Merit & new rank requirements

[dantes37]

who can distribute merit?

[1714783804]

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[1714783804]

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[1714783804]

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[1714783804]

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[anakrea]

who can distribute merit?

As explained in the first post: For each Merit you receive you also receive 0.5 sMerit (spendable Merit). Therefore, everyone that receives Merit can also spend it. Additionally there are some Merit sources, that receive sMerit to spend them. Just read the first post (and look at the linked infographics) in this thread and all (most) of your questions would be answered.

[davey76]

120 pages of discussions .... bottomline: almost no member of this forum will ever rank up again. Is that a problem? I don't know, but that is the effect of the new system. Only if you make a legendary post, you might get some merits along the way and rank up. I know that is why we have this system, but it is sure hard for 99% of the members to rank up.

I'd rather go for a system of ranking up way more slowly than before WITHOUT considering merit points at first. That way the spammers will still have no chance to rank up. And we need to cut out certain subforums to account for the activity.

If you do get merit points you will rank up faster. That's way people still want to make good posts and we still cut out the rankspammers. But the average joe posting now and then will rank up in the end. Even if it takes a year. But with the merit system average joe will never rank up.

But .... we have cut out the spammers ... thats a good thing. Now we have to adjust the system a little, just to give average non-spamming-joe a change to rank up.

[TheQuin]

120 pages of discussions .... bottomline: almost no member of this forum will ever rank up again.

This is completely wrong. Now only members that contribute to discussions and use the forum for what it is intended will rank up. I've seen many lower ranked members picking up merit points much faster than activity so they'll still rank up exactly as the old schedule. The people complaining that they won't rank up are generally the ones it is designed to stop.

[alisafidel58]

who can distribute merit?

Any member here can give you merit points but is only limited to 1-3, on the other hand there are some special members here who can give large amount of merit points and they are called "Source".

Sources has been randomly chosen by Theymos to distribute merit points across forum members of their own choosing but their identity is unknown for know and will eventually be known if you investigate each account with with high merit points (i think these "Sources" are either DT1 or DT2).

[hilariousetc]

I am pretty sure soon enough people will start buying merit

People are already trying to buy or trade merit. I'm not sure what your point is though.

You don't understand the problem.
People with rank "Full Member" and higher don't want to give merits to the people which rank is" Member" or lower. They are not interested in it. It's a competition! Higher rank means higher rewards and others advantages.  

Why not? Where's the logic in this? Higher ranked accounts don't even need the merit so it's largely useless other than a show of appreciation of their post, which is how merit should be used, but people who give a shit about the forum would rather see good quality lower-ranked posters be able to move up the ranks by making constructive posts so most will be more than happy to dish out merit freely providing people area actually contributing something worthwhile.

120 pages of discussions .... bottomline: almost no member of this forum will ever rank up again. Is that a problem? I don't know, but that is the effect of the new system. Only if you make a legendary post, you might get some merits along the way and rank up. I know that is why we have this system, but it is sure hard for 99% of the members to rank up.

I'd rather go for a system of ranking up way more slowly than before WITHOUT considering merit points at first. That way the spammers will still have no chance to rank up. And we need to cut out certain subforums to account for the activity.

Of course they will rank up, it will just take time as it already does to achieve ranks anyway. The ranking system was already slow as you could only achieve it over time, but people were just abusing it by just making crappy posts over time because that's all they needed to do. Now crappy posts will get you no where. I really find it hard to believe people are complaining that they're now going to have to make some effort but it just goes to show you the level of entitled laziness that has become the norm here.

[Deena]

Why not? Where's the logic in this? Higher ranked accounts don't even need the merit so it's largely useless other than a show of appreciation of their post, which is how merit should be used, but people who give a shit about the forum would rather see good quality lower-ranked posters be able to move up the ranks by making constructive posts so most will be more than happy to dish out merit freely providing people area actually contributing something worthwhile.

The point he's making is the following. When you are a Hero Member participating in a signature campaign you'll get more rewards when your fellow campaigners are of low ranking due to the staking system. That's an incentive to not distribute merit points to lower ranking members.

