Merit & new rank requirements

[TheBeardedBaby]

Every time I run out of sMerit I'm happy that I have no more responsibilities to search for good posts and i can just browse around. Then someone filled my bags again like TMAN the last time and here I am again, looking for posts I guess it's the same with merit sources, but without the small breaks.

I've never been out of sMerit since it was introduced. But I'm sending more lately, so that's something.

Even before the merit source time? I had 1 sMerit airdropped but I gave it away to theymos for the merit announcement , then I got my first merit the next day and since then I always had at least 1. Just a few months ago I run out of sMerit for the fist time, but it was just for a short time. Now I gave away all my sMerit and I feel good. I feel like obligation to browse the forum if there are some sMerit left to give, yeah sounds crazy I know...

[1713510303]

1713510303

[1713510303]

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[Direwolve735]

Most easiest way to get any amount of merit is local section

It depends on what local boards we are talking about. In some local sections, especially in those where there are local merit sources, it`s quite possible to get merit. But even there it`s given only for high-quality posts. Nobody will give you a merit just because you are countrymen or speak the same language.

At the same time, there remain many local topics that don`t have separate board, not to mention local merit sources. For example, the Ukrainian section still belongs to the "Other Languages" and doesn`t have its own board, although Ukrainians are quite active at the forum and bring great benefits. We also don`t have any merit sources, so you can only receive merit from other users. Unfortunately, merit sources don`t read this section, so many good posts remain without reward.

[DdmrDdmr]

It depends on what local boards we are talking about <…>.

I can give you my view in relation to my local board (Spanish). There, the number of posters and the dynamics of the local board per-se is smallish. Therefore, it is relatively easy to stand-out, since there not too many daily posts to "compete against". Providing the posts have any decent content to it, being merited should not be an issue if, of course, someone with merits is actually roaming the area to award them.

Our local board has one or two merit sources that I’m aware of, although certainly not just focused on the local board, but that are rather active on the English boards in general. Besides them, not that many people have large sums of merit. If just taken a look, and over the last month, only 5 people have managed to award more than two merits there, to 40 different recipients.
The amounts awarded on my local board are often small: 84,30% of merited posts are merited by a single person, and the amount is seldom above 2 merits.

In summary: It´s not difficult to earn merits if you post decently, although you won’t get many, and due to there being few decent posters, the number of distinct recipients is not very large either (which in turn often leads to getting less merits due to a self-awareness of this fact when awarding merits).

[LoyceV]

Even before the merit source time? I had 1 sMerit airdropped

Yes, like I said: "never"
It helped that I started with 200 sMerit, and sent only one most of the time.

[mOgliE]

Might be an unpopular opinion... But I think merit works pretty well.

The goal of merit is just to reduce account farming and spam. To find the real great participants of the forum and make them lvl up in ranks.

Once you're legendary, merit is useless. It's here just for the recognition, but an  account with 1000 merit is the same as one with 1700 merit.

I got about 130 merit to spend and I try to spend it, but honestly people raging about merit system mostly don't deserve any kind of merit points.

My activity:  420
My merit:  101
Date Registered:   September 28, 2017

I want to become a Senior Member the honest way so how can I level up?

You can lvl up by actually making good posts. I looked at your post history and haven't given any merit point simply because all your posts are trashy 2 liners. Start making good posts and you'll earn merit.

[coinlocket$]

Might be an unpopular opinion... But I think merit works pretty well.

The goal of merit is just to reduce account farming and spam. To find the real great participants of the forum and make them lvl up in ranks.

Once you're legendary, merit is useless. It's here just for the recognition, but an  account with 1000 merit is the same as one with 1700 merit.

I got about 130 merit to spend and I try to spend it, but honestly people raging about merit system mostly don't deserve any kind of merit points.

Agree in part.
Some legendary or hero for the same reason don't deserve their rank, also for my point of view I can't find the difference on the "good post history" from earning 500 or 1000 merits, some users are spamming the meta 24/7 only to fish merits.

