Merit & new rank requirements

[ilpipita]

I wish our forum had Merit long ago to limit / destroy spamers, if so, our community has not become overly aggressive and abusive forum as in the past.

With the arrival of Merit, a tool to control spammers, I expect that Admin & Mods will soon decide to reopen the locked-in local forums.

Humor is that most of the forum members are not familiar with Merit so everyone keeps their Merit  

Yeah! Admin should consider about this possibility to reopen local boards. With merit system, spammers know that they will get nothing from spamming both the forum and their local boards. They have only two options:
1. Leave the forum forever
2. Increase their posts quality, which in turn help the forum to be cleaner, better, higher qualified one.

Please consider carefully about this. It's strange if the forum have local boards, but have been locked and users have to go to other forums like bitcointalk, etc.to discuss ideas with their locals.

[wwzsocki]

Second, nobody likes to give merits because it fills like you are losing them.

This thread has been posted not even 3 days ago.
In these 3 days, "22,265 merit has been sent in total."
I would say that refutes your point, wouldnt you agree?

That was my filling when first used Merit to upvote somebody. But now understand that there is sMerit thanks to

You are missing a point by misunderstanding one of very fundamental characteristics of merit. You cannot send your merits to anyone, the ones you can send is sMerits (sendable merits). You won't lose your merits by sending sMerits to others. Please donate 1 merit if my thread is contributive and useful (at least for you)

Donated !

There is a big chance that even if you post only quality content you will be left with no merits at all.

First, people don't know what that is and how to use it. Second, nobody likes to give merits because it fills like you are losing them.

There will be a lot of abuse for sure. We will see merits sent to low-quality friends post and accounts providing upvotes for money or in exchange.

I see there is a discussion to add bad merits to downvote spam. I am afraid that people will use it as a weapon to downvote posts they do not agree with or just because they don't like the author.

THIS is how I feel as well.

Do you guys really believe that all people who deserve to be merited will be merited?

A like system will be better. Only higher rank people will be able to like posts, will be easy to filter out multi accounts and spammers.

I am asking myself why this tool now? Why so fast? We could just test it out before fully implemented.

There is a big chance that even if you post only quality content you will be left with no merits at all.

First, people don't know what that is and how to use it. Second, nobody likes to give merits because it fills like you are losing them.

There will be a lot of abuse for sure. We will see merits sent to low-quality friends post and accounts providing upvotes for money or in exchange.

I see there is a discussion to add bad merits to downvote spam. I am afraid that people will use it as a weapon to downvote posts they do not agree with or just because they don't like the author.

You see, this right here is why we need a 'Like' button..
Folks like me, with limited sMerits will be less likely to give them to someone of higher rank, even for a quality post.

(gave you my last)

I can not let you sit there so empty. Here you are +1 for you too. I think we will see plenty posts like this. Just about Merits.

[JayJuanGee]

[edited out]

[edited out]

F*ck yeah! i already watching an army of butt kissing members all over the forum! Is that what this system brings for us?
Gave you my 1 merit, you are one of a few adequate people here!

For some reason, I think that you and I see things differently, and really I don't mind shocking language or criticism, but sometimes, there is just a need to back up certain kinds of criticisms or to at least build a case for it first.

Furthermore, you are very new to this forum, so it seems way too premature to be coming to really BIG and negative judgements about the new practices of the forum and about your possible participation in it.  There are always going to be butt kissers in any place in life, especially the more that there are ramifications, and that is the way of the real world too (and maybe generally less the way of actual semi-anonymous forums), and I have had jobs in real life in which my colleague butt kissers seem to get ahead in a variety of ways.  Of course, these kinds of realities are NOT fair, but in the end, we have to find strength within ourselves to find a path that does not necessarily sink to that same low level or to let those kinds of real life occurrences drag us down into the mud.  That's my attempted approach at the various unfairnesses of the world regarding preferential treatment.

