Merit & new rank requirements

[digaran]

It's too early to get a clear picture, but my thoughts so far:

First, most people complaining about merit are constantly posting garbage, and should not rank-up. The forum is not a welfare system; you don't run through a few hoops and then get paid for doing something that nobody actually wants. I like that good forum members can make money, especially when said forum members are in poorer countries and this is a major opportunity for them. I very much do not want to destroy the sig-ad/airdrop/bounty "industry". But I am not going to tolerate people posting garbage upon garbage. If the merit system completely fails and I can't think of anything else to replace it, then my next step will probably be to completely remove all ways for forum users to make money from posting (eg. removing signatures entirely).

Why would anybody change when they are posting for free? who told you to pay for the servers and staffs? why would I change my behavior if I could have 200 members post to promote my ICO for free? I'm hiring people to promote my ICO and will pay them after collecting money, if the first one failed, I'll launch another one.

Did you try charging fees per post from anybody with a paid signature?
Why member and full members need to wear signatures?

How many moderators could you hire if every body had to pay $0.5 per post?

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[InvoKing]

This is day 11 since we started using the Merit system and I have less than the half of sMerit i started with.
Main consequence : i am getting more selective, i would like to give some posts 1 point but then I say : well, better to keep my predefined tiny number for better posts in the +oo.
My suggestion : adding a report feature to sources. You like a post then press a button : "suggest this post to sources" (accuracy could be done here too but whatever). Of course, if this feature will get popular, it is impossible to handle all of it but...well, you aren't obliged to do it. Some people who aren't sources could join the club too if they like to do some charity.

[mrelich]

Hi,
What about to limit amount of merit that can be given at once? Or limit the amount of merit that can be given to specific user?
I've already seen a thread where somebody wanted to sell his sMerit - so these limitations could help against it - what do you think guys?
Nice weekend to all !

[DGulari]

Hi,
What about to limit amount of merit that can be given at once? Or limit the amount of merit that can be given to specific user?
I've already seen a thread where somebody wanted to sell his sMerit - so these limitations could help against it - what do you think guys?
Nice weekend to all !

50 sMerit as the limit.

[InvoKing]

Hi,
What about to limit amount of merit that can be given at once? Or limit the amount of merit that can be given to specific user?
I've already seen a thread where somebody wanted to sell his sMerit - so these limitations could help against it - what do you think guys?
Nice weekend to all !

Report the topic if he is offering to give sMerit for money.
There is a limitation of 50 per post.
Personally prefer to disable sMerit-on to legendary and limit sMerit-out to 10 per month for everyone except sources (which isn't obvious).

[nullius]

Why would anybody change when they are posting for free? who told you to pay for the servers and staffs? why would I change my behavior if I could have 200 members post to promote my ICO for free? I'm hiring people to promote my ICO and will pay them after collecting money, if the first one failed, I'll launch another one.

Did you try charging fees per post from anybody with a paid signature?
Why member and full members need to wear signatures?

How many moderators could you hire if every body had to pay $0.5 per post?

Why the hell would I pay for the privilege of giving my valuable time and effort to post?

Of course, I don’t have a paid signature.  But if pay-to-post were enacted only for accounts with paid signatures, this would cause two problems:  (0) Reliably identifying such accounts.  If accounts with paid signatures had to pay to post and others didn’t, then some signature campaigns would simply go underground.  Yes, my friend asked me to put this big, flashy link in my signature.  Nobody paid me.  Now, you need mods to search for accounts making unpaid posts with paid signatures, and perform adequately thorough investigations of them.  (1) Account farmers would set their bots to spew garbage with no signature from new accounts, until those accounts reached a high rank.  Then, they could pay a small fee for every spam bearing a colourful billboard.  Depending on how the economics work out, that may be profitable for them even if their posts are deleted after x average time.  To tilt the economics squarely against them, the fee may need to rise too high for everybody else.

All in all, this “pay to post” idea sounds too much like the “e-mail postage” idea.  Competent spamfighters were always strictly against the latter, on grounds that it would not work and it would create too much collateral damage.

