Merit & new rank requirements

[ndico]

I like the idea of the new merit system, it will definitely improve the post quality in the community. But I have many issues with the merit system. which includes I mention on my post here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3434591.msg35831923#msg35831923.

[shahzadafzal]

Thank you for the regular updates

Yes it should be logical merit decreasing every week, sMerit should always be less than the previous months merit sent because

Each 1 merit sent will produce -> 0.5 sMerit (like this week its 4544 merits awared, so total sMerits generated are = 2272 )

Only thing which can increase the Merits for next week will be Merit Source, now to calculate the merits for next week's formula will be like

Next week's maximum merits =  (Last week given Merits /2 ) + Merit Source's merits

So in summary reason of this decrease:
- Merit sources did not increase for last few weeks
- Not all sMerit distributed which were generated from last week's merits

As theymos hinted Merit Sources will increase gradually.

Also if merits are in abundance and every next post starts getting merit, you will loose the beauty of Merit System. It should be less and should be given to well deserving posts only.

[cjmoles]

Well ---> this is the problem with a system like this one:  there are packs of thieves on the site with green trust who collude with one another to manipulate the system in order to increase their "perceived"  trust worthiness so that they can get away with higher valued scams.  Now, systems put in place, like this merit system, propagate that behavior more readily because now the green trusted scammers can build their syndicates with less effort.  It's creating a more robust den of thieves in my opinion.  I, myself, have lost a lot already by trusting the higher ranked green trusted thieves and there's no remedy to battle the problem....somebody needs to think about that aspect here too.

[maxreish]

Merit system is made to avoid the useless thing that we say, and also to improve the quality of our post which is at the same time meaningful, that is just a trial for we to be worthy in the future, merit system is the filter of this forum to stop those empty headed continue to spam here.

[sheenshane]

Well ---> this is the problem with a system like this one:  there are packs of thieves on the site with green trust who collude with one another to manipulate the system in order to increase their "perceived"  trust worthiness so that they can get away with higher valued scams.  Now, systems put in place, like this merit system, propagate that behavior more readily because now the green trusted scammers can build their syndicates with less effort.  It's creating a more robust den of thieves in my opinion.  I, myself, have lost a lot already by trusting the higher ranked green trusted thieves and there's no remedy to battle the problem....somebody needs to think about that aspect here too.

Can you name it these guys mate? lol
I know it's hard to fight them because we don't have a power, so the best thing is observed and keep quiet.

Well, only our beloved admins can look that problem, merit system is good and has a good impact on the forum to eliminate that shady behevior who still abusing this system.

I, myself, have lost a lot already by trusting the higher ranked green trusted thieves and there's no remedy to battle the problem....somebody needs to think about that aspect here too.

No mate, not them all. Some are good and some are abusing their power.

[cjmoles]

Well ---> this is the problem with a system like this one:  there are packs of thieves on the site with green trust who collude with one another to manipulate the system in order to increase their "perceived"  trust worthiness so that they can get away with higher valued scams.  Now, systems put in place, like this merit system, propagate that behavior more readily because now the green trusted scammers can build their syndicates with less effort.  It's creating a more robust den of thieves in my opinion.  I, myself, have lost a lot already by trusting the higher ranked green trusted thieves and there's no remedy to battle the problem....somebody needs to think about that aspect here too.

Can you name it these guys mate? lol
I know it's hard to fight them because we don't have a power, so the best thing is observed and keep quiet.

Well, only our beloved admins can look that problem, merit system is good and has a good impact on the forum to eliminate that shady behevior who still abusing this system.

I, myself, have lost a lot already by trusting the higher ranked green trusted thieves and there's no remedy to battle the problem....somebody needs to think about that aspect here too.

No mate, not them all. Some are good and some are abusing their power.

I can name them, but every time I bring it up I get attacked, so it's best just to, like you say, observe and stay silent because the system is flawed at best.  I didn't say all of them (there's a couple who're honest), but the one's who ARE honest, don't stand up and they let the abuse persist because they're too busy doing their own thing to get involved in the drama.

[krishnaverma]

I don't think it is necessary to make infographics on merit system and its mechanism.
For lazy users, who don't want to spend their a couple of minutes to read the ANN topic created by the forum admin, Theymos, they will probably don't care about how merit system works.
Therefore, such infographics is still irrelevant for their objectives.
For those users who readily to learn and have already spent their time to read the ANN, the infographics and the same ones are irrelevant for them, too. All essentials stuffs presented in the Theymos's ANN.

Anyway, thanks for your time to make your infographics.

I disagree, in my opinion such infographics can be useful in a number of cases:

1) These can attract a lot of new members to the forum. If you are active in IM, you must have heard that the inforgraphics are more popular than content now, that is because visitors like them.

2) If a person is taking out some time to create one, it means that he is concerned about this forum.

[Jet Cash]

I disagree, in my opinion such infographics can be useful in a number of cases:

1) These can attract a lot of new members to the forum. If you are active in IM, you must have heard that the inforgraphics are more popular than content now, that is because visitors like them.

