Merits: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of the new ranking system rules

[CryptoChanel]

In this very first week with the new rules I've noticed that people are usually expressing themselves either in favor or against the new system. A dualism which is creating a lot of friction inside the community. I am now here trying a more balanced approach, inviting whoever would like to take part to this discussion to do his or her best to see all sides of this issue, for a dialectical approach is the classic way to achieve the best possible synthesis.

THE GOOD

As everybody already knows, the merit system has been introduced to fight shitposting, especially the one produced by account farmers. To this regard, one important fact we have to realize is that shitposting has been growing at alarming rates in the past year, and without the introduction of a slowing down factor, like a merit system, this would have led to the complete destruction of this forum within a few years. Just imagine, in a few years from now, an army of 20,0000+ Legendaries posting just stuff like "Bitcoin soon moon luckily, if not dump" and "why do you bitcoin?". This would have meant the complete loss of any residual meaning of the ranking system on top of a complete loss of any residual meaning of the whole forum, since the background noise of a 99% rate of shitposting by 200,000 Hero Members + possibly millions of Full Members would have made it impossible for anyone to find the very few interesting posts lost in the garbage. We still don't know how efficiently the new system will be able to fight the shitposting spam, but at least it will confine most of it to the lowest ranks, making it economically less remunerative. The merit system is likely to slow down ranking up for everyone, which is obviously frustrating, but this is a very reasonable price to pay to avoid the guaranteed destruction of the forum by the locust swarm.

THE BAD

The new merit system is not yet functioning as it should. It will take time before it will. Whenever people receive a number of merits, they also receive half of the same number of sMerits, which are the merits that they can give to others. This system is strongly deflationary, which means that the initial distribution of sMerits will very soon extinguish itself. If the sMerits don't flow, the rank system overall freezes, which is bad. To replenish the system with sMerits there are merit sources, people who have been chosen to distribute a monthly quota of merits to posts which deserve it. Currently, as far as I know, there are a bit more than 50 sources or so. My sensation is that for a forum with tens of thousands of members, this could end up being largely insufficient, unless each of them had so many sMerits to distribute, that they would be enough to ensure that the overall circulation would keep going. This actual lack of supply of new sMerits is leading many people not to spend the few they have been given initially, which is also bad. Theymos has mentioned that the numbers of sources could grow to up to 200 within a year, we will discover if that will be enough. Merits are now a sort of lifeblood of the ranking system, if they won't move, neither will ranks.
As for the initial distribution is concerned, there is a lot of frustration in the community for the merits not having been distributed proportionally to the activity, which would have been fair for all, but instead each member has received the minimum merit that their rank could get. This has strongly penalized members of high ranks who were about to climb to the next rank, and has been perceived as an injustice, which obviously is. But there is a reason for that. This is a quote of theymos on the subject:

(...) I considered giving merit proportional to activity, but I decided not to because doing so would probably give far more undeserved merit than deserved merit in total. But undoubtedly some people got screwed by this, and if they have decent posts, by all means, give them the 250 or 500 merit that they need to rank-up.

Theymos has clearly a point. Of course the other way a lot of people would have got undeserved merit. While by lowering merit for everybody (but Legendaries), in some way the system has been rendered effective retroactively, which for the sake of the forum would be a good thing, even though it would still be bad for those who actually would have deserved that neglected merit. A good compromise would be to effectively manually review the people who "undoubtedly got screwed by this" and to give them the missing merits if they have decent posts. But I still didn't see any trace of this happening in the forum.

THE UGLY

No matter how good the merit system is meant to be for the forum, there will always be hordes of people trying to turn something good into something bad. The stupidest of them have already been caught sending the sMerits to their own alts and getting red trusted for that. But others will find ways to stealthy make trade of sMerits. Cliques could form for sharing merits in close circles for mutual benefit. Human imagination is limitless when it comes to find ways to bypass a rule.
And then there will be the beggars. Merit Begging has started in the very fist moment the new system has been enforced. And there are many ways to beg. You can do it openly, you can do it in a more discrete, almost implicit way, and you can do it just by trying to please the big holders of sMerit, by telling them what they want to hear and just hoping for their mercy - in other words indulging in that ancient human habit commonly known as "buttlicking". I am afraid, one of the prices to pay to try eradicate one annoying form of ugliness - that is shitposting - is that new form of ugliness would make their appearance in our space. The outcome of a merit system turning bad would be a kind of "feudalistic" Bitcointalk, were the rich sources of sMerit would live surrounded by courtiers doing their best to curry favour with them. Let's hope we don't turn to the dark side...

