Merit & new rank requirements

[JayJuanGee]

That, alongside the possibility that the recently added merit sources are likely modest in terms of allowance, and may have emptied their pockets during the first week or two after been added.

Yeah, I thought my sMerit supply was going to get topped up faster than it has--I forget how many merits I got when Theymos made me one of the new sources, but I used them all up pretty soon after he did it and I've yet to get any more.  I figured on the beginning of the month, but I was wrong apparently.

Yes.  This can be a bit of an experiment when you are not sure the method in which your smerits are replenished.

 

Merit source members have to spend their source smerits every 30 days in order to regenerate more source smerits.  If they do not spend their source smerits within 30days, then the source merits will not regenerate until 30 days after they spend their smerits.  

So does that mean I should get replenished 30 days from the time I was added as a source or from when I spent my last merit-source sMerit or something like that?  

I believe that when the merit system was first introduced, there were some unexplained questions about how merit source smerits were going to be replenished, and the below-linked thread shows some discussion of the issue in which initially, the smerit algorithm was not functioning as intended, yet from what I could tell, theymos had largely been able to correct it, within about two weeks after the first 30 days had passed and merits were not being replenished.

Here is a link to the thread (seemingly the same thread that was subsequently referred to above by Steamtyme, too?):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3041961.0

Furthermore, in early July there was a bit of a backlog of smerits that were rewarded to smerit sources based on previous errors in the algorithm.

In essence, source smerits are currently supposed to replenish exactly 30 days from when you spend them, so any merit source should be able to systematically track his/her smerit replenishment (or errors) if s/he were to chose to do that.

So, for example in your case, it appears that you spent smerits accordingly (assumingely source smerits):

September 16  = 3 smerits

September 17  = 13 smerits

September 18  = 5 smerits

September 19  = 3 smerits

Those smerits should replenish to your source bank of smerits 30 days from the time you spent them with the below amounts on the below dates:


October 16  = 3 smerits

October 17  = 13 smerits

October 18  = 5 smerits

October 19  = 3 smerits

I'm curious but not concerned, and I'll figure it out eventually.  Anyway, I took a look around the Economics section today and didn't see any real newbies worth meriting.  The last few posts I've merited were from relatively senior members, but they were certainly deserving of it.

I'm sure that a lot of members recognize a similar phenomena in which higher ranking members are providing a lot of decent content, and surely I have no problem spending smerits on those kinds of posts/members, and giving a bit of leniency to doesn't seem to be a bad thing, either - and likely many of us have made mistakes of giving merits to shitposers who we later realize did not really deserve the merit (or that someone later points out that the post had been plagiarized... ).  There are only so many hours in the day to attempt to figure it out, too..

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[tranthidung]

Rising from 3580 to 9684, then dropping from 9684 to 4510.
This is what I expected to see after watching your previous thread (last week). There are many demoted Junior members who ranked up back to this rank with only one new merit earned after the day newest ranking system launched weeks ago.

As I suggested in other threads, it might be better if you, or someone else, can collect specific statistics on the total demoted Junior Members who ranked up back and till now has had only one merit (enough figure for ranking up back).
Not sure, but I guess those cases and total merits received by them accounted for dominant proportions of those abnormal sudden rises of merit distribution last two week.

I really hope that you or someone else can do it someday.
I spent a couple of minutes to run simple analysis and grap box plots from those merit data. Here you go:

(1) Basic statistics:

Notes:
Dropped data means I dropped the data of the week from 17/9/2018 to 23/9/2018 out of the analysis because this one is a extremely outlier.

As you all can see that the means of those two datasets (4876, and 47111 for Full, and Dropped datasets, respectively) are much different than the Medians (4440 and 4431, for Full and Dropped datasets, respectively).
This is one of magical meanings of the Median statistic. In statistics, Medians are called as 'true' means of variables.

Besides the Medians, with the current datasets, statistics outside 3903 and 5043 (for Full dataset) or 4820 (for Dropped dataset) can be called as potential outliers because they are outside the Q3 + 1.5 IQR or Q1 - 1.5 IQR, with Q1 ~ 25th quartiel; Q3 ~ 75th quartile; IQR ~ Interquatile range.

