Merit & new rank requirements

[ccsang]

For current members, your initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for your rank. Of that, a certain amount (less than the usual half) is spendable. The spendable amount was calculated based on your current rank and the number of activity points you earned in the last year. A Legendary member who hasn't posted in the last year would still be Legendary, but would not have any spendable merit.

I don't agree with this, this is just like giving the "old members" (including me) a head start. I'm not saying that earning merits is a race but giving us a head start also means giving us a free reputation out of nothing. That does not necessarily mean we need to rebuild our reputation from zero, I mean there are so many members that have earned a good reputation on this forum.
So I think the merit points for old members have to be given based on their reputation now and without affecting the rank.
Anyway, I think this is gonna be the end of account farming.

The new system is surely better than the previous one, even though it is over-rewarding "old members". I guess nobody who has joined Bitcointalk in the past six months will EVER manage to become Legendary Member, at least not in less than one or two decades. Fine, this could be a price to pay to avoid the forum getting even more trashy, I fully agree. But I think that the implementation of this new system could be done in a more fair way. The fact that initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for one's rank is not a big deal for Newbies or Juniors, but for higher ranked members, like Senior or Hero Members, it can create big inequalities. For example a freshly ranked Senior Member is now getting the same merit score as someone who has already been a Senior Member for almost half a year and is about to become a Hero. Even more dramatic would be the case of a Hero who has already the activity to be a Legendary but the random system did not grant him the rank yet. A more fair way to distribute the inital merit would be to calculate it proportionally to the actual activity. This would avoid that people like me (I don't want to make it personal but I'm the first example which comes to my mind) who is missing only 4 points of activity (and 5 days) to the rank of Hero Member, instead of getting, let's say 470-480 merits (instead of the 500 of people who already are Heroes), is getting only 250 merits like someone who has just ranked Senior Member 10 days ago, and instead of 5 days it may now suddenly take me years before I can become a Hero - how many very good posts has one to do before he gets 250 merits? If you receive one merit every 4 post you do (on average you are likely to get less IMO) it will take you 1000 more posts to rank up from Senior to Hero, and if you like me were only 4 points of activity from that target, and now suddenly you need another 1000 posts, to say that this is becoming extremely frustrating is a big understatement. On the other side, with a more proportional and balanced initial distribution of merits I think nobody would feel that the system is penalizing them more than it penalizes others - which means people would be more inclined to recognize its substantial fairness, or at least that every effort has been done to achieve the maximum possible fairness.

Fully agree with you! My rank of Sr.Member still young (2 months only) but for people who near of rank changes its a tragicly! Needs a corrections of initial merits!

totally agree with you , I'm waiting 4-5 month (next wednesday) rank up to Sr (just missing 2 Activity with old ranking system) , I think you waiting 8-9 month rank up to Hero member , same as you , system only give us Full member (100 merit) & Sr Member (250 merit) , don't care account activity is only (120 or 238) and (240 or 476) , merit reward is same , I think need to more fair to reward merit ...
Just example , Why don't wait for next activity date (old ranking system) , after that only start new ranking system

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[stompix]

It's not even about me but about honesty and fairness. A couple of members are given the privilege to abuse other members and even get rewarded for it. And now it is decided to even expand that abusive privilege and power. This is not right for a forum with the status that Bitcointalk has in the crypto-industry.

Oh, just great. More abuse of power. Let me guess; Lauda, The Pharmacist and actmyname.

You keep bringing up the "abuse".
How are they going to abuse you? By ignoring you? That is an abuse?

LE:
Rather than arguing, look at the post made by exus:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg28908116#msg28908116

Proof on how even low ranking members are rewarded.

Unless exus=lutpin=lauda=thermos 

[ImHash]

essentially forcing people to post, what is even considered high quality anyway? As i think i have said before, the basis of a forum is to have questions answered, i.e. i have x problem, please help, then the community kicks into gear and helps, this has always been the way when i have had tech problems, either the asker or the answerer i have been and this works.  Wouldnt the best way be as forums have always been, we have moderators who simply kick the idiots out, nice and easy!

You haven't said that before, You only have 2 posts. Or you have said that before with another account?
Merit system is good if you are not trying to rank up to join signature campaigns.

[cryptocrusher]

For current members, your initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for your rank. Of that, a certain amount (less than the usual half) is spendable. The spendable amount was calculated based on your current rank and the number of activity points you earned in the last year. A Legendary member who hasn't posted in the last year would still be Legendary, but would not have any spendable merit.