The only solution to the problem of quality is to measure quality, viz., to enact some system for discriminating between valuable posts and worthless drivel.  That’s what we now have.

You like a post then press a button : "suggest this post to sources"

That would be a boon to beggars—and most of all to farmers with lots of alts.

[d5000]

But if I read the old posts of a lot of high rank members, I find a lot of shitpost, and I just wonder why "they" had this privilege by luck in the meanwhile I have to work hard for the same results. I agree, life is unfair, but this aspect is very disturbing.

So you consider people who reached high ranks spamming the forum "lucky"?

Do you also consider other spammers "lucky", like e-mail spammers? Or to be even harder: What about thieves?

It may sound harsh, but spamming the forum to the point it becomes almost unusable, and earn money for it is a destructive behaviour, like other spamming activity is, and thus should be sanctioned. If you consider it "lucky", there are lots of similar destructive, but profitable activities, inside and outside the Internet, that you could try instead.

"Old Legendary spammers" are obviously destructive, too; but they can be sanctioned in other ways (banned, red trust etc.). The good thing about the Merit system is that they cannot "reproduce" themselves anymore (at least not easily), so the problem should become more manageable now.

[JayJuanGee]

It's too early to get a clear picture, but my thoughts so far:

First, most people complaining about merit are constantly posting garbage, and should not rank-up. The forum is not a welfare system; you don't run through a few hoops and then get paid for doing something that nobody actually wants. I like that good forum members can make money, especially when said forum members are in poorer countries and this is a major opportunity for them. I very much do not want to destroy the sig-ad/airdrop/bounty "industry". But I am not going to tolerate people posting garbage upon garbage. If the merit system completely fails and I can't think of anything else to replace it, then my next step will probably be to completely remove all ways for forum users to make money from posting (eg. removing signatures entirely).

Why would anybody change when they are posting for free? who told you to pay for the servers and staffs? why would I change my behavior if I could have 200 members post to promote my ICO for free? I'm hiring people to promote my ICO and will pay them after collecting money, if the first one failed, I'll launch another one.

Did you try charging fees per post from anybody with a paid signature?
Why member and full members need to wear signatures?

How many moderators could you hire if every body had to pay $0.5 per post?

Your various questions, digaran, come off as unnecessarily argumentative.  It is like you are trying to suggests a whole lot of changes would be better than the existing system, without you yourself attempting to grapple within the parameters of the existing system.

You know Theymos and administrators decided to go in a certain direction with the forum that includes signatures and their current monetization of the forum (which I truely don't know the details of such), yet you seem to be suggesting some kind of radically different monetization and incentive alignment dynamic that is far removed from the framework that is already in place.  How is that going to be constructive and/or helpful, rather than gratuitously argumentative?

[Veidt]

The thing is, noone is using it (less than 0,001% from what ive seen), and noone will be using it. There is no motivation for me to give a merit to someone.. This way, nobody will be able to rank up. It's ridiculous to think that this will ever work. I will never be able to gather 110 merit to rank up.. there is no way. There must be another way.

[nullius]

<snipped by nullius>

Your various questions, digaran, come off as unnecessarily argumentative.  It is like you are trying to suggests a whole lot of changes would be better than the existing system, without you yourself attempting to grapple within the parameters of the existing system.

As of this writing, digaran has 508 merit.  As a “Hero” (allegedly), he received 500 merit for free.  Thus in the past nine days, he has been earning merit at the underwhelming average rate of <0.9 merit per day.

All along, I’ve been noting the merit levels (or lack thereof) of Newbies and Jr. Members who in some fashion dislike the merit system.  With a simple arithmetical operation, that easily extends to identifying highly-ranked accounts who would never have reached their status under the merit system—as such, who do not merit their status.

(I addressed the substance of digaran’s post; but it bears examining potential for self-interest motives, also.)