For example:
You can look back at the table above, for the full merit dataset, we have:
- 25th quartile is
- 75th quartile is
so, the IQR = 5043 - 3903 = 1140
Q3 + 1.5 IQR = 5043 +1.5*1140 = 6753
Q1 - 1.5 IQR = 3903 - 1710 = 2193.
For the case, weeks which has total merit distributed over 6.7k or below 2.2k should be taken into deeply consideration to find out where are the reasons behinds those un-normal merit distributions for those weeks. And, please remember that those ones are only 'Potential Outliers'.
From the current dataset, you can easily see two important things:
(1) There are four potential weekly outliers [the first three weeks on the top, and the second from the bottom of the table given above], and all of them have values above 6.7k. I don't remember what actually happened in March, but I guess there were some significant changes on those weeks, maybe more new merit sources added. Highly appreciated information to explain these Potential Outliers.
(2) More interestingly, none of them has value below 2.2k. Thanks merit sources, at least they have been actively worked and kept distributing allocated merits.

Over time, when we have more weekly data, the whole picture will be clearer, and more reliable.
By now, the dataset which I used from @coinlocket$ contains only 30 data point (30 weeks), it's not large enough.

So what does it mean in real life in the BTT forum? It means when we see the total merits distributed per week above 4.8k, we can start thingking of some potential internal changes in the forum, such as significant new active merit sources, or new rules/ systems implemented recently. Interesting, right?  
These potential outliers presented as red circle in the below box plots.

(2) Box plots and histograms:
Box plots presents both medians, interquartile ranges, potential outliers.
Historgrams present that whether data (merit distribution in this case) is normal distribution by following the bell curve, or un-normal distribution (by not following the bell curve).
2.1. Full data:

2.2. Dropped data:

One more time, as you all can see that both box plots, and histograms obviously present that these dataset on merit distributions are un-nonrmal distributions.

Notes:
- I will do a time-series analysis with given datasets from @LoyceV later.
- Highly appreciated anyone help with the sort of data in Excel format (I don't need excell file, if someone can get it, simply give me a snapshot of your sheet. It is enough for me, I will input those given figures manually into my sheet). Something like this one:

- I will dedicate my spare time to do it in my coming own topic. Stay tuned, please.

[cryptofarid10]

There are many newbie. saying the big member, help me give me 1 merit. This happened to me. Now the newbie saying for the senior member. Have a look at the image attached below.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

Bear in mind that the charted dataset is not complete, likely due to space and visual display comfort. Data really goes back to the 24th of January 2018 (starting with outliers there too for obvious reasons). It will be interesting to see what you come up with that may shed some new light over what has already been said in the past. Remember that not everyone here is stat savy, so the easier the concepts the better for assimilation by a broader audience.

[tranthidung]

~snip~

Thanks. I have a feeling that most of those outliers contributed by trash merited threads, so it's good if I can get dataset on merit distribution over boards.
If I can have them [merit distribution over boards per week], I can plot more meaningful box plots.
I will also collect data posted by LoyceV to make time series analysis and find out whether there have been break trend at some points of time.

This one has been in my TO DO list.

[LoyceV]

If I can have them [merit distribution over boards per week], I can plot more meaningful box plots.

I can scrape the data if you want, but I'd need to know exactly what format you want to use. So please show me an example of (made up) input data that would work for you.

[tranthidung]

Thank you for your help. I will give you a snapshot of dataset format days later.

I can scrape the data if you want, but I'd need to know exactly what format you want to use. So please show me an example of (made up) input data that would work for you.

I can give you that sort of plot like this one:

Plots of Merit distribution over boards, days of week, ranks, etc.
Those plots will help us have clearer overview about the means/ medians (mostly medians due to un-normal distributions) of merit distributed over boards,  days of week, ranks, months of year, etc.

[tranthidung]

But everytime it is more difficult to go up. May be a newbie has done the same amount of post and merit as a Full Member, but the full member become his degree when it was much easier to get a member. I am here since one year now and still a newbie, because I need a merit, and when I started the merit was not necessary to become a Junior. It is not logical.

You should look at your post history at first.
I spend a couple of secs to look at it, which mainly contains bounty reports and one-line threads.
Which sort of qualitied your threads are? Are your threads merit-deserved?
I think that you can easily answer the question by yourself, then recognise your issues.
Let's get started by stop complaining, starting to learn and be more constructive; only writing and publishing threads when you really have something meaningful to contribute.

