Merit & new rank requirements

[orkoso]

3) Where Merit has moved, it's very hard for the public to know why, who gave it, and for what posting, which leads me to believe, most of the movement has been from people who control several accounts. As a member of the blockchain community (ignore my 'creation account date' I've been in crypto since 2013) we are supposed to be about transparency and accountability.

There are quite detailed stats available: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats

You made 5 posts in a row. I suggest you check the link in my sig before you get into trouble.

I am sure that there are many people at the moment looking for rule breaking or suspicious activity regarding merit as well as a few threads for whistle blowers

[1715160790]

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[1715160790]

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[athanz88]

One last thought about it all, when we click on merit on other peoples profile I think we should see who left that merit and where.

I agree. I don't like how hard this is for the public to track. That's a negative mark in the crypto community.

What do you mean? have you tried on clicking other people merits button on their profile?
It will take you to the page of who give the person merit and who person who got it from that person. And you can also click on the profile of other user who gives it or who gets from that person, and you can even check the post that gets merit from people.

[therhslv]

Merit system is really good , i like it . But as i see some really good quality Topicks got no merit at all , or some tiny ones . Waiting for some little improvements if thats possible

[gecelerinyargici]

Admin send some merit to us

[InvoKing]

Admin send some merit to us

Nothing guaranteed but i think theymos will think about a second round if things get too slowly which I expect will happens once our guns run out of ammo soon

[JayJuanGee]

Did you read the OP (Opening Post) of this thread?   Theymos announced the new merit system and he explained why he was implementing the new merit system.  He also made a few other posts giving further rationale behind his thinking for implementing this new merit system.

Ultimately there is no exact objective standard for getting merits, and so therefore, some members are going to like your posts for differing reasons, and some of those members might have smerits that they are willing to give to your post, if they believe that you are adding something for them or maybe if you have a kind of pattern of providing information that they believe is useful ... so there could be a combination of your attempting to learn by reading the OP but also that you are engaging in various threads and posting in ways that are potentially useful and helpful to others.

I like how passionate you are to make people to be more positive in to this merit system, if it were me i would just leave them alone for they to understand the meaning of merit system.
The only logic they used for saying merit isnt working is simple, see below
I dont get merit for my quality post, mEriT iS a FaILed SySTem !
*insert spongebob meme here.

It surely is a dilemma determining whether to respond or the extent to which it is good to "help people out" or just leave them to figure out some of the seemingly basic questions.  I do agree with the biblical saying that it is better to teach how to fish rather than giving fish.. but at the same time, giving a few fish here and there does not seem to be a bad thing, either...

[seven2smoke1]

Admin send some merit to us

Nothing guaranteed but i think theymos will think about a second round if things get too slowly which I expect will happens once our guns run out of ammo soon

That's right, we are still in the first round now, Theymos will take a look how things happened in this first month according to the merit system. Maybe he can improve more this system and maybe not. There are few suggestions posted recently by users in Meta section, maybe he can consider some of them.

[JayJuanGee]

Forum is the pursuit of merits now. Will live strong and persistent. Natural selection.
Merit will not appreciate the quality. Merit should not be the basis of a new rank. Merit is the gratitude of users. Not everyone can get it in the right amount. The number of merits is too large to move to new ranks

How do you know so much about how the merit system of the forum is going to play out?  

You have been a member of the forum for about 1 month.  The merit system was implemented 1 week after you registered your account.

I suppose that if you do not like this new merit system, then you don't have to use it, right?  You have only one month invested into the forum, so far, right?

Says the guy who only had to hang out and post to increase his rank.

What's up your butt?  Look I am using nice language, here?  

Your coming into the conversation to get in your two cents, makes you come off as a bit bitter and envious, no?  

Do you think that I had anything to do with implementing the new merit system?  

Here, I am merely talking about it, and you can proclaim my bias.. blah blah blah.. but that likely reflects more on your bad attitude rather than anything to do with me.

