Merit & new rank requirements

[TheQuin]

EDIT: Asking for MERITS is also not fair/ is against rule?

That'll get you a nice negative trust red badge to wear as it is as obnoxious as using oversized fonts.

[InvoKing]

Hero Member 480 activity and 500 Merits - Here  maybe I have Hero  Member Rank

So it means i need to have/gain 500 merits to get ranked up?

That's what it means. Just like me, you were given a head start with 250 as a Sr. Member at the time, so we only need to earn another 250 to deserve the Hero rank.

WTH Then its really gonna very hard.

EDIT: Asking for MERITS is also not fair/ is against rule?

Isn't it obvious? The reward for that varies from negative trust to ban tho.
To get merits, improve your posts OUT of the bounties section...

[TheHas]

One idea/question about the Merit system, I think many are hoarding their sMerit while waiting for a genious post or can't spend any because they don't have some anymore. Wouldn't it be better to give everybody a few to spend every month to get a flow into the system? I have often had the case that I would like to have given away sMerit if someone helped me, but perhaps not wrote the ultimative post. Or is it against the system to reward a helping person?

Nice idea but then there's the following problem,
If obtaining sMerit become a matter of time, then spammers/bots/etc with high rank will also become a matter of time.
All they'd need to do would be to shitpost with multiple accounts and then use their accounts to merit themselves.

Makes sense to you?

Yeah there have been a few examples of high ranked 'older' users, who now have lots of merit, giving their alternative accounts merit in 50 merit chunks. From what I can tell, not all of them are reprimanded or get any penalties.

Also feel for the people who were on the cusp of becoming the next rank when the merit system kicked in - would have set them back quite a bit. Now while rank doesn't really matter for most things, it does make a difference on bounty signature campaigns so I can understand why people would want a realistic path to ranking up.

Most of the people who are pro the current merit system are people who have hero accounts from being on this forum before the bitcoin rush, and keep saying to 'just make quality posts'. I'd be interested in a well established member starting a brand new account without telling anyone (with approval from moderator or whoever to do this) to see how they go in getting merits. Would be a good experiment I think - you could do a thread about the outcomes.

[BTCforJoe]

One idea/question about the Merit system, I think many are hoarding their sMerit while waiting for a genious post or can't spend any because they don't have some anymore. Wouldn't it be better to give everybody a few to spend every month to get a flow into the system? I have often had the case that I would like to have given away sMerit if someone helped me, but perhaps not wrote the ultimative post. Or is it against the system to reward a helping person?

Nice idea but then there's the following problem,
If obtaining sMerit become a matter of time, then spammers/bots/etc with high rank will also become a matter of time.
All they'd need to do would be to shitpost with multiple accounts and then use their accounts to merit themselves.

Makes sense to you?

Yeah there have been a few examples of high ranked 'older' users, who now have lots of merit, giving their alternative accounts merit in 50 merit chunks. From what I can tell, not all of them are reprimanded or get any penalties.

Also feel for the people who were on the cusp of becoming the next rank when the merit system kicked in - would have set them back quite a bit. Now while rank doesn't really matter for most things, it does make a difference on bounty signature campaigns so I can understand why people would want a realistic path to ranking up.

Most of the people who are pro the current merit system are people who have hero accounts from being on this forum before the bitcoin rush, and keep saying to 'just make quality posts'. I'd be interested in a well established member starting a brand new account without telling anyone (with approval from moderator or whoever to do this) to see how they go in getting merits. Would be a good experiment I think - you could do a thread about the outcomes.

You mean like @nullius? Search for him. Or @Blue Tyrant. They are doing a great job earning merits organically by posting great content.

[TheHas]

You mean like @nullius? Search for him. Or @Blue Tyrant. They are doing a great job earning merits organically by posting great content.

Hadn't heard about that, will look it up.

Although if everyone knows that they are actually a longstanding member of the community but on a different account, receiving merits from people who know them etc it kind of fails the point. I'm guessing no one knew when they first started so will have a look. Point still stands on other multi account issues.

[BTCforJoe]

You mean like @nullius? Search for him. Or @Blue Tyrant. They are doing a great job earning merits organically by posting great content.

Hadn't heard about that, will look it up.

Although if everyone knows that they are actually a longstanding member of the community but on a different account, receiving merits from people who know them etc it kind of fails the point. I'm guessing no one knew when they first started so will have a look. Point still stands on other multi account issues.

