Merit & new rank requirements

[coinlocket$]

Lieve increase on sMerit from last week +8.05% after the charge for Sources

So the last three weeks are 4761, 4544, 4910. I thought it would probably flatten out when most of the distributed sMerit was used up. It is a bit too early to say for sure but that looks like a sign we may be near that.

We are close, in my opinion the average value that we will have when the airdop ends, if the number of sources remains the current one, will be around 3.5k per week.
If you look here the weekly merit report, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ep5jtNBJU-jcMM_4o3T0ZnkYSRtwQGHSfWPiuV_GYKA/edit#gid=0 the most merit rewards for this week are from abusers or red trust member tagged for abusing, so 4900 is a pumped up number.

[callyf]

Lieve increase on sMerit from last week +8.05% after the charge for Sources

So the last three weeks are 4761, 4544, 4910. I thought it would probably flatten out when most of the distributed sMerit was used up. It is a bit too early to say for sure but that looks like a sign we may be near that.

From now a days merit calculate for the membership ranl

[tranthidung]

From now a days merit calculate for the membership ranl

Please remember that the Meta board is not the place for spamming with such boring thread like your latest one.
Please read more, compose better English-written threads, posting them at the right places.

[CurrencyGold]

In addition to activity, everyone now has a merit score, and you need both a certain activity level and a certain merit score in order to reach higher member ranks. The required scores are:

Rank	Required activity	Required merit
Brand new	0	0
Newbie	1	0
Jr Member	30	0
Member	60	10
Full Member	120	100
Sr. Member	240	250
Hero Member	480	500
Legendary	Random in the range 775-1030	1000

You get merit points when someone sends you some for one of your posts. Additionally, when someone sends you merit points, half of those points can be sent by you to other people.

Certain users are designated as "merit sources". They can create new merit out of nothing, up to a limited number per month (which differs per source). I will not be posting a definitive list of merit sources (so that people don't bug them too much), though you'll soon figure out who they are if you pay attention.

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
 - Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

Do not beg for merit excessively.

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

If you want to be a merit source:

 1. Be a somewhat established member.
 2. Collect TEN posts written in the last couple of months by other people that have not received nearly enough merit for how good they are, and post quotes for them all in a new Meta thread. The point of this is to demonstrate your ability to give out merit usefully.
 3. We will take a look at your history and maybe make you a source.

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

Trivia:

For current members, your initial merit score is equal to the minimum required to your rank. Of that, a certain amount (less than the usual half) is spendable. The spendable amount was calculated based on your current rank and the number of activity points you earned in the last year. A Legendary member who hasn't posted in the last year would still be Legendary, but would not have any spendable merit.

If someone sends you 1 merit, the 0.5 sMerit is not wasted; it is just not shown until you get another merit point.

There are stats here, and you can find someone's merit summary by clicking the "merit" link on their profile.

Thank you for this helpful post.

[Jet Cash]

You say that a person must earn merits to rank up . That's fine , but how do i get merits ?

Well you don't get them by posting great long quotes from the stickies, and include information that everybody has seen hundreds of times.
I've put you on ignore for doing it.

Thank you for this helpful post.

I put you on ignore for this useless post that just clogs up the thread, which is long enough anyway.

[AlekSandRAx]

While I support merit system I don't think it's fair that at the launch of the system old ranks remained unchanged. This is controversial, because you now see Members and above that make spam posts, yet they have access to all the benefits of current rank, while newbies have to work very hard to get to the same rank...

Another thing, if all of you, contributors to the forum dislike Bounties and alt section in general, why the forum supports it? Allow only ANN threads, let Bounties move somewhere else...

[shahzadafzal]

While I support merit system I don't think it's fair that at the launch of the system old ranks remained unchanged. This is controversial, because you now see Members and above that make spam posts, yet they have access to all the benefits of current rank, while newbies have to work very hard to get to the same rank...