Even though I don't really agree with the style of the original poster (CryptoChanel), and I don't think that he backed up his various points very well, based on your giving me merit, I have decided to give him two merit points for his earlier post by giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was attempting to provide relevant evidence for his earlier arguments - even though I believe that his points were weak, it is quite possible that he was trying to back up his points with what he concluded to be meaningful and reasonable comparisons.

Regarding you, you are way more new to the forum, and if you attempt to post substantively, and don't become too jaded in your views, you are likely NOT going to have any major difficulties reaching 10 merits, which is enough to achieve regular "member" status; however, if you want to achieve higher statuses, such as full member and senior member and beyond, then you may want to consider ways to back up your posts better, and maybe attempting to see both sides of issues rather than finding so many possible conspiracies and malice rationales in places where they are likely not to exist at the same level that you are ascribing to them.  Good luck and I look forward to reading your future posts.

[MrSpasybo]

I wish our forum had Merit long ago to limit / destroy spamers, if so, our community has not become overly aggressive and abusive forum as in the past.

With the arrival of Merit, a tool to control spammers, I expect that Admin & Mods will soon decide to reopen the locked-in local forums.

Humor is that most of the forum members are not familiar with Merit so everyone keeps their Merit  

Yeah! Admin should consider about this possibility to reopen local boards. With merit system, spammers know that they will get nothing from spamming both the forum and their local boards. They have only two options:
1. Leave the forum forever
2. Increase their posts quality, which in turn help the forum to be cleaner, better, higher qualified one.

Please consider carefully about this. It's strange if the forum have local boards, but have been locked and users have to go to other forums like bitcointalk, etc.to discuss ideas with their locals.

Thank you, we are waiting for news from Admin and Mods. Our community have to find other forum as Altcoinstalks, Bitcoingarden, Cryptocurrencytalk, etc. However, that is not really convenient.

After the death of the Lending projects, most of our community lost a lot of money and we really need a quality forum to work and learn about crypto. Of course, Bitcointalk is always the best.

[JayJuanGee]

Of course you cannot compare the new rules of BCT with that totalitarian management of DeepOnion's thread, but both has something in common: they end up rewarding those who praise the system and the status quo and punish those who raise a critical voice.
And you can already see the first signs of such a tendence here in these threads about the new merit system. Juniors who are posting here to praise the system get plenty of merits, critical voices don't.

That is not entirely true, TMAN for example has given a lot of merit to users who openly disagreed with the change or criticized certain aspects. Others have been doing similar things, some more, some less.
I also have given a few merits to people being sceptic, as long as they had a well explained position or provided some alternative they believe to be more suited.
It's not about opinion not about agreeing with someone or disagreeing with them, it's about how you voice that opinion.
People who outright cry and shout "No, no, no" without giving reasons or alternatives don't get merit. Posts like that are neither constructive, nor "high quality".
If you make a well written post, explaining your position and opinion, bring something to the conversation, or just sum everything up really well, you will get merit, regardless of your opinion and stance.

I have spotted a tendency and extrapolated an outcome - of course there will always be exceptions, like high ranking members occasionally meriting also critical voices. But reality is not defined by exceptions.
What you are stating, which in itself would make a sense, is alas just theory, to which I can now reply opposing empirical evidence. Did you notice that all my well articulated posts in this discussion didn't bring me a single merit? Fragments of my arguments have been quoted and re-quoted several times in the poets of other people, but not a single merit has been given to any of my posts, in a thread highly populated with people full of sMerits. I am not complaining, this must be very clear, not I am in any way begging for merits - if I were a such kind of person I would have formulated an entirely different kind of posts here. But I'm mentioning this only to prove my point. Empirical evidence is right now showing that a critical contribute to the discussion - but a non "politically correct" one according to the general view - is leading to no merits or so.
I am really not happy to be right in this discussion. I really would prefer you to be right. I am in favor of a merit system to fight shitposting and improve the quality the forum, but I am getting more and more convinced that as things are shaping up it will not work as expected. It may turn out to reduce shitposting (we cannot be sure until we will observe that) but for sure it will set off a new pattern of behavior which personally I'm finding even more obscene than shitposting - and that is buttlicking. Conformism and buttlicking are at risk of becoming the new plague of this forum. I can already see so many cases, just after a few days. Wait that all the people with no dignity which is infesting the forum (as well as the world) find out how it works. Which is the ONLY feasible way to get merits here. Not in theory - but in the practice. Statistics rules. Mark my words - and we'll comment it again in six months.

