[New] Merit System

[cynical]

I have mixed feelings on the new merit system.
I agree that this will increase the quality of the posting in general
but im not sure it guarantees people who post properly will progress through the merit system.
I dont shitpost, i actually try and be constructive and voice my opinions but it does not guarantee a merit score,
Its all a bit suggestive and may instead result in long winded posts twice as long as they need to be, i dunno.
Anyway lets suck it and see, i just hope im not stuck im my current rank for longer than expected and hunting for merit points  

[Lauda]

but im not sure it guarantees people who post properly will progress through the merit system.

It's not supposed to. It's supposed to make ranking up significantly harder, which is a good thing in every single way.
The people who are voting 'very bad' in this poll are mostly 3rd world shitposters.

[Elhindinho]

I think this is a good idea, but let time tells us whether this system is good or not, however this is an idea that took effort to discuss.
I am not panic to something new, but to be honest, I feel worry because this system runs as another manual judgement after quality posts matter. I question myself who will merit me. anyway I believe this will cause this forum to be better.

[jtipt]

It's a good system but a lot of people are just using it as a 'like' or 'upvote'. As per what theymos and Lutpin are saying it merit should be given for good quality posts but Lutpin himself has got merits for just some random replies on the merit thread.

[Jet Cash]

I've only had a quick read of the new system, and I'm not sure how it will improve things a great deal. If I consider my situation and motivation, then comments about it may help to clarify things in my mind.

The first thing is that I am not a part of any signature campaign, and I don't plan on joining one, so ranking is possibly of less importance to me than to many other members. As a Hero member, I already have a large enough allowance for me to post text messages in my signature. Now to the merit system as it affects me.

I'm a hero member on the edge of the minimum activity requirement for legendary. I've been awarded 500 merit points, but I need 1,000 to acieve legendary. This is not an incentive to me to submit more posts, and it may even have the reverse effect. My interests are in certain fairly specific areas of Bitcoin use and investment - Running a node over public WiFi for example, and very often I don't even get a reply to my posts, let alone earning merit points. Now you may think that WiFi discussions are not important, and they probably aren't to most members, but they are to travelling businessmen, and it would be nice if we could attract more people from the business community. Discussions similar to "Is Bitcoin a safer investment than Rockin Horse poo?" generate thousands of replies,and are likely to gain far more merit points than discussions about ETFs.

I see that I can award merit points, and I read that half of my 500 point award is spendable. Does that mean that if I give a point to a poster, that I drop to 499? That isn't much of an incentive for me to police the forum. At the moment, merit points seem to me to be similar to those forum dollars that some boards give out, but don't provide a shop for purchases using them.

[Wingo]

It's time to make posting more serious, this is a very good idea to reduce the number of shit posters while encouraging everyone to have a greater knowledge about the topics where they post. This is fair for everyone!

[Wingo]

but im not sure it guarantees people who post properly will progress through the merit system.

It's not supposed to. It's supposed to make ranking up significantly harder, which is a good thing in every single way.
The people who are voting 'very bad' in this poll are mostly 3rd world shitposters.

Now, this is not all about ranking up, but learning more in order to create a more constructive post. Everyone will be forced to earn more knowledge from other bitcoiners in this forum, which is the purpose why we are here.

[TMAN]

Very Good is two words fella...

[ibminer]

I see that I can award merit points, and I read that half of my 500 point award is spendable. Does that mean that if I give a point to a poster, that I drop to 499? That isn't much of an incentive for me to police the forum. At the moment, merit points seem to me to be similar to those forum dollars that some boards give out, but don't provide a shop for purchases using them.

You do not lose "Merits" when you spend "sMerits", the other person gets Merits & sMerits when you Merit their post.
If I mark a post of yours with 6 merits, I lose 6 sMerits, you get 6 Merits & 3 sMerits. I will still maintain my number of "Merits"

This is a decent FAQ that has been started: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2820030.0

I'm a hero member on the edge of the minimum activity requirement for legendary. I've been awarded 500 merit points, but I need 1,000 to acieve legendary. This is not an incentive to me to submit more posts, and it may even have the reverse effect.

I'm not sure it is to incentivize more posts but to increase the quality, primarily for those desiring to rank up.

