Merit & new rank requirements

[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.

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[KingZee]

I'm going to keep this one short, you convey two big points that I don't agree with, and that are two opinions that could obviously split off a lot of people:

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.

"...earn money, and trade rather than being..." I'm going to add that part to your definition, because yes : I probably agree that posts involving either trades or signature campaigns make off the majority of the posts on this forum. Just look at this post for example, or any big post where anyone feels like they can shove a +1 post count. It's as clear as day.

What I don't agree with, is your opinion on this "problem". EVEN YOU have a ChipMixer sig. I DONT have one and am still committing to this argument with you with absolutely no profit. THE MASSIVE MAJORITY wouldn't give a single fuck in my shoes, because behold, the rule of not just this forum, but the internet: No one has time to waste on arguments with anonyomus avatars online.

This is even harder for BTCtalk, BECAUSE it's a forum based around money. Newbies are going to come here all the time, to trade, make money, or scam.

So, the fact that you want to implement every draconian measure to completely shut down people from making money? You need to be extremely oblivious to not see how biased your situation is. I said it once, I'm going to say it again, see both sides of the coin. Unless you're willing to completely ban out sig campaigns as a whole and only keep classic banner ads -that would be a fun sight, wouldn't it!-, kindly stop referring to anyone other than hero or legendary as "leeches".

It's this opinion you have about people making money off the forums, that isn't objective. A few people might agree with you to completely stop campaigns from recruiting newbies. (BECAUSE they're heroes or legendaries) Others might not, like me! Because I'm a senior that can make good posts and don't want more baseless rules that make it harder for casual posters like me to make money.

I mean fuck off, over a 1000 words written the last 24 hours and still barely at +3 merit, which brings me to your next point.

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.

This second point is also not objectively true. What is a great post? An ICO accouncement or sig campaign giving out free money that gets showered with merit? A well known user that can use a paintbrush and draw "bitcoin art" to sell to the community? Jesus man, PLEASE try to look at it from my perspective, and the perspective of a lot of above-average casual users. I could spend fuck-all months discussing like I'm doing now to barely make a 1/10th of what a legendary user would make taking a picture of a bitcoin tattoo on his ass.

So I said I was going to keep this short, and I think? I did. We're never going to agree because both the points above are always going to be biased. And I mean let's face it, this system isn't going to change even if 70% of the forum voted it off. Cheers.

[hilariousetc]

I'm going to keep this one short, you convey two big points that I don't agree with, and that are two opinions that could obviously split off a lot of people:

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.

"...earn money, and trade rather than being..." I'm going to add that part to your definition, because yes : I probably agree that posts involving either trades or signature campaigns make off the majority of the posts on this forum.

What trades are these? I don't see any trades going on in Bitcoin Discussion or Economics but a whole lot of noise being chatted about things people don't really understand but are doing so just for payment. Go into any thread and read some of the replies in those two subs. It's embarrassing, just like it would be embarrassing if I tried to talk about Lamborghinis in mandarin. Regardless of how much trading is going on it is obviously dwarfed by signature spam and this is the issue because it ruins discussion for everybody.

Just look at this post for example, or any big post where anyone feels like they can shove a +1 post count. It's as clear as day.

What's as clear as day? I don't understand what point you're trying to make here.

What I don't agree with, is your opinion on this "problem". EVEN YOU have a ChipMixer sig. I DONT have one and am still committing to this argument with you with absolutely no profit.

I don't get what relevancy my signature has to do with anything here, and certainly isn't relevant to my argument about people making dreadful posts, but let's not be hypocrite here. You might not be on a campaign yet but you've literally just reappeared after quite an absence to apply for the very same campaign:

Hi, I noticed there's a user with low quality posts on your spreadsheet. Maybe you'd want a replacement. I can write high quality posts.

Username: KingZee
Post Count: 437
BTC Address : 1KingZeeW97uLvngcUA3R6QJx18Fn78ddb

To even have a chance of getting onto that campaign you're going to have to make some decent posts in the meantime so let's not pretend that isn't in the back of your mind here and is probably your only motivation for even engaging with me right now. 

THE MASSIVE MAJORITY wouldn't give a single fuck in my shoes, because behold, the rule of not just this forum, but the internet: No one has time to waste on arguments with anonyomus avatars online.