I don't agree with this, this is just like giving the "old members" (including me) a head start. I'm not saying that earning merits is a race but giving us a head start also means giving us a free reputation out of nothing. That does not necessarily mean we need to rebuild our reputation from zero, I mean there are so many members that have earned a good reputation on this forum.
So I think the merit points for old members have to be given based on their reputation now and without affecting the rank.
Anyway, I think this is gonna be the end of account farming.

The new system is surely better than the previous one, even though it is over-rewarding "old members". I guess nobody who has joined Bitcointalk in the past six months will EVER manage to become Legendary Member, at least not in less than one or two decades. Fine, this could be a price to pay to avoid the forum getting even more trashy, I fully agree. But I think that the implementation of this new system could be done in a more fair way. The fact that initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for one's rank is not a big deal for Newbies or Juniors, but for higher ranked members, like Senior or Hero Members, it can create big inequalities. For example a freshly ranked Senior Member is now getting the same merit score as someone who has already been a Senior Member for almost half a year and is about to become a Hero. Even more dramatic would be the case of a Hero who has already the activity to be a Legendary but the random system did not grant him the rank yet. A more fair way to distribute the inital merit would be to calculate it proportionally to the actual activity. This would avoid that people like me (I don't want to make it personal but I'm the first example which comes to my mind) who is missing only 4 points of activity (and 5 days) to the rank of Hero Member, instead of getting, let's say 470-480 merits (instead of the 500 of people who already are Heroes), is getting only 250 merits like someone who has just ranked Senior Member 10 days ago, and instead of 5 days it may now suddenly take me years before I can become a Hero - how many very good posts has one to do before he gets 250 merits? If you receive one merit every 4 post you do (on average you are likely to get less IMO) it will take you 1000 more posts to rank up from Senior to Hero, and if you like me were only 4 points of activity from that target, and now suddenly you need another 1000 posts, to say that this is becoming extremely frustrating is a big understatement. On the other side, with a more proportional and balanced initial distribution of merits I think nobody would feel that the system is penalizing them more than it penalizes others - which means people would be more inclined to recognize its substantial fairness, or at least that every effort has been done to achieve the maximum possible fairness.

Fully agree with you! My rank of Sr.Member still young (2 months only) but for people who near of rank changes its a tragicly! Needs a corrections of initial merits!

totally agree with you , I'm waiting 4-5 month (next wednesday) rank up to Sr (just missing 2 Activity with old ranking system) , I think you waiting 8-9 month rank up to Hero member , same as you , system only give us Full member (100 merit) & Sr Member (250 merit) , don't care account activity is only (120 or 238) and (240 or 476) , merit reward is same , I think need to more fair to reward merit ...
Just example , Why don't wait for next activity date (old ranking system) , after that only start new ranking system

Because next week there will be someone in the exact same position as you, who is one activity week away from a new rank. You're right in that it is not a 'fair' way to do it because someone who is just one activity period ahead of you is now a long way ahead, but your suggestion isn't the solution.

[MonkeyBrain]

I want a Bitcointalk fork.  

84 activities and you are still Junior Member. I know your feelings right now.

It's not even about me but about honesty and fairness. A couple of members are given the privilege to abuse other members and even get rewarded for it. And now it is decided to even expand that abusive privilege and power. This is not right for a forum with the status that Bitcointalk has in the crypto-industry.

Not to mention if demerits are implemented what's to stop some senior member to simply demerit someone because they disagree with a post or what is being said.

[suchmoon]

Also, given that sMerit is effectively pointless after Legendary status would it not be worth considering making it only giftable to ranks below legendary, that way it at least encourages the progression for some of the lower ranks? Granted some legendary members will want to accumulate it as an accolade.

Legendaries can (and may be more inclined to) spread sMerit to others, so it's not pointless.

[TheQuin]

Because next week there will be someone in the exact same position as you, who is one activity week away from a new rank. You're right in that it is not a 'fair' way to do it because someone who is just one activity period ahead of you is now a long way ahead, but your suggestion isn't the solution.

That's exactly it. The only thing would have been fairer would be a slightly more granular distribution of the initial merit points based on activity rather than just rank. As it has been implemented now I would think it would be very difficult to go back and change that. So let it be, some people will feel hard done by, but that's usually the way with change.

[BtcMan2009]

The most annoying is those who have had to be updated status soon.
They are now status will change any time soon.
And many do not pass can be had.