I sent you two smerits - which are merits for you and provide you with one smerit to send to someone else at your own discretion.  I provided my rationale in another post, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg29070812#msg29070812


and really the gist of my rationale for giving the two merits is that I did not believe your post to deserve any merit, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt - hoping for some better quality in the future... .perhaps?

Yeah, I don't want to come off as some kind of pedantic, because you can do whatever you want, and you can approach this matter however you want.  A variety of possible approaches:  1) You can attempt to see possible benefits in the system and attempt to work the system to your benefit, 2) you can just go on as if the system did not change or 3) you could focus on the various negatives.

Personally, I believe that employing some variation of 1 or 2 is much more healthy than employing some variation of 3; however, that is completely your choice and up to your individual perspective regarding how you want to proceed.

[wwzsocki]

Please accept my apologies if this has been discussed, I'm not reading through 82 pages.


Currently, the forum's general protocol frowns heavily on the act of asking for positive trust in return for a transaction. Hell, I've been given negative trust (unfairly) for simply stating that I would conduct a transaction for free if the other person would consider giving me trust equal to the experience.

Should the sam rule apply, more seriously, to merit?

I just came across a post where someone explained a simple idea and then said "if you like my idea, send me merit." There is no negative merit, so an ask like this seems more serious than asking for trust.

What's the consensus here, if someone is asking for merit should they be penalized or ostracized or "corrected" as to the correct forum protocol to not do so?

Theymos stated that : Do not beg for merit excessively.
The trust system and the merit system are a two different thing, merits have been designed to improve the quality of posts of those who are here in this forum, and yes there is a consensus here. Because the merit system is different from the trust system you can have negative trusts if you are begging, selling and buying merits.
In simple terms terms you can have -100 plus trust rating even and have 1000 plus merits at the same time.

Does anyone actually believe that the merit system will "improve the quality of posts"? You guys think that a bunch of people (not to mention certain national groups, but it will happen in that way, for sure) won't start to give each other merits for posts like "good sir, when airdrop"? I don't believe that the system was designed for the improving of the overall quality in the first place: it was designed for the slowdown of the forum activity. Quality will more or less remain the same, it's obvious. But what worries me is the existence of these "Gods of Merits" who can show their merit mercy upon their lobby champs, and rage upon the sinners. Was that really necessary? Couldn't that be done in some other way, without showing the muscles? Would someone from the management explain us why that title was introduced, maybe I've missed a philosophical idea that exists in the background of that act (which I won't call the act of absolutist power, although the resemblance is stunning)? Do you think that the act is in line with the very essence of the decentralized Bitcoin nature and everything else that blockchain technology represents, comparing to the banks, states, companies and other bs creations? Will any of these Gods give me 150 merits, so I can move to the next rank? I don't believe so. Will they deny merits to Satoshi because they don't know that it was Him who has written a "low quality" post? Will they give him merits if they learn that it was He who has written the "good sir, when airdrop" thing? Do we really need to associate personalities with the addresses/nicks and to introduce such a state-like central power to Bitcoin and communities that surround it? If management was concerned about the quality of posts, I think a lot simpler and more repressive system of, for example, some negative merits or something similar could be introduced. So, please, don't talk about "quality of posts" anymore 'cause it hurts intelligence. Hail to the Gods ('cause they give merits)! And cheers to everyone else ('cause they make the Bitcoin and the existence of Gods possible)!

I have exactly same fillings when it comes to Merit implementation. I don't think the main reason was to improve post quality and if, this should be discussed and tested before full implementation. I just think that this will make more damage as good in this forum. Another tool which could be easily abused.