Really? Not sure I understand you right here but isn't the exactly what you're doing now? I think people do have time. Too much time. On 99% of forums people post or troll for free, but there is financial incentive here so it makes things unique and exponentially worse because greed and laziness become motivation. I have no issue with people getting paid to post if people are actually contributing something of substance, but people shouldn't be able to get paid for regurgitating the same sentence over 200 alt accounts just to get paid and that's what we're trying to solve.

So, the fact that you want to implement every draconian measure to completely shut down people from making money? You need to be extremely oblivious to not see how biased your situation is.

None of what I've suggested is draconian and claiming so seems to be a gross exaggeration or being overly dramatic just for the sake. Requiring a few merit is nothing. Do you think requiring a drivers license to drive is draconian? I'd say it's logical. Not everyone is qualified to drive, just like not everyone is qualified to earn via posting.

I said it once, I'm going to say it again, see both sides of the coin.

I do see both sides. I'm actually trying to make things better for everyone. People shouldn't be able to get paid to destroy the forum so I'm saying earn that right. People are literally getting paid for writing junk and I don't think that's acceptable, just like I don't think it would be acceptable for someone to do a job that they're not qualified for.

Unless you're willing to completely ban out sig campaigns as a whole and only keep classic banner ads -that would be a fun sight, wouldn't it!-, kindly stop referring to anyone other than hero or legendary as "leeches".

Please kindly stop making stuff up. Where did I refer to anyone who is not a high rank as leeches? I don't think people should be able to get paid for merely banging their head against a keyboard or writing something like "bitcoin is good because it's profit and profit is good because it's bitcoin and I can buy my daily needs with profit". All I'm asking is for some minimum standards because clearly things can't go on as they are, and without doing something about it now then the next step would be to remove signatures completely. What would you and all the shitposters do then? The spammers would leave as fast as they came and to never return and thus having ruined it for everyone else in the process. I don't think they should be able to ruin it for everyone else and that's why we need some standards before the ultimate solution is to get rid of signatures.

It's this opinion you have about people making money off the forums, that isn't objective. A few people might agree with you to completely stop campaigns from recruiting newbies. (BECAUSE they're heroes or legendaries) Others might not, like me! Because I'm a senior that can make good posts and don't want more baseless rules that make it harder for casual posters like me to make money.

You mean you want to easily be able to get paid for doing nothing? If you can make good posts then you shouldn't have an issue, but you're basically just complaining that you can't earn money easily and straight away.

I mean fuck off, over a 1000 words written the last 24 hours and still barely at +3 merit, which brings me to your next point.

What exactly is your point here? I write long posts and barely got any merit?

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.

This second point is also not objectively true. What is a great post? An ICO accouncement or sig campaign giving out free money that gets showered with merit? A well known user that can use a paintbrush and draw "bitcoin art" to sell to the community? Jesus man, PLEASE try to look at it from my perspective, and the perspective of a lot of above-average casual users. I could spend fuck-all months discussing like I'm doing now to barely make a 1/10th of what a legendary user would make taking a picture of a bitcoin tattoo on his ass.

So I said I was going to keep this short, and I think? I did. We're never going to agree because both the points above are always going to be biased. And I mean let's face it, this system isn't going to change even if 70% of the forum voted it off. Cheers.

What is and isn't a great post is subjective, but my point is that if you're a decent contributor who puts thought and effort into their posts then you will almost certainly have no issue in getting the required merit to move up ranks over time. Spammers wont though and that's why the merit system is here.

[BellwalletOfficial]

I'm going to keep this one short, you convey two big points that I don't agree with, and that are two opinions that could obviously split off a lot of people:

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.

"...earn money, and trade rather than being..." I'm going to add that part to your definition, because yes : I probably agree that posts involving either trades or signature campaigns make off the majority of the posts on this forum.

What trades are these? I don't see any trades going on in Bitcoin Discussion or Economics but a whole lot of noise being chatted about things people don't really understand but are doing so just for payment. Go into any thread and read some of the replies in those two subs. It's embarrassing, just like it would be embarrassing if I tried to talk about Lamborghinis in mandarin. Regardless of how much trading is going on it is obviously dwarfed by signature spam and this is the issue because it ruins discussion for everybody.

