Newbie, Jr Members, Members suffering from merit-phobia: Explanations and Advice

[1020kingz]

It's not just the East that are assumed to be incompetent spammers. Young people as well (like me when I started) are unable to work for a good amount of time unless they do it freelance. I joined this forum with a hope of earning Bitcoin actually and for the first 6 months I think I was spamming a bit. Once you get beyond member/full you start to withhold on posting as often as you would and actually try to start writing constructive ones like this OP. I have to say, the merit system might help with this a bit as you can't advance without writing well.

If you make a 1 sentence post that's of high quality, it is better and more likely to be merited than a long post that could be summarised by 1 sentence. Also, for me, I'd be more inclined to merit users I have seen frequently make good quality posts.

good point, most of the newcomers aiming for the required character in their participated bounties, they post lot of words but the main point of the post is summarized only in a short sentence, honestly it also happen to me. this merit system is an eye opener to us in this forum to be more informative with our post so that others can benefit with our shared knowledge in this forum.

[dbshck]

Step 5: If your English is not good, Start with doing something valuable in your local forum. There will surely be some good users in all local forums who will help out. If there are none, then take command in a professional way of your forum. Learn about bitcoin and engage with other members like a man of knowledge. Alternatively, in your local forum, you could:

---> Translate some of the better posts from here (after taking due permission from the original poster)
---> Engage in discussion about setting up the infrastructure for bitcoin within your community. Like local groups, meetups etc.
---> Persuade people to actually care about the goal of financial access and equality for all and the importance of adoption.
---> Inform yourself about the scaling debate and be warned about the false marketing from other people making wild claims.
---> Inform yourself about Lightning Network, SegWit and encourage its usage.

Very good suggestion, I think every non-native English speakers should read this. For anyone who has an active local community, like Indonesia, Philippines, and Russia, it's easier for them to contribute to their local forum as usually there is still not much high-quality content in the local forum, any member who makes one will surely be noticed and thus easier to get merit.

1 - There is an extreme gap in the standard of living in places like Indonesia and affluent neighborhoods in the US. This means that not only is the $0.55 or so a low level member can earn from making one post is a lot of money (in terms of his standard of living), but also the time spent not posting in either learning about Bitcoin, the subject topic, or in making an english post in proper english is worth a lot in terms of what could have been paid for if this time was spent posting.

True. There are a huge number of people who come here because they heard they can make money here in Bitcointalk, even before they knew Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Members who only care about making money and have no interest in learning Bitcoin/cryptocurrency will add nothing to a discussion.

3 - The Indonesia local section is the 2nd largest local sub behind the Russia local sub, as measured by total posts, yet it does not have any kind of "beginners" nor "technical discussion" section (many other local subs do have these kinds of sections). This means that Indonesians who want to learn about Bitcoin do not have a forum to do so in their local language. It would probably be a good idea to add some kind of beginners section in Indonesia.

Thanks for your input. For the bolded part: we put any Bitcoin-related topics under the main local forum, they are free to ask anything related to Bitcoin there. We also already have a specific discussion thread for some topics (Wallet, Exchangers, etc) listed here.

[sitnikov]

Very good suggestion, I think every non-native English speakers should read this. For anyone who has an active local community, like Indonesia, Philippines, and Russia, it's easier for them to contribute to their local forum as usually there is still not much high-quality content in the local forum, any member who makes one will surely be noticed and thus easier to get merit.

True. There are a huge number of people who come here because they heard they can make money here in Bitcointalk, even before they knew Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Members who only care about making money and have no interest in learning Bitcoin/cryptocurrency will add nothing to a discussion.

I checked the local forum for India and there are very less merited posts there. I do not think we have merit sources in that section and this data is not public as well. If a member sees that the posts in his local section are not getting rewarded, he will be discouraged from getting merits. If the admin can just make an announcement like they have at least 1 merit source in each local section, it can be good relief.

I agree to this. But I think these members can be tolerated as long as they are not doing any spam. But practices like bumping own threads, posting reviews for Fake ICOs or posting flase news related to crypto are things that should be dealt strongly.

[IsuruMaduranga]

Okay, I am a Jr.member here and I am in the Crypto field for 3 months. I am new to the field.
I should reply your post because I cannot agree with some words/content of your post.

