sMerit rewards need to be multiplied by 10, or merit requirements divided by 10.

[OriginTrain]

As the title states. The small supply of sMerit with the huge amount of accounts here means the majority of members will not ever receive even a single merit. Now I get it - a lot of these members are shitposters, however I've been reading through sections of the forum today and noticed some good quality posts from a lot of accounts and none of them received any sMerit. Top quality posts usually receive 1 or 2 sMerit. Legendary buddies give each other 50 sMerit, whilst new members to the forum are given a minor amount for good quality posts.

Jr. Members are mostly ignored regardless of their post quality, how are they to ever achieve 10 Merit?

I think merit requirements should be made 10x easier. Here is my reasoning: Shitposters do not receive even a single sMerit point. You can see this already. In the event shitposters buy merit this is easily traced since all merit is publicly displayed. If someone gives merit to a shitposter for a poor quality post, they may of course be investigated and found to be selling sMerit and thus penalized.

But the issue is with better quality posters - the most they seem to receive is 1 or 2 sMerit which would require 45-90 top quality posts (assuming good quality posts get only 1 or 2 sMerit or so) for a Member to reach Full Member. Doesn't this sound a bit too much? Wouldn't 9 good quality posts do? Again, shitposters will never make 9 good quality posts, ever.. so what's the harm here in balancing the requirements a little? The sMerit system should be designed to get rid of shitposters.. but not to make the Activity requirement now become completely meaningless since Merit is exponentially harder to achieve.

Now for the old timers here: I get it, us new blood are shit. I accept that. And a lot of us are posting crap in the Altcoin sections speculating all day, a section where we will never get any merit. But isn't it this new wave of investors that have helped bumped the price of BTC? Aren't other blockchains also going to be part of the future in decentralization? Isn't the whole token craze indirectly gaining awareness for BTC and blockchain in general? What is being achieved here in the long term by centralizing all the back-scratching to a central group of old-timers only?

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[FFrankie]

The merit doesnt make the activity requirement nil because the activity is based upon time, not just posts. Once a month or 2 go by there will be more and more merit floating around because the sources will be giving it out to those who are making good logical thoughtout posts

[theymos]

I'll see how things are in a month or two and think about it. Basically, the "ideal new user" should be able to easily and without any particular "merit farming" be able to far exceed the merit requirements; for them, activity should be the limiting factor. If this is not achievable, then I absolutely will make tweaks until that goal is reached. But it's too early to say at this point.

I did consider a 1-point requirement for Member when designing the system, but I thought it might be too easy. We'll see.

[TryNinja]

I'll see how things are in a month or two and think about it. Basically, the "ideal new user" should be able to easily and without any particular "merit farming" be able to far exceed the merit requirements; for them, activity should be the limiting factor. If this is not achievable, then I absolutely will make tweaks until that goal is reached. But it's too early to say at this point.

I did consider a 1-point requirement for Member when designing the system, but I thought it might be too easy. We'll see.

I would keep it like that.

You need to do 60 posts (in a total of 5 differet periods, which is equal to 2 months) to have the activity necessary to become a Member. IMO getting 10 merits in 2 months should be fairly easy if you are not one the users making empty posts just to increase your activity (i.e, 90% of the Bitcoin Discussion board), which is sadly the majority of the users complaining about the new merit system.

I myself (and a lot of users) already got ~20 merits since the release of the merit sytem 3 days ago. And I doubt it was just because I'm already a Hero Member and people read my posts "unlike the Jr. Member posts" which are supposedly "mostly ignored".

[gopaljiverma]

But the issue is with better quality posters - the most they seem to receive is 1 or 2 sMerit which would require 45-90 top quality posts (assuming good quality posts get only 1 or 2 sMerit or so) for a Member to reach Full Member. Doesn't this sound a bit too much? Wouldn't 9 good quality posts do? Again, shitposters will never make 9 good quality posts, ever.. so what's the harm here in balancing the requirements a little? The sMerit system should be designed to get rid of shitposters.. but not to make the Activity requirement now become completely meaningless since Merit is exponentially harder to achieve.

Example of a single post from a low rank level that got 62 merits so far :https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2828014.0

You can go through the post and you will feel that it is well deserved.

[STT]

What is being achieved here in the long term by centralizing all the back-scratching to a central group of old-timers only?

The assumption here is there some club or organisation by rank when really the common factor between those forum members is mostly just by age.    I dont nessecarily know anyone the same rank especially, only if they post on the same forum section or threads that I do then I guess I'd remember.  
Otherwise I dont really care that much, this forum is just a grain of sand on a beach in a big world.    I've far more interest if the actual forum post stands out as unique, useful and actually informed me of anything I didnt know previously.   Isnt that going to be the basis for merit, seems natural to me and alot of places have some kind of upvote system.    It should be a positive effect because those who have none should be orientated to post most thoughtfully or informatively

[OriginTrain]

I'll see how things are in a month or two and think about it. Basically, the "ideal new user" should be able to easily and without any particular "merit farming" be able to far exceed the merit requirements; for them, activity should be the limiting factor. If this is not achievable, then I absolutely will make tweaks until that goal is reached. But it's too early to say at this point.