[Deena]

You keep bringing up the "abuse".
How are they going to abuse you? By ignoring you? That is an abuse?

Using the power to unlimited merit your friends (or alt accounts) while other users are withheld from receiving merit points, while they may post equal or even more qualitative posts, I call abuse, yes. It is again, like the trust system, subjectively determined by a few chosen ones.

[CrazyCraig]

Interesting idea. So this merit system is similar to a social media like correct?

I like the idea because it will make it harder for individuals to farm and sell accounts.

[HoundRogerson]

I understand that if I put a "Merit" for post, then next month  I can not put them any more?

[Raist]

Because next week there will be someone in the exact same position as you, who is one activity week away from a new rank. You're right in that it is not a 'fair' way to do it because someone who is just one activity period ahead of you is now a long way ahead, but your suggestion isn't the solution.

That's exactly it. The only thing would have been fairer would be a slightly more granular distribution of the initial merit points based on activity rather than just rank. As it has been implemented now I would think it would be very difficult to go back and change that. So let it be, some people will feel hard done by, but that's usually the way with change.

Well it looks like a snapshot where 240 is 250, 239 is like 100 and so on. I mean if we consider merit points as a valuable entity why using such rounded start? Absolutely agree that there are more than enough pointless messages on the forum but can this system be implemented more accurately?

[mk4]

I already don't like the way clicking on +merit takes you away from the thread.  Can you please have it open in a new window?

Agree 100% with this.  A new window, or maybe just code in a little box next to the post where you can type the Merit you want to give and then hit Give or something.

Instead of posting you 100% agree, you should have given me 100 merit.  

Press your middle mouse button when trying to open a link to open it in a new window. Problem solved. Now you should have given me 200 merit.
Watching.

This can be a hassle for people using mobile. Making the merit link open to a new tab is fairly easy so I don't see any reason why they shouldn't implement this.

Code:

target="_blank"

on the anchor tag should do the trick.

[Deena]

Interesting idea. So this merit system is similar to a social media like correct?

Not correct. It is similar to someone on the top of the hill giving one person a hand and another the middle finger, purely by subjective choice.

I like the idea because it will make it harder for individuals to farm and sell accounts.

Now only the few chosen ones are allowed to farm and sell accounts. More privileges for the happy few. Less for the rest.

[cryptocrusher]

Also, given that sMerit is effectively pointless after Legendary status would it not be worth considering making it only giftable to ranks below legendary, that way it at least encourages the progression for some of the lower ranks? Granted some legendary members will want to accumulate it as an accolade.

Legendaries can (and may be more inclined to) spread sMerit to others, so it's not pointless.

I think you perhaps misunderstood my point, I am well aware the Legendary ranks will have much sMerit to spread around compared to other ranks. My point is that once you have reached Legendary rank you have nowhere left to go after that, if someone then gives you some merit, it is effectively wasted on your account.

Because next week there will be someone in the exact same position as you, who is one activity week away from a new rank. You're right in that it is not a 'fair' way to do it because someone who is just one activity period ahead of you is now a long way ahead, but your suggestion isn't the solution.

That's exactly it. The only thing would have been fairer would be a slightly more granular distribution of the initial merit points based on activity rather than just rank. As it has been implemented now I would think it would be very difficult to go back and change that. So let it be, some people will feel hard done by, but that's usually the way with change.

Exactly, which has already been mentioned back in the thread much earlier, I think realistically as you said, it's now too late to go back and change that, but in hindsight I hope at least it can be seen that it would have been a better way to have done it, or even to give everyone halfway between their current rank and the next one, some people will gain and some will lose but at least it wouldn't be to quite the same extreme.

[pangu]

interesting concept! like it! but i don't understand how to get new smerits to give away to other users: are they a reward for good posts as well, or are they given randomly?

[Daltonik]

Legendaries can (and may be more inclined to) spread sMerit to others, so it's not pointless.

Well, for example, I was not lucky, there was not much left for the hero of the member, and now you can talk about doubling, at best, the time to reach it. A little distressing.

[TheQuin]

Well it looks like a snapshot where 240 is 250, 239 is like 100 and so on. I mean if we consider merit points as a valuable entity why using such rounded start? Absolutely agree that there are more than enough pointless messages on the forum but can this system be implemented more accurately?

I'm agreed that it was a rough way of doing it but I think unless there was a database snapshot taken just before it was implemented it's probably too late to change it now.

