Merit & new rank requirements

[juicyjanet88]

From Theymos's earlier post.

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).

Now I understand the intention of removing links from Jr Members signatures was to encourage bounty campaigns to only accept Members plus (or at least that's my assumption) but if that doesn't work out to be the case. Would a logical first step before removing all signatures not be to just remove them for Jr's and Newbies. This way the only people who could wear them and participate in campaigns would have to have at least earned some merit.

I'm sure that would instantly stop many spammers who are quite simply incapable of writing any quality posts and so would never receive merit and never be able to participate in campaigns.

I understand this wouldn't stop people from writing quality posts to rank to member and then going back to less quality posts but it would at least be a reasonable barrier to entry and stop some before they get started.

[1714775795]

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[gordeevaar]

I agree with TheQuin. There are two types of posters here, one the natural posters and forced posters, for you, you are the latter because you forced to post because you'll get paid and you need the post to increase activity with this type of poster it will be hard for you to get merits. And the other one the Natural posters are the one who really post naturally and genuine want to learn more on whats happening in the crypto.

Those forced posters can be dealt with a requirement like getting certain number of merit points per 6 months to maintain the rank.

[Soke]

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).

Maybe there are ways for people who were making money by posting garbage on the forum to make money on other sites with easy bounties, etc. (For example, I don't know if they're actually any good, but https://bountyhive.io is currently advertising on the forum.) But people should use the forum to talk about these money-making ideas, not as a way of making money itself. Once you spend a lot of time here, you may be able to make some money here (which is great!), but you should consider this a far-off hope, not your primary objective.

BTW, if anyone has any ideas for simple things that these ex-nonsense-posters could usefully do to make money, I think that this'd be a good project right now. There are apparently quite a few people who were making money on the forum and could use guidance. Even though their past activities were not good for this forum, I doubt that they are useless in general.


Merit awards may be too spotty/uneven currently, though it's still too early to say. In addition to continuously adding more sources, if things could still use improvement in this regard in a couple of months, I may do something like decay old sMerit and unused source merit and randomly redistribute the decayed merit. How the random distribution would work would magnify past merit -- so perhaps you would get an increased chance of winning extra merit for every post you've made which has at least 1 merit, but certainly you would not get any extra merit if none of your posts was ever merited.

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.

I think that actmyname has been too hasty with some of his negatives, but I haven't had time to look carefully enough into it to justify making forceful changes. I did exclude actmyname from my trust list, so another DT1 could remove him from the default trust network by doing the same.

I like the merit system and it's definitely cleaning up the forum.  I would just like to see people become more generous with giving merits to others.  Maybe implement a system where when someone gives a merit, they also receive a little also.  For example, for every 10 merits they send out, they will receive 1 merit but set a limit on how many they can earn in a week (no more than 5 merits).  This would encourage others to participate in the merit system. 

[shushanika]

Merit awards may be too spotty/uneven currently, though it's still too early to say. In addition to continuously adding more sources, if things could still use improvement in this regard in a couple of months, I may do something like decay old sMerit and unused source merit and randomly redistribute the decayed merit. How the random distribution would work would magnify past merit -- so perhaps you would get an increased chance of winning extra merit for every post you've made which has at least 1 merit, but certainly you would not get any extra merit if none of your posts was ever merited.

Please do not give hints to users here in advance. They will start preparing for it accordingly even if it involves taking the wrong route.

[juicyjanet88]

Merit awards may be too spotty/uneven currently, though it's still too early to say. In addition to continuously adding more sources, if things could still use improvement in this regard in a couple of months, I may do something like decay old sMerit and unused source merit and randomly redistribute the decayed merit. How the random distribution would work would magnify past merit -- so perhaps you would get an increased chance of winning extra merit for every post you've made which has at least 1 merit, but certainly you would not get any extra merit if none of your posts was ever merited.

Please do not give hints to users here in advance. They will start preparing for it accordingly even if it involves taking the wrong route.

How could this be negative? Telling users that if they write good quality posts that receive merit they may in future receive more merit if it is decided that not enough merit has been spread around?

If announcing in advance that such a thing may happen encourages more users to improve their post quality then it's only a good thing. It's just a way to perhaps incentivise some who are currently not posting great quality posts, because they do not feel that the merit that's being received is worthwhile for them to do so.

Improving post quality is exactly what the merit system was introduced for.

[pvk444]

Although I do see the benefit of such a merit system, I also see some issues with it:

Unless I misunderstand the mechanics, what is the incentive for somebody who is aspiring for a higher rank to be a judge of quality posts and give away merits?