[MustCoins]

THE UGLY

... Merit Begging has started in the very fist moment the new system has been enforced. And there are many ways to beg. You can do it openly, you can do it in a more discrete, almost implicit way, and you can do it just by trying to please the big holders of sMerit, by telling them what they want to hear and just hoping for their mercy - in other words indulging in that ancient human habit commonly known as "buttlicking". I am afraid, one of the prices to pay to try eradicate one annoying form of ugliness - that is shitposting - is that new form of ugliness would make their appearance in our space. The outcome of a merit system turning bad would be a kind of "feudalistic" Bitcointalk, were the rich sources of sMerit would live surrounded by courtiers doing their best to curry favour with them. Let's hope we don't turn to the dark side...

With these words you "painted" the exact "picture" that came to my mind when I started reading the threads here in Meta about this new merit system...

[DonPakito]

Its amazing how you put an effort to emphasize the different sides of the new merit system.  And I agree to those that you have put here.

Yes, merit system is enforced to avoid and eliminate spammers and shitposters and that is good. However, there is a downside which is the freezing of ranks (as you have mentioned) if the sMerits don't flow as intended. We'll be stucked to our current ranks which for me is quite unjust because, personally, I believe that I have been working hard to create quality posts but unfortunately, there seems to be no movement for me since I still don't have any merits. (Don't get me wrong. I just simply want to express my idea about this.)

Regarding the ugly side, some of the people in this forum abuses the merit system. I have read a thread which includes a list of those who are abusing and their way of doing so just to earn merits which I find unfair especially for those who are doing their 101% to be a useful part of this community.

Well, merit system is still new. Ranking up got even more challenging than before. Let's just see what happens next.
Again, nice job for the balanced point of view of your post! 

[nullius]

Just imagine, in a few years from now, an army of 20,0000+ Legendaries posting just stuff like "Bitcoin soon moon luckily, if not dump" and "why do you bitcoin?".

That is a point either missed, or realized all too well by all the people whining about ranks being “frozen”.  The majority of current users should never advance much (if any!) in rank.  The merit system will facilitate the natural advancement of good users who have something to contribute, theymos’ “ideal new user”, whilst keeping all the numerous and prolific “Bitcoin soon moon luckily, if not dump” posters “frozen” at Jr. Member or below until mods can get around to nuking their accounts.

Currently, as far as I know, there are a bit more than 50 sources or so. My sensation is that for a forum with tens of thousands of members, this could end up being largely insufficient, unless each of them had so many sMerits to distribute, that they would be enough to ensure that the overall circulation would keep going. This actual lack of supply of new sMerits is leading many people not to spend the few they have been given initially, which is also bad.

I presume that “sources” must be the types of community leaders who treat the forum as a full-time job.  That is, the types who not only write many posts, but also read many posts.  A relatively small cadre of such people should be able to distribute relatively large amounts of merit to a relatively wide selection of excellent posts.  From there, well—have you ever played “six degrees” style games?  I think every single post on this forum is read by multiple people whose posts are read by multiple people... whose posts are read by one or more “sources”.  The merit should flow from sources outward in ever-wider circles, as ripplings from a pebble tossed in a pond.

THE UGLY

[...] The stupidest of them have already been caught sending the sMerits to their own alts and getting red trusted for that. [...] And then there will be the beggars. Merit Begging has started in the very fist moment the new system has been enforced.

Given the damage of red trust, abusing merit (including begging) is now a most excellent way to risk totally destroying your account.  Within the past few days, I myself witnessed up close the permanent demolition of a “Legendary” account which got caught merit-farming.  (I must observe, it was the account of a user who self-evidently never would have reached “Legendary” status under the merit system!)  I’ve also been actively tagging users who beg for merit.  So yes, people try to game the system; and some of them will get away with it for awhile, just as street criminals tend to get away with it for awhile.  Such people’s luck always runs out at some point.