Not really. When existing higher level accounts expire of their sMerit, they’ll have to somehow get merited in abundance in order to “feed” their multis. It’s hard to fuel this economy because of the 2:1 merit:sMerit ratio, so I’d imagine that these account farmers would eventually give up or just focus on trying to breed one or two accounts, which is far less than how it was being done before the merit system was implemented.

[nullius]

Wow first time I come upon a language Google translate can't decipher!
I wonder if he's just spamming gibberish

I wonder if Tbbtyr Genafyngr speaks “Usenet old-timer”.  Now, I’ve recently been accused of being one to post cryptographic puzzles; and this well may be the easiest one there is:

Nyy unvy gur zrevg flfgrz, juvpu funyy fnir gur Ovgpbva Sbehz sebz fcnz naq genfu!

Gunax lbh, gurlzbf!

You mean like @nullius? Search for him. Or @Blue Tyrant. They are doing a great job earning merits organically by posting great content.

Hadn't heard about that, will look it up.

Hello.

[cryptothief]

I'm getting used to the new merit system, even though I timed my starting point badly and had to pay (not much admittedly) for the privilege of posting for the first time. Could've been a few steps up, but can't complain as for the first few months I was only using the forum now and then for reading, and wasn't posting anything. It has it's flaws for sure, but definitely makes you put the time and effort in to improve. I have researched so many more topics related to cryptocurrency (here and on other sites) and built up my knowledge, consequently improving my chances of getting merits. It incentivises and increases quality posts, which must be the name of the game. Yes, there are plenty of repetitive posts (this is probably one of them - I have not read through the almost 200 pages on the thread), but even that in itself can be a good thing if someone misses the information first time round. There are always opportunities to earn merit if you look around, not that it is as easy as just finding where the merit is being given out, you still have to show that you deserve it. Fair play to the more senior members who are actively seeking out others who deserve the recognition. The one thing I don't like is the obvious playing around by some where I've seen 5/10/20/50 merit points earned for one or two line 'stock' posts, but I guess that will gradually decrease as the system plays out. Onwards and upwards.

[nullius]

I'm getting used to the new merit system, even though I timed my starting point badly and had to pay (not much admittedly) for the privilege of posting for the first time. Could've been a few steps up, but can't complain as for the first few months I was only using the forum now and then for reading, and wasn't posting anything. It has it's flaws for sure, but definitely makes you put the time and effort in to improve. [...]

It’s good that you lurked before starting to post.  Some of us lurked before even creating an account, too.

The one thing I don't like is the obvious playing around by some where I've seen 5/10/20/50 merit points earned for one or two line 'stock' posts, but I guess that will gradually decrease as the system plays out. Onwards and upwards.

Older spammish accounts who received “grandfathered” merit will soon run out of it.  Moreover, abusers tend to get “red-tagged” (negative trust feedback).  They can get away with it for awhile before somebody notices.  A red tag doesn’t stop usage of an account, but does make it almost useless for money-making purposes.  Spammers and spam-supporters effectually get their accounts ruined that way.

Protip:  I have developed the habit of checking the merit histories of new users who seem to be approaching a rank increase threshold, or just passed one.  I doubt that I be the only one doing that; a quick check for any obvious signs of merit abuse can provide leads in many cases.  But in your case (Jr. Member with 70 activity and 9 merits), I didn’t even need to click through to any posts:  I immediately saw that much of your merit comes from well-known persons!  Cheers.

[Gleb Gamow]

This is now totally gettin' outta hand! Take a look at this dude's Merit summary - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=349097. What a fuckin' joke!

s/

[TheHas]

You mean like @nullius? Search for him. Or @Blue Tyrant. They are doing a great job earning merits organically by posting great content.

Hadn't heard about that, will look it up.

Hello.

Hello. You post good!

Understand your point that some old 'grandfathered' merit will soon run out, but I'm not sure the abusers are getting picked up. I mean, even in fairly obvious cases - If you check out this guy (chachacoin17) it is clear something isn't right. Its even been reported and still no negative trust here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.msg31751372#msg31751372

One way to encourage people to report questionable merit would be to receive merit for correctly identifying someone who is abusing the system. You could even take the merit off the abusers. Just an idea.

[JayJuanGee]

This is now totally gettin' outta hand! Take a look at this dude's Merit summary - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=349097. What a fuckin' joke!

s/

Must be an inside joke to refer to yourself in the third person because whatever could be any supposed other joke is not obvious.

[Gleb Gamow]

This is now totally gettin' outta hand! Take a look at this dude's Merit summary - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=349097. What a fuckin' joke!

s/

Must be an inside joke to refer to yourself in the third person because whatever could be any supposed other joke is not obvious.