I can take myself as an example: without patting on my own back too much, I believe I have contributed some value in most of my 130+ posts, yet was only able to gain 10 merits (and even that was just through a holder who "spread the love"). What would be my incentive now to reward a high quality post and give up some of the few merits I have earned?

Perhaps a system in which one has a limited number of merit points to grant in a certain time period, without directly affecting ones own merits, might create the right incentive?

[Soke]

Although I do see the benefit of such a merit system, I also see some issues with it:

Unless I misunderstand the mechanics, what is the incentive for somebody who is aspiring for a higher rank to be a judge of quality posts and give away merits?

I can take myself as an example: without patting on my own back too much, I believe I have contributed some value in most of my 130+ posts, yet was only able to gain 10 merits (and even that was just through a holder who "spread the love"). What would be my incentive now to reward a high quality post and give up some of the few merits I have earned?

Perhaps a system in which one has a limited number of merit points to grant in a certain time period, without directly affecting ones own merits, might create the right incentive?

Actually those 10 merits you received were given to you by default, not based on the quality of your 130+ posts.  If it was based on posts, many high ranking members wouldn't have hundreds to a thousand merits.  When the merit system was implemented, default merits were sent based on ranking.  Merits are very hard to earn, getting one is like finding a rare pokemon. 

[KatgCrypto]

So, how can i get merit score now, my friend?
Please kindly let me know.

Thank you and have a great working day !

By contributing something to the forum. Your entire posting history consists of 110 applications to bounty campaigns and this post.

By contributing something to the forum doesn't necessarily give you merit. A junior member (like me) cannot get easily merit and cannot give merit. Merit points are so low that make it a scarce resource. This resource will never be distributed freely to everyone but to persons that you already know or alt accounts.
In general I agree with merit score, but i suggest available points to distribute should be increased and even jr. members should have some.
I am not a crypto expert, I just started. What contribution of mine could impress the rest so i get merit points?
Is there a report to show merit points received by jr members and related posts (no alt accounts)? I think this report will be disappointing...

Contributing to the forum means getting involved in conversations. If you do that and show you have an interest in crypto and are here to learn and participate then the merit will come. You're new, forget about ranks and merit, just get involved and give it time.

Edit: I just checked your post history. Another almost entirely full of bounty applications. What do you think is merit worthy in that?

Although most of my posts are related to bounties and I am stigmatized for that I still have an opinion to express.
Since bounty related posts are considered  as 'bad', 'spammy' and low quality posts then I suggest the following solution:

1. Replies to bounty threads not to be calculated to users activity.
2. Double or triple the required user activity for promotion to next rank.
3. Keep merit score as an indication of quality and not as part of ranking Promotion.Give more merit points to all members.
4. Create a parallel sub-ranking system related to merit score.This will distinguish members of the same level.

With current status I am afraid members will turn to merit hunters/beggers and merit score will have nothing to do with quality of posts

[pawel7777]

...
I can take myself as an example: without patting on my own back too much, I believe I have contributed some value in most of my 130+ posts, yet was only able to gain 10 merits (and even that was just through a holder who "spread the love"). What would be my incentive now to reward a high quality post and give up some of the few merits I have earned?

Perhaps a system in which one has a limited number of merit points to grant in a certain time period, without directly affecting ones own merits, might create the right incentive?

Your merit score won't decrease when you send merits to someone. The merits you can send are called "sMerits" (sendable merits).
It's all explained in the first post.

To check your "sMerit" balance, click on "+Merit" on any post and you'll see something like this:

You have received a total of 1030 merit. This is what determines your forum rank. You typically cannot lose this merit. You have XXX sendable merit (sMerit) which you can send to other people. There is no point in hoarding sMerit; keeping it yourself does not benefit you, and we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future.

[JayJuanGee]

I don't know why some normal comments/topics by high rank member get contributing very much merit ? For new members like me , it's very hard to achieve merit by someone even we have valuable topics

how would you even know? 

You been registered about two months and you have 14 posts (13 out of 14 largely one-liner posts in the past two days).

I recall that I was on the forum for several months and attempting to interact with other members in bitcoin substantive threads, and it takes a considerable amount of time for other members to get to know you and to respond to you and to interact with your posts (more than a couple of days).

 You could hardly even have experimented with the interaction aspect of this forum if you only have 13 posts in a couple of days, right?

Yes and no.