[BlueMoonLight]

Then, nowadays, getting merit without any corruption means MIRACLE. ?
Suppose getting merit from better post could be a natural bitcointalk phenomena and not miracle.

I have some sMerit I want to give away and just went through your post history but I couldn't find any worthy post. Most of your posts are in a spamy megathreads. Seems like it's a miracle to find a merit worthy posts nowadays.

Thank you for your efforts. My pleasure to know that you are looking for someone worthy to received your sMerit.
Pretty sure I am still on the process to learn more. I admit that I am not yet fully grown crypto person.
Anyway give me more time to be like you. 

[TheBeardedBaby]

Thank you for your efforts. My pleasure to know that you are looking for someone worthy to received your sMerit.
Pretty sure I am still on the process to learn more. I admit that I am not yet fully grown crypto person.
Anyway give me more time to be like you.  

I gave away already all my smerit. Until I get a new refill I'll not gonna check everyone's history like I do it till now. There are already enough (maybe) merit sources distributing, so if you deserve a merit, sure someone will spot you if you don't post in a sunken sections of course.

[lotto-fan]

I found the new ranking requirement is not logic. It requires way too many merit points in order to gain higher rankings. For example, I am a Member now, and from Member to Full Member:

Requirements:
   Member   60   10
    Full Member   120   100

I need 60 posts and 90 Merit points. How many posts I can get 90 merit points? Well, some posts I just reply to other people's posts, with my comments, for those, I probably get no merit points. I need to post long and original info or thoughts in order to get merit points. Say every 3 posts I get 1 merit point, I'd do 270 activities to get 90 merit points, and this is probably the best scenario, and admin will need to notice every of my good posts  

Therefore, I think this system is not rational. To the least, the requirement of the activities and merit need to be consistent. The purpose of the merit is to make people write quality posts. So with 3:1 ration this could be reasonable, which means if we keep that Full Member requires 120 activities, then the merit point requirement should be 10+60/3 = 30, instead 100, for the Full Members. This will encourage people to make quality posts and don't find other ways to cheat.

[JayJuanGee]

I found the new ranking requirement is not logic. It requires way too many merit points in order to gain higher rankings. For example, I am a Member now, and from Member to Full Member:

Requirements:
   Member   60   10
    Full Member   120   100

I need 60 posts and 90 Merit points. How many posts I can get 90 merit points? Well, some posts I just reply to other people's posts, with my comments, for those, I probably get no merit points. I need to post long and original info or thoughts in order to get merit points. Say every 3 posts I get 1 merit point, I'd do 270 activities to get 90 merit points, and this is probably the best scenario, and admin will need to notice every of my good posts  

Therefore, I think this system is not rational. To the least, the requirement of the activities and merit need to be consistent. The purpose of the merit is to make people write quality posts. So with 3:1 ration this could be reasonable, which means if we keep that Full Member requires 120 activities, then the merit point requirement should be 10+60/3 = 30, instead 100, for the Full Members. This will encourage people to make quality posts and don't find other ways to cheat.

Hey.. you made a pretty decent post, here, but the content seems to be whining about stupid shit (meaning already beaten to death points, if you bothered looking through this thread, for example).  

I would think that if you had made some decent points about something relatively important and significant, then the way that you back up your points, such as here, and describe the situation would likely be more attracting of smerits (at least one, and you might get one here, too.. because sometimes even whiners find common cause with other whiners who happen to have some smerits that they are willing to spend on a common cause whiner).

Anyhow, you can also attempt to study into the matter and see that higher earning merit post members could provide some examples about how you could earn merits, to the extent that merits are important, anyhow for someone who merely wants to read posts.. .. and throw in a few responsive posts from time to time... assuming that there is even any real need to rank up for folks who mostly just read, rather than posting in interactive kinds of ways (which there are a variety of ways that your posts could end up earning merits, if you looked into the matter a bit (rather than just whining some seeming bullshit and seeming non-studied points)).

[TryNinja]

what if others will only buy/ sell merit even though their post is garbage? they should be ban

Selling/buying merit isn't against the rules. But this behavior is extremely discouraged by the members of this forum (for obvious reason), and anyone getting caught doing this will get a negative trust which will make the account useless for bounties/campaigns.