I have a lot of question and doubts. Still, don't understand why we need these special users " Merit Gods "? Are they under control? Is there any spreadsheet for initial merit distribution? How to become a " merit God"?

[totholio]

I'm very disappointed.

1. Absolutely unfair for someone who was 1-2 weeks away to the next rank.

2. I don't see people giving each other merits, why would them? It takes away precious time. I see no way that I would gather even 80 for the next rank.

3. It takes two minutes to a single telegram bounty group to merit each other to the sky. Nonsense.

[ilpipita]

Of course you cannot compare the new rules of BCT with that totalitarian management of DeepOnion's thread, but both has something in common: they end up rewarding those who praise the system and the status quo and punish those who raise a critical voice.
And you can already see the first signs of such a tendence here in these threads about the new merit system. Juniors who are posting here to praise the system get plenty of merits, critical voices don't.

That is not entirely true, TMAN for example has given a lot of merit to users who openly disagreed with the change or criticized certain aspects. Others have been doing similar things, some more, some less.
I also have given a few merits to people being sceptic, as long as they had a well explained position or provided some alternative they believe to be more suited.
It's not about opinion not about agreeing with someone or disagreeing with them, it's about how you voice that opinion.
People who outright cry and shout "No, no, no" without giving reasons or alternatives don't get merit. Posts like that are neither constructive, nor "high quality".
If you make a well written post, explaining your position and opinion, bring something to the conversation, or just sum everything up really well, you will get merit, regardless of your opinion and stance.

I have spotted a tendency and extrapolated an outcome - of course there will always be exceptions, like high ranking members occasionally meriting also critical voices. But reality is not defined by exceptions.
What you are stating, which in itself would make a sense, is alas just theory, to which I can now reply opposing empirical evidence. Did you notice that all my well articulated posts in this discussion didn't bring me a single merit? Fragments of my arguments have been quoted and re-quoted several times in the poets of other people, but not a single merit has been given to any of my posts, in a thread highly populated with people full of sMerits. I am not complaining, this must be very clear, not I am in any way begging for merits - if I were a such kind of person I would have formulated an entirely different kind of posts here. But I'm mentioning this only to prove my point. Empirical evidence is right now showing that a critical contribute to the discussion - but a non "politically correct" one according to the general view - is leading to no merits or so.
I am really not happy to be right in this discussion. I really would prefer you to be right. I am in favor of a merit system to fight shitposting and improve the quality the forum, but I am getting more and more convinced that as things are shaping up it will not work as expected. It may turn out to reduce shitposting (we cannot be sure until we will observe that) but for sure it will set off a new pattern of behavior which personally I'm finding even more obscene than shitposting - and that is buttlicking. Conformism and buttlicking are at risk of becoming the new plague of this forum. I can already see so many cases, just after a few days. Wait that all the people with no dignity which is infesting the forum (as well as the world) find out how it works. Which is the ONLY feasible way to get merits here. Not in theory - but in the practice. Statistics rules. Mark my words - and we'll comment it again in six months.

I sent you two smerits - which are merits for you and provide you with one smerit to send to someone else at your own discretion.  I provided my rationale in another post, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg29070812#msg29070812


and really the gist of my rationale for giving the two merits is that I did not believe your post to deserve any merit, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt - hoping for some better quality in the future... .perhaps?

Yeah, I don't want to come off as some kind of pedantic, because you can do whatever you want, and you can approach this matter however you want.  A variety of possible approaches:  1) You can attempt to see possible benefits in the system and attempt to work the system to your benefit, 2) you can just go on as if the system did not change or 3) you could focus on the various negatives.

Personally, I believe that employing some variation of 1 or 2 is much more healthy than employing some variation of 3; however, that is completely your choice and up to your individual perspective regarding how you want to proceed.

You are likely too generous. Your behavior for this guy with two merits donated will motivate lots of other new users like me to contribute good posts to the forum. And of course big motivation to read, learn more for getting as more knowledge as possible in order to be matured enough to has ability for posting high-qualitied ones. Thanks for your thread sgain,.