I did consider a 1-point requirement for Member when designing the system, but I thought it might be too easy. We'll see.

That's great to hear that's the intention. I'm sure as merit becomes more widely distributed that it will trickle down into the sub-forums and gaining it will be much easier - I agree to observe it first for a couple months to see if this is what happens. Thank you too for managing such a great community here and doing something to fix the influx of bad quality posts, the idea of the merit system itself is grand.

[Foxpup]

Basically, the "ideal new user" should be able to easily and without any particular "merit farming" be able to far exceed the merit requirements; for them, activity should be the limiting factor.

"should be" =/= "is"

I did consider a 1-point requirement for Member when designing the system, but I thought it might be too easy. We'll see.

I think you overestimate your users, though in fairness that's not hard to do.

Please don't lower your standards, though; all the shitposters here need to get the message to up theirs.

[Sowik]

I also think the merit requirements should be lower. Even if some members have HQ threads and post I don't think all of them are gonna get the merit they deserve nor they will become sources.

With this new system you are putting the Legendary members on top of all and with these high requirements in my opinion its gonna be much harder for new members to progress.

IMO the new merit system is "anti new membres". Ranking up will be dare I say impossible for them, not everybody is blockchain or tech expert, especially new members. Not to mention that the current top-merited topics and replies are NOT even connected to bitcoin or the blockchain technology. Most of them are some shitposts in the local boards or in no way affiliated with Bitcoin/altcoins. It is also way too complicated for them.

Don't get me wrong, I am not pro-spammer but in my opinion the Merit system is not the way to fight them as it limits hard the new and lower rank members. Some people will never ever rank up - maybe they have HQ posts and are helping people by answering questions in ann threads for projects they follow or just don't have enough knowledge to make informative guides and etc. but nobody will notice them.

The idea of the merit system is against the idea of Bitcoin.

[actmyname]

I also think the merit requirements should be lower. Even if some members have HQ threads and post I don't think all of them are gonna get the merit they deserve nor they will become sources.

With this new system you are putting the Legendary members on top of all and with these high requirements in my opinion its gonna be much harder for new members to progress.

IMO the new merit system is "anti new membres". Ranking up will be dare I say impossible for them, not everybody is blockchain or tech expert, especially new members. Not to mention that the current top-merited topics and replies are NOT even connected to bitcoin or the blockchain technology. Most of them are some shitposts in the local boards or in no way affiliated with Bitcoin/altcoins. It is also way too complicated for them.

Don't get me wrong, I am not pro-spammer but in my opinion the Merit system is not the way to fight them as it limits hard the new and lower rank members. Some people will never ever rank up - maybe they have HQ posts and are helping people by answering questions in ann threads for projects they follow or just don't have enough knowledge to make informative guides and etc. but nobody will notice them.

The idea of the merit system is against the idea of Bitcoin.

Nah. The whole point is to make it difficult to rank up. Why is it so important to get a high rank for everybody?

Answer: they want to join signature campaigns.

Is that really what the forum was designed for? Absolutely not. It should be difficult to rank up. It should require consistent high-quality posts to qualify for a higher rank. That's what will clean up the forum. I do not want to see a constant stream of 50+ page threads in Bitcoin Discussion. We do not need to see five "bitcoin is $x" in the board, or "tips to trading".

Merit requirements should not be lowered.I'm sure that there will be some argument about me being biased as I am Legendary/in a signature campaign but there are other non-Legendary members that agree with the merit standards. Don't try to bring any ad hominem into this.

[kiemnhieutien]

Every thing has it own negative and positive side. With merit it's hard for spammers  and shitposters get level up, maybe never except if they buy merit.

[xCryptoManiaX]

I also think the merit requirements should be lower. Even if some members have HQ threads and post I don't think all of them are gonna get the merit they deserve nor they will become sources.

With this new system you are putting the Legendary members on top of all and with these high requirements in my opinion its gonna be much harder for new members to progress.

IMO the new merit system is "anti new membres". Ranking up will be dare I say impossible for them, not everybody is blockchain or tech expert, especially new members. Not to mention that the current top-merited topics and replies are NOT even connected to bitcoin or the blockchain technology. Most of them are some shitposts in the local boards or in no way affiliated with Bitcoin/altcoins. It is also way too complicated for them.

Don't get me wrong, I am not pro-spammer but in my opinion the Merit system is not the way to fight them as it limits hard the new and lower rank members. Some people will never ever rank up - maybe they have HQ posts and are helping people by answering questions in ann threads for projects they follow or just don't have enough knowledge to make informative guides and etc. but nobody will notice them.

The idea of the merit system is against the idea of Bitcoin.

Nah. The whole point is to make it difficult to rank up. Why is it so important to get a high rank for everybody?

Answer: they want to join signature campaigns.

Is that really what the forum was designed for? Absolutely not. It should be difficult to rank up. It should require consistent high-quality posts to qualify for a higher rank. That's what will clean up the forum. I do not want to see a constant stream of 50+ page threads in Bitcoin Discussion. We do not need to see five "bitcoin is $x" in the board, or "tips to trading".

