Merit & new rank requirements

[k0er]

how can i become a copper member

Find it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45810047#msg45810047

[coinlocket$]

Going down again!

[bones261]

Going down again!

I suspect many of the merit sources are going to start getting their smerit coffers filling up again on the 17th. The rewarded smerits should be on the rise, soon.

[LoyceV]

I suspect many of the merit sources are going to start getting their smerit coffers filling up again on the 17th. The rewarded smerits should be on the rise, soon.

I don't think the spike in Merit distribution came from merit sources, I think it largely came from merit abusers sending to their alt accounts (or buyers). So going down to normal is a good thing.
Also, source Merit is refilled 30 days after sending, not once per month only. I sent Merit 27 times on September 15, so I expect 27 (small) refills today.

[Piggy]

I don't think the spike in Merit distribution came from merit sources, I think it largely came from merit abusers sending to their alt accounts (or buyers). So going down to normal is a good thing.
Also, source Merit is refilled 30 days after sending, not once per month only. I sent Merit 27 times on September 15, so I expect 27 (small) refills today.

I think is safe to assume it was caused primarily by abusers, some obvious to see and some not, otherwise would be pretty difficult to explain that spike.
In the light of these event, imo, it may be time to consider wiping the initial merits that were airdropped, if somebody didn't find a post to merit by now, probably never will.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

One thing that does not show, and that I did not point out in the comments when updating the Merit Dashboard is that, if we compare the most recent week with previous weeks with a similar number of awarded sMerits, the number of Senders is similar, but the number of Receivers and New Receivers is noticeably higher than those past weeks. 

01/10/2018 .. 17/10/2018 -> 4.325 Merits to 1.247 distinct people (506 merited for the first time-> 40,58%).
16/07/2018 .. 22/07/2018 -> 4.277 Merits to 964 distinct people (253 merited for the first time-> 26,24%).
02/07/2018 .. 08/07/2018 -> 4.377 Merits to 1.018 distinct people (290 merited for the first time-> 28,49%).

The reading is that, being the amount of merits the same, we are nearly double in terms of forum members who receive merit for the first time. That could be due to some alt meriting still going on or, hopefully, that more new players are being merited, in comparison to similar weeks in the past, due to some of them creating better content.

[stompix]

I don't think the spike in Merit distribution came from merit sources, I think it largely came from merit abusers sending to their alt accounts (or buyers). So going down to normal is a good thing.

My thoughts exactly, the new merit sources have only a small amount of sMerits (I think?) and I've seen accounts with red trust giving away more merit in a couple of days that some new sources have done. Checking how shitposters got their 1 merit was like checking why an account complaining in meta was banned, 99% plagiarism, and in this case 99% obvious merit abuse.

But there is always a good side, I'm so happy when a report is marked good and the victim is either a newly promoted jr or a copper member:

The reading is that, being the amount of merits the same, we are nearly double in terms of forum members who receive merit for the first time. That could be due to some alt meriting still going on or, hopefully, that more new players are being merited, in comparison to similar weeks in the past, due to some of them creating better content.

I wouldn't say better...rather more!
And when I say more, an increase in the size of the posts, instead of one line of non-sense 5 lines of the same.

I don't know if it's the fear of getting banned for a two words post, new campaign requirements or merit fishing but lately, I'm seen a lot of newbies making walls of text saying nothing. I find those a lot more annoying as sometimes I'm tricked into spending time reading them just out of curiosity. Furthermore, it seems I never learn my lesson  

In the light of these event, imo, it may be time to consider wiping the initial merits that were airdropped, if somebody didn't find a post to merit by now, probably never will.

A merit decay would be great, I always said that there are a lot of shitposters even in the higher ranks.
So, losing something like 25% of the initial merit over a period would be pretty nice.

Of course, there would be some weird cases, like seeing this guy as a jr member but I somehow doubt he will come back and ask for a bigger signature to get into working bounty.

[KingZee]

If anything I believe this system just created yet one more way for higher ranks to keep monopoly over yet another "trust" system.

Let's face it, an un-established user would need to post either the cure to cancer, or to fork a cure to solve all unconfirmed bitcoin txs -and even then, MAYBE- he'll get one or two merits simply because he's not part of the top well-known 10% that browses Bitcointalk.

