Merit & new rank requirements

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>
Regarding regular users, I really like the idea of something approaching complete discretion, and that may apply to a member's decision to never, ever, ever spend his/her smerits - but even within that context of nearly complete discretion about how or whether to use merits it seems likely that theymos has tools that he could use to incentivize the spending of individual smerits without ever really needing to employ decay... because in my thinking decay seems a step too far, and maybe even might be something that is considered after several other available tools are employed (including the tool of threatening smerit decay... hahahahhahaha, which he has already employed at least once).

I concur that sMerit decay and eventual loss many not resolve the issue of a numerous amount of users still withholding large amounts of sMerit and not joining in the game of awarding often enough to guarantee the overall system goal (cut down on spam and abusers, whilst not strangling the legit users that try to rank-up).
Taking a leap, many fidelity programs apply some sort of points decay system overtime, if the accumulated amount is not redeemed. Fidelity programs nevertheless have the incentive of points being usable for our personal gain, so spending them is in our favour and thus does not need too much of a shift.

Here though, the incentive to use sMerit is down to believe or morality, with nothing tangible directly being gained from awarding sMerit (yes, there are those that benefit in fraudulent ways, and yes there is an overall benefit if spam is reduced and reasoning is stepped-up three steps).

If sMerit did eventually decay, it would be like a constant token burn, thus making sMerit more valuable to those that believe in it or require it to rank-up.
Even though it is decentralized by nature of usage, there does have to be an overall aggregate look upon the amount of sMerit potentially awardable forum wide, to avoid the above.
Perhaps instead of decay it should be transferred to merit “sub-sources” (to be defined how to designate them, how much sMerit they get to award, etc.), so that total overall forum potential sMerit does not fall below a certain threshold.

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[MagicSmoker]

And 80% of your merit came from posting about... merit.
...

no kidding...that is precisely what I am talking about...in another merit-based thread, I made a mocking post about my rapid merit increase since I started posting about merit ....I have made it a special point to be as crass and repugnant as possible in my comments, to avoid unfairly picking up merit simply for posting about merit, and because I see it as a "kiss the ring and you can advance" system...which I find disgusting...it has probably cost me many ignores...o well, cant educate those who plug their ears...perhaps in all of my ranting what I am trying to say is that merit should not be given out on the merit threads...it is laughably  circular

Meh... 75% of my merit came from either helping people out or providing some entertainment value* while 25% has come from posting about merit in meta, which I can't help but find entirely apropos (that is, talking about merit in meta, which is itself meta, hence why the subforum is called meta). So I would say I am both an example of what you claim - that lots of merit can be obtained by talking about merit - as well as a counterexample, in that 3/4th of my merit has not come from talking about merit.

And FWIW, I was definitely conflicted about posting my perspective on merit the first few times for the exact reason you find so repugnant - I did not want to be involved in a circle jerk of meriting, either, just from talking about merit. However it appears I have since taken a different path from you in that I am not actively trying to annoy people to not get merit (nor am I actively courting high ranking members or merit sources to get merit). To quote from Vince Vaughn's character in that epic comedy, Dodgeball, "I've found that if you have a goal, that you might not reach it. But if you don't have one, then you are never disappointed. And I gotta tell ya... it feels phenomenal."




* - that said, I was honestly surprised I got a merit for my recent, "meat popsicle" comment, but hey, if someone found it funny and had merit to spare, why not?

[tayecrypto]

How can  the merit point be awarded.. ..is it the higher members that gives merit to  junior or just an automated robot.. ..i have been on this platform since last  year and I have not even be awarded with one  merit.. ...so  disappointing

[TryNinja]

How can  the merit point be awarded.. ..is it the higher members that gives merit to  junior or just an automated robot.. ..i have been on this platform since last  year and I have not even be awarded with one  merit.. ...so  disappointing

Damn.. I wonder how none of your many "HQ posts" have received a single merit so far. Really very "disappointing"...

Nice project

Airdrop link? Can't find it

Another ponzi coin

Good project

nice project

Nice project

Good project....

Sure

Nice project from dev

[friends1980]

Frankly, 95% of the interesting threads and posts come from 5 star members and those are actually the only sources I really-really have confidence in and have learned the most from.