Just look at this post for example, or any big post where anyone feels like they can shove a +1 post count. It's as clear as day.

What's as clear as day? I don't understand what point you're trying to make here.

What I don't agree with, is your opinion on this "problem". EVEN YOU have a ChipMixer sig. I DONT have one and am still committing to this argument with you with absolutely no profit.

I don't get what relevancy my signature has to do with anything here, and certainly isn't relevant to my argument about people making dreadful posts, but let's not be hypocrite here. You might not be on a campaign yet but you've literally just reappeared after quite an absence to apply for the very same campaign:

Hi, I noticed there's a user with low quality posts on your spreadsheet. Maybe you'd want a replacement. I can write high quality posts.

Username: KingZee
Post Count: 437
BTC Address : 1KingZeeW97uLvngcUA3R6QJx18Fn78ddb

To even have a chance of getting onto that campaign you're going to have to make some decent posts in the meantime so let's not pretend that isn't in the back of your mind here and is probably your only motivation for even engaging with me right now. 

THE MASSIVE MAJORITY wouldn't give a single fuck in my shoes, because behold, the rule of not just this forum, but the internet: No one has time to waste on arguments with anonyomus avatars online.

Really? Not sure I understand you right here but isn't the exactly what you're doing now? I think people do have time. Too much time. On 99% of forums people post or troll for free, but there is financial incentive here so it makes things unique and exponentially worse because greed and laziness become motivation. I have no issue with people getting paid to post if people are actually contributing something of substance, but people shouldn't be able to get paid for regurgitating the same sentence over 200 alt accounts just to get paid and that's what we're trying to solve.

So, the fact that you want to implement every draconian measure to completely shut down people from making money? You need to be extremely oblivious to not see how biased your situation is.

None of what I've suggested is draconian and claiming so seems to be a gross exaggeration or being overly dramatic just for the sake. Requiring a few merit is nothing. Do you think requiring a drivers license to drive is draconian? I'd say it's logical. Not everyone is qualified to drive, just like not everyone is qualified to earn via posting.

I said it once, I'm going to say it again, see both sides of the coin.

I do see both sides. I'm actually trying to make things better for everyone. People shouldn't be able to get paid to destroy the forum so I'm saying earn that right. People are literally getting paid for writing junk and I don't think that's acceptable, just like I don't think it would be acceptable for someone to do a job that they're not qualified for.

Unless you're willing to completely ban out sig campaigns as a whole and only keep classic banner ads -that would be a fun sight, wouldn't it!-, kindly stop referring to anyone other than hero or legendary as "leeches".

Please kindly stop making stuff up. Where did I refer to anyone who is not a high rank as leeches? I don't think people should be able to get paid for merely banging their head against a keyboard or writing something like "bitcoin is good because it's profit and profit is good because it's bitcoin and I can buy my daily needs with profit". All I'm asking is for some minimum standards because clearly things can't go on as they are, and without doing something about it now then the next step would be to remove signatures completely. What would you and all the shitposters do then? The spammers would leave as fast as they came and to never return and thus having ruined it for everyone else in the process. I don't think they should be able to ruin it for everyone else and that's why we need some standards before the ultimate solution is to get rid of signatures.

It's this opinion you have about people making money off the forums, that isn't objective. A few people might agree with you to completely stop campaigns from recruiting newbies. (BECAUSE they're heroes or legendaries) Others might not, like me! Because I'm a senior that can make good posts and don't want more baseless rules that make it harder for casual posters like me to make money.

You mean you want to easily be able to get paid for doing nothing? If you can make good posts then you shouldn't have an issue, but you're basically just complaining that you can't earn money easily and straight away.

I mean fuck off, over a 1000 words written the last 24 hours and still barely at +3 merit, which brings me to your next point.

What exactly is your point here? I write long posts and barely got any merit?

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.

This second point is also not objectively true. What is a great post? An ICO accouncement or sig campaign giving out free money that gets showered with merit? A well known user that can use a paintbrush and draw "bitcoin art" to sell to the community? Jesus man, PLEASE try to look at it from my perspective, and the perspective of a lot of above-average casual users. I could spend fuck-all months discussing like I'm doing now to barely make a 1/10th of what a legendary user would make taking a picture of a bitcoin tattoo on his ass.