Merit requirements should not be lowered.I'm sure that there will be some argument about me being biased as I am Legendary/in a signature campaign but there are other non-Legendary members that agree with the merit standards. Don't try to bring any ad hominem into this.

Wouldn't it be fair then with this new system coming in to reset all ranks? Also a few non-Legendary members agreeing with the Merit system while the majority is against it is not a valid argument so we could still say you are biased. There will be decline in new users in the forum and this is also bad for Bitcoin's popularity as many people won't even bother with the forum because of this new system.

So why don't we just reset all ranks? No biased people, everything is fair and square.

Every thing has it own negative and positive side. With merit it's hard for spammers  and shitposters get level up, maybe never except if they buy merit.

It's hard for everybody to rank up. You probably won't rank up anytime soon because the merit system is not fair for new users.

[ThemonkiiX]

AGREE WITH YOU

Also, I still think that merit is not a suitable method even after reducing the requirement to "divided by 10".

The critical issue is that there is not a clear standard for "high quality" and thus nobody could ensure that people could get enough rewards for their contribution.

Thus I think "reducing activity" is better than "adding merit" for the purpose of reducing spam and avoiding account farming.

[TMAN]

I'll see how things are in a month or two and think about it. Basically, the "ideal new user" should be able to easily and without any particular "merit farming" be able to far exceed the merit requirements; for them, activity should be the limiting factor. If this is not achievable, then I absolutely will make tweaks until that goal is reached. But it's too early to say at this point.

I did consider a 1-point requirement for Member when designing the system, but I thought it might be too easy. We'll see.

Plenty of us are hooking up newbies with potential. We don't need 1000 people a week levelling up. It needs to be prestigious. Then people will work harder.

Spoken as someone who wasn't miles away from legendary and now needs 300 merits

[A1exander]

As the title states. The small supply of sMerit with the huge amount of accounts here means the majority of members will not ever receive even a single merit.

I have a similar feeling. A single point or a few points may be possible, but, because of the scarcity of sMerits, even 100 points requirement for Full Member looks unachievable. I've been browsing the forum and I saw a lot of round figures equal to the initial allotments.

Jr. Members are mostly ignored regardless of their post quality, how are they to ever achieve 10 Merit?

10 points may be not that bad. It can take a lot of time, a year maybe (one exceptional post a month?), but it's doable. But they will never progress to Full Members.

I think merit requirements should be made 10x easier. Here is my reasoning: Shitposters do not receive even a single sMerit point. You can see this already. In the event shitposters buy merit this is easily traced since all merit is publicly displayed. If someone gives merit to a shitposter for a poor quality post, they may of course be investigated and found to be selling sMerit and thus penalized.

Maybe not 10 times easier for Jr. Members (it would be only 1 point), but 2 or 3 points. For higher ranks it seems to be a good estimate. Collecting hundreds of points is impossible in any reasonable amount of time. I'm also sick of seeing endless "Good project", "I wish you success" and so on, but these are guaranteed not to get a single point. So why these insanely high requirements for higher ranks?

But the issue is with better quality posters - the most they seem to receive is 1 or 2 sMerit which would require 45-90 top quality posts (assuming good quality posts get only 1 or 2 sMerit or so) for a Member to reach Full Member. Doesn't this sound a bit too much? Wouldn't 9 good quality posts do? Again, shitposters will never make 9 good quality posts, ever.. so what's the harm here in balancing the requirements a little? The sMerit system should be designed to get rid of shitposters.. but not to make the Activity requirement now become completely meaningless since Merit is exponentially harder to achieve.

Exactly. Activity and merit requirements for higher ranks are incomparable.

[TheBeardedBaby]

I disagree, the ranking system is perfect so far, no need to change anything. I have already collected 11 Merit points for the last days and I can really confirm that it is possible to rank up. I'm trying to be helpful in the Beginners and Help section and also trying to give my sMerits to the  newcomer who are here not only for the profit but have something valuable to share.
 I was a newbie just 3 months ago and it was really difficult to find what I was looking for. Now I read some of my old posts and I can see how much I leaned for those 3 months. Coming  from an ordinary forum it takes time to adjust to the new environment here, so some shitposters may change by the time.
I would be proud of myself reaching higher ranks. This will show me that I have something to give to the community and it was appreciated.

[TMAN]

I disagree, the ranking system is perfect so far, no need to change anything. I have already collected 11 Merit points for the last days and I can really confirm that it is possible to rank up. I'm trying to be helpful in the Beginners and Help section and also trying to give my sMerits to the  newcomer who are here not only for the profit but have something valuable to share.
 I was a newbie just 3 months ago and it was really difficult to find what I was looking for. Now I read some of my old posts and I can see how much I leaned for those 3 months. Coming  from an ordinary forum it takes time to adjust to the new environment here, so some shitposters may change by the time.
I would be proud of myself reaching higher ranks. This will show me that I have something to give to the community and it was appreciated.

Nice effort fella. Keep it up, that is the whole idea of merits, to get people thinking about what they post and how they can provide value..

+1 for you bud