And because "merit sources" are obviously part of this 10%, it will only further benefit them into boosting their alts merit, making it harder and harder for members below the poverty line seniority line to make any money from sig campaigns, or any offers that take into account this account criteria.

It's really sad because I've had to deal with a lot of accounts, that are good, honest and serious people, but never really stand out because they don't intentionally deal with specific people to farm trust, or don't have some explosively booming business. (because guess what, unless you're already well known, no one is going to deal with you anyways! And vice versa, regardless of your offered service. No offense against TheButterZone, just trying to prove a point.)

What I'm trying to say is that it's easy to make constructive, well-written posts that contribute to the discussion, it's just that the majority of people doing it are incentivized. And I don't blame them, I wouldn't write a post like this unless I was paid for it, or I was emotionally invested into it.

So good job theymos, for once again increasing the entry barrier for any user without enough money to waste on an contemporary art piece or a lamborguini to boost his stats.

[LoyceV]

If anything I believe this system just created yet one more way for higher ranks to keep monopoly over yet another "trust" system.

That's quite a statement after being inactive for more than a year. Is it really that hard to believe this forum has a terrible spam problem, which has to be limited before all signature campaigns are banned entirely?

Let's face it, an un-established user would need to post either the cure to cancer, or to fork a cure to solve all unconfirmed bitcoin txs -and even then, MAYBE- he'll get one or two merits simply because he's not part of the top well-known 10% that browses Bitcointalk.

I count 22925 users who received at least 1 Merit. I think this invalidates your statement.

And because "merit sources" are obviously part of this 10%, it will only further benefit them into boosting their alts merit, making it harder and harder for members below the poverty line seniority line to make any money from sig campaigns, or any offers that take into account this account criteria.

Oh please, I don't have 429 alts.

It's really sad because I've had to deal with a lot of accounts, that are good, honest and serious people, but never really stand out because they don't intentionally deal with specific people to farm trust, or don't have some explosively booming business.

Trust has nothing to do with Merit. I've merited red trusted accounts. That doesn't necessarily mean I agree with the post, it means I think the post is worth reading, and better than 99% of the spammers.

What I'm trying to say is that it's easy to make constructive, well-written posts that contribute to the discussion, it's just that the majority of people doing it are incentivized. And I don't blame them, I wouldn't write a post like this unless I was paid for it, or I was emotionally invested into it.

Welcome back to the forum Keep posting like this, and you'll do just fine

[cryptovigi]

...
Let's face it, an un-established user would need to post either the cure to cancer, or to fork a cure to solve all unconfirmed bitcoin txs -and even then, MAYBE- he'll get one or two merits simply because he's not part of the top well-known 10% that browses Bitcointalk.

And because "merit sources" are obviously part of this 10%, it will only further benefit them into boosting their alts merit, making it harder and harder for members below the poverty line seniority line to make any money from sig campaigns, or any offers that take into account this account criteria.
...

Can't agree - I'm the best example that you are wrong. During last 3 weeks I didn't invent cure for cancer and didn't solve any unconfirmed bitcoin txs either what I sincerely regret. Unfortunately I'm not a part of the top well-known 10% that browses Bitcointalk - probably I'm a part of the top unknown 10%...

However, even without such contribution and connections I managed to get some merits. And I'm certainly not an exception what you can check in one of my last posts MYTHBUSTERS: Only high ranked users are rewarded with merits
 
So don't look for Freemasonry here... It's hard to believe but merits are open for everybody...
I'm not saying that it's easy to get one but surely they are achievable to most of users...

EDIT: Oh! Look you've just got one!!!

[KingZee]

That's quite a statement after being inactive for more than a year. Is it really that hard to believe this forum has a terrible spam problem, which has to be limited before all signature campaigns are banned entirely?

I count 22925 users who received at least 1 Merit. I think this invalidates your statement.

Oh please, I don't have 429 alts.

Trust has nothing to do with Merit. I've merited red trusted accounts. That doesn't necessarily mean I agree with the post, it means I think the post is worth reading, and better than 99% of the spammers.