So I said I was going to keep this short, and I think? I did. We're never going to agree because both the points above are always going to be biased. And I mean let's face it, this system isn't going to change even if 70% of the forum voted it off. Cheers.

What is and isn't a great post is subjective, but my point is that if you're a decent contributor who puts thought and effort into their posts then you will almost certainly have no issue in getting the required merit to move up ranks over time. Spammers wont though and that's why the merit system is here.

There are just WAY TOO MUCH junks in the forum.
Thank god for the merit system, hundreds of hours are saved to decide what/who to trust.
(Also I like the system where meaning less posts like jus saying "Hi" get deleted immediately.)

I've been dealing with tremendous amounts of information every day just like everyone else.
So WHO said the info is sometimes more important than the info itself.

[S_Therapist]

Thank god for the merit system, hundreds of hours are saved to decide what/who to trust.

There has nothing to trust someone with merits. For example, DT has painted Quickseller as untrusted/ trade with caution but he got merit from DT. So, basically, merit is for good quality posts, not for believing someone. Consider everything when the matter is trusting someone.

[Thekool1s]

@kingzee I came to bitcointalk for freelancing and not for signature campaigns. When I joined there was only 1 signature campaign going around which was of prime dice. So your idea about people coming here to make money is the right one but I strongly agree with hilarious, you don't want to pay people who bash random keys on their keyboard and make more money than a salaryman in their country. The opportunity which Bitcointalk presents has made money people 'lazy' TBH. You can still make money in many different ways. Just visit the marketplace there are all sorts of tasks for everyone.

I mean fuck off, over a 1000 words written the last 24 hours and still barely at +3 merit, which brings me to your next point.

I often hear that most legendary users got their merit through the airdrop. It's true. Many people got it from the airdrop but the problem here is you think of merit as bitcoin. People could 'mine' bitcoin through CPUs and GPUs back in the day. Any bitcoin 'miner' today could complain about people who got all those bitcoins for merely just being there and doing very 'little effort' to get those BTCs. Being at the right place and at the right time does matter. The amount of 'effort' put by those people in terms of 'hashing' was way lower than we have today and they still got 'paid' more. You may think its the same case with 'merit' but TBH its totally opposite. If you make a half decent post on a topic you have real knowledge of. Merit will find its way to you.

Also, +3 merit in 24 hours isn't bad for casual discussions if you ask me. Many people struggle to get merit a week. You will eventually get there if you keep up your post quality. I will also suggest you be open-minded. There are far better ways to make money than posting random junk on the internet.

[KingZee]

So your idea about people coming here to make money is the right one but I strongly agree with hilarious, you don't want to pay people who bash random keys on their keyboard and make more money than a salaryman in their country. The opportunity which Bitcointalk presents has made money people 'lazy' TBH.

The people who come here don't necessarily spend all their days and live through sig campaigns. It's not that hard nor that time-consuming, so let's face it, the pay per hour wasted is definitely worthwile for almost anyone.

But WHY do all of you guys belittle Juniors, Members, and Full members this much? Sig campaign managers put (word-count, time, etc..) limits on their campaigns all the time. I'm sure that you could pick any random senior and hero participating in the same campaign and you would see very little difference in post quality, as long as they both adhere to the sig campaign rules.

What I don't understand (or I do understand it.. I just don't like it), is this stance towards lesser ranked members. WHY don't you want them making money too? I'm an example of many, the lowest accepting campaign takes Senior with min 260 merit, average is a lot higher now. WHY do I need to put in so much extra effort to become eligible? It's purely unfair, because just a few weeks ago, I had the same possibilities open to me like you did. But right now, the gap has gotten so much larger, that it just benefits you guys, the ones who already made it past the red line.

It's a shame I can't view all members to prove my point, but there's probably a shitload of existing hero members that make posts of mediocre quality. The same quality that a junior sig campaign member would do write to barely fit his post inside the post count rules. But because the merit system was uneven from the start, it makes it look a lot worse than what it already is.