[mrelich]

The idea of the merit system is very good. However, I think there might be one issue with this merit system. The only users that have enough sMerits to give are Full/Hero/Legendary users. However, they are profiting from their Avatars and signatures - they are getting more stakes in signature campaigns, because they have higher ranks. If they give their sMerits to lower rank users, then more users became Full/Hero/Legendary and they won't get so much profit from their stakes in signature campaigns. So that might prevent some of them giving sMerit to anyone. I hope most of Full/Hero/Legendary users don't think like that and I am not sure what is a solution if they do .. what do you think?

[thotknectar]

Hey thank you for posting this, I thought I was trying pretty hard to find information on the merit system,
but it's proven to be quite difficult to find an official thread on this topic. This should be pinned somewhere
on a beginners & help thread!!

This way so many people won't be asking for the information lol.

[InvoKing]

You like a post then press a button : "suggest this post to sources"

That would be a boon to beggars—and most of all to farmers with lots of alts.

True, for sure it will be eligible only for higher ranks and preferably excluding this feature from your own post.

[digaran]

It's too early to get a clear picture, but my thoughts so far:

First, most people complaining about merit are constantly posting garbage, and should not rank-up. The forum is not a welfare system; you don't run through a few hoops and then get paid for doing something that nobody actually wants. I like that good forum members can make money, especially when said forum members are in poorer countries and this is a major opportunity for them. I very much do not want to destroy the sig-ad/airdrop/bounty "industry". But I am not going to tolerate people posting garbage upon garbage. If the merit system completely fails and I can't think of anything else to replace it, then my next step will probably be to completely remove all ways for forum users to make money from posting (eg. removing signatures entirely).

Snipped by a beggar a.k.a myself.

Your various questions, digaran, come off as unnecessarily argumentative.  It is like you are trying to suggests a whole lot of changes would be better than the existing system, without you yourself attempting to grapple within the parameters of the existing system.

You know Theymos and administrators decided to go in a certain direction with the forum that includes signatures and their current monetization of the forum (which I truely don't know the details of such), yet you seem to be suggesting some kind of radically different monetization and incentive alignment dynamic that is far removed from the framework that is already in place.  How is that going to be constructive and/or helpful, rather than gratuitously argumentative?

Your alternative to removing signatures globally? having everybody with signatures to pay tax for maintaining the forum to have a place to earn money is radical? what would you call that part in bold?  why should theymos pay for everything and we all earn without paying tax?

[Photographer]

I very much do not want to destroy the sig-ad/airdrop/bounty "industry". But I am not going to tolerate people posting garbage upon garbage. If the merit system completely fails and I can't think of anything else to replace it, then my next step will probably be to completely remove all ways for forum users to make money from posting (eg. removing signatures entirely).

Theymos is absolutely right. Since the rise of garbage vomited on the forum is on the rise and in time it would render this forum unusable, this problem must be solved, one way or another. The merit system is all what we have at the moment. It doesn't work like intended? Let's all stop complaining, which is totally useless, and instead let's all start to proactively look for some way for improving it and make our suggestions public. At some point we will get the right ideas, theymos can get some inspiration from our collective thinking, and finally we will have the merit system working as intended.

[JayJuanGee]

It's too early to get a clear picture, but my thoughts so far:

First, most people complaining about merit are constantly posting garbage, and should not rank-up. The forum is not a welfare system; you don't run through a few hoops and then get paid for doing something that nobody actually wants. I like that good forum members can make money, especially when said forum members are in poorer countries and this is a major opportunity for them. I very much do not want to destroy the sig-ad/airdrop/bounty "industry". But I am not going to tolerate people posting garbage upon garbage. If the merit system completely fails and I can't think of anything else to replace it, then my next step will probably be to completely remove all ways for forum users to make money from posting (eg. removing signatures entirely).

Snipped by a beggar a.k.a myself.

Your various questions, digaran, come off as unnecessarily argumentative.  It is like you are trying to suggests a whole lot of changes would be better than the existing system, without you yourself attempting to grapple within the parameters of the existing system.

You know Theymos and administrators decided to go in a certain direction with the forum that includes signatures and their current monetization of the forum (which I truely don't know the details of such), yet you seem to be suggesting some kind of radically different monetization and incentive alignment dynamic that is far removed from the framework that is already in place.  How is that going to be constructive and/or helpful, rather than gratuitously argumentative?