[deeofficialx]

Up until now, I still can't understand all of this. See, I am a Full Member and have a 100 Merit and 4sMerit. What if I gave my sMerit to someone, how can I get sMerit again to be able to merit another member?

[ilpipita]

Up until now, I still can't understand all of this. See, I am a Full Member and have a 100 Merit and 4sMerit. What if I gave my sMerit to someone, how can I get sMerit again to be able to merit another member?

The answer is:
1. When you give someone 4 sendable merits (sMerits). The one will have more 4 merits, and 2 sendable merits which they can send to others or send them back to you.
2. You can get merits from others and you will also get sMerits which equals 50% of the total merits you received.

Meriting me if you like my thread.

[Mr.Spider703]

sorry for my bad english
You are all discussing the merit system, but none of you have thought about another existing problem - locked accounts and their unlocking. Many will say - there is a topic in Meta with instructions on what to do and what to write to, and I'll answer you - there are no admins on the forum, they are more accurate, but they do not care about you. Searched the META topic at least the first 15 pages, how many locked accounts there, there's the legendary one, and the person who paid the forum to be unblocked.
I do not give a damn about the merit system, I've never been engaged in playing with my older comrades to be given credit or raised my rank, I helped the people. And now I will appeal to all the legendary ones - imagine that your legendary account has been blocked and you can not use it, try creating a new account here, for a week to move into it and contact the administrators of the news to hear you and help, how long will you hear? ??
And this problem is more than two months.
The hacker can steal your account, poke for what you will be blocked, and you will have to start everything from the very beginning, and this is very hard especially for those who have been sitting on this forum for several years.
I rummaged through the Internet in search of the administrators of this resource, I found them and wrote them, but I did not get an answer, writing nothing to them, you can at least do it with a tambourine around the fire. The only people who own a forum here are scored on us.
moderators can delete my post, and they can also block this account, it makes no difference to me to create 100500 accounts that will be registered with nonexistent mail. and start again all from scratch as of now - this accounting is only a few days.
my blocked accounting for almost a year, I'm its owner and I can go into it, but it's in read mode, unlock it unrealistically, they'll just ignore me.
THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM number 1, that you have accounts with normal guys who are blocked.
And I have the opinion that sooner or later there will be a person who can not stand patience, he will turn to hackers and hack the site for money, as it was once. someone will say that this was not, I will not agree, the GOOGLE remembers everything.

[Lumining]

I would've preferred if merit woul've been distributeed according to our activity and not our member rank, I missed 150 merit because I'm 2 or 3 weeks late to rank up
not cool

[sncc]

How was it determined how many sMerits we get?
For the last couple of days I thought I'd have 500 sMerits, but seems that's not the case
http://prntscr.com/i6jetn

Up until now, I still can't understand all of this. See, I am a Full Member and have a 100 Merit and 4sMerit. What if I gave my sMerit to someone, how can I get sMerit again to be able to merit another member?

There seem still confusion how it works, so let me briefly summarize the system.

There are Merit and sMerit, the former of which is related to rank up, but not the latter one.
The rules are as follows:

Merit
- You obtain Merit when someone sends it to your post.  
- Merit does not decease unless demerit system is introduced in future.

sMerit
- For each 1 Merit you obtained, you also obtain 0.5 sMerit at the same time.
- When you send Merit to someone's post by clicking "+Merit" link for each post, you spend 1 sMerit (but your Merit does not decrease).
- Finally they ``reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future'' so it is recommended to use sMerit rather than keep it.

[deeofficialx]

How was it determined how many sMerits we get?
For the last couple of days I thought I'd have 500 sMerits, but seems that's not the case
http://prntscr.com/i6jetn

Up until now, I still can't understand all of this. See, I am a Full Member and have a 100 Merit and 4sMerit. What if I gave my sMerit to someone, how can I get sMerit again to be able to merit another member?