Also, +3 merit in 24 hours isn't bad for casual discussions if you ask me. Many people struggle to get merit a week. You will eventually get there if you keep up your post quality. I will also suggest you be open-minded. There are far better ways to make money than posting random junk on the internet.

And yet there are users who already make +30 to +300 in a week...

And please, sigs are by far the easiest way to make money, you guys make newbies look like some sort of mentally challenged people. All kinds of user accounts regardless of level are going to read the sig campaign rules and do the bare minimum to make their posts fit in.

Everyone was a newbie x years ago. The activity system is great because it proves user commitment to contributing to the forums, the trust system is good because it can flag users that might make their way unethically through that system. The merit system? It's designed unevenly from the start. No equal opportunity, just biased judgements. Made a great post? The fact alone that you don't have more than 4 coins under your name instantly divides your deserved merit by how much of a superiority complex does the legendary member reading it has.

[hilariousetc]

The people who come here don't necessarily spend all their days and live through sig campaigns. It's not that hard nor that time-consuming

You're right, it isn't that hard, but that's the issue. A lot of people are actually coming here and "doing bitcoin full time" and this is their "job" now, but they're doing a shoddy job. The problem is is that some people do just sign up here to earn by getting paid and they literally have dozens to sometimes hundreds of accounts just churning out rubbish on each of them, and that's why we unfortunately need the merit system.

But WHY do all of you guys belittle Juniors, Members, and Full members this much? Sig campaign managers put (word-count, time, etc..) limits on their campaigns all the time. I'm sure that you could pick any random senior and hero participating in the same campaign and you would see very little difference in post quality, as long as they both adhere to the sig campaign rules.

We don't, but for some reason you think we do. We belittle the shitposters, who just so happen to consist of a lot of lower ranks a lot of the time, but there are shitposters of every rank. People are tired of all the spam, not just spam from lower ranks, but systems need to be put in place to stop spammers farming as many accounts as they like and the merit system severely curbs that.

What I don't understand (or I do understand it.. I just don't like it), is this stance towards lesser ranked members. WHY don't you want them making money too?

You seem to be confused about something here. We don't want shitposters making money for spam. People shouldn't be able to get paid for posting rubbish regardless of rank. I don't care about others making money. In fact, I think it's great if people can make some money here just for posting, but not for writing crap about something they know nothing about.

I'm an example of many, the lowest accepting campaign takes Senior with min 260 merit, average is a lot higher now. WHY do I need to put in so much extra effort to become eligible? It's purely unfair, because just a few weeks ago, I had the same possibilities open to me like you did. But right now, the gap has gotten so much larger, that it just benefits you guys, the ones who already made it past the red line.

Poor you. You're literally complaining that you have to put effort into your posts now. Have you ever thought that you or your attitude might be part of the problem? People have become so entitled here it's ridiculous. We have no control over what campaigns accept as their minimum thresholds, but I think they should have higher standards and much more so. If every campaign did then we wouldn't have an issue with spam in the first place and we probably wouldn't have needed the merit system either, but campaigns are lazy and were paying for spam constantly and something needed to change.

Oh, there are also lots of campaigns you can join, even as lower rank, but I suspect they don't pay as much as you'd like and the fact that you can't get onto a higher paying campaign straight away and without any fuss is probably what's annoyed you so much.

It's a shame I can't view all members to prove my point, but there's probably a shitload of existing hero members that make posts of mediocre quality. The same quality that a junior sig campaign member would do write to barely fit his post inside the post count rules. But because the merit system was uneven from the start, it makes it look a lot worse than what it already is.

There are lots of shitposting Heroes (and every other rank), but this is why campaigns shouldn't just accept anyone based on rank and should take each user on a case by case basis, like ChipMixer does. A mere rank doesn't mean you're a great poster, but you need a higher rank for a bigger signature and that's what most of the campaigns want or are paying for. That doesn't mean they should be paying for spam though.

[TheBeardedBaby]

~

Look man, I've been reporting rule-breakers since the time I got involved with this forum. I'm not so experienced as other users or the mods, but after almost 2000 successful reports here is my observation >

In this sea of newbies registered every day you can find probably 2-3 users that have real interest in cryptocurrency, and are here to stay the rest are accounts used for >
20% - bumping thread (quite a business here) they are controlled by a few people.
30% - alt accounts for abusing the bounties
30%- legit people heard that they can make money online
15%- banned people, just ban evading.
3% - people having different issues, looking for help.
2% -  announcing new projects, services etc.
Note > this is just based only on my observation.