[KatgCrypto]

120 pages of discussions .... bottomline: almost no member of this forum will ever rank up again. Is that a problem? I don't know, but that is the effect of the new system. Only if you make a legendary post, you might get some merits along the way and rank up. I know that is why we have this system, but it is sure hard for 99% of the members to rank up.

I'd rather go for a system of ranking up way more slowly than before WITHOUT considering merit points at first. That way the spammers will still have no chance to rank up. And we need to cut out certain subforums to account for the activity.

If you do get merit points you will rank up faster. That's way people still want to make good posts and we still cut out the rankspammers. But the average joe posting now and then will rank up in the end. Even if it takes a year. But with the merit system average joe will never rank up.

But .... we have cut out the spammers ... thats a good thing. Now we have to adjust the system a little, just to give average non-spamming-joe a change to rank up.

i agree with that. There are positive and negative effect of merits system. The worst case is that they can ask someone or a group of people to help each other to gain merit points and easily rank up even if it was a spam message. i know that admins are monitoring those vut there are millions of members in this forum and this type of possible activities is really hard to track.

I also agree with that, a system where ranking up is more slow is far way better. Another good idea is to cut activity points when posting to bounty threads so users have to get in involved to other threads for ranking up.
I reward you with 1+ virtual merit for your post cause I have none to grant you.

[Angelliddy]

Somewhere in the post it read "if you were given 0.5 merit it won't be seen" so how would one know he or she has a merit?

[azguard2]

Like it or not everything that is new have good and bad sides, like here is the case with merit. Seen many topic already that must say is abuse for me, where is offered buy/sell or you give me and i will give you (this reminds me on twitter or some other social media follow me i will follow you back.

Believe that it will take some time for this to be or adjust or at least that some one or team of people can maintain this situation. Hopefully this will be good at the end cuz idea is good and we all just need to follow this not to create topic with something like "merit me i will merit you back". This btw is funny.

[LTU_btc]

Why not? Where's the logic in this? Higher ranked accounts don't even need the merit so it's largely useless other than a show of appreciation of their post, which is how merit should be used, but people who give a shit about the forum would rather see good quality lower-ranked posters be able to move up the ranks by making constructive posts so most will be more than happy to dish out merit freely providing people area actually contributing something worthwhile.

The point he's making is the following. When you are a Hero Member participating in a signature campaign you'll get more rewards when your fellow campaigners are of low ranking due to the staking system. That's an incentive to not distribute merit points to lower ranking members.

Do you really think that Hero or Legendary members are such greedy that they wont give sMerits for high quality posts made by new users? Personally, when I send sMerits, I don't care much about rank, I'm looking at content of post. I don't see problem that new users with good posts will be able yo rank up and participate in signature campaigns. That's the main purpose of Merit system.
And how it affect earnings of high ranked member if new members won't be able to rank up? As you may see, mostly BTC paying signature campaigns are already full and there are much more users applying that they can accept.

[nafantc]

Somewhere in the post it read "if you were given 0.5 merit it won't be seen" so how would one know he or she has a merit?

When anybody gives you any amount of merit (integer), you get half of this amount in s-merits (spendable merit, that you can send to another user). You cannot send or receive half of merit. 0,5 smerit isnt shown on your merit page, but it exist. When you receive another 0,5 of s-merit, you will have 1 s-merit that you can see at yor merit page.

[JayJuanGee]

Somewhere in the post it read "if you were given 0.5 merit it won't be seen" so how would one know he or she has a merit?

I think that an easy way to estimate your smerits is that if your number of merits is an even number then you have no fractional smerits, but if your number of merits is an odd number, then you have an extra .5 smerits that is not showing in your smerit bank.

I glanced through your recent posts, Angeliddy, and I see you have some decent interactions in your recent post history.. therefore I sent you a merit, so if you get another merit, then you will have one smerit to send.. and currently, you only need 9 more merits in order to rank up to member, which should not be too difficult to achieve if you continue to post with attempts at decent quality and attempts at interactions.