Welcome back to the forum Keep posting like this, and you'll do just fine

I suck at splitting quotes so I'm concatenating. And thanks for the merit point.

I don't see how the Merit system will help reduce spammy posts. Newbie probably account for a good percentage of total posts in the Marketplace, or in the Discussion forums to boost their post count. The ONE thing that is extremely effective against spam already exists, Activity. You can only get 14 activity every 2 weeks. What's the point of spamming if you want to reach a goal of being eligible for sig campaigns, any dweeb can write one well-thought post a day. So Merit is just purely redundant in that regard.

Numbers! I love numbers! You count 22925 users who received at least 1 merit, nice. I count :

- 4% who received more or equal to 50 merit.
- 25% who received more or equal to 10 merit.
- 33% who received more or equal to 5 merit.
- 48% who received more or equal to 3 merit.
(all percentages are inclusive of ranks above them).

So basically, half the accounts that ever got merit, never got merited again. And the top 5% of people who got merited, are AT LEAST 50 times more likely than your average user to get merited.

Quick Edit : Also not to forget that these are 22k users who got merited at all. I wonder if we could get stats of Posts by Seniors Merited / Total Posts by Seniors, Full, Hero, Legendary. That oughtta be a fun sight.

I don't doubt you might not have alts, or that a bunch of people don't. But those btctalk accounts getting sold in the marketplace don't come out of thin air. There ARE people who abuse the merit system, just like they abuse other systems. The only problem I have with the merit system, is that it's BUILT to be abused by people who can. No one can FORCE their way into making a newbie account Senior overnight, but they sure as hell can spam the shit ouf ot it with merit.

This just goes to say that there is a lot wrong with this system from a neutral point of view, there is too much selectiveness for it to be unbiased. Which goes against the whole point of making it friendly for non-well known users.

Can't agree - I'm the best example that you are wrong. During last 3 weeks I didn't invent cure for cancer and didn't solve any unconfirmed bitcoin txs either what I sincerely regret. Unfortunately I'm not a part of the top well-known 10% that browses Bitcointalk - probably I'm a part of the top unknown 10%...

However, even without such contribution and connections I managed to get some merits. And I'm certainly not an exception what you can check in one of my last posts MYTHBUSTERS: Only high ranked users are rewarded with merits
 

To sum it up again, I'm not saying you'll never get merit, sure, merit is "infinite" for some users, so I don't doubt they'll feel generous every once in a while. But my point is that for 50 constructive posts you make, and from 50 average posts Mr. Big Shot makes, there's going to be a ridiculous bias against you. The problem is that Sig Campaign managers (most of them definitely falling in the top 10% category purely because they give out money "for free", and people love to merit them to slurp and kiss ass.) will have a skewed idea about merit, and that it's easily obtainable by anyone. It's not.

[hilariousetc]

So good job theymos, for once again increasing the entry barrier for any user without enough money to waste on an contemporary art piece or a lamborguini to boost his stats.

Please let me know where I can purchase a Lambo for the price of a solitary merit or a Copper Membership, or stop with the dramatic exaggeration. These idiots need to get one merit, and if they can't achieve that or afford the ten dollars for a Copper Membership then they should find another 'job'. There is no entry barrier to posting here and that's the crux of the whole issue in the first place as anyone is free to post away without limitation (other than the spam-control wait times) and when they can get paid for that it just becomes a recipe for disaster. I actually don't think there's enough barriers to be able to start earning from posting here and you should have to have actually achieved something before you're allowed to earn from posting and begging or buying a merit certainly doesn't qualify someone to do so.

[KingZee]

So good job theymos, for once again increasing the entry barrier for any user without enough money to waste on an contemporary art piece or a lamborguini to boost his stats.

Please let me know where I can purchase a Lambo for the price of a solitary merit or a Copper Membership, or stop with the dramatic exaggeration. These idiots need to get one merit, and if they can't achieve that or afford the ten dollars for a Copper Membership then they should find another 'job'. There is no entry barrier to posting here and that's the crux of the whole issue in the first place as anyone is free to post away without limitation (other than the spam-control wait times) and when they can get paid for that it just becomes a recipe for disaster. I actually don't think there's enough barriers to be able to start earning from posting here and you should have to have actually achieved something before you're allowed to earn from posting and begging or buying a merit certainly doesn't qualify someone to do so.