[bones261]

what if others will only buy/ sell merit even though their post is garbage? they should be ban

If the seller is a merit source, they should be stripped from being a merit source and theymos should reverse merit transactions at his discretion. If it is a regular user selling merit, theymos might reverse any merit transactions at his discretion. (Not quite sure if he will or not.) Furthermore, theymos has made it clear that dt giving red trust to merit sellers is acceptable.

As I've said before, I'm not really worried about it. Especially at those high prices (plus the risk of being red-tagged), it's enough of a barrier that it should still serve its intended function of creating a significant cos[t/barrier for garbage-posters.

BTW, if any merit source goes rogue and sells a ton of merit, then I will probably go through the transaction graph and undo all of the transactions touched by that sold source-merit. Merit ain't no immutable cryptocurrency!

If a DT member tags you for something stupid involving merit (ie. probably anything less than selling merit), then they're not going to be a DT member for much longer.

[tranthidung]

Those guys are someone who luckily ranked up to higher-ranks in the forum with unintentionally help from old rank requirements, before the start of merit system. They ranked up this way, so it's easily to understand why they have not earned any singly merit around 10 months after the first active day of merit system. I believe that if someday demotion implemented for higher-rank users, most of them will have to fight hopelessly to get at least one more merit (their first own-made merit) to rank up again to their rank before demoted.

Some legendary or hero for the same reason don't deserve their rank, also for my point of view I can't find the difference on the "good post history" from earning 500 or 1000 merits, some users are spamming the meta 24/7 only to fish merits.

I remembered that I occasionally read somewhere that there are higher proportion of higher rank users who don't earn at least only one merit point till now.
I will find and quote it later.

Found it. [Merit Analysis] Users ranked Sr. Member & up that have not earned any merit

It means that 47% Legendary are likely efforlessly Ledgendary, 79.8% adn 73.3% of Senior Members, and Hero are Effortlessly ones, respectively.
Detailed statistics given below.

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%)

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I found the new ranking requirement is not logic.

It might be difficult for low-ranked members to rank up now, but I wouldn't say the system isn't "logical".  It is what it is, and it's supposed to be harder for people to rank up now--that's the whole point.  You need patience and need to write good posts, AND write them in sections where they're going to be read, not mega spam threads where nobody ever earns any merits.

Hey.. you made a pretty decent post, here, but the content seems to be whining about stupid shit

Yeah, except for the whining part it wasn't too bad.  Not going to give a merit for it, though.

If the seller is a merit source, they should be stripped from being a merit source and theymos should reverse merit transactions at his discretion. If it is a regular user selling merit, theymos might reverse any merit transactions at his discretion. (Not quite sure if he will or not.) Furthermore, theymos has made it clear that dt giving red trust to merit sellers is acceptable.

I don't think Theymos has reversed any merit grants yet, at least none that I know of.  It's also very hard to prove that merit was sold, even if you find a ring of circle-jerking merit givers.  We all know that there are spam farms that exists and that merit gets passed between friends & family--that shouldn't be happening IMO, but it's hard to prove there was an actual sale unless you have screenshots of conversations or something similar.

[S_Therapist]

I don't think Theymos has reversed any merit grants yet, at least none that I know of.

It has been done once as per LoyceV although I don't know who was the person, whom he sent merit.

I've only seen theymos undo it once, when a hacked account had send out 3 times 50 merit.

Only @LoyceV can tell who was the persons. AFAIK, LoyceV is using piggy's notification bot. And it will soon redirect him here to share the usernames of the first reverse of merit transaction.

[coinlocket$]

Weekly update

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>I don't think Theymos has reversed any merit grants yet, at least none that I know of.<...>

The one time only (so far) merit reversal was for a case where Elwar apparently has his account hacked for a brief amount of time (fell for the .to phishing site), during which someone sent 3 x 50 sMerit TXs from his account to threads he has never visited. The thread where the case is discussed is this one: Showing I merited 3 people 2 days ago but I never even visited those threads.
Post #25 on the referenced thread is @theymos' answer to the case, and post #29 delimits options of that action extending as a norm.