You can do it openly, you can do it in a more discrete, almost implicit way, and you can do it just by trying to please the big holders of sMerit, by telling them what they want to hear and just hoping for their mercy - in other words indulging in that ancient human habit commonly known as "buttlicking". I am afraid, one of the prices to pay to try eradicate one annoying form of ugliness - that is shitposting - is that new form of ugliness would make their appearance in our space.

Excellent observation.  That is a bigger problem, and especially so when tied to existing rank.  I have been pointedly ignoring many low-ranked accounts which are transparently obsequious in their behaviour toward others, and especially in their effusive praise of the merit system!  Yet I question whether I may have been much more subtly taken in by some highly-ranked accounts operated by intelligent individuals.  Part of the problem may be that as a newer user, I naturally grant some deference in assuming the best of people who appear to have well-established reputations.  I will try to be more watchful about that.

The outcome of a merit system turning bad would be a kind of "feudalistic" Bitcointalk, were the rich sources of sMerit would live surrounded by courtiers doing their best to curry favour with them. Let's hope we don't turn to the dark side...

That’s a bad analogy.  The feudal system tended to succeed in proportion to the merit of the nobility, including their resistance to the wily inveigling of flatterers.  Those who embrace flatterers always do so at their peril.

Historical discussions are off-topic, so I will leave it at that.

Now for one thing you left out of “the Good”:  People who work hard on their posts can feel some appreciation!

I will here speak to my experience.  It is not unreasonable to suppose that other good posters have had similar experiences.

I work hard on my posts.  I did that before the merit system, and I do that now.  Some of my best posts take hours for writing, editing, proofreading, gathering links, etc., etc.

Many of my posts get few replies, if any.  I don’t expect and don’t want any replies which simply acknowledge my post, adding nothing else.  Thus before the merit system, I was oft left to wonder if anybody found my posts useful—indeed, whether anybody had even read them.

My first notification of the merit system came when I logged in 29 January after a few weeks’ absence, and found I already had 17 merits for posts I made in December.  It felt good to know that somebody, somewhere sufficiently appreciated my posts to remember them for tribute a month later!  Since then, I’ve enjoyed watching the merit trickle in whenever I make a post which people find valuable.

It’s not an ego boost.  I don’t need that, and am not susceptible to it.  I don’t need praise.  What I do need is to know that when I spend hours of my time making something to give away freely, it is found by others to be useful and valuable.  Otherwise, it feels like expending effort in vain, without purpose.

The merit system rewards good posts.  People are placing far too much focus on what it does to people who don’t earn merit, and the negative necessity of stopping garbage posts.  Look to the positive purpose!  Look first to the encouragement this system gives to good posters!

[belyaevi]

The new merit system is not yet functioning as it should. It will take time before it will. Whenever people receive a number of merits, they also receive half of the same number of sMerits, which are the merits that they can give to others. This system is strongly deflationary, which means that the initial distribution of sMerits will very soon extinguish itself. If the sMerits don't flow, the rank system overall freezes, which is bad.

We have merit sources for that and they are also being increased as per the requirements.

[ducdr]

What a long post discussed about two sides of merit system!
The fact it the system is a very young one, which has almost 2-week old. As a result of this, the system will be adjusted (I believe) to do its good jobs more smoothly; and users in the forum will have more time to adjust themselves in order to be more constructive users. That's the good impacts of merit system on the forum generally.

By contrast, there are lots of illegal (I simply called 'illegal', but it's not exact word to use) activities regarding to merit trading, main-alt accounts exchanging sMerits, etc. Those ones will be found/ discovered over time by lots of radars in the forum. They will be tagged soon. So let the forum more time, stop worrying about illegal activites related to merits/smerits trading. Everythin will be judge/ punished appropriately by moderators.

To conclude, Merit system is a good one; has made and will continue to help the forum being a better one for all users globally.

[CryptoChanel]

I presume that “sources” must be the types of community leaders who treat the forum as a full-time job.  That is, the types who not only write many posts, but also read many posts.

Not necessarily. Instead of a few people spending all their time on the forum you can have many people spending just a reasonable time on the forum. It is not the quantity of time they spend on the forum or the fact that they are "community leaders" which matters, but the fact that they can recognize a good post and distinguish it from a bad one. It is actually much better to have more sources of merit with moderate power than less sources of merit with huge power: that would prevent or at least reduce abuses.