[S_Therapist]

@cryptofarid10
Why are you posting irrelevant image here? Is it something to do with merit system? Please stop posting off-topic.

[bittorium]

This is so hard! I was following an old guide i guess. damn, But I guess it does mean it'll push people to post with quality... I'm just trying to get jr member to make my posts look better with images, proving to be a pain to get the 1 merit required, I thought it was 30 posts so trying to be as active as possible on my thread lol

[bones261]

This is so hard! I was following an old guide i guess. damn, But I guess it does mean it'll push people to post with quality... I'm just trying to get jr member to make my posts look better with images, proving to be a pain to get the 1 merit required, I thought it was 30 posts so trying to be as active as possible on my thread lol

I granted you a mercy merit. However, if you should create another altcoin in the future, you can purchase a Copper Membership. It's only a little over .002 BTC
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2385104
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=credit;promote

[bittorium]

This is so hard! I was following an old guide i guess. damn, But I guess it does mean it'll push people to post with quality... I'm just trying to get jr member to make my posts look better with images, proving to be a pain to get the 1 merit required, I thought it was 30 posts so trying to be as active as possible on my thread lol

I granted you a mercy merit. However, if you should create another altcoin in the future, you can purchase a Copper Membership. It's only a little over .002 BTC
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2385104
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=credit;promote

Appreciated Bones thank you!!

[S_Therapist]

the majority of active contributors haven't received any merit. it like me.

Nice joke.
I have checked your post history and all without this one are bounty reports. You are helping lots of scammer to scam people.
It's really true that contributor like you haven't received any merits yet and will not get in future too.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

Merit is related rather much to contributing to the forum and it’s community. Your posting history shows that you are focused solely on contributing to yourself, which is your prerogative, but goes in the opposite direction of merit. As you say, the vast majority of people are meritless, and they will stay that way for good unless they change their mind-set.

[MagicSmoker]

I think the vast majority of people are going to have a lot of trouble getting any merit. Thus far, the majority of active contributors haven't received any merit. it like me.

Jeez, what a dumbass - I suspected plagiarism and, yep... turns out this post is a direct copy of one that was made earlier in this thread:

I think the vast majority of people are going to have a lot of trouble getting any merit. Thus far, the majority of active contributors haven't received any merit.

buh-bye.

[RivAngE]

I think the vast majority of people are going to have a lot of trouble getting any merit. Thus far, the majority of active contributors haven't received any merit. it like me.

Jeez, what a dumbass - I suspected plagiarism and, yep... turns out this post is a direct copy of one that was made earlier in this thread:

I think the vast majority of people are going to have a lot of trouble getting any merit. Thus far, the majority of active contributors haven't received any merit.

buh-bye.

What gave him/her away? The fact that the first part of the sentence was in good English and the second part made no sense?

[LoyceV]

Jeez, what a dumbass ~
buh-bye.

I wasn't sure if you reported him, so I did it just to be sure.

It kinda makes me want to Merit him, just to add to the disappointment when he gets banned

[redsn0w]

After ~10 months I can say merit system (imho) is working fine, the level of spam lowered and more & more users are getting banned everyday (autoban at https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php).

[MagicSmoker]

What gave him/her away? The fact that the first part of the sentence was in good English and the second part made no sense?

Oddly enough, the initial trigger was that the post seemed out of context with the current discussion - merit has been around for nearly 9 months so "predicting" that most people are going to have trouble getting merit is no prediction at all. It was only after I had already decided to see if the post was plagiarized that I noticed the disparity in grammar between the first two sentences and that barely literate phrase tacked on the end.

I wasn't sure if you reported him, so I did it just to be sure.

It kinda makes me want to Merit him, just to add to the disappointment when he gets banned

Have no fear, I *always* report plagiarism when I find it! But more reports are always better, as I have recently learned.

I want the current rumor among the spamming-class that "meta is the place to get dem maritz" to turn into "meta is the place to get yourself banned."

[BTCforJoe]

It kinda makes me want to Merit him, just to add to the disappointment when he gets banned

If I had a ton of sMerit to give away, I would absolutely do this. I also thought of this as I was scrolling through his/her comments. Maybe I should waste a sMerit on him/her anyways?