Accordingly, the content of your posts suggest that you are unwilling or unable to understand or accept both concepts of system changes and the concept of employing a grandfathering clause type arrangement in order to attempt to fairly transition members from the existing system into the new system.  

If you were attempting to make another point, then I am all ears, but mostly what I got from you was a weak-ass diversion attempt at an ad hominem attack rather than attempting to deal with actual substantive matters related to the merit system.

I found the tone of your post to him to be snarky and dismissive.

So what? 

You ranked up under a completely different standard, yet you seem to take a knee jerk defense.

You seem to be reading too much into your feelings about yourself.

As I mentioned a few times, there is a concept called grandfather clause... and peeps cannot know when they are going to benefit from such a clause because peeps cannot necessarily know when they are going to be  a grandfather or a grandchild.. or some other status in between.  The employment of grandfather clause is to attempt to cause a more fair transition, and that seems to be what Theymos was attempting to accomplish in the transition from a system that never used to require merit into a system that required merit hence forth.

The system is poorly thought out, take it as bitter if you want.

I don't know if it rises to the level of "poorly thought out" , so your word choice does seem to reinforce the correctness of my conclusion that you are bitter rather than attempting to recognize that Theymos had reasons for the way that he rolled out the system.

Sure the system is not perfect, and sure the roll out likely has some flaws, but even conceding those points does not mean that as individuals there are not ways to attempt to figure out ways to deal with it rather than just whine about the negatives and attempt to find maliciousness in those who might speak in favor of something that you don't seem to like in your seemingly bitter childish way, that you have demonstrated.

Personally, I think these forums are kind of a negative on the community anyways. Too factional and loyal to outdated tech. Too many scammers and too much greed.

Well, maybe this reflects your bad attitude about a lot of things in life, besides merely the newly implemented merit system.  If you only focus on negative, then likely you are going to see a lot of it.  Seems like your choice, or at least something you could attempt to fix within yourself, if you wanted to.

Yet if you ask an advanced question, no one here has an answer.

In most instances, no one is going to hold your hand, except maybe your mom.... so sometimes, you have to do some of the work in order to attempt to achieve what you want.. and perhaps in the end, no one cooperates - however, that non-cooperation from others does not mean that you cannot get advantages by going through the process of asking the question(s) and attempting to help others can also help you to help yourself.

I think the merit system is the slow death of these forums, which is probably for the best in the long run.

You assume a lot, here.  There seems to be a goal to weed some folks out, and if the newly implemented system weeds out too many, then perhaps it will be tweaked or if it does not weed enough then perhaps it will be tweaked.  It does not seem to be a implementation that is set in stone - even though its current implemented status may take a decent 6 months to figure out how it is playing out and what effects (good and bad) it is having.

But it's still sad to see what Satoshi founded to become irrelevant.

Is this like the death of bitcoin, too... Bitcoin has died a lot, right?  Let me assert this: bitcoin is the king of the cryptos, and there is a lot of disinformation out there about bitcoin.  There are a lot of attacks on bitcoin and there is a decent attempts at competition and muddying perceptions about the dominance of bitcoin, and through this forum you have a lot of potential to interact with some of the smartest folks in the world regarding bitcoin and the various role of alts and ICOs.  You can take a lot of the information with a grain of salt or you can supplement with other forums, it is your choice, but I hardly would conclude that the implementation of the merit system is going to pervert this forum into a status of irrelevancy as you would like to assert.  Sure, you can go over to r/btc or bitcoin.com to get your information, and good luck with the bullshit being spouted in those misinformation forums.

But I like how you created a whole story in your head about how I'm bitter and evious because your tone is snarky...

It seems that I concluded based on the context and the words that you said, and your further comments seem to further establish that I was on the right track because you seem to have difficulties engaging in a substantive discussion, but instead you continue to whine about how much meanie I am towards you.... blah blah blah.. makes little sense to me about what kind of objective you are trying to achieve except to derail into meaningless discussions about how the world is out to get you.. and how you are being treated sooo  unfair... . 