There seem still confusion how it works, so let me briefly summarize.
There are Merit and sMerit, the former of which is related to rank up, but not the latter one.
The rules are as follows:

Merit
- You obtain Merit when someone sends it to your post.  
- Merit does not decease unless demerit system is introduced in future.

sMerit
- For each 1 Merit you obtained, you also obtain 0.5 sMerit at the same time.
- When you send Merit to someone, you spend 1 sMerit (but your Merit does not decrease).
- Finally they ``reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future'' so it is recommended to use sMerit rather than keep it.

Oh, thats what it is. Thanks for clarifying this issue.

[nioschka]

Please accept my apologies if this has been discussed, I'm not reading through 82 pages.


Currently, the forum's general protocol frowns heavily on the act of asking for positive trust in return for a transaction. Hell, I've been given negative trust (unfairly) for simply stating that I would conduct a transaction for free if the other person would consider giving me trust equal to the experience.

Should the sam rule apply, more seriously, to merit?

I just came across a post where someone explained a simple idea and then said "if you like my idea, send me merit." There is no negative merit, so an ask like this seems more serious than asking for trust.

What's the consensus here, if someone is asking for merit should they be penalized or ostracized or "corrected" as to the correct forum protocol to not do so?

Theymos stated that : Do not beg for merit excessively.
The trust system and the merit system are a two different thing, merits have been designed to improve the quality of posts of those who are here in this forum, and yes there is a consensus here. Because the merit system is different from the trust system you can have negative trusts if you are begging, selling and buying merits.
In simple terms terms you can have -100 plus trust rating even and have 1000 plus merits at the same time.

Does anyone actually believe that the merit system will "improve the quality of posts"? You guys think that a bunch of people (not to mention certain national groups, but it will happen in that way, for sure) won't start to give each other merits for posts like "good sir, when airdrop"? I don't believe that the system was designed for the improving of the overall quality in the first place: it was designed for the slowdown of the forum activity. Quality will more or less remain the same, it's obvious. But what worries me is the existence of these "Gods of Merits" who can show their merit mercy upon their lobby champs, and rage upon the sinners. Was that really necessary? Couldn't that be done in some other way, without showing the muscles? Would someone from the management explain us why that title was introduced, maybe I've missed a philosophical idea that exists in the background of that act (which I won't call the act of absolutist power, although the resemblance is stunning)? Do you think that the act is in line with the very essence of the decentralized Bitcoin nature and everything else that blockchain technology represents, comparing to the banks, states, companies and other bs creations? Will any of these Gods give me 150 merits, so I can move to the next rank? I don't believe so. Will they deny merits to Satoshi because they don't know that it was Him who has written a "low quality" post? Will they give him merits if they learn that it was He who has written the "good sir, when airdrop" thing? Do we really need to associate personalities with the addresses/nicks and to introduce such a state-like central power to Bitcoin and communities that surround it? If management was concerned about the quality of posts, I think a lot simpler and more repressive system of, for example, some negative merits or something similar could be introduced. So, please, don't talk about "quality of posts" anymore 'cause it hurts intelligence. Hail to the Gods ('cause they give merits)! And cheers to everyone else ('cause they make the Bitcoin and the existence of Gods possible)!

I have exactly same fillings when it comes to Merit implementation. I don't think the main reason was to improve post quality and if, this should be discussed and tested before full implementation. I just think that this will make more damage as good in this forum. Another tool which could be easily abused.

I have a lot of question and doubts. Still, don't understand why we need these special users " Merit Gods "? Are they under control? Is there any spreadsheet for initial merit distribution? How to become a " merit God"?

