Merit & new rank requirements

[denis-z12]

<Jr. Member big whine>

<Jr. Member repetitious whine>

<Newbie whine>

<Member whine>

<Sr. Member whine>

<Jr. Member whine>

<Jr. Member whine>

<Jr. Member whine>

<whine whine whine>

I was a Jr. Member at the inception of the merit system.  I started with zero.  Whiners, shut up and observe the number below my name.

Hint:  To make relatively quick posts such as this one, I am periodically pausing from another post I’ve been working on for hours.  I maintain a semi-disorganized queue of those.

It’s not necessary to put that much time and effort into posts, because it’s not necessary to earn 100+ merit per week simply to rank up.  I am only doing now just as I did in December, before the merit system existed.  Whereas if you are a reasonably intelligent person who spends a moderate amount of time on the forum, then I think you should be able to earn an average at least +1 merit per day.  That would allow you to rise through the ranks at approximately the same rate as you would by activity level alone.  The system is well-thought.

Whereas if you can’t earn at least one measly merit per day of active posting, what that means ipso facto is that your posts are of such low quality that you are wasting other people’s time by posting junk for others to read.  The merit system is a not-so-gentle hint that you should stop.

Hi,

Would you be able to quote here the links to some of the recent posts that got your a lot of merit points? I think that would be useful for everybody to see.
I know i would be interested to know

[BitTrader1000]

<Jr. Member big whine>

<Jr. Member repetitious whine>

<Newbie whine>

<Member whine>

<Sr. Member whine>

<Jr. Member whine>

<Jr. Member whine>

<Jr. Member whine>

<whine whine whine>

I was a Jr. Member at the inception of the merit system.  I started with zero.  Whiners, shut up and observe the number below my name.

Hint:  To make relatively quick posts such as this one, I am periodically pausing from another post I’ve been working on for hours.  I maintain a semi-disorganized queue of those.

It’s not necessary to put that much time and effort into posts, because it’s not necessary to earn 100+ merit per week simply to rank up.  I am only doing now just as I did in December, before the merit system existed.  Whereas if you are a reasonably intelligent person who spends a moderate amount of time on the forum, then I think you should be able to earn an average at least +1 merit per day.  That would allow you to rise through the ranks at approximately the same rate as you would by activity level alone.  The system is well-thought.

Whereas if you can’t earn at least one measly merit per day of active posting, what that means ipso facto is that your posts are of such low quality that you are wasting other people’s time by posting junk for others to read.  The merit system is a not-so-gentle hint that you should stop.

Hi,

Would you be able to quote here the links to some of the recent posts that got your a lot of merit points? I think that would be useful for everybody to see.
I know i would be interested to know

Go to his profile, click his merit button, and look at merit received.

[nullius]

even with the new system, lot of people still write a big number of useless post just to respect the commitments with the bounty

It’s thrilling to hear that spammers are so honourable about their “commitments”.

Now: one of the biggest problem I see, is the fact that - to receive a merit - you need not only to write a good post, but also to have the luck that it will be read by someone that appreciates it and has merit to give.
This is very difficult, due to the enormous number of posts and threads: even with the new system, lot of people still write a big number of useless post just to respect the commitments with the bounty, and your "wonderful" post will be lost between them.

Well, I see that there is a zone of the forum, the "Serious discussion" where there is no signature and your posts don't count for the campaign.
Now it has a very limited number of threads, but it seems to me that it would be a very good idea to expand this area and to encourage its use. (of course, every one could do this by his own initiative, but - for example - I'd feel a little intimidated to start a thread in a so "elitarian" zone; but I could make a post, if I had something to say as answer).

It seems to me a win win solution: we'll have a clean zone, where spammers and shitposters won't have any reason to post, and good poster would be motivated and stimulated to write high quality posts with more chances to be read from right people.

What do you think?

Why yes, then we’d have a “clean zone”—whilst all the other forums would be left as a wasteland, with the lifesblood of good posts sucked out of them.