I am from none English speaking country and my English is not very good as well. Also, I am a bounty hunter and I do more than 10 bounty campaigns. I own 5000 friends Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you check my posts you will find lots of bounty submissions. As a newbie, I had no good idea about the forum and community so my posts were not very good but I didn't spam around. Now I post more meaningful and constructive posts and always trying to do something good in the forum.

Being a bounty hunter is not a bad thing and being a bounty hunter doesn't imply the person is a spammer or useless or a shit poster. I am a bounty hunter, Computer engineering undergraduate in the best university of my country, Ethereum developer and a Web developer. I do bounties and trading because I need money.

Spammers are not limited to some specific set of countries; They can be anywhere.

About merits:

I do post constructive, meaningful and helpful posts(Check my posts if someone wants). But I am not getting merits. I try and it is very hard. Merit is a good idea but not fair as it should be. Why? Because for getting merits we need not only good posts but also a bit of luck. Increasing the number of merit sources may help. Let's be hopeful.  

Finally as a Jr.member, suffering from merit phobia can be perfectly justified in my point of view.



 

[dbshck]

I checked the local forum for India and there are very less merited posts there. I do not think we have merit sources in that section and this data is not public as well. If a member sees that the posts in his local section are not getting rewarded, he will be discouraged from getting merits. If the admin can just make an announcement like they have at least 1 merit source in each local section, it can be good relief.

I agree to this. But I think these members can be tolerated as long as they are not doing any spam. But practices like bumping own threads, posting reviews for Fake ICOs or posting flase news related to crypto are things that should be dealt strongly.

theymos has assigned at least one member in each local as a merit source but still, it's possible that the source is not so active causing not enough merit circulating in that particular section. Feel free to apply as a merit source yourself or encourage more established member in your local community to apply as a merit source, theymos has stated that he wants each sub-community to have (active) merit sources.

I am especially eager to have merit sources in sub-communities such as the local sections.

[athanz88]

I checked the local forum for India and there are very less merited posts there. I do not think we have merit sources in that section and this data is not public as well. If a member sees that the posts in his local section are not getting rewarded, he will be discouraged from getting merits. If the admin can just make an announcement like they have at least 1 merit source in each local section, it can be good relief.

I agree to this. But I think these members can be tolerated as long as they are not doing any spam. But practices like bumping own threads, posting reviews for Fake ICOs or posting flase news related to crypto are things that should be dealt strongly.

theymos has assigned at least one member in each local as a merit source but still, it's possible that the source is not so active causing not enough merit circulating in that particular section. Feel free to apply as a merit source yourself or encourage more established member in your local community to apply as a merit source, theymos has stated that he wants each sub-community to have (active) merit sources.

I am especially eager to have merit sources in sub-communities such as the local sections.

Well, in my opinion, Indonesia Local Board is good, mods work hard (i have seen they clean thread and cheaters) but the problem is in the member's hands. They always bring friends here just to make money (i dont know which one, real friends or alt-accounts) and dive right in to make it without learning anything fundamental about this forum and bitcoin and cryptocurrency, that is the main problem for Indonesian. Recently i found Indonesian using their language outside the local board, i suggested them to learn in the local board but i dont know if the suggestion is effective or not.

Adding more merit sources is the key for merit to be succesful for now, because if we have a lot of them, then maybe it can provide merit to all great post out there. Anyway, Does Indonesian Local Board need more merit sources? I would love to be one if i am competent enough.

[shushanika]

theymos has assigned at least one member in each local as a merit source but still, it's possible that the source is not so active causing not enough merit circulating in that particular section. Feel free to apply as a merit source yourself or encourage more established member in your local community to apply as a merit source, theymos has stated that he wants each sub-community to have (active) merit sources.

I am especially eager to have merit sources in sub-communities such as the local sections.

Has he not also mentioned that the member should be somewhat established to apply for this ?  Isn't it risky to give this role to a new member ?

He has not mentioned any specific requirement for being considered as merit source but I think he will accept only Sr Member or above which is the correct thing also. If just one dishonest person succeeds in becoming a merit source here, he will completely ruin the merit system.