[thesavoyard]

Forum is the pursuit of merits now. Will live strong and persistent. Natural selection.
Merit will not appreciate the quality. Merit should not be the basis of a new rank. Merit is the gratitude of users. Not everyone can get it in the right amount. The number of merits is too large to move to new ranks

How do you know so much about how the merit system of the forum is going to play out?  

You have been a member of the forum for about 1 month.  The merit system was implemented 1 week after you registered your account.

I suppose that if you do not like this new merit system, then you don't have to use it, right?  You have only one month invested into the forum, so far, right?

Says the guy who only had to hang out and post to increase his rank.

What's up your butt?  Look I am using nice language, here?  

Your coming into the conversation to get in your two cents, makes you come off as a bit bitter and envious, no?  

Do you think that I had anything to do with implementing the new merit system?  

Here, I am merely talking about it, and you can proclaim my bias.. blah blah blah.. but that likely reflects more on your bad attitude rather than anything to do with me.

Accordingly, the content of your posts suggest that you are unwilling or unable to understand or accept both concepts of system changes and the concept of employing a grandfathering clause type arrangement in order to attempt to fairly transition members from the existing system into the new system.  

If you were attempting to make another point, then I am all ears, but mostly what I got from you was a weak-ass diversion attempt at an ad hominem attack rather than attempting to deal with actual substantive matters related to the merit system.

I found the tone of your post to him to be snarky and dismissive. You ranked up under a completely different standard, yet you seem to take a knee jerk defense. The system is poorly thought out, take it as bitter if you want. Personally, I think these forums are kind of a negative on the community anyways. Too factional and loyal to outdated tech. Too many scammers and too much greed.Yet if you ask an advanced question, no one here has an answer. I think the merit system is the slow death of these forums, which is probably for the best in the long run. But it's still sad to see what Satoshi founded to become irrelevant.

But I like how you created a whole story in your head about how I'm bitter and evious because your tone is snarky...

How come someone determine someone tone from a text? i am curious about this matters.

Being hard on the community is not the same as being negative to community, rather than negative, merit forces us to level up ourself, and how come is that a negative things for the community. And being positive to a community doesnt mean a forum needs to hear and do what the community says. Merit will only give death to member which can not rank up (mostly because they dont want to level up their self cause they dont want the hard way to earn merits)

I know satoshi made bitcoin and also one of team that made this forum (cmiiw for the forum part), but it doesnt have connection between decentralized spirit of bitcoin with this centralized forum, You really got things mixed up

 I can understand why you can't determine tone from text, you can barely convey a coherent message. Your logic seems to be pretty incomplete. The only ones who will get merit are those who post popular, or more appropriately, patronizing posts. This board needs less BS and more logic, it's kind of a desert here.

 As most people aren't willing to patronize and ass kiss for merit (there isn't a ton available anyways) they will likely move on. Then it will just be the same circle jerk passing around merit. It's essentially created a closed community that is resistant to reality, like the BTC main forum.

If you can't determine tone from this than you need a better English teacher:

I suppose that if you do not like this new merit system, then you don't have to use it, right?  You have only one month invested into the forum, so far, right?

[thesavoyard]

JayJuanGee

I find your avatar ironic, because out of your entire, emotional and petulant rant, you danced around the subject. Not once did you suggest why you think the merit system will work. I see you're the fanboy type and you can write prolifically but you'll never produce anything of value because you yourself haven't defined why you hold your beliefs.

[JayJuanGee]

First, just to clear the air (if anyone will actually read this) I am biased because I don't feel I can personally rank up anymore. So, take this with a grain of salt.

My thoughts:

I know the merit is new, and I really like the concept because BitcoinTalk.org is a core part of the community and needs to be protected, but based on the evidence, I don't see this working as planned. Rather, it appears to be simply a caste system where the current ranked people have now just hard coded their levels and almost no one else will be ranking up from this point forward.