I have the same problem generally (albeit to a lesser extent) with “Serious Discussion”.  It is an internal form of the “Lifecycle of an Internet Forum”, of which you may have read elsewhere on the Net (search if not).  Forums usually start out good, then go downhill, and are overwhelmed with trolls, spam, etc.  Then, the good posters leave and go to a new forum—where the cycle repeats.  Here, the variation is that the process would be internal.

I say instead, make high-quality posts where they belong; and give the merit system some time to clean up all the forums.  Soon enough, we will have spammers with 0 merit and 500 activity (who would have been declared “Heroes” (!) without the merit system).  At some point, that must become sufficiently unprofitable that they get the hint, and get the hell out of here.

Would you be able to quote here the links to some of the recent posts that got your a lot of merit points? I think that would be useful for everybody to see.
I know i would be interested to know

Even better:  See the automated list on the merit page of my user profile.  Scroll down to where it says, “Received in the last 120 days”.

To highlight just a few specific posts which have earned significant merit from multiple people:

• My software release posts for the easyseed mnemonic/seed generator and the bech32 utility
• My idea for branding Bech32 addresses as “Bravo Charlie” Addresses (cross-posted with edits from bitcoin-dev)
• A discussion of Bitcoin’s Public-Key Security Level (currently +18, including +5 from a forum moderator)
• A post about secure generation of randomness (0), plus two followups on the same thread (1, 2)

Those were in Development & Technical Discussion, where I have earned most of my merit.  Here in Meta, my discussion of standards of proof for penalizing merit abusers, my mini-investigation of a merit abuser, and my discussion of trolling in Dev & Tech are three posts which have been deemed meritorious by multiple high-ranked members.

I hope that helps.  Note:  My point was that I’m pretty sure that it should be much easier to earn +1/day engaging in pleasant and useful discussions.

[bbymi]

I think this merit system is quite unsustainable and I'm 100% sure I'll NEVER get any Merit point with this post. This will prove my theory is totally legit.

After spamming waves with short, non-sense, shitty posts, since now we will see a new wave, a new hot-trend, which will bring us a tons of very long posts. Users will try to post as long as possible in order to get merits from others. In my point of view, tt might be bad, generally

I totally agree with this, it was already already difficult going through all the threads trying to find answers you need, and now we have to read novels ugh, not helping at all

[vapourminer]

  ...various redacted quotes...

Hi,

Would you be able to quote here the links to some of the recent posts that got your a lot of merit points? I think that would be useful for everybody to see.
I know i would be interested to know

just click his user name (on the left of his post.. the name with the stats under it), this will bring you to his profile. then click "merit" it will show a list of merits received and given for that user along with a link to those posts. just click the link.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Would you be able to quote here the links to some of the recent posts that got your a lot of merit points?

Derp.  Any such quoting would be wasted on you, I think.  Plus you obviously don't understand how this system works, nor can you comprehend the simplicity of it:  All you have to do is write decent posts, stuff people are interested in reading.  Then, given enough readers, someone will give you merit points.  Yes, you are at the mercy of other people here, but that ends up being a very good thing for the forum as a whole.  There are too many shitposters here who just write the same spamola over and over--and ask stupid questions like the one you just asked without putting any effort yourself into answering them.

[bbymi]

okay so thats the purpose of merit system..
but what if your to unlucky no one ever distinguished and merit you..
but you are still helping the community.. will admin provide this manually?

My point exactly. With the influx of posts and high activity (with everyone busy snapping up merits, Someone might just miss out on it). I don't know If I'm the only one that thinks only activity should be required.

But I found this though :

1. Be a somewhat established member.
 2. Collect TEN posts written in the last couple of months that have not received nearly enough merit for how good they are, and post quotes for them all in a new Meta thread.
 3. We will take a look at your history and maybe make you a source.

Not someone, majority of members will really miss out. People busy making the longest posts known to this forum won't have time to read actual good posts to give away sMerits

And that one you found is about being a source of sMerits, good if you can spend the whole day everyday reading, but it won't help your own merit needs at all

[contrarian]

I am especially eager to have merit sources in sub-communities such as the local sections.

