[Woodie]

I've suggested that smerit automatically be distributed based on activity.   The higher ranked, more active members would get more smerit than the lower ranks

This model could work as it's simple and easy to understand. And the key takeaway from this is that account farmers will not keep up either as history and records shows that such accounts have gaps which means such users would fall short of receiving smerit..and of course some fine turning based on character count can be added to this to prevent spam. But then again this might bring in more problems like AI usage as lazy users want to secure these smerits.

Anyway endorse this idea 💡 💯

it's rewarding members of the forum that are actively present !

[vapourminer]

AI

no

[Xiestar]

Because he is goddamn @LoyceV, he can do whatever he wants even construct an unofficial guidelines for trust system and enforce it to everyone like its the rule in forum.

Nice sentence to put you on my ignore list. You are one of those many who swarm the forum writing long posts but full of bullshit. Good riddance.

FYI IDGAF to you.



I can’t imagine you receive a merit for that garbage post most importantly from the user claiming he promote the proper use of merit and trust system.

Such a double standard.