Your alternative to removing signatures globally? having everybody with signatures to pay tax for maintaining the forum to have a place to earn money is radical? what would you call that part in bold?  why should theymos pay for everything and we all earn without paying tax?

I am not making any proposal, and my response to your post was to suggest that your post is unnecessarily argumentative. 

Regarding the removal of signature campaigns, I did see somewhere that Theymos had stated that he considered removing the signature campaigns or modifying them (I think that was in the originally linked post), so that part has already been contemplated by Theymos, yet I think that Theymos wants to see whether something like this newly implemented merit system might be better overall to bring the forum in a direction that would he would prefer.

[silverleew1]

It's too early to get a clear picture, but my thoughts so far:

First, most people complaining about merit are constantly posting garbage, and should not rank-up. The forum is not a welfare system; you don't run through a few hoops and then get paid for doing something that nobody actually wants.

How about my suggestion 3? Care to comment? :3.
It's win-win solution.. Everybody help out each other.. And the high ranks become lead role how to post a good stuff and not getting demoted by junk post reporter.

[YuTü.Co.in]

If the Merit thingy was meant as a way to decrease the load on this forum's servers, then how about the load, not to mention a possible security risk, generated by the following sent to me via PM (a practice, I may add, resulted in my recent ban for the same offense, albeit ending the practice on my own accord a couple weeks prior to being punished, but I digress) ...

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We have 3 packs: 
10,OOO messages delivered to the recipients (about 3k of clicks/views on the thread/to website)
20,OOO messages delivered to the recipients  (about 6k of clicks/views on the thread/to website)
3O,000 messages delivered to the recipients (about 11k of additional clicks/views on the thread/to website)

If you have any suggestions on the price of services or cooperation, please contact me on telegram - @hypebtc

P.S. This is an automatic message, you do not have to answer here. Please contact me via telegram - @hypebtc

[mobilazy]

The idea of the merit system is very good. However, I think there might be one issue with this merit system. The only users that have enough sMerits to give are Full/Hero/Legendary users. However, they are profiting from their Avatars and signatures - they are getting more stakes in signature campaigns, because they have higher ranks. If they give their sMerits to lower rank users, then more users became Full/Hero/Legendary and they won't get so much profit from their stakes in signature campaigns. So that might prevent some of them giving sMerit to anyone. I hope most of Full/Hero/Legendary users don't think like that and I am not sure what is a solution if they do .. what do you think?

That's exactly my thoughts. Now we see high-rank users are endorsing only themselves an act of courtesy. Also, why people get their trust level reduced on local subforums basically making their account useless? Is somebody ever bothered to translate their posts to justify if it worth merrit or not? I doubt so.

[actmyname]

Merit sales, transfers to aliases, back-and-forth trading, etc. are not much of an issue. All illegitimate merit will decay, and will account for a tiny and very expensive fraction of the total merit economy. It's basically a rounding error; fight it where convenient, but waste no sleep over it.

Here's the thing, though. With the initial distribution, Legendary accounts have an effective 400 (assuming they began with 200 sMerit) Merit that they can send to alts. That's for each account. (Though it is split between two or more accounts should they try to use all of the merit, since you have to send it to users)

That's almost enough merit to become a Hero Member. 80% of the way there, assuming users are starting from Newbie position (to which alt rings usually don't).

In fact, every single rank can send enough merit to get an account two ranks below them most of the way there to upgrading in rank.

(Who knows how many Hero Member alt rings we have?)And here's another thing: can't users with negative trust simply send merit to their alts? The receiving party in question can simply state, "I don't know why he sent me merit". (Or they can be sneaky and just pretend like they're sending it to random users)

There have been times in which I chose to tag only the sender, as merit should be an A-->B linkage rather than an A<-->B linkage.The main reasons I tagged users were because of either:
a) excessive merit exchange between users (I mean, when you're sending 50 merit to one another as a test isn't that incredibly suspicious)
b) sending a high amount of merit to a clearly unconstructive post (if the post is something that would be reported then it certainly does not deserve 30+ merit)