[www.www]

Many people here don't want to give Merit to others, sometimes even if our reply is good advice!
Perhaps because you are JR or a new person, people don't want to add Merit to you!

You're basing this assumption on what?
12 hours of evidence of which half consisted of people discovering merit, discussing it, and trying it for the first time?
This will need some time to settle in and for people to get used to it. Dont expect it to be perfect from the start.

Merits trades is already going after 12 hours.
Probably you are aware of this.
Semimers in the fight against spam will not help.
However, any law has declarative and true goals.
Forum became one step closer to degeneration 

[coin8coin]

It's time to make posting more serious, this is a very good idea to reduce the number of shit posters while encouraging everyone to have a greater knowledge about the topics where they post. This is fair for everyone!

no. it won't reduce the shit posts, since there is no negative merit system !

shit post won't hurt the account!!!

in my opinion, the most valuable posts in bct should be new project announcement (include translation and community), but who will give merit to this kind of posts ?

[Elsonbol]

such a riot was raised, I think it was right, although there will be fewer spam in the branches,you come to find information, and in replacements you receive 10 pages spam of messages, in a month all will calm down and will only be glad only to such changes.

[cynical]

but im not sure it guarantees people who post properly will progress through the merit system.

It's not supposed to. It's supposed to make ranking up significantly harder, which is a good thing in every single way.
The people who are voting 'very bad' in this poll are mostly 3rd world shitposters.

phew, I'm glad I voted "Good" 

[Vod]

I'm a hero member on the edge of the minimum activity requirement for legendary. I've been awarded 500 merit points, but I need 1,000 to acieve legendary.

You could petition Theymos to recalculate the base points given - based on the activity instead of the title. 

[Holla123]

it's a very bad idea ....very difficult for other language users!

It's a very bad idea for shitposters, yes.

I dont know did not get any merit so far. And if I need merit to go up in rank why would I send some of the little merit I got to someone for the quality of his posting? What would be my incentive to do so? I feel it makes it very difficult for new members to level up. And wont there be simply trade for merit?

[Holla123]

it's a very bad idea ....very difficult for other language users!

It's a very bad idea for shitposters, yes.

hm,,, this is a shit post ! 
You are now Legendary just because you been in this forum since 2013~~~not because your posts are all valuable !

true

[atrocityx]

As a noobie who just really started last week, I really like the system.. it feels challenging and it should be.  One change I would like to make is with the new Merit system, if you can pass your current "Activity" score with merits, that it'll automatically rank you up to match your current Merit score.. I think time spent on a forum (in terms of casually for years) isn't necessarily a good indicator of your abilities to post and should have a caveat that allows merits to trump your activity score if it surpasses it.  I'd like to see a bitcoin mining type system though over each year the smerit distrobution has a "halvening" as it were where the amount of merits become more scarce, and the system only uses merits for ranks and omits "Activity" as a whole.

[coly20032003]

I think it is a good thing. After the merit system is implemented, I feel that the post quality improved in both the English section and the local section. People will not just post random things so that they will rank up when forum refresh time arrives. Now they will need to post real high quality posts that contains valid information and people find useful.

This also encourage me to post better quality posts so that I can advance from Jr to Member successfully. At first I have doubt about that, I was afraid that I will stay in Jr forever and won't be able to go to the next level. I am happy that I went to the next level successfully, with good quality posts. I realize that as long as you spend time and effort in your post, people will appreciate it and eventually someone will give you merit. This is good, I like it. 

[Astrilian]

it's a very bad idea ....very difficult for other language users!

It's a very bad idea for shitposters, yes.

I dont know did not get any merit so far. And if I need merit to go up in rank why would I send some of the little merit I got to someone for the quality of his posting? What would be my incentive to do so? I feel it makes it very difficult for new members to level up. And wont there be simply trade for merit?

Same here, I really try to add value and new perspectives with most of my posts, never received merit regardless. I still see many members who post good quality content but do not get recognized. It's really a bummer so far.

[Dewi11]

merit system aims to spamer disappear, and that's very good,
but it is very difficult for me to get merit prizes every sentence of my post, do not know what I should do in order to get a merit prize