Big part of those above get banned.
I'm talking only for the newbies here, how you can see them in a different way as the majority are here only to harm/pollute the forum? I know that there are good people out there with good intentions and sooner or later they gonna pass trough this shitposting border and come out as legit users but it takes time.

[KingZee]

... We belittle the shitposters, who just so happen to consist of a lot of lower ranks a lot of the time, but there are shitposters of every rank.

...

You seem to be confused about something here. We don't want shitposters making money for spam. People shouldn't be able to get paid for posting rubbish regardless of rank.

...

So explain to me how does the merit system prevent heroes and legendaries from posting equally low effort posts if they start with more points, have more to distribute to each other, and vice versa, how does it encourage lower ranks to merit posts that deserve to be merited, if they don't have many sMerits nor Merits themselves?

Poor you. You're literally complaining that you have to put effort into your posts now. Have you ever thought that you or your attitude might be part of the problem? People have become so entitled here it's ridiculous. We have no control over what campaigns accept as their minimum thresholds, but I think they should have higher standards and much more so. If every campaign did then we wouldn't have an issue with spam in the first place and we probably wouldn't have needed the merit system either, but campaigns are lazy and were paying for spam constantly and something needed to change.

Oh, there are also lots of campaigns you can join, even as lower rank, but I suspect they don't pay as much as you'd like and the fact that you can't get onto a higher paying campaign straight away and without any fuss is probably what's annoyed you so much.

Lol? I don't even have a sig campaign under me. I already know I'm never getting merited because the top people who have the points only merit the people they care about. So what are you even talking about? I am writing these long-ass posts out of pure disgust of the merit system.

And YES, I don't want to post 60 posts a week to make 20$/week. That's the whole POINT I'm arguing for. It's MERIT that denied me access to higher paying sigs. This last paragraph you wrote is just pure garbage..

[KingZee]

Look man, I've been reporting rule-breakers since the time I got involved with this forum. I'm not so experienced as other users or the mods, but after almost 2000 successful reports here is my observation >

In this sea of newbies registered every day you can find probably 2-3 users that have real interest in cryptocurrency, and are here to stay the rest are accounts used for >
20% - bumping thread (quite a business here) they are controlled by a few people.
30% - alt accounts for abusing the bounties
30%- legit people heard that they can make money online
15%- banned people, just ban evading.
3% - people having different issues, looking for help.
2% -  announcing new projects, services etc.
Note > this is just based only on my observation.

Big part of those above get banned.
I'm talking only for the newbies here, how you can see them in a different way as the majority are here only to harm/pollute the forum? I know that there are good people out there with good intentions and sooner or later they gonna pass trough this shitposting border and come out as legit users but it takes time.

Regardless if your observation is true or not, merit isn't even a problem for those newbie accounts. It BECOMES a problem for legit newbies who WANT to commit to the forums to make money later, because it's now HARDER for them to breach the line to become relevant.

The fact that they're newbies already fucks them over because no one is going to merit them, and that's it, stuck in a deadlock, not just as newbies, but again and again until they reach Hero level.

[TryNinja]

The fact that they're newbies already fucks them over because no one is going to merit them, and that's it, stuck in a deadlock, not just as newbies, but again and again until they reach Hero level.

No one cares if they are a Newbie or not. I will merit anyone regardless of their rank if their post is good enough. Actually, I prefer to rank up low-rank because it "helps" them.

The problem is that finding a Newbie that deserves even a single merit is a hard task.

A quick read for you: MYTHBUSTERS: Only high ranked users are rewarded with merits

[KingZee]

A quick read for you: MYTHBUSTERS: Only high ranked users are rewarded with merits

From that post :

For sure, if we changed absolute numbers to the relatives – compare the number of all users in each group to number of users who have ever received any merit this analysis would probably look little bit different – higher ranks would show bigger percent users who has been merited… I wrote about a bit about it earlier here:
Quote from: cryptovigi on October 04, 2018, 12:17:36 AM
...