I may have used an extreme example but I thought it was obvious as a cheesy joke. I never meant it at all the way you understood it, the art piece or lambo just meant an extreme example of the kind of posts that get traction, and subsequently merit on the forums.

And I thought the whole point of User ranks was exactly that, "you should have to have actually achieved something before you're allowed to earn from posting". The economy made itself, anything below Junior member is most of the time completely irrelevant in sig campaigns. Other more elitist campaigns only accept hero and legendary members and make the barrier to entry even higher, I don't mind all that.

The second example that was introduced is Trust, which is a ((((little)))) similar to the merit system in the fact that only DefaultTrust members can paint others in green, but is still a great indicator because it has CONTEXT once you click someone's trust. And the fact that there isn't just + and -, the 0 also MEANS something.

And finally, Merit. The centralized limited supply currency. I objectively can't see anyone agreeing to this system, unless they're renowned members who can use connections and biased feelings from other fellow sMerit owners to exchange points.

[hilariousetc]

And I thought the whole point of User ranks was exactly that, "you should have to have actually achieved something before you're allowed to earn from posting".

But ranks are meaningless when all you need is time and they were being colossally abused because of that because all you had to do was log in and make one post every fortnight regardless of quality. Do we let eighteen year-olds drive or fly a plane as soon as they turn 18 or do we require some sort of qualification from them before they're allowed to do so? Now that you need merit ranks will actually start to mean something and are at least some sort of achievement if you earn them, but they previously didn't mean anything other than you've made a certain amount of posts over a certain amount of time.

The economy made itself, anything below Junior member is most of the time completely irrelevant in sig campaigns.

But this just wasn't the case. Many ICOs accepted anyone, even Newbies, and people were literally farming Junior accounts by their dozens and in some cases hundreds (and probably even thousands) just to abuse campaigns because that's all they needed to do to maximise earnings. That really needed to change and one merit is only a small spanner in the works for the biggest abusers and doesn't go far enough in my opinion.

Other more elitist campaigns only accept hero and legendary members and make the barrier to entry even higher, I don't mind all that.

I wouldn't call them elitist. I only wish more campaigns only accepted certain higher ranks, or just people who actually made great posts. If campaigns did their due diligence and had some quality control then we wouldn't have even needed ranks or merit in the first place, but the problem is many campaigns accepted anyone regardless of quality and that was the whole crux of the problem.

And finally, Merit. The centralized limited supply currency. I objectively can't see anyone agreeing to this system, unless they're renowned members who can use connections and biased feelings from other fellow sMerit owners to exchange points.

The only people who wouldn't agree to it are those who now actually have to start writing half-decent posts, and that isn't a bad thing. Any 'renowned' member wouldn't have an issue getting merit because they already make great contributions so it's largely irrelevant to them, but something needed to be done about the droves of people coming here just to post utter drivel over their 200 alt accounts each, especially when they can't speak English very well or know little to nothing about bitcoin and are only here because someone told them they can get paid for spamming or copy and pasting. Merit isn't a perfect system and it does work, but if you have a better solution I'm sure everyone would love to hear it.

[tranthidung]

Going down again!

Yeah, I think it is fine / normal this week.
The total merit sent has come closer to the median (you can check via my another thread here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg46590769#msg46590769)
It seems that the temporary effects of new rank requirement specifically targeted at Junior Memebers have all blurred.
The median or true mean of weekly merit distribution is nearly 4.4k.
If I were you, I would make statistics on percentage of changes between each week and median (4.4k), not between the current week and previous week.
Personally, I would like to use median as a gold standard for any comparison. It will make more sense.

In addition, it will be hard to see total weekly merit distrusted drop lower than 3.9k, which is the 25th percentile. Let's see how many times it occurs in the future.

Notes:
I will give more details when I am on computer.

Here you go:
(1) Comparison between my approach and @coinlocket$ approach:

I am so sorry due to the given blurred image, but I don't know how to make high resolution snapshoted image like @coinlocket$. Printscreening my computer screen, pasting it into Paint, the editing. All of those steps lead to a blurred image as you all can see above. It's not really related to the discussion here, but I highly appreciate someone can give me a hint.