It's honestly the most (and ONLY) frustrating thing to me about this Merit system: as long as I am "only" a Full Member, I think it will be hard to be respected and taken seriously by other members - even those with lower ranks.

[Pumuckel21]

Hey what to do if you accendently send someone `too much` merit

[TryNinja]

Hey what to do if you accendently send someone `too much` merit

Unfortunately you can't do anything.

Once I accidentally clicked in the wrong "+Merit" link and ended up giving one merit to a spammer. And once merited, there is no going back

[soulcancer]

And 80% of your merit came from posting about... merit.
...

no kidding...that is precisely what I am talking about...in another merit-based thread, I made a mocking post about my rapid merit increase since I started posting about merit ....I have made it a special point to be as crass and repugnant as possible in my comments, to avoid unfairly picking up merit simply for posting about merit, and because I see it as a "kiss the ring and you can advance" system...which I find disgusting...it has probably cost me many ignores...o well, cant educate those who plug their ears...perhaps in all of my ranting what I am trying to say is that merit should not be given out on the merit threads...it is laughably  circular

Meh... 75% of my merit came from either helping people out or providing some entertainment value* while 25% has come from posting about merit in meta, which I can't help but find entirely apropos (that is, talking about merit in meta, which is itself meta, hence why the subforum is called meta). So I would say I am both an example of what you claim - that lots of merit can be obtained by talking about merit - as well as a counterexample, in that 3/4th of my merit has not come from talking about merit.

And FWIW, I was definitely conflicted about posting my perspective on merit the first few times for the exact reason you find so repugnant - I did not want to be involved in a circle jerk of meriting, either, just from talking about merit. However it appears I have since taken a different path from you in that I am not actively trying to annoy people to not get merit (nor am I actively courting high ranking members or merit sources to get merit). To quote from Vince Vaughn's character in that epic comedy, Dodgeball, "I've found that if you have a goal, that you might not reach it. But if you don't have one, then you are never disappointed. And I gotta tell ya... it feels phenomenal."




* - that said, I was honestly surprised I got a merit for my recent, "meat popsicle" comment, but hey, if someone found it funny and had merit to spare, why not?

circle jerk....I love it...cant believe that one evaded me...and as far as your meat popsicle goes, the whole point of the merit system is supposed to be weeding out the bots and spammers...not a professorial critique of your grammar skills, or an IQ test...it gives me hope that at least one senior member decided to give it up to you for something that was not biblically profound

[coinlocket$]

Merit is slowly dying, this is only the second week of the month, this means the Merit sources already have the charge from last month sMerit sent. This is the negative record since my reports here, we need more sMerit sources or more sMerit for the currents sources. 30% is very huge in 1 month next 2 weeks will probably even worse (merit decreasing in the end of month).





What do you think about it? 

[TheQuin]

Merit is slowly dying, this is only the second week of the month, this means the Merit sources already have the charge from last month sMerit sent.

That's not how it works. Merit sources get refreshed 30 days after they spend a source merit.

What do you think about it?  

I think the forum is slowly becoming a little better. There's a reduction in active accounts. Vod's site, unfortunately, got hacked but the number of active users according to his definition has reduced from 950k to 850k. So it is working on keeping the account farmers away at least.

There probably needs to be quite a few more merit sources as I think there's too much work being done by too few people in that area.

[coinlocket$]

Merit is slowly dying, this is only the second week of the month, this means the Merit sources already have the charge from last month sMerit sent.

That's not how it works. Merit sources get refreshed 30 days after they spend a source merit.