I don't have access to the actual data so I just have to go with my observations. But I would LOVE to see the ranking growth rates since the Merit system was implemented. Probably went from some rapidly growing rate to near zero. Was that the goal? To turn off leveling up? I bet that's what happened.

Here are my limited observations:

1) Merit does not appear to be moving from the haves to the have nots.

-This means we have a liquidity problem

2) Where Merit has moved, it appears to be too infrequent to work as intended, where better posters would be moving up in rank.

-Easy to confirm, just scan the latest threads you are reading and see how many people are still sitting at a round number of Merit (e.g., 10, 100, 250, etc). It's just about everyone. Again, I would love to see a % of accounts that now have anything other than a round number of Merit.

3) Where Merit has moved, it's very hard for the public to know why, who gave it, and for what posting, which leads me to believe, most of the movement has been from people who control several accounts. As a member of the blockchain community (ignore my 'creation account date' I've been in crypto since 2013) we are supposed to be about transparency and accountability.

-For those without a round number of Merit, they appear to have earned just 1 to 4 added points, and again, a scan of their recent posts do not yield anything more impressive than other people's posts (in my opinion). But the lack of transparency will lead to suspicion in this community, as it has done with me. That's just how we roll!

-I realize there is some public tracking going on, but it's not easy to find and therefore doesn't actually work as transparent (IMHO)

4) While BitcoinTalk is flooded with spammers and multiple accounts (and I completely agree that is a problem) under the new system, ranking up has become virtually impossible and will no longer reward activity. While spam is a problem, I believe a new problem will emerge, a lack of interest in posting on this site which will lead to degradation of utility.

-I've worked  in many settings where leaders considered cutting some requirement (like how under the old rules, simply posting got your rank on this site). They wanted to cut the requirement because it seemed extra, unhelpful. But I argued against cutting it because although it was not helpful directly for the intended purpose, removing it would very likely lead to a situation where performance would decline and then this seemingly unhelpful requirement would actually once again become useful. I know I'm leaving out detail here, but think of it like an ecosystem. Some would say "who cares if species XYZ goes extinct" until years later they realize that caused a chain reaction that killed off an entire jungle.

Problems and complaints, that's not very helpful. So how about a solution?

I prefer small changes, so what if Merit was no longer tied to ranking up, but the activity level requirements doubled or tripled. Or what if some small amount of Merit was required to level up. Like, people had to earn at least 1 Merit point before moving each rank level. AND, I would recommend you grant people more sMerit to solve the liquidity problem.

To summarize: the Merit change, appears to not be meeting the stated indented goals, and I would urge the leadership of this site to consider an alternative before significant damage is caused to a key institution of the crypt world...this site.

Even though I don't agree with your overall conclusions because I believe that you are a bit too premature to be coming to such strong assessments and conclusions about the lackings of the merit system, I did give you two merits for the post because 1) it seems that you put quite a decent amount of effort into the post, and just doing a quick glance at your posting history, I see that you have quite a few decent and well articulated posts.  

Furthermore, it is likely that you will be able to earn another 88 merits to rank up to full member as long as you continue to engage, post on topics that interest you, attempt to provide value by reading the OP and reading recent posts, attempt to keep some humor and even to help yourself to sort through the many questions that a lot of us continue to have in this dynamic space about crypto currencies (hopefully you are interested in bitcoin, but perhaps other cryptos as well)... and of course , there are other topics on this forum too that may be interesting to you and cause others to award you merit for your input and participation in such topics.

[JayJuanGee]

JayJuanGee

I find your avatar ironic, because out of your entire, emotional and petulant rant, you danced around the subject. Not once did you suggest why you think the merit system will work. I see you're the fanboy type and you can write prolifically but you'll never produce anything of value because you yourself haven't defined why you hold your beliefs.

First, you are looking at the wrong indicator, if you believe that my avatar is attempting to send some kind of message to you on this particular topic.

Second, you are whining about this merit system, and sure it is possible that you have convinced a few other whiners to chime in to support you in your complaining cause; however, you have also erroneously attempted to argue that I have some kind of burden to support the status quo system that has been established (this new merit system), when I do not. 