Give me a sec while I figure out how to break the fourth wall film noir style while referring to myself in third person in replying to your reply to dude's post.

[nullius]

This is now totally gettin' outta hand! Take a look at this dude's Merit summary - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=349097. What a fuckin' joke!

s/

Hey, whatever happened to his plan to sell all the sMerit from all his alts for “U$1M“?

That has me checking to see which countries have names starting with a “U”, and use the ”$” symbol for their currency.  I want to know if any of them are appropriately priced like the Zimbabwe Dollar.

Hello. You post good!

Thanks.

Understand your point that some old 'grandfathered' merit will soon run out, but I'm not sure the abusers are getting picked up. I mean, even in fairly obvious cases - If you check out this guy (chachacoin17) it is clear something isn't right. Its even been reported and still no negative trust here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.msg31751372#msg31751372

Please see what I wrote to HabBear downthread.

One way to encourage people to report questionable merit would be to receive merit for correctly identifying someone who is abusing the system. You could even take the merit off the abusers. Just an idea.

Law of unintended consequences:  Rewarding people for getting others in trouble is always problematic.  It causes some people to hurl around spurious accusations, looking to their own gain.  Investigators then need to waste more time carefully sorting through the noise—either that, or they wind up punishing innocent people.

This and similar suggestions (such as merits for reporting spam to the moderators) are made semi-regularly; I do not think such things will happen.


(Did anybody understand my apparent gibberish?  Pbzr ba, sbyxf, guvf vf n pelcgb sbehz!)

[codemanX]

(Did anybody understand my apparent gibberish?  Pbzr ba, sbyxf, guvf vf n pelcgb sbehz!)

No, sorry 

[sasukesama56]

if my suggestion is better merit do not serve as our weaker contribute in this forum

never chase merit, but think how merit chase you.

The more we pursue, then our minds will be limited to how to get it ...
but if you want to think how you get merit then I am sure .. you will work hard 2-3 times.

[sir.humus]

     ▲     

+Merit?  

I just posted a translation in the Hebrew thread, if anyone interested:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3128928.0

[Forward_Thinking]

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.

Just to respond publicly...

Yeah, I'm not really a professional Bitcoin Talk poster and so I had not read all those rule before. That's a lot of rules, I hope my reply here is not seen as breaking them. However, the data list you provided is not what I mean by "stats." In general, statistics are used to summarize numerical data. But I appreciate that tracking list. I couldn't find it on my own. What I would really like to are summary data such as:

The percentage of accounts with sMerit that have sent sMerit.
The percentage of accounts that have received sMerit that had less than 100 Merit (in other words, the more likely situation where quality, not friendship or duplicate accounts was the reason sMerit moved).
The quantity of new account creation rolling 12 month average (as of December 2017 compared to today's rolling 12).
The quantity of new account posts rolling 12 month average (as of December 2017 compared to today's rolling 12).

Those are the types of numbers I would personally find more helpful in forming my own opinion regrading the effectiveness of this intervention.

Again, I personally agree change was needed - but this feels more like a dome was put over the city to protect us from the sun, but now there are two worlds - those living in the dome, and those living outside of the dome.

I worked on a location once where a huge fence went up around it. They created a deer problem because of the deer they trapped inside the fence. The merit change not only prevents spammer from flooding the forum (good job on that), but also trapped the deer inside the fence (not a great problem to have). The spammers now how a lot of sMerit and new users are discouraged from posting.

So... it's been a few weeks, has anyone produced any of the above metrics? Just trying to use data, not perceptions, to see how this intervention is impacting the platform.

[Forward_Thinking]

I wonder if anybody was able to upgrade his rank from Member and higher ranks since the merit system was launched? Is there some kind of statistics about that? I suppose that they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The merit system itself is great, but the merit limits for achieving a higher rank are too high. Is there some kind of review planned that could lower the limits down?  

I am wondering the same thing. I'm someone who designs interventions like these for large companies and I'm highly skeptical the merit system has done much of anything but reduce posts of anyone with less than a middle level account. The high level accounts, probably no change. The newbies got crushed and the middle accounts probably slowed dramatically. In effect, my guess (though I've been asking for the data for over a month) is that all this has done is essentially codified the older accounts as the true owners of this platform. It's a bit like building a virtual wall around a city. I'm not against some barriers, but man...they went from open land to the Great Wall of China in an afternoon. How about some middle ground?

[FacelessCrypto]

I don't like the merit system of current implementation.. it's my private view on my experiences with real life corporate politics..

But let me admit that this present merit system is so much.. so much so much  humanely that it matches with corporate politics.. All depends on perceptions.. 😂