It is easily see that even in the week with 9684 merits distributed in total, the percent changed compared with median is nearly 119%, whilst it is 171% in the statistic given by @coinlocket$.
Of course, we need more time, with more real data, but I believe that (and you all can wait to check the theory) there will be very limited weeks which have significant changes (ups/ downs) in comparision with median of the whole period. The median for the comparision will be automatically adjusted over time, and it is obviously not a constant.

My approach will better exclude extreme potential outliers at specific point of time, such as exponential rises or dramatic drops.
Those extremely weeks will seriously affect the calculation for next weeks. Median can help us to solve this issue.

(2) Basic statistics on weekly merit distribution since 5th March 2018.

[S_Therapist]

you can check via my another thread here:

Just a little correction. There is a difference between thread and post.
You should write either post or reply instead of thread here. Post and reply are closer meaning. And thread refers to an initial post or opening post.
Sorry if it hurts anyone.
Learn more- https://www.drupal.org/project/flexiforum/issues/293679

[tranthidung]

you can check via my another thread here:

Just a little correction. There is a difference between thread and post.
You should write either post or reply. Those two are closer meaning. And thread refers to an initial post or opening post.
Sorry if it hurts anyone.
Learn more- https://www.drupal.org/project/flexiforum/issues/293679

Ok my man. I will check it later with Oxford / Cambridge dictionary.
It's good if I were wrong and you exactly corrected my mistakes.
I am non-native English speakers, so it's not terrible if I use something a little bit wrong or inappropriately with contextual meaning.
Your contribution does obviously not hurt me at any extent.
Anyway, thanks.

[bones261]

I suspect many of the merit sources are going to start getting their smerit coffers filling up again on the 17th. The rewarded smerits should be on the rise, soon.

I don't think the spike in Merit distribution came from merit sources, I think it largely came from merit abusers sending to their alt accounts (or buyers). So going down to normal is a good thing.
Also, source Merit is refilled 30 days after sending, not once per month only. I sent Merit 27 times on September 15, so I expect 27 (small) refills today.

I'm just going off of what happened in my case. The amount of smerits that I get to distribute monthly increased that day. It was topped off to the new limit, so my smerits have not been replenished throughout the month. I am expecting that they will resume getting replenished in a couple of days.

[KingZee]

The economy made itself, anything below Junior member is most of the time completely irrelevant in sig campaigns.

But this just wasn't the case. Many ICOs accepted anyone, even Newbies, and people were literally farming Junior accounts by their dozens and in some cases hundreds (and probably even thousands) just to abuse campaigns because that's all they needed to do to maximise earnings. That really needed to change and one merit is only a small spanner in the works for the biggest abusers and doesn't go far enough in my opinion.

Other more elitist campaigns only accept hero and legendary members and make the barrier to entry even higher, I don't mind all that.

I wouldn't call them elitist. I only wish more campaigns only accepted certain higher ranks, or just people who actually made great posts. If campaigns did their due diligence and had some quality control then we wouldn't have even needed ranks or merit in the first place, but the problem is many campaigns accepted anyone regardless of quality and that was the whole crux of the problem.

That last statement is a bit subjective. You should see both sides of the coin. A few people already agree with you and prove it with only allowing a select few to their signatures. But the others that don't, they're not really stupid (I hope..). If they see that allowing more people is more beneficial to their campaign, who are we (you the elitist, me the more lenient) to judge? It's their money they're losing/making.

If someone is ((((stupid)))) enough to allow lesser ranked people into his campaign, regardless of whatever system you could posssibly come up with, they're going to keep their low standards.

Requoting you : "people were literally farming Junior accounts by their dozens and in some cases hundreds (and probably even thousands) just to abuse campaigns"

That honestly is another problem which is alt accounts. If genuine unique people came in droves to register on the bitcointalk, is that really a bad thing? If they were indeed alts, I'm 100% pro-alt banning. Alt accounts add nothing of value.

And finally, Merit. The centralized limited supply currency. I objectively can't see anyone agreeing to this system, unless they're renowned members who can use connections and biased feelings from other fellow sMerit owners to exchange points.