[tranthidung]

Findings of the last week is normal, nothing abnormal found.
Because, the total distributed merits over the last week is 4050, which is in the range of 50% previous period weekly merits, with the median found at 4423, and the interquartile range from 3854 to 5487.
I meant for weeks with total merits range from 3.8k to 5.4k, there is no reason to pay attention and dicuss about them, because they obviously have normal distribution of weekly merit.

Weekly update

My topic in which discusses about daily, weekly, and monthly distributed merits is here:

Weekly Analysis:
Updated at 19th Nov. 2018:

Overview plot and trend

General trend has been downward, despite of one spike due to adjustment on rank requirements aims at Junior Member rank.

Mean +/- standard deviation; Median (Interquartile range)

Comparison between last week total merits and median of previous period.
What I found is:

Code:

. di (4050-4423)*100/4423
-8.4331901

Last week total merits (at 4050) is 8.4% lower than median weekly merit of previous period, at 4423.


I will update my topic later days with newest data dump from LoyceV.

[LoyceV]

Only @LoyceV can tell who was the persons.

I tried (on mobile), but couldn't find it today.

The thread where the case is discussed is this one: Showing I merited 3 people 2 days ago but I never even visited those threads.

Thanks for answering this I've seen the suggestion before: it would kinda be good to have a reference thread of theymos' posts related to forum policies. I'd like to make one, but there's no way I can review his 8000+ posts.

I will update my topic later days with newest data dump from LoyceV.

I'll get you this tomorrow.

[lotto-fan]

I found the new ranking requirement is not logic. It requires way too many merit points in order to gain higher rankings. For example, I am a Member now, and from Member to Full Member:

Requirements:
   Member   60   10
    Full Member   120   100

I need 60 posts and 90 Merit points. How many posts I can get 90 merit points? Well, some posts I just reply to other people's posts, with my comments, for those, I probably get no merit points. I need to post long and original info or thoughts in order to get merit points. Say every 3 posts I get 1 merit point, I'd do 270 activities to get 90 merit points, and this is probably the best scenario, and admin will need to notice every of my good posts  

Therefore, I think this system is not rational. To the least, the requirement of the activities and merit need to be consistent. The purpose of the merit is to make people write quality posts. So with 3:1 ration this could be reasonable, which means if we keep that Full Member requires 120 activities, then the merit point requirement should be 10+60/3 = 30, instead 100, for the Full Members. This will encourage people to make quality posts and don't find other ways to cheat.

Hey.. you made a pretty decent post, here, but the content seems to be whining about stupid shit (meaning already beaten to death points, if you bothered looking through this thread, for example).  

I would think that if you had made some decent points about something relatively important and significant, then the way that you back up your points, such as here, and describe the situation would likely be more attracting of smerits (at least one, and you might get one here, too.. because sometimes even whiners find common cause with other whiners who happen to have some smerits that they are willing to spend on a common cause whiner).

Anyhow, you can also attempt to study into the matter and see that higher earning merit post members could provide some examples about how you could earn merits, to the extent that merits are important, anyhow for someone who merely wants to read posts.. .. and throw in a few responsive posts from time to time... assuming that there is even any real need to rank up for folks who mostly just read, rather than posting in interactive kinds of ways (which there are a variety of ways that your posts could end up earning merits, if you looked into the matter a bit (rather than just whining some seeming bullshit and seeming non-studied points)).

I went through the posts, just want to raise the issue. I am not whining here, I just hope the system be more reasonable. Afterall, the merit point is not there for fun, it's to encourage people to post better. But with this kind of unreasonable system, it does not achieve its goal. I, as many here, are enthusiast of Bitcoin and blockchain technology. I come here to get information and ideas. Of course I'd like to be as high ranking as possible. But the system as is, I doubt it will help any, at least for myself, I don't care and it does not encourage me to make any better posts.