Have you ever played “six degrees” style games?  I think every single post on this forum is read by multiple people whose posts are read by multiple people... whose posts are read by one or more “sources”.  The merit should flow from sources outward in ever-wider circles, as ripplings from a pebble tossed in a pond.

I know even too well the six degrees game, in just 2-3 degrees I'm personally already getting to the top world's current political leaders and to a few of the top historical characters of the past century. What you have said could work out, provided there is enough sMerit in circulation.

Within the past few days, I myself witnessed up close the permanent demolition of a “Legendary” account which got caught merit-farming.

I think I've witnessed that from the distance too

The outcome of a merit system turning bad would be a kind of "feudalistic" Bitcointalk, were the rich sources of sMerit would live surrounded by courtiers doing their best to curry favour with them. Let's hope we don't turn to the dark side...

That’s a bad analogy.  The feudal system tended to succeed in proportion to the merit of the nobility, including their resistance to the wily inveigling of flatterers.  Those who embrace flatterers always do so at their peril.
Historical discussions are off-topic, so I will leave it at that.

Exactly because they are off-topic I have used them as a metaphore, which of course would refer to a "stylized" vision of a feudal system as it's commonly perceived.

I work hard on my posts.  I did that before the merit system, and I do that now.  Some of my best posts take hours for writing, editing, proofreading, gathering links, etc., etc.

This effort of yours is clearly visible and the quality of your posts is outstanding. To write this OP took a lot of time, especially as English is not my first language, nor by the way even my second. But if you have a life outside Bitcointalk you don't always have hours to dedicate to one post, alas.

The merit system rewards good posts.  People are placing far too much focus on what it does to people who don’t earn merit, and the negative necessity of stopping garbage posts.  Look to the positive purpose!  Look first to the encouragement this system gives to good posters!

I totally agree on this, even though for the moment I'd change the first sentence to The merit system should reward all good posts. This is not happening yet, which is understandable because the system is new, but this is the mission that must be achieved. I am still seeing too many good fresh posts which are getting no merits. I really hope this aspect will soon improve.

[Andik Bachdim]

I am sorry
I am beginner in bitcointalk please help and guidance
with new rules for ranking in bitcointalk.

I personally need help and guidance to get (Merit)

I hope you can petrify me
and how you feel about the new ranking system rules

[loengrinm]

I am sorry
I am beginner in bitcointalk please help and guidance
with new rules for ranking in bitcointalk.

I personally need help and guidance to get (Merit)

I hope you can petrify me
and how you feel about the new ranking system rules

Read everything about merit system in official thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0.

[Leanna44]

Til now i had no merit but its okay this is my challenge to improve my self more, i had to be patience and get more some knowledge to be able to commit what ive hoped for.

[Kavallo]

This OP is well defining the terms of the issue of the introduction of the merit system on Bitcointalk. I now realize that each of us should have to escape the temptation of being EITHER in favor OR against the new merit system. We should try instead our best to see both what's good and what's bad in the new system so that we can actively support the good part of the system and at the same time actively look for improvements of what is still not properly working. This instead of limiting ourselves to sterile critics, which are of no use. I've also liked  Nullius' contribution to the discussion, very lucid.

[Jet Cash]

In this very first week with the new rules I've noticed that people are usually expressing themselves either in favor or against the new system. A dualism which is creating a lot of friction inside the community. I am now here trying a more balanced approach, inviting whoever would like to take part to this discussion to do his or her best to see all sides of this issue, for a dialectical approach is the classic way to achieve the best possible synthesis.

THE GOOD

As everybody already knows, the merit system has been introduced to fight shitposting, especially the one produced by account farmers. To this regard, one important fact we have to realize is that shitposting has been growing at alarming rates in the past year, and without the introduction of a slowing down factor, like a merit system, this would have led to the complete destruction of this forum within a few years. Just imagine, in a few years from now, an army of 20,0000+ Legendaries posting just stuff like "Bitcoin soon moon luckily, if not dump" and "why do you bitcoin?". This would have meant the complete loss of any residual meaning of the ranking system on top of a complete loss of any residual meaning of the whole forum, since the background noise of a 99% rate of shitposting by 200,000 Hero Members + possibly millions of Full Members would have made it impossible for anyone to find the very few interesting posts lost in the garbage. We still don't know how efficiently the new system will be able to fight the shitposting spam, but at least it will confine most of it to the lowest ranks, making it economically less remunerative. The merit system is likely to slow down ranking up for everyone, which is obviously frustrating, but this is a very reasonable price to pay to avoid the guaranteed destruction of the forum by the locust swarm.