The only people who wouldn't agree to it are those who now actually have to start writing half-decent posts, and that isn't a bad thing. Any 'renowned' member wouldn't have an issue getting merit because they already make great contributions so it's largely irrelevant to them, but something needed to be done about the droves of people coming here just to post utter drivel over their 200 alt accounts each, especially when they can't speak English very well or know little to nothing about bitcoin and are only here because someone told them they can get paid for spamming or copy and pasting. Merit isn't a perfect system and it does work, but if you have a better solution I'm sure everyone would love to hear it.

Like I said, I agree with you that alt accounts are bad. But is Merit really solving the problem here? This is pure speculation but I'm willing to bet that people who are interested in alt accounts are more likely to be longtime members that true newbies.

The merit system doesn't benefit people who write half-decent posts, more than it benefits people who have some sort of "fanbase", "fellowship", sometimes power, leverage. No one besides the select few sMerit generators is going to waste his points on the daily. He needs them to maybe build trust, convince someone, kiss ass, whatever the reasons may be, the reason of "oh wow i'll merit this well written post because the user is honest" comes last.

A solution? What's the problem in the first place? Alt accounts? I don't know the behind-the-scenes of this forum, but maybe just ban out alting as a whole? If we can all agree on paper that they bring nothing of value, why don't you act on it?

If the problem isn't alt accounts, what then? Forcing people to make well-written posts? There are other systems based on negatives rather than positives. Punish the users who DO spam, don't punish the users who don't post ENOUGH. Force a word-count rule on lower ranked users.
Or maybe the merit system but in reverse, instead of people being able to +1 people, how about them being able to -1. No one might care about meriting a well-written post, but that doesn't matter because it also prohibits people from using merit as a bargain chip. On the other hand, if a user posts some extremely low quality post, make other users punish him.

In my personal opinion, in the end, context matters a lot. You can't judge a post quality based on word count, user rank, or merits. Almost all signature campaign posts have a shitton of merit, does that mean they contribute with any intrinsic value besides money money for everyone? So in the end, without context, it's just another stat that people are going to trade.

[hilariousetc]

That last statement is a bit subjective. You should see both sides of the coin. A few people already agree with you and prove it with only allowing a select few to their signatures. But the others that don't, they're not really stupid (I hope..). If they see that allowing more people is more beneficial to their campaign, who are we (you the elitist, me the more lenient) to judge? It's their money they're losing/making.

It's irrelevant who's money they're losing or making when it's at the detriment to the forum. ICOs are pretty much wholly responsible for the forum being a wall-to-wall shitshow consisting of barely coherent crap made only for payment. Most ICOs don't actually lose anything either because they pay people in a pre-mined token or coin that they've made for free, so that's why they accept anyone and everyone regardless of quality because the more people advertising for them then the better, but this shouldn't be acceptable.

Requoting you : "people were literally farming Junior accounts by their dozens and in some cases hundreds (and probably even thousands) just to abuse campaigns"

That honestly is another problem which is alt accounts. If genuine unique people came in droves to register on the bitcointalk, is that really a bad thing?

Depends what you mean by genuine users? Little cousin Timmy signing up to this forum because he's just been told he can get paid for posting? Is he a genuine user? Not when little Timmy can't speak English very well if at all and has only just found out about bitcoin and doesn't even give a shit about it other than the fact that he can earn money here. That's when we have a problem and that's why the forum is filled with mindless drivel, because little Timmy wants to earn some money and this forum is his best option for doing so. The fact that it's a forum about bitcoin is inconsequential and irrelevant to him, and that's a huge problem.

Like I said, I agree with you that alt accounts are bad. But is Merit really solving the problem here?

Merit doesn't solve the problem, but it helps curb abuse and is one more hoop they need to jump through. It obviously doesn't go far enough though, but at least it stops bots and the worst of the worse of posters from being able to get paid for copy and pasting or posting rubbish straight from the get-go.

This is pure speculation but I'm willing to bet that people who are interested in alt accounts are more likely to be longtime members that true newbies.