I dont think merit should only be awarded to highly interactive posts.
He could be in the bitcoin scene since several years but just now found this forum and created an account.
Therefore newbie accounts can have a large knowledge on many topics and contribute high quality posts which should be merit worthy.

Many people here are missing that there is a life outside of this forum and the rank here is only one of many indicators how well informed someone might be about cryptos.

Who fucking gives a shit if you have a life outside of the forum and you have been a lurker on the forum for 8 years?  It does not matter, and no one is going to give you merits because you happen to be a good person in real life if they don't know what that supposed goodness is. 

Further, we don't judge you based on your many accounts and your many speculative and supposed things that were in your good intention head that you meant to say.. We only can only determine based on what is posted, and I summarized mightwalker's posting activities at the time that I read his post as largely two days, so I don't know what purpose you find, B4RF, to speculate that there could be more meritorious things there when it does not fucking matter because none of us would know about such speculative things, and even mightwalker has not even responded to declare any of these kinds of supposedly good things that he might deserve merit for.

I guess you misunderstood me.
I never tried to defend mightwalker (I havent even looked into his posts). I was just upset about the fact that you think that someone with 14 posts cant have enough knowledge to make merit worthy posts.

You are upset that you misread my post and assumed a bunch of bullshit about what I was saying when I did not say it?

I actually looked at mightwalkers stupid-ass one liner posts that covered a span of 2 days...   Yeah, sure, you might find them meritorious or some other user might find them meritorious; however, I found them to be a long fucking way from meritorious.. that is why I made my statement, which in the end was meant to be helpful input for mightwalker or any other person who might be considering a mere 14 nonsubstantial posts to be worthy of merit.  So, even if you did not intend to defend mightwalker, in the end that is what you were doing, and you did not even take the time to attempt to verify what I was saying, which perhaps could have been a bit more of a response to my earlier post.  perhaps?

B4RF, does it genuinely appear to you that the account you and JayJuanGee are discussing fulfills these criteria for somebody with quality posts to contribute as a “Newbie”?  Does that look like a “well informed” person who simply has “a life outside of this forum”?

As above. I never checked his account.
But your post perfectly fits my argumentation, you were able to make quality posts as newbie which are now rewarded.
Nobody has to be a high rank member to make quality posts, any newbie account could have more knowledge in cryptos then most legendarys in this forum.
And now newbies can show this by accumulating merits.

You are coming off with additional bullshit speculation.  Of course a lot of newbies might be smarter, cuter and more meritorious than legendary accounts... So fucking what?  Like I already attempted to say (and apparently, you prefer not to read, but continue to spout out made up and speculative nonsense), for the most part we only get to know the "meritoriousness" of member or his/her posts by reading posts, right?   So we are not going to off the bat assume newbies to be more meritorious than a legendary member based on something like random chance, and you seem to be suggesting either to presume the newbies to be meritorious unless they prove otherwise, and by your comment regarding newbie mightwalker, it seems that you don't even want to account for actual evidence of posts and instead continue to presume a nonsubstantive newbie poster to have merit.     

You seem to want to do the opposite of common sense, and your proposed presumptive system, practice, approach, procedure or whatever you want to call it seems like it is going to work wonderfully. 

[suchmoon]

With current status I am afraid members will turn to merit hunters/beggers and merit score will have nothing to do with quality of posts

You seem to be implying that begging or hunting (whatever that is) will actually result in some substantial quantity of merits. I doubt that. I'm certainly not inclined to give any merits to beggars. If "hunting" means posting useful stuff hoping to earn merits - that's fine. I'm sure most merit senders will see the difference between a genuine effort and some contrived copy-pasta-google-translate job.

[JayJuanGee]

So, how can i get merit score now, my friend?
Please kindly let me know.

Thank you and have a great working day !

By contributing something to the forum. Your entire posting history consists of 110 applications to bounty campaigns and this post.

By contributing something to the forum doesn't necessarily give you merit. A junior member (like me) cannot get easily merit and cannot give merit. Merit points are so low that make it a scarce resource. This resource will never be distributed freely to everyone but to persons that you already know or alt accounts.
In general I agree with merit score, but i suggest available points to distribute should be increased and even jr. members should have some.
I am not a crypto expert, I just started. What contribution of mine could impress the rest so i get merit points?
Is there a report to show merit points received by jr members and related posts (no alt accounts)? I think this report will be disappointing...

Contributing to the forum means getting involved in conversations. If you do that and show you have an interest in crypto and are here to learn and participate then the merit will come. You're new, forget about ranks and merit, just get involved and give it time.