THE BAD

The new merit system is not yet functioning as it should. It will take time before it will. Whenever people receive a number of merits, they also receive half of the same number of sMerits, which are the merits that they can give to others. This system is strongly deflationary, which means that the initial distribution of sMerits will very soon extinguish itself. If the sMerits don't flow, the rank system overall freezes, which is bad. To replenish the system with sMerits there are merit sources, people who have been chosen to distribute a monthly quota of merits to posts which deserve it. Currently, as far as I know, there are a bit more than 50 sources or so. My sensation is that for a forum with tens of thousands of members, this could end up being largely insufficient, unless each of them had so many sMerits to distribute, that they would be enough to ensure that the overall circulation would keep going. This actual lack of supply of new sMerits is leading many people not to spend the few they have been given initially, which is also bad. Theymos has mentioned that the numbers of sources could grow to up to 200 within a year, we will discover if that will be enough. Merits are now a sort of lifeblood of the ranking system, if they won't move, neither will ranks.
As for the initial distribution is concerned, there is a lot of frustration in the community for the merits not having been distributed proportionally to the activity, which would have been fair for all, but instead each member has received the minimum merit that their rank could get. This has strongly penalized members of high ranks who were about to climb to the next rank, and has been perceived as an injustice, which obviously is. But there is a reason for that. This is a quote of theymos on the subject:

Quote from: theymos on January 26, 2018, 06:06:49 PM
(...) I considered giving merit proportional to activity, but I decided not to because doing so would probably give far more undeserved merit than deserved merit in total. But undoubtedly some people got screwed by this, and if they have decent posts, by all means, give them the 250 or 500 merit that they need to rank-up.

Theymos has clearly a point. Of course the other way a lot of people would have got undeserved merit. While by lowering merit for everybody (but Legendaries), in some way the system has been rendered effective retroactively, which for the sake of the forum would be a good thing, even though it would still be bad for those who actually would have deserved that neglected merit. A good compromise would be to effectively manually review the people who "undoubtedly got screwed by this" and to give them the missing merits if they have decent posts. But I still didn't see any trace of this happening in the forum.

THE UGLY

No matter how good the merit system is meant to be for the forum, there will always be hordes of people trying to turn something good into something bad. The stupidest of them have already been caught sending the sMerits to their own alts and getting red trusted for that. But others will find ways to stealthy make trade of sMerits. Cliques could form for sharing merits in close circles for mutual benefit. Human imagination is limitless when it comes to find ways to bypass a rule.
And then there will be the beggars. Merit Begging has started in the very fist moment the new system has been enforced. And there are many ways to beg. You can do it openly, you can do it in a more discrete, almost implicit way, and you can do it just by trying to please the big holders of sMerit, by telling them what they want to hear and just hoping for their mercy - in other words indulging in that ancient human habit commonly known as "buttlicking". I am afraid, one of the prices to pay to try eradicate one annoying form of ugliness - that is shitposting - is that new form of ugliness would make their appearance in our space. The outcome of a merit system turning bad would be a kind of "feudalistic" Bitcointalk, were the rich sources of sMerit would live surrounded by courtiers doing their best to curry favour with them. Let's hope we don't turn to the dark side...

I thought I would copy the original text, as its formatting makes it slow and difficult to read.

I'm glad I did that. The post is well worth reading, but I didn't have the patience to struggle through the original format, sorry.

[CryptoChanel]

I thought I would copy the original text, as its formatting makes it slow and difficult to read.

I'm glad I did that. The post is well worth reading, but I didn't have the patience to struggle through the original format, sorry.

No need to apologize, maybe others are preferring to read it in black and white as well. I've just got the impulse to color the text to reflect the public mood associated with the different aspects of the newly introduced merit system.

[Bambangs]

I agree with your opinion, with the change of rules to improve the rank of an account has been given merit restrictions.
Merit will indirectly make the keeper tuyul will like a beard fire.
and for the newbie and jr members will compete to make a quality post. and there will be no spam in the forum

[Ria Sakurai]

you have a long post and receive some merits, so i think your post is good but i don't read it. because i read thousands post through many forums and websites a day, my eyes tired of reading colorful text, next time can you please just made simple text.