Rank                          number of users         number of users      
received at least
1 merit

   number of users      
with who didn’t
earn any merit
Member   27 918   4 744 (17%)   23 174  (83%)
Full Member   18 181   3 173 (17,45%)   15 008  (82,55%)
Sr. Member   9 016   1 818 (20,16%)   7 198  (79,84%)
Hero Member   4 143   1 105 (26,67%)   3 038  (73,33%)
Legendary   2 145   1 133 (52,82%)   1 012  (47,18%)
...
But the difference is not as much so let’s leave it - it’s not a point of my consideration today.

To sum it up for you, If 100 newbies out of 10000 newbies got a 100 merit, and 80 legendaries out of a 100 got 100 merit... I hope you can complete the sentence.

Those stats are also missing vital information about distribution. I should include mine that I posted a few posts ago :

...

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.

.....

It's not because it has MYTHBUSTERS written in caps, and shiny pics that it makes any sort of statistical sense.

[TryNinja]

~

So, just because more Legendary users get more merit than most Newbies, you can safely assume that no one likes Newbies and they won't merit them by any means? Have you thought that maybe it's because there are a lot more Newbies (created in bulk by spammers), which inflames these numbers?

Meanwhile, others only care about their beloved 1 merit to rank up to Jr. Member and keep spamming their bounty entries, which may be the reason why a lot of them only try until they get merited a few times, and when they can go back to their spam, they do it without thinking twice.

[KingZee]

So, just because more Legendary users get more merit than most Newbies, you can safely assume that no one likes Newbies and they won't merit them by no means? Have you thought that maybe it's because there are a lot more Newbies (created in bulk by spammers), that those numbers are inflated?

While others only care about their beloved 1 merit to rank up to Jr. Member and keep spamming their bounty entries, which may be the reason why a lot of them only try until they get merited a few times, and when they can go back to their spam, they do it without thinking twice.

Sure, that makes sense. How about we do this :

Out of all the newbies/jrs/fulls/srs who DID get merit -which I'm going to assume means they're not spamming, if you can agree to that- what's the average merit they received per post, and what's the average of unique members that merited those newbies/jrs/fulls per post.

Just these two for each member rank, then do it for legendaries and heroes too. If the stats are evenly distributed i'll never mention this topic again.

EDIT : I doubt anyone has the fucking time or effort to do this, but if we want to also include post quality here, instead of average merit per post, make it average merit per WORD. A lot of words mean a quality post right? I'd eat my shorts if newbies make even a twentieth of what a hero makes.

[RivAngE]

~

So, just because more Legendary users get more merit than most Newbies, you can safely assume that no one likes Newbies and they won't merit them by any means? Have you thought that maybe it's because there are a lot more Newbies (created in bulk by spammers), which inflames these numbers?

Meanwhile, others only care about their beloved 1 merit to rank up to Jr. Member and keep spamming their bounty entries, which may be the reason why a lot of them only try until they get merited a few times, and when they can go back to their spam, they do it without thinking twice.

I'd say they don't even think once, because you must be really stupid to waste so much time spamming in order to be rewarded 0$ or at best 10$ per month.
No project will pay handfully Jr. Member unless they're just a scam project which doesn't care for the value of their coin/token.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Check this analysis from today >
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5052019.0

You can see how many newbies have received their first merit by those high ranked members. Just look for the nFirstTime parameter. Based on the table I've given merit to 12 newbies for their first time.
I ran a service to help those who needed 1 point to rank up as I had not so many sMerit but I gave them all. I still try to give away all the sMerit I have to keep the wheel rolling

[LoyceV]

So explain to me how does the merit system prevent heroes and legendaries from posting equally low effort posts

Merit doesn't stop high-ranking spammers.
But there's this:

Code:

6704 permanent bans (including nukes):
     4228 Newbie
     1244 Brand new (nukes I'm assuming)
      460 Member
      328 Jr. Member
      276 Full Member
       99 Sr. Member
       40 Hero Member
       22 Copper Member
        7 Legendary

87222 merits destroyed:
       13 merits per ban on average
      251 single-merit users banned

High ranking spammers will never earn back their rank thanks to the Merit system. And although the Merit system can't stop the existing spam problem, it stopped it from getting worse.