I wouldn't like to become a "Merit God", if you ask me, and here are the reasons:
1. I love Bitcoin, the very nature of it that denies all central power and Gods. It's a good thing, for people, not for exercising the power of an inherited or self-proclaimed position/function. Everybody has the same position and the same function in the blockchain.
2. If you are a God you have to reward some, and deny reward to others. And all of these people represent small parts of the blockchain. They are the reason the blockchain, Bitcoin, and this forum exist in the first place. If they don't mine, trade and post ridiculous posts, nothing of this would ever exist - not even the newly born "Merit Gods" (no matter how odd that may sound to them). So, by being forced to judge these people, I would be actually forced to judge myself.
3. Power is a strange and ugly thing. Not because it's bad by itself, but because the power to make decisions defines who you are, and it's a contagious feeling, you can't get rid of all that power once you gain it. You start that with a best intention, and gradually, without even being able to notice, you really become a sort of a decision-making deity And people start to respond to that function of yours, with fear, avoidance, worship, butt-licking - but never more as friends, as equals, as peers. But your troubles don't end there, it's just the beginning: when you have that kind of power in one segment of your life, it takes one hell of an effort not to reflect your deity status on the other segments of your life - your actual, real-life friends, family, clerks, passers-by... And these people also reacts, in the same manner. And all of a sudden you find yourself all alone, in constant battle to preserve your position on the power throne, like a real God, high in the clouds (except that you're actually not a real God, so you will suffer).

[sncc]

How was it determined how many sMerits we get?
For the last couple of days I thought I'd have 500 sMerits, but seems that's not the case
http://prntscr.com/i6jetn

Up until now, I still can't understand all of this. See, I am a Full Member and have a 100 Merit and 4sMerit. What if I gave my sMerit to someone, how can I get sMerit again to be able to merit another member?

There seem still confusion how it works, so let me briefly summarize the system.

There are Merit and sMerit, the former of which is related to rank up, but not the latter one.
The rules are as follows:

Merit
- You obtain Merit when someone sends it to your post.  
- Merit does not decease unless demerit system is introduced in future.

sMerit
- For each 1 Merit you obtained, you also obtain 0.5 sMerit at the same time.
- When you send Merit to someone's post by clicking "+Merit" link for each post, you spend 1 sMerit (but your Merit does not decrease).
- Finally they ``reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future'' so it is recommended to use sMerit rather than keep it.

Oh, thats what it is. Thanks for clarifying this issue.

Sure, you can send me some Merit by clicking "+Merit" link of my post if it was helpful

[JayJuanGee]

Of course you cannot compare the new rules of BCT with that totalitarian management of DeepOnion's thread, but both has something in common: they end up rewarding those who praise the system and the status quo and punish those who raise a critical voice.
And you can already see the first signs of such a tendence here in these threads about the new merit system. Juniors who are posting here to praise the system get plenty of merits, critical voices don't.

That is not entirely true, TMAN for example has given a lot of merit to users who openly disagreed with the change or criticized certain aspects. Others have been doing similar things, some more, some less.
I also have given a few merits to people being sceptic, as long as they had a well explained position or provided some alternative they believe to be more suited.
It's not about opinion not about agreeing with someone or disagreeing with them, it's about how you voice that opinion.
People who outright cry and shout "No, no, no" without giving reasons or alternatives don't get merit. Posts like that are neither constructive, nor "high quality".
If you make a well written post, explaining your position and opinion, bring something to the conversation, or just sum everything up really well, you will get merit, regardless of your opinion and stance.

I have spotted a tendency and extrapolated an outcome - of course there will always be exceptions, like high ranking members occasionally meriting also critical voices. But reality is not defined by exceptions.
What you are stating, which in itself would make a sense, is alas just theory, to which I can now reply opposing empirical evidence. Did you notice that all my well articulated posts in this discussion didn't bring me a single merit? Fragments of my arguments have been quoted and re-quoted several times in the poets of other people, but not a single merit has been given to any of my posts, in a thread highly populated with people full of sMerits. I am not complaining, this must be very clear, not I am in any way begging for merits - if I were a such kind of person I would have formulated an entirely different kind of posts here. But I'm mentioning this only to prove my point. Empirical evidence is right now showing that a critical contribute to the discussion - but a non "politically correct" one according to the general view - is leading to no merits or so.
I am really not happy to be right in this discussion. I really would prefer you to be right. I am in favor of a merit system to fight shitposting and improve the quality the forum, but I am getting more and more convinced that as things are shaping up it will not work as expected. It may turn out to reduce shitposting (we cannot be sure until we will observe that) but for sure it will set off a new pattern of behavior which personally I'm finding even more obscene than shitposting - and that is buttlicking. Conformism and buttlicking are at risk of becoming the new plague of this forum. I can already see so many cases, just after a few days. Wait that all the people with no dignity which is infesting the forum (as well as the world) find out how it works. Which is the ONLY feasible way to get merits here. Not in theory - but in the practice. Statistics rules. Mark my words - and we'll comment it again in six months.