[athanz88]

He did mention that someone must be an established member to be merit sources. Everybody can apply though but only one who fulfill the requirement (an established members and pointed 10 meritorious posts) can be merit sources, and of course it is all comes back to theymos decision.

[gopaljiverma]

I do post constructive, meaningful and helpful posts(Check my posts if someone wants). But I am not getting merits. I try and it is very hard. Merit is a good idea but not fair as it should be. Why? Because for getting merits we need not only good posts but also a bit of luck. Increasing the number of merit sources may help. Let's be hopeful.  

Finally as a Jr.member, suffering from merit phobia can be perfectly justified in my point of view.

If you see the merit stats, you will find a lot of other new members getting merits. If the merit system was a failure, all the new members should not be able to get any merits at all. This is not the case and many became members after the merit system. This means you are doing something wrong. I agree that sometimes one may not get merits even after making quality poss. You need to analyze the reasons and change your approach. Taking smart decisions like posting when most members are active and posting in sections often visited by senior members can be helpful.

[Jet Cash]

Well I've given merit to brand new members for their first posts, but I do agree that there is an element of luck. Maybe if I had visited that board a day later, the post/thread would have been on page 3, and I wouldn't have seen it.

The answer really is to cut down on the spammers, the necro-bumpers, and the long tailed spam-fests. I think were are working on the spammers, but we don't seem to be doing much about the necro-bumpers.

[jackg]

The answer really is to cut down on the spammers, the necro-bumpers, and the long tailed spam-fests. I think were are working on the spammers, but we don't seem to be doing much about the necro-bumpers.

Mods don't always catch the necrobumpers either. I found one of my old threads get bumped a few years down the line, reported their posts and nothing happened (there was also a thread I posted on about a yobit scam in (2015?) that was being posted on a few months ago also and was only 3 pages long). In their defence, that post was reasonable as they also claimed to be scammed by yobit, but they would have got more people to respond if they made a new thread or a moderator moved the posts to a new thread - yes they can do that, I went off topic on a technical support thread (because someone asked the question and it started off relevant to the topic) and Achow placed it on a brand new thread of its own. It's not done often that way but it would be quite nice to see it done a bit more. Maybe with this part of the thread now that is going a little off topic from the original OP. Though the luck thing is definitley true along with the experimenting of the merit system (a newbie who made a good post on the first few days of the merit system was probably quite likely to get merited from someone else's sMerit than they will be now as we all know a bit more about the system and don't need to test its functionality).

[IsuruMaduranga]

I do post constructive, meaningful and helpful posts(Check my posts if someone wants). But I am not getting merits. I try and it is very hard. Merit is a good idea but not fair as it should be. Why? Because for getting merits we need not only good posts but also a bit of luck. Increasing the number of merit sources may help. Let's be hopeful.  

Finally as a Jr.member, suffering from merit phobia can be perfectly justified in my point of view.

If you see the merit stats, you will find a lot of other new members getting merits. If the merit system was a failure, all the new members should not be able to get any merits at all. This is not the case and many became members after the merit system. This means you are doing something wrong. I agree that sometimes one may not get merits even after making quality poss. You need to analyze the reasons and change your approach. Taking smart decisions like posting when most members are active and posting in sections often visited by senior members can be helpful.

Check my posts. That's all i say

[amishmanish]

I own 5000 friends Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you check my posts you will find lots of bounty submissions. As a newbie, I had no good idea about the forum and community so my posts were not very good but I didn't spam around. Now I post more meaningful and constructive posts and always trying to do something good in the forum.

Thanks for your response Isuru. There are a lot of people who came in for the Alts and the bounties. You have yourself admitted that you do multiple campaigns  and support them on your FB/ Twitter accounts. Can we agree that no non-celebrity, non-spam account has 5000 friends/followers?? Correct me if I am wrong. There is a bit of an image issue when someone does this. You chose this despite the fact that you are "a CS undergrad in the Best Univ. of your country". Don't you think that you are privileged enough to understand the useful from the selfish?

After the merit requirement was introduced, a lot of people were jolted from this bot-like reporting. This started the response about how the "merit system is not good enough". A lot of seemingly capable people like yourself also find themselves on this crossroad. It may take sometime to correct this image issue. I am sure it'll happen if you really intend to.