Don't you think those who joined bitcoin (bitcointalk) in 2010 or 2011 should be more respectable than new comers?
Well to me those are the real ones behind the success of bitcoin because the believed in bitcoin more than we do and they deserve the benefits if there are any.

Another thing, if all of you, contributors to the forum dislike Bounties and alt section in general, why the forum supports it? Allow only ANN threads, let Bounties move somewhere else...

No, no one dislike bounties. Its only shitposters who are disliked. Because they just spam the forum to increase their ranks and since they have multiple accounts they were doing it again and again.
With merits now it's almost useless.. they will stay Jr. Member forever, eventually giving up on their alts and shitpost too.

[RivAngE]

While I support merit system I don't think it's fair that at the launch of the system old ranks remained unchanged. This is controversial, because you now see Members and above that make spam posts, yet they have access to all the benefits of current rank, while newbies have to work very hard to get to the same rank...

Don't you think those who joined bitcoin (bitcointalk) in 2010 or 2011 should be more respectable than new comers?
Well to me those are the real ones behind the success of bitcoin because the believed in bitcoin more than we do and they deserve the benefits if there are any.

I agree they should be respected, but not all of the old members are angelic creatures who never shitpost. As AlekSandRAx said, they all get an advantage and some of them just don't deserve it. A spammer who registerded one year ago is rewarded much more than a hard-working quality poster who registered one month ago.

What I see as a solution to this,
1) Separate the rank and merit points, let old members keep their rank and allow them to have the signature advantages but they should start with 0 merit.
2) Campaign organizers should use merit points for reward scaling.

With the above system, even if a lot more people will end up using big signatures, they won't be able to get rewarded if they're spammers with 0 merit.
What kind of campaign would reward a hero member with 0 merit points? Such an old member should be experienced enough to make quality posts, so if he/she has 0 merit it means he/she is a spammer and no one would reward them with my proposed change.

I'd love to hear what you think about it.

PS: I've read a lot of pages of this thread and I think no one has proposed the above, but if I've missed something I apologize.

[TheQuin]

What kind of campaign would reward a hero member with 0 merit points?

The same kind that rewards a Hero Member with 500 unearned Merit now. The problem is the campaigns paying in tokens they create out of thin air. It doesn't cost them anything to pay the participants so they don't care about quality, they just want quantity of page impressions.

[Magister Magus]

Where are the pretorians of the forum?

100+ merits for this post, no ban, no red trust.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3032134.msg32216177#msg32216177

(Just check with Google translator the content)

No comment

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>
No comment

I think it does deserve a comment.

The translation is "The project idea is good, but 1000 qualified participants are too difficult", showing a great effort that benefits all, and is certainly worthy of merit. Must have put some time into it too to cruch up the 1000 number (ffs!).

The receiver has gainned overtime 70 sMerits from one of the Senders -> frankkkkkkk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=322576

The other two senders have only sent to this user in all their history and on the commented post:
xx63245613 -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=331517 (21 sMerits)
zrunfeng -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=290762 (39 sMerits)

This case is certainly looking like a small farm.

[coinlocket$]

~

I've reported this case yesterday, that's way another user reported here also.  
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.msg36729723#msg36729723

On that 3d i've reported around 100 merit abusers so far. Almost none is tagged.
Some on them has 200+merit abuse.

[GameMarket]

How many daily post required to get rank upgradation ?

[RivAngE]

~

I've reported this case yesterday, that's way another user reported here also.  
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.msg36729723#msg36729723

On that 3d i've reported around 100 merit abusers so far. Almost none is tagged.
Some on them has 200+merit abuse.

The system tells me I have reported 2 users so far with 100% accuracy, but I don't know what that means! Do they just delete their posts or do the users have some kind of a punishment?
This guy though seems to be a bot with 4 accounts (Fengxia, frankkkkkkk, zrunfeng, xx63245613). Nice find DdmrDdmr, you get a +Merit from me!

