What is the function of the "Merit" score?

[FireShark89]

I finally understand how to gain merits, but I doubt that I will win best posts since I usually just ask questions here. xD

[TMAN]

I finally understand how to gain merits, but I doubt that I will win best posts since I usually just ask questions here. xD

gave you a merit for asking questions.. not just posting total nonsense..

the quest for knowledge is a positive effect on the community!

to quote a great man. "when you talk, you are only repeating what you already know, when you listen you might just learn something new"

TMAN - 2018, stolen from the Dalai Lama...

[webwakko]

Also don't know how it works atm but will figure out anyway.
But.. it seems you don't gain holding on to the sMerits... or something like that.
So.. you have to earn Merit, and handout sMerit?

[jenia1]

what is the point of that? I'd say focus on banning scammers and maybe introducing limitations to new accounts from shit-scamposting in the market section..
That's more important in my view.

[webwakko]

Also don't know how it works atm but will figure out anyway.
But.. it seems you don't gain holding on to the sMerits... or something like that.
So.. you have to earn Merit, and handout sMerit?

Ok, so.... as a result on this post I clicked the +merit next to it and received this :

You have received a total of 100 merit. This is what determines your forum rank. You typically cannot lose this merit. You have 5 sendable merit (sMerit) which you can send to other people. There is no point in hoarding sMerit; keeping it yourself does not benefit you, and we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future.

In short.. sMerit = sendable merit.. which you can sent to other users...
Merit= the ones you receive from other members...

[kaeluxdeuz]

The new merit system is interesting, so just to make sure i understood it clearly - By posting in threads with good quality messages instead of "one liners" will earn you merit.

Ok, it sounds pretty much like a type of bounty...but what i still don't understand is, what is the merit used for?  does it have any use? how does the user benefit from merit?

[petuhov]

I finally understand how to gain merits, but I doubt that I will win best posts since I usually just ask questions here. xD

Someone already proved you wrong. Use search functions before asking questions so that you do not repeat the same query.

[Bitkoyns]

I finally understand how to gain merits, but I doubt that I will win best posts since I usually just ask questions here. xD

that is the bottom line  if you want to earn merit you just make good quality post so that anyone who see your post you got a potential to earn merit from them , meaning people should had a quality of a good reader so that he may also be a good poster here .

[germansupremacy]

What I frankly couldn't get is that it seems to be a specific amount of Merit that can actually be spent, high ranks should post in places where merit 'givers' read, otherwise regardless of they being active on the forum their accounts will rank down.

I can foresee people buying 'Merit' shortly... I don't know if this idea can span during time and actually make the forum a better place.

[gweigster]

Aww man, so close before I reached Sr. Member. Now I have to catch up on 150 Merit or so 

[laurenB7742]

The new merit system is interesting, so just to make sure i understood it clearly - By posting in threads with good quality messages instead of "one liners" will earn you merit.

Ok, it sounds pretty much like a type of bounty...but what i still don't understand is, what is the merit used for?  does it have any use? how does the user benefit from merit?

I think it doesn't really have a use, it's not meant to be traded or anything like that. The purpose of Merit system is simply to tackle the problem of account farming and huge increase of low quality posts in the last couple of months. Account farmers were able to rank up their accounts to Member rank in few weeks with very little effort (one liner posts) and then they either sold the account or joined a signature campaign and continue spamming the forum in order to collect enough posts per week.
Now they won't be able to reach Member and higher ranks this way so we can expect that they will give up and the forum will not be spammed that much and it will be easier to find useful threads and posts.
One possible use of Merit system is for signature campaigns. Some campaign managers will probably start using merits instead of account ranks for bounty distribution.

[khufuking]

What I frankly couldn't get is that it seems to be a specific amount of Merit that can actually be spent, high ranks should post in places where merit 'givers' read, otherwise regardless of they being active on the forum their accounts will rank down.

I do not think merit sources will be located in certain categories , They will be spread out in all forums . There is no ranking down , No demerit system yet , It might be in future .

I can foresee people buying 'Merit' shortly... I don't know if this idea can span during time and actually make the forum a better place.

I do not think after this system anyone will risk get his high rank account painted red for some money .

[sumangs]

I finally understand how to gain merits, but I doubt that I will win best posts since I usually just ask questions here. xD

gave you a merit for asking questions.. not just posting total nonsense..

the quest for knowledge is a positive effect on the community!

to quote a great man. "when you talk, you are only repeating what you already know, when you listen you might just learn something new"

TMAN - 2018, stolen from the Dalai Lama...

That is why the website is called bitcointalk not bitcoinlisten. Sorry for awful joke.