Spammers are not limited to some specific set of countries; They can be anywhere.

I agree. Please read again. I never said all spammers are from these countries.

It is a common impression that most of the people spamming or shit-posting are from the low income countries in the eastern hemisphere

About merits:

I do post constructive, meaningful and helpful posts(Check my posts if someone wants). But I am not getting merits. I try and it is very hard. Merit is a good idea but not fair as it should be. Why? Because for getting merits we need not only good posts but also a bit of luck. Increasing the number of merit sources may help. Let's be hopeful.  

Finally as a Jr.member, suffering from merit phobia can be perfectly justified in my point of view.

Most of your better posts are in Alt-sections and sadly, as of now, the merit sources there are limited to those passing it among themselves or for ANN posts. If you see closely, Alts has been the source for most of spam in the forum over the last few terrible months. This is one reason that most people who care enough about the forum don't look for good posts in the alt-sections.

What you should really ask yourself is that how are you helping the forum, bitcoin or the cryptocurrency ecosystem in general with the knowledge, you have yourself admitted, you have (Web Dev, Ethereum Dev)?
Right now, your post history shows the corrective actions you are taking. For real intent to show through, I am afraid you'll have to be a little more consistent. Don't worry. Its only been 3 months. I am sure you have made some money already. You have a bright future ahead with your credentials. Try to think about this not through the lens of money but the underlying values and work ethic of openness and sharing. I'd highly recommend going through this website.

[krishnaverma]

Well I've given merit to brand new members for their first posts, but I do agree that there is an element of luck. Maybe if I had visited that board a day later, the post/thread would have been on page 3, and I wouldn't have seen it.

How is this luck, I think it is actually good and requires all member to remain active. Anyone making a constructive post in the beginning of the thread must be given preference for merits in my opinion just because he is more active than others. This is also a good tip for members looking after merits, they have more chances of getting merits in threads which have got less responses but you have to post useful and related content.

[IsuruMaduranga]

I own 5000 friends Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you check my posts you will find lots of bounty submissions. As a newbie, I had no good idea about the forum and community so my posts were not very good but I didn't spam around. Now I post more meaningful and constructive posts and always trying to do something good in the forum.

Thanks for your response Isuru. There are a lot of people who came in for the Alts and the bounties. You have yourself admitted that you do multiple campaigns  and support them on your FB/ Twitter accounts. Can we agree that no non-celebrity, non-spam account has 5000 friends/followers?? Correct me if I am wrong. There is a bit of an image issue when someone does this. You chose this despite the fact that you are "a CS undergrad in the Best Univ. of your country". Don't you think that you are privileged enough to understand the useful from the selfish?

After the merit requirement was introduced, a lot of people were jolted from this bot-like reporting. This started the response about how the "merit system is not good enough". A lot of seemingly capable people like yourself also find themselves on this crossroad. It may take sometime to correct this image issue. I am sure it'll happen if you really intend to.

Spammers are not limited to some specific set of countries; They can be anywhere.

I agree. Please read again. I never said all spammers are from these countries.

It is a common impression that most of the people spamming or shit-posting are from the low income countries in the eastern hemisphere

About merits:

I do post constructive, meaningful and helpful posts(Check my posts if someone wants). But I am not getting merits. I try and it is very hard. Merit is a good idea but not fair as it should be. Why? Because for getting merits we need not only good posts but also a bit of luck. Increasing the number of merit sources may help. Let's be hopeful.  

Finally as a Jr.member, suffering from merit phobia can be perfectly justified in my point of view.

Most of your better posts are in Alt-sections and sadly, as of now, the merit sources there are limited to those passing it among themselves or for ANN posts. If you see closely, Alts has been the source for most of spam in the forum over the last few terrible months. This is one reason that most people who care enough about the forum don't look for good posts in the alt-sections.

What you should really ask yourself is that how are you helping the forum, bitcoin or the cryptocurrency ecosystem in general with the knowledge, you have yourself admitted, you have (Web Dev, Ethereum Dev)?
Right now, your post history shows the corrective actions you are taking. For real intent to show through, I am afraid you'll have to be a little more consistent. Don't worry. Its only been 3 months. I am sure you have made some money already. You have a bright future ahead with your credentials. Try to think about this not through the lens of money but the underlying values and work ethic of openness and sharing. I'd highly recommend going through this website.