2) If a person is taking out some time to create one, it means that he is concerned about this forum.

Infographics are for the kindergarten. If you can't read, and need pictures, then go to YouTube. They clog up the threads, and slow down reading. I put people who use them where they belong - on ignore. I really hope they don't attract new members to the forum, what benefit will the kids from junior school be for us?

[Delphinus]

Merit system is made to avoid the useless thing that we say, and also to improve the quality of our post which is at the same time meaningful, that is just a trial for we to be worthy in the future, merit system is the filter of this forum to stop those empty headed continue to spam here.

For me merit is still too "rare" to really work that way. I've made several "helpful" posts to people, but it needs to be really great in order to receive any merit.
In addition; the key benefit for me was to stop spammers/scammers. There are multiple threads being overrun with FUD and this system didn't stop anyone.

Having merit or not does not impact spammers, they can still post. The only way this will really help with scams is by allowing moderators to set minimum merit amounts that are required before users are allowed to post. At the moment, 10 merit is most likely sufficient to keep most scammers out.

The difficulty is that merit is so hard to get, that it will also drive new users away who are still not able to post within all forums after weeks of posting.

[DdmrDdmr]

Numerically, one trend that I’m seeing is that the number of weekly new merited users (users never merited before from another user) is quite small. After 14 weeks of the Merit System, posting quality standards should have shifted users to post better and thus, theoretically, receive more Merit on overall.

Most forum users should all have got the message by now, and made a slow (underline slow) peregrinate towards the promised land, where Merits are served on silver platter in posting orgies full of quality golden cups.
Nevertheless, new users never merited before are now in the range of 400 per week roughly, being in the 500 range a month ago and near the 800 range two months ago (I´ve got a complete table breakdown if we need it). So far, a total of 14.500 users have been awarded (not airdropped) at least 1 sMerit.

The trend basically is not only that sMerit awarding per week keeps on getting lower, as seen in coinlocket$’s data that I too track personally, buy the scope of new merited users is getting lower as time goes by. 
I would have expected that new merited users per week to have an upward trend if the Merit System were to be sinking in properly, and not the opposite as seems to be happening.

[TheQuin]

The trend basically is not only that sMerit awarding per week keeps on getting lower, as seen in coinlocket$’s data that I too track personally, buy the scope of new merited users is getting lower as time goes by.  
I would have expected that new merited users per week to have an upward trend if the Merit System were to be sinking in properly, and not the opposite as seems to be happening.

I think expectation might be a bit optimistic here. The number of new users getting merit for the first time is probably higher at the start as people have been slow to work out what the system is for. (I mean the vast majority that doesn't read or care about Meta).

After that settles down then we left with new signups to the forum. Of the current average 462.69 registrations per day what number are here because they just heard about Bitcoin and/or crypto and are interested in getting involved? Compared to how many are spambots or just heard on social media somewhere that this was the place to earn money online.

I'd guestimate the former of those two categories to be in the low double digits weekly.

[The Cryptovator]

I appreciate your dicision. Merit system will help us to keep clean our forum and make high quality post. But one thing I feel that those already have smerit they will not not much interest to give other. Even some one make quality post. Because he already have merit even they no spend it they have no problem. Also he will not get any benefit if he spend. So my opinion that, for motivation people to spend merit they should have award for send merit. Example some one spend 5 merit in a week, if he get bonus 1 merit from forum automatically, then every one will motivate for give merit on quality post. Other wise it will very hard to upgrade rank for new member's. Sorry if I am wrong. I just share my opinion. Thanks.

[mikki14]

I wish there would have been some sort of option of giving dislike (-ve merit) to the spam/LQ posts and if any post receives certain -ve merits/dislikes,it should be automatically deleted /hidden

I think this can be abused by some people who only wants to spread negativity in this forum. I've been inactive for the past months, and I was surpised that there is a 'merit' in my profile. I think it's a good idea though.

[Flying Hellfish]

I appreciate your dicision. Merit system will help us to keep clean our forum and make high quality post. But one thing I feel that those already have smerit they will not not much interest to give other. Even some one make quality post. Because he already have merit even they no spend it they have no problem. Also he will not get any benefit if he spend. So my opinion that, for motivation people to spend merit they should have award for send merit. Example some one spend 5 merit in a week, if he get bonus 1 merit from forum automatically, then every one will motivate for give merit on quality post. Other wise it will very hard to upgrade rank for new member's. Sorry if I am wrong. I just share my opinion. Thanks.

I have seen this so many times and it is such bullshit.  You presume higher rank members "will not much interest" or will "not get any benefit if he spend merit" and I can tell you that A LOT of high rank members are interested and do get great benefit from awarding merits to new users.

Not everyone needs an immediate reward to do something.  Some users are actually here because they want the BTC community to grow and flourish.  With that goal in the back of their minds it is of tremendous value to the community to have GOOD new users on this site and as such they are very interested in awarding merit to GOOD posts and users.