[Pali]

MAYBE have the amount of Merit points applied to an account "diluted" if fraud is detected:

- If the account receiving the points has ever used a proxy/tor - reduce by 50%
- If the account receiving the points has ever posted using the same IP ever used by the sending account - reduce by 100%

The amount of points being deducted off the sending account stays the same - just the amount received is diluted.

This is a great addition to this new feature. I just discovered it myself when I checked my profile. It's not a bad idea. Let's see how this scales.

[royalfestus]

You are a merit source.

My next question is: Who are all the sources of merit?

I also question how the rating was used for all the activities of every individual considering the merit condition, using others response. however I always knew when the community is larger there will be a new way of ranking to improve the quality of participation

[supine]

Some people would just ignore this. A good new addition of requirement if user would like to have higher rank. However, as you can see, only a few people would care meriting those who are of low rank. I really think that those who are late joining this forum would have a hard time getting merits, because on the first day of the implementation, only those legendary or hero members who already knew each other on this forum are meriting each other, only few random members (who are not well known on this forum) gets merit from posting that makes sense.

Hope that there would be a little modification on this new system because if some people would try hard to improve their posts because of this new system, it would be a waste of time if their posts are just ignored. This would just be more likely a class room where if you are not known by people you will just be a lone loser, and only those who are famous get attention (merit.)

[Pali]

Some people would just ignore this. A good new addition of requirement if user would like to have higher rank. However, as you can see, only a few people would care meriting those who are of low rank. I really think that those who are late joining this forum would have a hard time getting merits, because on the first day of the implementation, only those legendary or hero members who already knew each other on this forum are meriting each other, only few random members (who are not well known on this forum) gets merit from posting that makes sense.

Hope that there would be a little modification on this new system because if some people would try hard to improve their posts because of this new system, it would be a waste of time if their posts are just ignored. This would just be more likely a class room where if you are not known by people you will just be a lone loser, and only those who are famous get attention (merit.)

You make a fine point. There is truth in this. 

[gopaljiverma]

Some people would just ignore this. A good new addition of requirement if user would like to have higher rank. However, as you can see, only a few people would care meriting those who are of low rank. I really think that those who are late joining this forum would have a hard time getting merits, because on the first day of the implementation, only those legendary or hero members who already knew each other on this forum are meriting each other, only few random members (who are not well known on this forum) gets merit from posting that makes sense.

Hope that there would be a little modification on this new system because if some people would try hard to improve their posts because of this new system, it would be a waste of time if their posts are just ignored. This would just be more likely a class room where if you are not known by people you will just be a lone loser, and only those who are famous get attention (merit.)

True to some extent but there is always one newcomer in clasaroom with extraordinary skills that grabs all attention.

[figmentofmyass]

However, as you can see, only a few people would care meriting those who are of low rank. I really think that those who are late joining this forum would have a hard time getting merits, because on the first day of the implementation, only those legendary or hero members who already knew each other on this forum are meriting each other, only few random members (who are not well known on this forum) gets merit from posting that makes sense.

it's only been a day, so we should wait and see how the situation develops. hopefully it'll improve.

but yeah, off the bat, merit seems to be following the course of default trust and the cliques that formed around it. there are exceptions, but i'm often not surprised when i see who's giving merit to who. i definitely expect new members to rank up to hero/legendary much more slowly now (if ever). but maybe that's a good thing. i'm guessing merit will be used less to reward high quality posting and more as a social reward for group-forming and group-reinforcing behavior. i'm guessing new members will need to be extremely high quality posters to ever attain the higher rankings. that is, unless they get cozy with a merit source's social group, or engage in merit trading.

[Mintycash]

I gave my first merit today and you made me look back at the post. I did not know a single thing about the person when I did it. I liked the post and merited it and it turned to be a newbie with 1 post and now 1 merit also. And I think it was a good thing.

A month or two ago I started a thread moaning about the problem of spam, scam and generalised shitposting. I even asked to make ranking up more difficult, even if I had to gave up a rank. This is a sort of solution for that problem. True, I was just about to become Full Member and now it will take a lot more time depending on if people like my posts or not. At the same time, I was amazed that someone with so little knowledge of the cryptoworld (Not my area of expertise) was able to rank up so fast (My account is from October 2017). Yes I have been active but I had my fair share of deleted posts and rightly so.

What I want to say is that it might or might not be fair but it was still needed. People can still join and just lurk or make simple comments (As I often do) they just wont become members so fast.

About the problem with abusing the merit system I am sure that things will be polished as we go.

This is just how I feel about it. Then again I don't participate in signature campaigns that often, people that do so often enough might feel disappointed.