[AdolfinWolf]

You keep bringing up the "abuse".
How are they going to abuse you? By ignoring you? That is an abuse?

Using the power to unlimited merit your friends (or alt accounts) while other users are withheld from receiving merit points, while they may post equal or even more qualitative posts, I call abuse, yes. It is again, like the trust system, subjectively determined by a few chosen ones.

You're only limited to 50 merits max per account per month, so i doubt that it is going to happen much.

 Ontop of that, every merit you give is transparent, and i believe that there soon will be some kind of log where you can see who gave who merit points.

[ccsang]

For current members, your initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for your rank. Of that, a certain amount (less than the usual half) is spendable. The spendable amount was calculated based on your current rank and the number of activity points you earned in the last year. A Legendary member who hasn't posted in the last year would still be Legendary, but would not have any spendable merit.

I don't agree with this, this is just like giving the "old members" (including me) a head start. I'm not saying that earning merits is a race but giving us a head start also means giving us a free reputation out of nothing. That does not necessarily mean we need to rebuild our reputation from zero, I mean there are so many members that have earned a good reputation on this forum.
So I think the merit points for old members have to be given based on their reputation now and without affecting the rank.
Anyway, I think this is gonna be the end of account farming.

The new system is surely better than the previous one, even though it is over-rewarding "old members". I guess nobody who has joined Bitcointalk in the past six months will EVER manage to become Legendary Member, at least not in less than one or two decades. Fine, this could be a price to pay to avoid the forum getting even more trashy, I fully agree. But I think that the implementation of this new system could be done in a more fair way. The fact that initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for one's rank is not a big deal for Newbies or Juniors, but for higher ranked members, like Senior or Hero Members, it can create big inequalities. For example a freshly ranked Senior Member is now getting the same merit score as someone who has already been a Senior Member for almost half a year and is about to become a Hero. Even more dramatic would be the case of a Hero who has already the activity to be a Legendary but the random system did not grant him the rank yet. A more fair way to distribute the inital merit would be to calculate it proportionally to the actual activity. This would avoid that people like me (I don't want to make it personal but I'm the first example which comes to my mind) who is missing only 4 points of activity (and 5 days) to the rank of Hero Member, instead of getting, let's say 470-480 merits (instead of the 500 of people who already are Heroes), is getting only 250 merits like someone who has just ranked Senior Member 10 days ago, and instead of 5 days it may now suddenly take me years before I can become a Hero - how many very good posts has one to do before he gets 250 merits? If you receive one merit every 4 post you do (on average you are likely to get less IMO) it will take you 1000 more posts to rank up from Senior to Hero, and if you like me were only 4 points of activity from that target, and now suddenly you need another 1000 posts, to say that this is becoming extremely frustrating is a big understatement. On the other side, with a more proportional and balanced initial distribution of merits I think nobody would feel that the system is penalizing them more than it penalizes others - which means people would be more inclined to recognize its substantial fairness, or at least that every effort has been done to achieve the maximum possible fairness.

Fully agree with you! My rank of Sr.Member still young (2 months only) but for people who near of rank changes its a tragicly! Needs a corrections of initial merits!

totally agree with you , I'm waiting 4-5 month (next wednesday) rank up to Sr (just missing 2 Activity with old ranking system) , I think you waiting 8-9 month rank up to Hero member , same as you , system only give us Full member (100 merit) & Sr Member (250 merit) , don't care account activity is only (120 or 238) and (240 or 476) , merit reward is same , I think need to more fair to reward merit ...
Just example , Why don't wait for next activity date (old ranking system) , after that only start new ranking system

Because next week there will be someone in the exact same position as you, who is one activity week away from a new rank. You're right in that it is not a 'fair' way to do it because someone who is just one activity period ahead of you is now a long way ahead, but your suggestion isn't the solution.

ya, maybe my suggestion not the solution , but just only an suggestion because it's only 6 day left to next acticatiy week , 1 activity week = 14 days , but new ranking system already implemented , so I think we can't change anything

That's exactly it. The only thing would have been fairer would be a slightly more granular distribution of the initial merit points based on activity rather than just rank. As it has been implemented now I would think it would be very difficult to go back and change that. So let it be, some people will feel hard done by, but that's usually the way with change.

ya , it's already implemented and can't go back , but I think at least more fair way to distribution merit points based on activity , 120 activity (100 merit) ≠ 239 activity (100 merit)