What do you mean exactly by "interested in". The forum has decayed to the point of unusability because the board has slowly morphed into a place for people to earn money rather than being about a place to talk about bitcoin. Probably 99% of people only sign up here to earn from posting these days. It's like signing up to a Chinese Lamborghini forum. Only you can't speak Chinese, you don't care about cars and can't even drive. If a Chinese Lamborghini forum did start paying people to post then you'd have the same problem you have here: "I like Lamborghinis because they go fast and are nice colours and can get me from A to B and they help me with my daily needs". Ka-ching. Money in the pocket. Rinse and repeat over however many accounts you have and soon you might actually be able to afford that Lambo.  

The merit system doesn't benefit people who write half-decent posts, more than it benefits people who have some sort of "fanbase", "fellowship", sometimes power, leverage. No one besides the select few sMerit generators is going to waste his points on the daily. He needs them to maybe build trust, convince someone, kiss ass, whatever the reasons may be, the reason of "oh wow i'll merit this well written post because the user is honest" comes last.

I wholly disagree. If this was the case then nobody would be giving them out other than to their friends or "fanbase" and this just isn't the case. Most of us want people to make great posts regardless of who or what rank you are, because we're tired of the forum being overran with idiots posting drivel just to get paid. What possible benefit does somebody have by giving me merit? Show me what benefits the people who have merited me have received, otherwise this is just baseless and biased speculation. I don't even need it for anything, and I certainly don't look through my merit history making notes of the names so I can maybe do them a favour or send them some business their way.

A solution? What's the problem in the first place? Alt accounts? I don't know the behind-the-scenes of this forum, but maybe just ban out alting as a whole? If we can all agree on paper that they bring nothing of value, why don't you act on it?

Not really alts, but low quality posting. How do you ban alts exactly? One of the reasons they're allowed is because you can't really enforce the rule efficiently. There are also genuine reasons for having alts.

If the problem isn't alt accounts, what then? Forcing people to make well-written posts? There are other systems based on negatives rather than positives. Punish the users who DO spam, don't punish the users who don't post ENOUGH. Force a word-count rule on lower ranked users.

We're not punishing people who don't post enough. We're punishing people who don't really make any posts of substance. It should tell you all you need to know that people are crying like hysterical babies that they now need to get one merit for a signature. A solitary merit. How outrageous! Most people just aren't capable of writing anything constructive and hence why they're so irate because merit isn't easy for them to get, especially when you've got dozens of alts accounts. They got used to earning good money by posting shit and now some effort is actually required these entitled babies are furious because you've essentially snatched money out of their greedy/lazy hands. A word count rule doesn't do anything either and it can make things worse when people just carry on rambling to hit their quota. Some campaigns have had minimum word counts in the past but people just found ways to abuse it by hiding invisible junk onto the end of their posts.

Or maybe the merit system but in reverse, instead of people being able to +1 people, how about them being able to -1. No one might care about meriting a well-written post, but that doesn't matter because it also prohibits people from using merit as a bargain chip. On the other hand, if a user posts some extremely low quality post, make other users punish him.

Really? How is this any different? This is actually a far worse system and I don't think you've actually thought it through. If we would  have implemented this system you'd be here complaining about that right now as would thousands of other angry shitposters who had been neg-bombed into oblivion and have negative chance of being able to earn. How would they even get that back to positive or neutral without some sort of +1?

In my personal opinion, in the end, context matters a lot. You can't judge a post quality based on word count, user rank, or merits. Almost all signature campaign posts have a shitton of merit, does that mean they contribute with any intrinsic value besides money money for everyone? So in the end, without context, it's just another stat that people are going to trade.

You can't on word count or rank, but why not merit? It somebody writes a really great post it's almost certainly going to get a merit, and probably quite a bit of it, and merit is a pretty good indication of a quality post or not as users making generic nonsense will go unmerited. Again, it's not a perfect system but it's better than nothing and anyone who comes here to contribute something worthwhile should have nothing to worry about as they will get the required merit over time, but those that come here and can't speak English very well and can offer nothing more than basic generic opinions are going to struggle and so they should. Merit isn't the be all and end all of spam control and it needs to go further, and there's a lot more that we need to be doing like punishing badly run signature campaigns, but this is a start and is certainly better than nothing.