[jpespa]

This post is well organized sorry if the only thing I could do right now is to praise you because I don't have any smerits to give. But I would like to add some more.

Just imagine, in a few years from now, an army of 20,0000+ Legendaries posting just stuff like "Bitcoin soon moon luckily, if not dump" and "why do you bitcoin?". This would have meant the complete loss of any residual meaning of the ranking system on top of a complete loss of any residual meaning of the whole forum, since the background noise of a 99% rate of shitposting by 200,000 Hero Members + possibly millions of Full Members would have made it impossible for anyone to find the very few interesting posts lost in the garbage.

^^
That's one good explanation you have! In addition, I think the very disturbing result of this behavior is that people who posts quality and informative comment are being overlooked by other members who might just give merit to that person because of too many overlapping shitposts and the frequent "yes", "I agree", +1, "you got it right" and "one-liner posts" that doesn't really help.

We still don't know how efficiently the new system will be able to fight the shitposting spam, but at least it will confine most of it to the lowest ranks, making it economically less remunerative.

^^
This is where the challenge for the lower ranks starts. Many posts here that are actually deserving of merit don't receiving anything. One possible reason is the one I stated above, another reason maybe because of low supply of smerits(really?), or maybe many people just ignore the system and don't care about giving merits.

Currently, as far as I know, there are a bit more than 50 sources or so. My sensation is that for a forum with tens of thousands of members, this could end up being largely insufficient, unless each of them had so many sMerits to distribute, that they would be enough to ensure that the overall circulation would keep going. This actual lack of supply of new sMerits is leading many people not to spend the few they have been given initially, which is also bad.

^^
Well the application for merit source is still on-going and definitely would take time to select each one because they need to make sure that accepting such member to become merit source will not abuse and misuse the power of giving merits.

No matter how good the merit system is meant to be for the forum, there will always be hordes of people trying to turn something good into something bad. The stupidest of them have already been caught sending the sMerits to their own alts and getting red trusted for that. But others will find ways to stealthy make trade of sMerits. Cliques could form for sharing merits in close circles for mutual benefit. Human imagination is limitless when it comes to find ways to bypass a rule.

^^
I have seen many like this. It's like instead of people starting to improve their post they are becoming cheaters instead. Don't go in the wrong path and be fair with everyone. The opportunity that we have in this forum is not that easy to find everywhere. When we see someone suspicious don't hesitate to report here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2823221.0 we should not let any indecent acts to continue. We should be vigilant as well to help making better of this forum.

And lastly..

And then there will be the beggars. Merit Begging has started in the very fist moment the new system has been enforced. And there are many ways to beg. You can do it openly, you can do it in a more discrete, almost implicit way, and you can do it just by trying to please the big holders of sMerit, by telling them what they want to hear and just hoping for their mercy - in other words indulging in that ancient human habit commonly known as "buttlicking".

^^
Well there will always be someone like that and I have seen many of them too. I don't think we can blame some of them though maybe because they might be victims of "overlooked posts" assuming that the post is actually a deserving one. But we all know that this system is still just fresh and we cannot force people to give smerits to somebody so all we need to do is to improve the quality of our post and hope for someone to give merit to it. Just don't expect anything from anyone because it might get you disappointed. Becoming sMerit beggar is not actually a good idea and will not make you productive in this forum.

That's it! I hope I haven't said anything wrong but please feel free to react on my comment. I'd be glad to as this is after all an interesting discussion.

[CryptoChanel]

When we see someone suspicious don't hesitate to report here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2823221.0 we should not let any indecent acts to continue. We should be vigilant as well to help making better of this forum.

Well, yes, it is a long list of people possibly abusing the merit system, however, even though these abuses are some of the collateral damage originated by the new system, which is not good, I also would not overrate it with an obsessive Witch-hunt. Theymos has been very clear on this point: if some people abuse the system giving merits to themselves this is totally irrelevant in the economy of the system, since their merit will half at each passage and then rapidly finish - and then they would have to earn it or never rank up any more. The real challenge is to get the whole system to work, to have the sMerits properly circulating, the rest are just details.