Yes I know it. This is what I mean, if you look the graph:
04/03/2018   10/03/2018      8468 1st week of March
11/03/2018   17/03/2018      7278 2nd week of March
18/03/2018   24/03/2018      7378 3rd week of March
25/03/2018   31/03/2018      5883 4th week of March

01/04/2018   07/04/2018      7525 1st week of April
08/04/2018   14/04/2018      5778 2nd week of April

As we can see (3 days delay) the merit is lower every weeks on this month, and if this is the trend, next month will be worse.
I think to contrast this we need to increase the merit sources or to increase the merit for the current sources.
I agree on the quality of the forum, but I think we need a little adjusment on overall merit to counteract this process or in few months we can have only 2k merit/week (my personal idea, form less activity from sources, natual decreasing of merit from users even ban for accounts)

[TheQuin]

Yes I know it. This is what I mean, if you look the graph:
04/03/2018   10/03/2018      8468 1st week of March
11/03/2018   17/03/2018      7278 2nd week of March
18/03/2018   24/03/2018      7378 3rd week of March
25/03/2018   31/03/2018      5883 4thd week of March

01/04/2018   07/04/2018      7525 1st week of March
08/04/2018   14/04/2018      5778 2nd week of March

As we can see (3 days delay) the merit is lower every weeks on this month, and if this is the trend, next month will be worse.
I think to contrast this we need to increase the merit sources or to increase the merit for the current sources.
I agree on the quality of the forum, but I think we need a little adjusment on overall merit to counteract this process or in few months we can have only 2k merit/week (my personal idea)

I guess that must mean that the merit sources overdid it when the system was first introduced and gave too much out at the start and then cut back later in the month. Now this gets replicated each month as they get replenished. I would think that effect should even out given enough time.

As I just suggested I think some of the sources have a hard time finding enough posts to merit so adding more sources would be my preferred solution. A lot of them are busy with other things and can't be on the forum full time so it would be better to share the workload out.

[DdmrDdmr]

Merit is slowly dying, this is only the second week of the month, this means the Merit sources already have the charge from last month sMerit sent. This is the negative record since my reports here, we need more sMerit sources or more sMerit for the currents sources. 30% is very huge in 1 month next 2 weeks will probably even worse (merit decreasing in the end of month).
<...>
What do you think about it? 

I haven't has time to update my stats yet (maybe to early for that too), but I trust yours.

I believe that there is a hell of a lot of sMerit still accumulated in our sMerit bags. I calculated around 90%. Many members make it a point not only to post, but also to award merit often, as can be seen by their profile Merit history. Those are sound examples of a good use of the concept in terms of good usage of sMerit. However, the mass of people that do not play the awarding game seem much larger.

It’s true that it is not easy to always find posts to merit. I for example took aside yesterday a couple of hours with that sole objective in mind, focusing on awarding sMerit and not posting. I managed to award 4 measly sMerits to 4 different posts. No much of a feat, but I tried to focus on awarding it without a mental rank barrier (even so, I only managed to get to 1 Jr Member).

It´s not down to creating more merit sources per se, but to making an effort to play the game by the book, acting as givers and not only of receivers of sMerit (no second readings please here). Obviously, we should no rush to give away this 90% stash of sMerit, but rather incentive playing the game as awarders.
Many profiles still have the same sMerit as they were airdropped, not having awarded any yet. Since nothing happens if it is not awarded after some time, the system could go on like this in a bearish tendency.

sMerit decay is a potential final step that could be implemented as was stated by theymos if I’m not wrong. The thing is that the overall amount of available forum wide sMerit needs to be supervised so that the system in motion does not defeat the purpose.  
sMerit Decay on it’s own,with no counterpart, would be like token burning and therefore potentially have an effect of increasing sMerit value and lessen circulation even more.

Maybe instead of decay it should be a transfer to other sources. That is to say, create sources to distribute sMerit that is rotting away (or at least hibernating).
These sources would not be sources for merit generated out of the blue as happens now (obviously to counterpart the natural sMerit decay originated by halfing sMerit upon every transaction), but to award out of the pool of “unused” sMerit (“unused could be something like 3 months without use or so).
That obviously would make the system more complicated to implement, but should help a healthy circulation of sMerit.

We know the focus is to benefit over forum wide post content and cut down on spam and farmed accounts, but we have to be careful not to tightening the noose too much.

[shahzadafzal]

Merit is slowly dying, this is only the second week of the month, this means the Merit sources already have the charge from last month sMerit sent. This is the negative record since my reports here, we need more sMerit sources or more sMerit for the currents sources. 30% is very huge in 1 month next 2 weeks will probably even worse (merit decreasing in the end of month).
https://puu.sh/A3Dyv/77719c894c.png
https://puu.sh/A3Dze/eeee69e771.png
What do you think about it?  