Does the Portuguese local section have a merit source? And is he active? Or should we send someone to apply to be a source?

[d5000]

Now: one of the biggest problem I see, is the fact that - to receive a merit - you need not only to write a good post, but also to have the luck that it will be read by someone that appreciates it and has merit to give.
This is very difficult, due to the enormous number of posts and threads: even with the new system, lot of people still write a big number of useless post just to respect the commitments with the bounty, and your "wonderful" post will be lost between them.

Well, I see that there is a zone of the forum, the "Serious discussion" where there is no signature and your posts don't count for the campaign.

Optimally, the "Serious Discussion" section should only be needed in the phase until the spam has decreased significantly.  But until that happens, it's a nice "workaround".

But the goal must be to clean the whole forum from spam. I guess some weeks will be needed for that, because there are still many spammers enrolled in bounty campaigns.

I have two ideas how this process can be accelerated:

1. Signature campaign managers could be "approved" (or instead, "disapproved") manually by staff.

There are very good, strict, quality-loving managers and other ones that really don't care at all about post quality (mostly in the altcoin section). There could also be a lighter, "opt-out" model: the spam-tolerating managers could be given a warning and then be banned if they continue to manage signature campaigns without improving the control over participant's posts. With the merit system, their "alt accounts" won't rank up that fast - so they would be incentived to really improve their spam control.

2. Feature to ignore entire threads.

There are lots of "spam megathreads" still, and other smaller threads that are pure advertising or nonsense, above all in forums like "Bitcoin Discussion", "Speculation" or (above all) "Altcoin Discussion". If this feature is enabled, I could visit "Bitcoin Discussion", for example, and ignore all these megathreads, It would be much easier for me to find posts that deserve some merit, and I would also be more likely to visit that forum again and contribute something.

There is a SMF module for that purpose, but I have read that it leads to performance problems on big forums. Maybe there is another alternative.

[nullius]

After spamming waves with short, non-sense, shitty posts, since now we will see a new wave, a new hot-trend, which will bring us a tons of very long posts. Users will try to post as long as possible in order to get merits from others. In my point of view, tt might be bad, generally

I totally agree with this, it was already already difficult going through all the threads trying to find answers you need, and now we have to read novels ugh, not helping at all

What I believe to be the shortest post I’ve ever made was given +1 by a Legendary.  Excluding quotation, the wordcount is: 3 words.  Though it’s rarely been my strong suit, I may quote, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

The criterion of meritoriousness is not length, but substance.  Spammers will find tortuous screeds to be just as useless as one-liner junk—because it is indeed just as useless.

N.b. also that I recently was involved in an argument about the value of conciseness with a troll who posted disorganized, rambling walls of text.  Even when long, good writing is reasonably concise.  In the world of professional writing, painfully elaborate verbiage with too many adjectives is the mark of a worthless hack—the copy boy who somehow got to be a writer for a day.  Don’t do what’s called “trying too hard”; and never pad your wordcount qua wordcount.

I think this merit system is quite unsustainable and I'm 100% sure I'll NEVER get any Merit point with this post. This will prove my theory is totally legit.

Petulant, self-entitled brat.  You get an F in logic.

[rhamzter]

So in order for me to get my merit up I have to wait until others give the smerit to me or at least hope that other memeber want to share some merit??? I'm lost.

Yes, you would have to attain 250 sMerits from other users for you to progress to hero member rank, users are most likely to give merit to the posts which are more constructive, useful and helpful to the community, maybe you can start working towards that direction.

Merits was deserves to the users who give knowledgeable information, but it not means that all people who gives suggestion or opinion are deserves to earned merit. Because sometimes their opinion is so shitty and not realistic. They were trying to makes false information to have a topic. I truly appreciate the merits system because now all users are equally. Because on the previous even users who have lack in quality they were reach the higher ranked even their post is nonsense and totally not helpful to others.

You have a point, but we need to ensure the ability of the users before we give merit, because if we give their merit without any basis of good and quality post it is possible to returned to us. I think the best thing we can do is to select the post who have give a lot of idea and assure that some of the users were impress to the quality of your post.