Edit:  Nafantc beat me to responding.

[ducdr]

Try hard, write good, wait patiently; merits and sMerita will come.

Lower ranked users need time to be matured, readers need time to read and make their decision to give you Merit & sMerits.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2890515.msg29712400#msg29712400

[vapourminer]

You don't understand the problem.
People with rank "Full Member" and higher don't want to give merits to the people which rank is" Member" or lower. They are not interested in it. It's a competition! Higher rank means higher rewards and others advantages. 

umm, i think its you who does not understand the problem. this forum is a place to exchange ideas and knowledge about btc. its not a marketplace to make money via sig campaigns. and it is being overrun by people making crap posts to meet sig goals with no intent to add information relevant to the tread.

the merit system is by far the best effort so far to turn this forum back into what it once was, a place to discuss btc without a ton of crap posted that has no value other than to level up a person or meet some arbitrary sig campaign criteria.

i have never been in a sig campaign or in any other way used to forum to make money. perhaps im in the minority now, i dunno. i have sigs turned off so i never see them. i have no ill will to people that do, but it needs to be done in a manner that does not detract from the purpose of the forum. hopefully the merit system can help do that.

BTW i have given plenty of merit to low rank members. i give merit based on the post, not the poster or posters rank.

[Angelliddy]

Somewhere in the post it read "if you were given 0.5 merit it won't be seen" so how would one know he or she has a merit?

I think that an easy way to estimate your smerits is that if your number of merits is an even number then you have no fractional smerits, but if your number of merits is an odd number, then you have an extra .5 smerits that is not showing in your smerit bank.

I glanced through your recent posts, Angeliddy, and I see you have some decent interactions in your recent post history.. therefore I sent you a merit, so if you get another merit, then you will have one smerit to send.. and currently, you only need 9 more merits in order to rank up to member, which should not be too difficult to achieve if you continue to post with attempts at decent quality and attempts at interactions.

Edit:  Nafantc beat me to responding.

Wow! Am honoured thank you very much. I will put in effort to be like you (a Legend)

[flip4flop]

Long story short just keep helping people on the forum with detailed, educated responses. Don't get discouraged if a few posts you make that you feel are excellent don't get any merit, that will happen from time to time. Ignore the old activity expectation and just take it a day at a time. If your love for crypto is genuine then in time you will get merit.  It won't be easy, but it does seem possible.

[Sallysakky]

I can agree with some points of view, but i can't agree with disproportion. Why Members received 10 merit, when Full Members 100? Why the activity wasn't taken into account?
Activity requirements are 60 and 120, why not to give 50 merit that is twice less? why 10 ?  

Also u need to understand, that some people waited 10 weeks for Member rank, but now people can receive it in two weeks.

[cryptocommoner]

I can agree with some points of view, but i can't agree with disproportion. Why Members received 10 merit, when Full Members 100? Why the activity wasn't taken into account?
Activity requirements are 60 and 120, why not to give 50 merit that is twice less? why 10 ?  

Also u need to understand, that some people waited 10 weeks for Member rank, but now people can receive it in two weeks.

The underlying activity requirements did not change.

While I agree that it was a disproportionate difference between the two ranks, it was directly related to what was required to achieve that rank currently.  Both the activity and merit requirements are much higher from member to full member which is how it should be. 

[TheQuin]

I can agree with some points of view, but i can't agree with disproportion. Why Members received 10 merit, when Full Members 100? Why the activity wasn't taken into account?
Activity requirements are 60 and 120, why not to give 50 merit that is twice less? why 10 ?  

Also u need to understand, that some people waited 10 weeks for Member rank, but now people can receive it in two weeks.

The disproportion was achieved by a serious reduction in the requirement for Member. In the activity system each level doubles Jr Member 30, Member 60, Full Member 120, Sr. Member 240, Hero Member 480. This has been kept in proportion for Sr. Member 250, Hero Member 500 but made more accessible to lower ranks so as not to deter people starting out. In proportion, it would have been Member 62.5, Full Member 125.