I'm not a source, I have some merit left but I am constantly at a loss to find something that hasn't been re-hashed a million times or something that isn't spammy or post count padding...  You're not getting my merit unless I feel you want to be part of this community.

Lastly merit is awarded to users to use at their discretion. Something that seems new or helpful to you may have been discussed to death over the years.  I won't award it merit and it's not a stretch to think other higher level members feel similar.

[kaicrypzen]

Infographics are for the kindergarten. If you can't read, and need pictures, then go to YouTube. They clog up the threads, and slow down reading. I put people who use them where they belong - on ignore. I really hope they don't attract new members to the forum, what benefit will the kids from junior school be for us?

Some people are visual learners and they are not necessarily kids . I agree that infographics could clog up the thread if there's a lot of them and if they are quoted again and again, one (or two) per page does not seem that harmful to me. If they can help some users process information quickly and easily, why discourage people from using them?

[motienvolam]

Infographics are for the kindergarten. If you can't read, and need pictures, then go to YouTube. They clog up the threads, and slow down reading. I put people who use them where they belong - on ignore. I really hope they don't attract new members to the forum, what benefit will the kids from junior school be for us?

Some people are visual learners and they are not necessarily kids . I agree that infographics could clog up the thread if there's a lot of them and if they are quoted again and again, one (or two) per page does not seem that harmful to me. If they can help some users process information quickly and easily, why discourage people from using them?

I totally agree with Jet Cash at this point.
Why? Because all of necessary rules, mechanisms, etc. of merit system was described very detail by Theymos in the ANN topic on merit system and new rank requirements. If someone really interested in discovering what is merit system, how the system works, etc. All of those stuffs are available in the ANN. Additionally, if someone want to know more about tutorials / tips to earn merit 'legally', they can find them easily by using search function of both the forum and Google. There are dozens of available helpful topics on these questions.
Finally, if they are extremely lazy to do such steps for their own interest, I don't see any reason to create infographics for them.

[shahzadafzal]

I totally agree with Jet Cash at this point.
Why? Because all of necessary rules, mechanisms, etc. of merit system was described very detail by Theymos in the ANN topic on merit system and new rank requirements. If someone really interested in discovering what is merit system, how the system works, etc. All of those stuffs are available in the ANN. Additionally, if someone want to know more about tutorials / tips to earn merit 'legally', they can find them easily by using search function of both the forum and Google. There are dozens of available helpful topics on these questions.
Finally, if they are extremely lazy to do such steps for their own interest, I don't see any reason to create infographics for them.

That's an ideal case frankly speaking it's not happening and I guess won't be happening in the future.
Majority of the new members coming directly from some ICO reference. I would be surprised if someone new came here to have some serious discussion about bitcoin-core or any thing closely related to bitcoin.

So when your joining reason is and ICO bounty you won't go any where else but bounties. As soon as they realize that their Rank is not increasing (same thing happened to me, i discovered Merit System only when my activity reached 70 and my rank did not change to Member) only then they will search here or google and realize what is actually going on.

and yes that's why most of us are lazy.In age of internet infographics are more easy to follow and understand. That's why theymos quoted some of infographics in his post.

Useful infographics

Forum users have helpfully created some infographics to explain the merit system:
paxmao's infographic
ibminer's infographic
8Habits's infographic
JetSet11's infographic
zentdex's infographic
alia_armelle's infographic

I also created some like this one https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3182178.msg35822713#msg35822713

[motienvolam]

Hi shazadafral,
Welcome to the discussion. It seems that you are missing something or misunderstood what I tried expressing in my thread.
It doesn't matter how many members join the forum before the launch day of merit system, when they joined the forum. You maybe right that there are massive users joined the forum since the blossom of the crypto market, including ICO tsunami last year.  Most of them are main reasons why Theymos launched merit system. Consequently, most of those users will have to accept the fact, accept the merit system. They will have to stop complaining some day.
What I implied in my thread is, for those who joined the forum later than January this year, they will automatically accept the merit system and new rank requirements. They have no reasons to complain about those ones. Do you agree with me at this point?
Let's consider a specific case. Joining new forum, then complain continuously about its rules. Are they losing their minds by doing this?

[athanz88]

What motienvolam said is true. If new member comr here after the merit system is here, they will not complaint because they dont know about the past system, but there are a lot of new member who complain about that, and comparing old system with merit system, you know what that means? They are all mostly the old player who make new account (alt account), in my opinion. Some might say that they are only lurking before to get knowledge of cryptoworld without making an account and now suddenly after merit they begin to register an account, i guesd you know why.

[sapta]

Let's consider a specific case. Joining new forum, then complain continuously about its rules. Are they losing their minds by doing this?

It happens all the time. They register an account > Apply for ICO social media campaign (their 1st post) > Asking people, "What the heck is the merit system?! My buddy told me that I can make a fortune if my rank is a least a SHEEENIORRRR." (their 2nd post). And no, their minds are good, it's just greed that consume 'em all.