I do not need to provide either evidence or argument regarding why the status quo new merit system is better than some amorphous and unspecified change that you may be proposing (such as going back to pre-change, perhaps?). 

If you are proposing a change to the status quo merit system that has been established, then you have both the evidentiary and the logic burdens of presentation and persuasion to convince others.  For me, your whining has not accomplished much of anything in terms of either evidence or logic, but perhaps others will be more persuaded by your lack of presentation, perhaps Theymos?  Yet I doubt it because I think that Theymos would likely prefer to see more evidence and logic if he is going to make some changes that goes beyond mere whining or attempts to divert discussion through largely irrelevant and unjustified personally attacks.

[mrelich]

So, do I have this correct?

In order to become a "Member", I, for example, would need 10 merits? And these merits would need to come from someone who has merits? I like the idea - will work to earn my merits (if I have this correct).

Yes - if you get 10 merits, you become a member. That's not so difficult. However, getting higher ranks than member is more difficult - you need 100 merits to become a Full Member and much more for higher ranks.

[Biomech]

JayJuanGee

I find your avatar ironic, because out of your entire, emotional and petulant rant, you danced around the subject. Not once did you suggest why you think the merit system will work. I see you're the fanboy type and you can write prolifically but you'll never produce anything of value because you yourself haven't defined why you hold your beliefs.

Hmm.

That's a weird take, especially since he's had the same avatar forever...

Also, I've engaged with him in multiple topics (particularly the thread started by Atlas) over the years, and found his reasoning to be sound, even though we fundamentally disagree on the utility of alts.

That particular topic can be approached with logic and still reach an ambiguous conclusion

As to the topic at hand:

I have severe doubts as the, well, merit, of the merit system. I've seen several systems implemented to restrict spam or low quality posts over the years, and they have all come to naught sooner or later.

The reasons for that are many, but the biggest one, in my opinion, is not a negative. There are a lot of clever people here, and they will figure out how to game the system. Whatever the system is. There are many things that can be said about the denizens of bitcointalk, but for the most part they are not sheep.

Let it play out. Theymos does keep an eye and an active hand on his creations. It will work or it won't.

[gopaljiverma]

As to the topic at hand:

I have severe doubts as the, well, merit, of the merit system. I've seen several systems implemented to restrict spam or low quality posts over the years, and they have all come to naught sooner or later.

The reasons for that are many, but the biggest one, in my opinion, is not a negative. There are a lot of clever people here, and they will figure out how to game the system. Whatever the system is. There are many things that can be said about the denizens of bitcointalk, but for the most part they are not sheep.

Let it play out. Theymos does keep an eye and an active hand on his creations. It will work or it won't.

I am not aware of the earlier methods you are talking about as I joined recently. But I think the merit system is designed after giving it la lot of thought as:

1) This system is designed in a way that it will keep getting better with time on its own. The alt accounts, account farmers will spend the default merit they got soon. They will also fail to get merits from merit sources as they will not be able to post good quality posts. If they start improving the post quality, that is an additional benefit.

2) All the new registrations will now be careful from start with their posting. Less work for moderators which can utilize for other important tasks.

3) The merit system system actually has resulted in automated moderation with the help of existing members.

4) Finally, let me explain regarding members going to game this system as well. It is not happening actually which is evident from the complaints we are getting from so many new members that they are not able to rank up.

[Biomech]

As to the topic at hand:

I have severe doubts as the, well, merit, of the merit system. I've seen several systems implemented to restrict spam or low quality posts over the years, and they have all come to naught sooner or later.

The reasons for that are many, but the biggest one, in my opinion, is not a negative. There are a lot of clever people here, and they will figure out how to game the system. Whatever the system is. There are many things that can be said about the denizens of bitcointalk, but for the most part they are not sheep.

Let it play out. Theymos does keep an eye and an active hand on his creations. It will work or it won't.