[TheQuin]

The system tells me I have reported 2 users so far with 100% accuracy, but I don't know what that means! Do they just delete their posts or do the users have some kind of a punishment?

That depends on what the post is reported for. Spam low-value posts usually just get deleted whereas plagiarism is a permaban, other things may be somewhere in between. If the moderator thinks it is a spambot they'll probably ban it. The 100% accuracy just means that a moderator didn't mark it as an incorrect report.

There is no forum rule against giving Merit to a shitpost, so nobody is going to get banned for that.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...> Nice find DdmrDdmr, you get a +Merit from me!

Actually, it was the post above mine from Magister Magus that reported it on this thread, so the credit is really his... Coinlocket$ spotted it too.

The problem I see is that there is no clear unique procedure to resolve these cases, so they end up on multiple posts over time, often buried by other subsequent posts. Other times, the cases are reported directly to moderator.

Ideally, we would have a common unique zone where we could report and see the status of the action being taken searching by userId. This would avoid redundant reports, as well as mitigate the effect of re-reporting already cleared cases.
Seoincorporation is suggesting getting a “Merit abuse report button" in each profile to help the reporting process, but in addition I would add what I stated above.

[coinlocket$]

<...> Nice find DdmrDdmr, you get a +Merit from me!

Actually, it was the post above mine from Magister Magus that reported it on this thread, so the credit is really his... Coinlocket$ spotted it too.

This another example how merit is not working wery well, I've found this case yesterday, another one post it later, another one quoted it and the merit goes to the 3rd person, atleast in this case merit went to a good person!

Anyway

The problem I see is that there is no clear unique procedure to resolve these cases, so they end up on multiple posts over time, often buried by other subsequent posts. Other times, the cases are reported directly to moderator.

I usually post in that 3d but people will always open new 3d, with probably clickbait titles with the tentative to grab some merit points. Look this case, (this is the 3rd time i've reported it), still 0 responses.
This is not a simple merit abuser (only) 200 Merit used but they are linked with eth and they are linked to a fraud eth account. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3420918.msg35753912#msg35753912


Or this one, 100/150+ merit traded from alt/bought from others https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.msg36429218#msg36429218.

[meaamir86]

I Thought I am not late for bitcoin train but realizing that now I need merits to get promotion in bitcointalk community, even realizing that supporting bitcoin is dangerous for me as I am may be on the watchlist of local agencies. 

Can you guys imagine how hard it is to be in the country where bitcoin is banned just because People at the top doesn't have any sense to understand Blockchain & Cryptocurrency? 

[_Miracle]

I really, really, really dislike popularity-based metrics and voting, more so on a site like this where there are so many people with networks of anonymous accounts, and even more so when its grandfathered in. I remember when another forum I was a high contributor on added essentially the same thing, and I had 10,000s of posts and 0 of it. My guides combined have millions of page views, but I will receive nothing from them. Additionally, I would be penalized for not reposting the same guide every 120 days, which seems to go against the stated intentions.

Sorry dogie, I'm philosophically with you on this one but I had to give you +merit anyways ;-)

I don't think newbies will be able to fully appreciate your contributions.
Your guides were essential when I was actively mining....Thank you.

[MagicSmoker]

...
I usually post in that 3d but people will always open new 3d...

Just a head's up on this "3d = thread" thing: note that most native English speakers will read "3d" as "three-dee" - as in, three-dimensional. When that fails to parse correctly the next interpretation the brain will make is, "threed," which also makes no sense, of course. Finally, some precious fractions of a second later, a 3rd interpretation will be tried, "thread," but while the context was eventually conveyed, the time spent arriving at it will likely have exceeded the time it would have taken you to type the additional 4 letters.

While I don't mind acronyms, shorthand and even the occasional bit of jargon that is assumed to be understood, rather than defined contextually, I think "txt-speak" should be limited to when you are actually on a phone and sending a text message with a virtual keyboard.