I sent you two smerits - which are merits for you and provide you with one smerit to send to someone else at your own discretion.  I provided my rationale in another post, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg29070812#msg29070812


and really the gist of my rationale for giving the two merits is that I did not believe your post to deserve any merit, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt - hoping for some better quality in the future... .perhaps?

Yeah, I don't want to come off as some kind of pedantic, because you can do whatever you want, and you can approach this matter however you want.  A variety of possible approaches:  1) You can attempt to see possible benefits in the system and attempt to work the system to your benefit, 2) you can just go on as if the system did not change or 3) you could focus on the various negatives.

Personally, I believe that employing some variation of 1 or 2 is much more healthy than employing some variation of 3; however, that is completely your choice and up to your individual perspective regarding how you want to proceed.

You are likely too generous. Your behavior for this guy with two merits donated will motivate lots of other new users like me to contribute good posts to the forum. And of course big motivation to read, learn more for getting as more knowledge as possible in order to be matured enough to has ability for posting high-qualitied ones. Thanks for your thread sgain,.

I concede that I would be a bit upset by changes in the system when I have already invested in the system, and if I was getting close to ranking up, but then all of a sudden, I have a new requirement to attempt to build up some merits. 

If we are adults, then many of us already realize that life throws curve balls from time to time, and we just need to adjust.  Surely, we can attempt to influence the direction and attempt to contribute to the dialogue, but in the end, we need to continue to attempt to have our own mind in the right framework.  And, let's say for example some of the naysayers regarding this new merit system turn out to be correct, then I believe that Theymos is flexible enough to figure out if there will be some ways that he could tweak the system to attempt to improve it.. ... or worse case scenario, abandon it if it ends up being a complete failure.

[ilpipita]

I would've preferred if merit woul've been distributeed according to our activity and not our member rank, I missed 150 merit because I'm 2 or 3 weeks late to rank up
not cool

That is the way merit system works and you got merits correspond to the minimum merits required to reach your current rank. That's not fair since the start as Theymos said in previous thread. However, Theymos only adjusted merits allocated for users whom have more than 775 activities 500 more merits for each. I don't know why this sort of adjustment didn't apply for other ranks!

As announced by Theymos

I decided that the previous allocation was too unfair in this area, so everyone with activity >= 775 got 500 more merit if they didn't already have 1000 merit (and also Lutpin). No extra sMerit, though.

[pratik009]

I see that i have 5 smerits in my account that i can send to other people. if i send all 5 smerit to the quality poster then my smerit will become zero!!.so after that can i get any other smerit to send other quality posters?
And if yes then when will i get back this smerit?

[ilpipita]

I see that i have 5 smerits in my account that i can send to other people. if i send all 5 smerit to the quality poster then my smerit will become zero!!.so after that can i get any other smerit to send other quality posters?
And if yes then when will i get back this smerit?

You only have additional sMerits if someone send you their sMerits, then you will get both media and sMerits. More details, if someone send you 10 sMerits, you will get 10 Merits and 5 sMerits.

 As Theymos emphasized in the OP of the topic

If someone sends you 1 merit, the 0.5 sMerit is not wasted; it is just not shown until you get another merit point.

There are stats here, and you can find someone's merit summary by clicking the "merit" link on their profile.

If you like this thread, think it useful, you scan donate your merits to me.