I don't agree with your stats, first without comparison to the number posts vs given merits in each board this percentage does not show any thing meaningful.
Also when you counting posts should exclude bounties thread as those should not be even counted as worthy posts.

Only then we will have clear picture if merit graph is going up or down.

Again "Merit" like the name suggest is "quality" of course you will find it rare.
It will be declining if the shitposts are increasing... we don't have direct figure if shitposters are increasing.

we need more sMerit sources or more sMerit for the currents sources.

Yes more merit sources will be helpful, without even looking at your graphs. More merit sources with fewer merits per month let say 50 should be enough. It may increase the merit distribution across the board.

[coinlocket$]

Also when you counting posts should exclude bounties thread as those should not be even counted as worthy posts.

Snip.
This can not be a "rule" because, for example, if someone reports someone else on one bounty for a scam and he saves money for the community with a proof, this one in my opinion, deserve a merit reward more than anyone else.

[Isshiki-kun]

Thanks for the info. I learned a lot to do more efforts to have a valuable posts to get a merits.

[ducdr]

Frankly, 95% of the interesting threads and posts come from 5 star members and those are actually the only sources I really-really have confidence in and have learned the most from.

It's honestly the most (and ONLY) frustrating thing to me about this Merit system: as long as I am "only" a Full Member, I think it will be hard to be respected and taken seriously by other members - even those with lower ranks.

You should know that which factors help to build up your respect?
Your knowledge.
Your helpfulness (generosity) to help others.
Your time you spent actively in the forum.

If you are real constructive user, your respect level will automatically increase over time.
It is not fair that newcomers have the same respect levels as of older, higher-ranked members in the forum. Do you really understand what I mean?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

It is not fair that newcomers have the same respect levels as of older, higher-ranked members in the forum. Do you really understand what I mean?

Not in the least.  The sentence before the bolded one does not compute at all.  What is it you think you're contributing to this thread?

[athanz88]

Yes I know it. This is what I mean, if you look the graph:
04/03/2018   10/03/2018      8468 1st week of March
11/03/2018   17/03/2018      7278 2nd week of March
18/03/2018   24/03/2018      7378 3rd week of March
25/03/2018   31/03/2018      5883 4thd week of March

01/04/2018   07/04/2018      7525 1st week of March
08/04/2018   14/04/2018      5778 2nd week of March

As we can see (3 days delay) the merit is lower every weeks on this month, and if this is the trend, next month will be worse.
I think to contrast this we need to increase the merit sources or to increase the merit for the current sources.
I agree on the quality of the forum, but I think we need a little adjusment on overall merit to counteract this process or in few months we can have only 2k merit/week (my personal idea)

I guess that must mean that the merit sources overdid it when the system was first introduced and gave too much out at the start and then cut back later in the month. Now this gets replicated each month as they get replenished. I would think that effect should even out given enough time.

As I just suggested I think some of the sources have a hard time finding enough posts to merit so adding more sources would be my preferred solution. A lot of them are busy with other things and can't be on the forum full time so it would be better to share the workload out.

Sorry to interrupt and didnt shortened the quote.

If we add all the merit in March, we will get 29.007 sMerits has been given in that month, and if we divide it into 28 sMerits per member (because members need 1 merit/day if they want to continue ranking up in a normal rate, almost same with activity), we get 1.035 members that can rank up properly in this merit age.

I know this number is very small if we compare it to the number of accounts here in the forum, but there are a lot of factors such as :
1. There are not enough merit sources right now (TheQuin stated it)
2. Merit sources are not distibuted evenly for each board.
3. Last, there are not many quality post or thread out there so merit sources didnt give their merit.
The last one is playing big role too in the merit distribution, so the blame is not only on the merit sources' side, it is also depends on the member of this forum.

[labake]

Even as it is presently, it’s absolutely hard to get merit even with good and genuine posts that i’ve Made severally, I didn’t get a single merit yet. It’s very painful, I must confess but I keep trying.