Edit: I just checked your post history. Another almost entirely full of bounty applications. What do you think is merit worthy in that?

Although most of my posts are related to bounties and I am stigmatized for that I still have an opinion to express.
Since bounty related posts are considered  as 'bad', 'spammy' and low quality posts then I suggest the following solution:

1. Replies to bounty threads not to be calculated to users activity.
2. Double or triple the required user activity for promotion to next rank.
3. Keep merit score as an indication of quality and not as part of ranking Promotion.Give more merit points to all members.
4. Create a parallel sub-ranking system related to merit score.This will distinguish members of the same level.

With current status I am afraid members will turn to merit hunters/beggers and merit score will have nothing to do with quality of posts

Instead of seeming to blame others (such as the system), why don't you take matters into your own hands?  If you want to rank up, then engage in substantive threads.  Surely, you can also engage in the shitty threads too, but you are correct that if the only thing that you do is participate in the shitty threads, then it will likely become a lot more difficult for you to earn merits.  So you already seem to know a solution that involves yourself rather than expecting the whole forum system to change around you, right?

[denis-z12]

Hello Admins,

Although for a relatively new user like myself the implementation of the Merit system is a bit of a problem. Not because I dont agree with it, because it does make sense, but it makes it harder to rank up.
Yes, I do participate in bounty campaigns like most people here. But not just the regular social media/signature campaigns. I am a translator in my spare time and offer my services to ICOs as well.

To be honest I am not sure how to earn Merit. What can a newbie who joined in DEC 2017 teach bitcointalk that they already dont know?! 
Can I expect someone to give me merit points for the translation works I do? I doubt they will, would you?
I tried to contribute by opening a topic and posting some airdrops and I have not received nor asked for any merit points.

@Admins: Is it against the rules to ask for Merit points?

Anyways would love to know what kind of contributions are likely to get me some points and in which sections I should look.

Thanks for reading!
 
 

[The Sceptical Chymist]

please anyone can help me ?

Help you with what?  Either you can fucking read or you can't.  All the information you'll ever need about the merit system has already been written.  I won't even humor you with a link because I think that would be a waste of energy on my part.

If you're asking for a merit handout, why should anyone enable some pajeet to rank up when they haven't earned it?  I speak for myself here:  I'm going to give merit points to people who deserve it, not to pajeets who can't or won't make constructive posts.

This should make your decision to abandon this account easier.

Huge LOL.

[Vod]

please anyone can help me ?

I helped you by giving you negative trust for begging for merit.  This should make your decision to abandon this account easier.

You're welcome. 

[kiemnhieutien]

please anyone can help me ?

i can't help you because i can't give negative trust but if you truly need help. others here willing to help you by giving some negative trusts.

[Vod]

i can't help you because i can't give negative trust but if you truly need help. others here willing to help you by giving some negative trusts.

You are misinformed.  Any account can give negative trust.

[digaran]

Hello Admins,

Although for a relatively new user like myself the implementation of the Merit system is a bit of a problem. Not because I dont agree with it, because it does make sense, but it makes it harder to rank up.
Yes, I do participate in bounty campaigns like most people here. But not just the regular social media/signature campaigns. I am a translator in my spare time and offer my services to ICOs as well.

To be honest I am not sure how to earn Merit. What can a newbie who joined in DEC 2017 teach bitcointalk that they already dont know?! 
Can I expect someone to give me merit points for the translation works I do? I doubt they will, would you?
I tried to contribute by opening a topic and posting some airdrops and I have not received nor asked for any merit points.

@Admins: Is it against the rules to ask for Merit points?

Anyways would love to know what kind of contributions are likely to get me some points and in which sections I should look.

Thanks for reading!
 
 

When you need to rank up to a senior member and have the activity but no merits, beg a merit source to read your posts and give you merits. newbies, jr members, members, full members have to rank up every 2-3 months, if you could rank up like every body could rank up before, there would be no point to have merits.
Bitcoin talk works like Bitcoin now, merits should be difficult to get as more beggars (miners) try to get them.

please anyone can help me ?

Yes I can, I will help you after 2-3 months.

[kiemnhieutien]

i can't help you because i can't give negative trust but if you truly need help. others here willing to help you by giving some negative trusts.

You are misinformed.  Any account can give negative trust.

sorry about that. i'll learn more.

[athanz88]

please anyone can help me ?

Hello, can you be more spesific on what matters do you want people to help you?