You (KingZee) seem to be on a tirade against the Merit system. You've been gone from the forum for a while, so you've probably missed that many others did that before you. It's not going to change the Merit system.
In an ideal situation we wouldn't need the Merit system, or even better: all posts would deserve Merit. But we're far from that, and Merit is the best we've got for now.

[leetlezee]

High ranking spammers will never earn back their rank thanks to the Merit system. And although the Merit system can't stop the existing spam problem, it stopped it from getting worse.

You (KingZee) seem to be on a tirade against the Merit system. You've been gone from the forum for a while, so you've probably missed that many others did that before you. It's not going to change the Merit system.
In an ideal situation we wouldn't need the Merit system, or even better: all posts would deserve Merit. But we're far from that, and Merit is the best we've got for now.

The absolute best thing that's happened to this forum in recent months is implementation of merit required to be a Jr Member. I really liked Hilariousetc's opinion of requiring 10 merits, not just one (as I think it's a little too easy to beg for 1 merit), but at least it's a step in the right direction. Making it harder for spambots and bounty account farmers will radically improve the quality of posting on the forums.

And while I do agree that it can be challenging at time to get merit, if you are sincerely interested in Bitcoin and this forum for the long run, the merits will come, whether you're a newbie who just got on the forum or a oldie who's been inactive for awhile.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>Out of all the newbies/jrs/fulls/srs who DID get merit -which I'm going to assume means they're not spamming, if you can agree to that- what's the average merit they received per post, and what's the average of unique members that merited those newbies/jrs/fulls per post.
Just these two for each member rank, then do it for legendaries and heroes too. If the stats are evenly distributed i'll never mention this topic again.<…>

I just modified the Merit Dashboard to get an approximation to what you are looking for, by adding Rank Filters to a Tab I has already running.
If we go to the Tab called “Post Summary”, we can easily see some of the averages you’re on about. I guess that when you say average merit per post, the context is not of all the created post, but rather all the merited posts. This latter approach is what this tab verses about.

Applying the filters, it turns out that (summary of what can be seen on the Dashboard):

Newbies:
71,69% of the received sMerit TXs are of 1 sMerit each.
12,99% of the received sMerit TXs are of 2 sMerits each.
85,88% of merited posts are merited by 1 single person (1Tx).
9,79% of merited posts are merited by 2 people (2Txs)

Jr. Member:
76,66% of the received sMerit TXs are of 1 sMerit each.
13,16% of the received sMerit TXs are of 2 sMerits each.
89,36% of merited posts are merited by 1 single person (1Tx).
7,92% of merited posts are merited by 2 people (2Txs)

Member:
62,25% of the received sMerit TXs are of 1 sMerit each.
18,11% of the received sMerit TXs are of 2 sMerits each.
79,90% of merited posts are merited by 1 single person (1Tx).
11,82% of merited posts are merited by 2 people (2Txs)

Full Member:
67,85% of the received sMerit TXs are of 1 sMerit each.
14,62% of the received sMerit TXs are of 2 sMerits each.
79,84% of merited posts are merited by 1 single person (1Tx).
12,04% of merited posts are merited by 2 people (2Txs)

Sr. Member:
67,40% of the received sMerit TXs are of 1 sMerit each.
14,35% of the received sMerit TXs are of 2 sMerits each.
78,56% of merited posts are merited by 1 single person (1Tx).
11,84% of merited posts are merited by 2 people (2Txs)

Hero Member:
70,05% of the received sMerit TXs are of 1 sMerit each.
14,06% of the received sMerit TXs are of 2 sMerits each.
81,15% of merited posts are merited by 1 single person (1Tx).
11,89% of merited posts are merited by 2 people (2Txs)

Legendary Member:
74,29% of the received sMerit TXs are of 1 sMerit each.
12,50% of the received sMerit TXs are of 2 sMerits each.
79,62% of merited posts are merited by 1 single person (1Tx).
13,00% of merited posts are merited by 2 people (2Txs)

There are obviously some differences between ranks in terms of received merit distribution, but nothing too extreme that would indicate that the higher ranks have an easy life getting merit. Forget the outlier cases you see around. The norm is another one, when you take into consideration forum wide data.