I am not aware of the earlier methods you are talking about as I joined recently. But I think the merit system is designed after giving it la lot of thought as:

1) This system is designed in a way that it will keep getting better with time on its own. The alt accounts, account farmers will spend the default merit they got soon. They will also fail to get merits from merit sources as they will not be able to post good quality posts. If they start improving the post quality, that is an additional benefit.

2) All the new registrations will now be careful from start with their posting. Less work for moderators which can utilize for other important tasks.

3) The merit system system actually has resulted in automated moderation with the help of existing members.

4) Finally, let me explain regarding members going to game this system as well. It is not happening actually which is evident from the complaints we are getting from so many new members that they are not able to rank up.

I actually hope you're right. The current ranking system, or I should say, the previous ranking system was put in play for exactly the same reasons you've noted, along with increasingly draconian (but random) moderation.

It worked for a time, and then it didn't, because people figured out how to game it. So it got modified, which worked for a while... wash, rinse, repeat. Even people who can't parse a sentence well in this place can still think and scheme It's always been an interesting place. Sometimes infuriating, but always interesting.

[thesavoyard]

JayJuanGee

I find your avatar ironic, because out of your entire, emotional and petulant rant, you danced around the subject. Not once did you suggest why you think the merit system will work. I see you're the fanboy type and you can write prolifically but you'll never produce anything of value because you yourself haven't defined why you hold your beliefs.

First, you are looking at the wrong indicator, if you believe that my avatar is attempting to send some kind of message to you on this particular topic.

Second, you are whining about this merit system, and sure it is possible that you have convinced a few other whiners to chime in to support you in your complaining cause; however, you have also erroneously attempted to argue that I have some kind of burden to support the status quo system that has been established (this new merit system), when I do not.  

I do not need to provide either evidence or argument regarding why the status quo new merit system is better than some amorphous and unspecified change that you may be proposing (such as going back to pre-change, perhaps?).  

If you are proposing a change to the status quo merit system that has been established, then you have both the evidentiary and the logic burdens of presentation and persuasion to convince others.  For me, your whining has not accomplished much of anything in terms of either evidence or logic, but perhaps others will be more persuaded by your lack of presentation, perhaps Theymos?  Yet I doubt it because I think that Theymos would likely prefer to see more evidence and logic if he is going to make some changes that goes beyond mere whining or attempts to divert discussion through largely irrelevant and unjustified personally attacks.

You use term like whining to address legitimate concerns and have no understanding of the burden of proof. We've addressed our concerns, you offered no rebuttal except juvenile mockery and pseudo-intellectualism. You're really a predictable person, I bet you're even a Libertarian. People who half-understand tend to follow that ideology.

In short, you're a fucking troll and we would all do well just to put you on ignore, you have nothing to offer the world and are incapable of constructive conversation.

I just want to point out to all how much of an idiot fanboy this troll is, click his profile. He says "How much alt coin diversification is necessary? 0%"

With a fanbase like him, BTC is sure to become as irrelevant as these forums will become.

[paxmao]

Is any action going to be taken when members are found abusing the system? There are a couple of threads of "abuses" and I don´t see any particular action taken to discourage it.

[TheQuin]

Is any action going to be taken when members are found abusing the system? There are a couple of threads of "abuses" and I don´t see any particular action taken to discourage it.

Some of them have been tagged with negative trust by DT members. As it is not against the forum rules (except for sources) to trade merit, that is the only sanction available. I think that quite a few of the DT members are too busy arguing amongst themselves to get involved at the moment.

It doesn't really matter anyway as they will all run out of sMerit to abuse very soon if they haven't already.

[krishnaverma]

Is any action going to be taken when members are found abusing the system? There are a couple of threads of "abuses" and I don´t see any particular action taken to discourage it.

Following can be reason for this:

1) It can be really confusing to distinguish between abuse and innocent mistake. So, if every case reported their is punished, some members who gave merits by mistake (like for testing), will get punished as well.

2) Admin knows that these default merits that members got will be finished soon. It is not going to make major impact here.