[asapjoshyy]

its great when you ask somebody to merit your good posts and say youll do the same... thinking that would be perfectly fine and you get negative trusted ... 6 month acccount being on everyday down the drain.. and the person who negged wont even give me the respect to work back my account to neutral trust

[ObscurePen]

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.

Umm. Yes, they will have a chance to rank up. Spammers can also rank up slowly and they would probably rank up faster than any one of us because, well, their name is spammers.

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.

The thing is spammers can buy merit points with your system and thus rank up faster. With the forum's current system, spammers can only buy so much merit points before it becomes obvious that they are doing so. Then they will get banned.

[ankit10]

Why i don't have any sMerit left in my account? Few days ago i have around 30 sMerit but now i have 0.

Code:

we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future.

This is the reason? But i am using my sMerits.

[nullius]

its great when you ask somebody to merit your good posts and say youll do the same... thinking that would be perfectly fine and you get negative trusted ... 6 month acccount being on everyday down the drain.. and the person who negged wont even give me the respect to work back my account to neutral trust

What’s worse than a dirtball, is a self-righteous dirtball trying to play the victim.  Nobody with a moral compass or a shred of trustworthiness would try to pull something like this:

Upon that, asapjoshyy, I would not trust you to sweep my floor or empty my trash.  Thus, I have now added my own negative trust feedback with the comment:

Extremely blatant, peculiarly sleaze-dripping attempt at merit farming.  Much worse than someone who asks a professor for a particular grade:  This person tried to pass the metaphorical class by offering a quid pro quo deal.  ...then later, expressed self-righteous victimhood about the consequences!  I would not trust such a person for any purpose whatsoever.

Thanks for bringing your misdeeds to my attention with your whining.

[HabBear]

In addition to activity, everyone now has a merit score...

With this simple statement, theymos made the Meta board cool again.

Wait, has Meta ever been cool?

[nullius]

Made readable:

...made the Meta board cool again.

Wait, has Meta ever been cool?

Or rather, this has made Meta the “happening” place for dividing the cool from the uncool.

Uncool:  Whiners, beggars, sleazeball merit-farmers, and assorted other lazy, spammy, useless freaks.

Cool:  Poking the uncool people with sharp sticks, and laughing at them.  The deeper purpose of such hostility is to induce the uncool people to leave, permanently, so that the cool people can hang out and chat about Bitcoin happily ever after.

[Erelas]

"Merit farming", "trust farming", "sig farming", but does anyone actually grow anything anymore?

It's my impression, now that more time has passed under the merit system, the power to award merits is limited to too few people with too narrow an interpretation of what merits being sMerited.  Two sides of a discussion can be meritable, after all, it takes at least two to have a conversation, even if the other side of the conversation is entirely skewed in their opinion from what you believe / know is right.  Objectively, there is merit in disagreement.

[greeklogos]

You are correct.  Unfortunately, you were one of the unfortunate that had just under the required activity to bump up to next rank prior to merit.  You do indeed need another149 merits.

WOW it's going to be a really huge chalange to me to atcheve that, even if I take +1 merit a day it is very long road.
I guess everyone who will quote me will say to concentrate on high quality posts, but as I see even such posts do not get any merit sometimes, but simple ones, like this

Wow how i should get that much merit 100 for Full Member

do.

[OriginTrain]

Made readable:

...made the Meta board cool again.

Wait, has Meta ever been cool?

Or rather, this has made Meta the “happening” place for dividing the cool from the uncool.

Uncool:  Whiners, beggars, sleazeball merit-farmers, and assorted other lazy, spammy, useless freaks.

Cool:  Poking the uncool people with sharp sticks, and laughing at them.  The deeper purpose of such hostility is to induce the uncool people to leave, permanently, so that the cool people can hang out and chat about Bitcoin happily ever after.

You know I was of the theory the merit system wasn't working since people can easily meet activity requirements without meeting the merit ones, but you're the proven exception to the rule that I've now witnessed. I no longer believe this theory. I still wouldn't mind merit requirements being cut in half though, just to make it all a bit easier.