Thanks  for the feedback. Actually it is really helpful and meaningful.

[lukyanli]

Okay, I am a Jr.member here and I am in the Crypto field for 3 months. I am new to the field.
I should reply your post because I cannot agree with some words/content of your post.

I am from none English speaking country and my English is not very good as well. Also, I am a bounty hunter and I do more than 10 bounty campaigns. I own 5000 friends Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you check my posts you will find lots of bounty submissions. As a newbie, I had no good idea about the forum and community so my posts were not very good but I didn't spam around. Now I post more meaningful and constructive posts and always trying to do something good in the forum.

Being a bounty hunter is not a bad thing and being a bounty hunter doesn't imply the person is a spammer or useless or a shit poster. I am a bounty hunter, Computer engineering undergraduate in the best university of my country, Ethereum developer and a Web developer. I do bounties and trading because I need money.

Spammers are not limited to some specific set of countries; They can be anywhere.

About merits:

I do post constructive, meaningful and helpful posts(Check my posts if someone wants). But I am not getting merits. I try and it is very hard. Merit is a good idea but not fair as it should be. Why? Because for getting merits we need not only good posts but also a bit of luck. Increasing the number of merit sources may help. Let's be hopeful.  

Finally as a Jr.member, suffering from merit phobia can be perfectly justified in my point of view.



 

As I can see in your profile, you have already got 3 merit points which is good considering the number of posts you have made. Do not give up on this. Go to the merit stats page and have a look at the recently merited posts and threads. You can then post similar posts and thus increase your chances of getting merits.  I am also a Jr Member currently but I think I will easily become a member by the time I reach the activity required for next rank. Thereafter, I will have to act really smart in order to rank up as I will need 90 points for next rank.

[jumpflip27]

The reality is, merits are not for longest post you can construct, rather its for ideas that are useful to readers especially to those who already know what cryptos is all about and just looking for additional information.

Well, that seems now the old members of bct forums will have a great advantage and new users will try to earn reputation really hard
and I'd say 100 merits for full member is to harsh imho..

[jackg]

The reality is, merits are not for longest post you can construct, rather its for ideas that are useful to readers especially to those who already know what cryptos is all about and just looking for additional information.

Well, that seems now the old members of bct forums will have a great advantage and new users will try to earn reputation really hard
and I'd say 100 merits for full member is to harsh imho..

Your posts are fairly average (just skimming recent ones) and it's also mainly posts in the alts boards, giveaway/bounty threads and off topic so the 100 merit target is quite high for you. I think generally all positions are quite high (other than the member rank, 10 is about right for that one) and would worry about reaching them myself if I wasn't legendary by the time the system came into effect.

[virendarnagpal]

I find this to be a little ethnocentric. I see that you're just trying to help others be able to post constructively, but this is at a disadvantage for those who grew up with a different native language. Ethnocentrism is where there is a belief that one ethic group or culture is superior to another. This is usually implied and done impassingly, as like every other racial comment. This treatment toward Eastern posters is an example of ethnocentrism.

I'm really glad you pointed out the "East vs. West" issue. This is usually dismissed because the users in this forum have their freedom of speech or to their own opinion. I won't deny it, there are in fact many shitposters coming from the East and (shamingly) from my own country. For someone who's born with a different native language other than english, it's going to be hard for them to construct sentences in the correct grammar. If they were to excel and post constructively, it's true that they may do better within their local boards which may lack sMerit sources. You see, this gives them minimal opportunity to contribute and participate in the forum if they were confined to their local boards.

Obviously, the "sir, dear" remark is a cultural barrier. This is being said by the Eastern because of their value of respect, and they do this out of habit because they got so used to it. A habit to one is offensive to another. So who should adjust here?

Perhaps this forum lacks a little cultural relativism. All cultures are worthy in their own right and are of equal value. Are the opinions of others no longer of value just because it is not properly constructed in English?

1. East vs. West
It is a common impression that most of the people spamming or shit-posting are from the low income countries in the eastern hemisphere. Indian, Indonesia, Thailand, Phillipines, Vietnam etc. To people from these countries, I'd say that its our own mistake that the west sees us as incompetent and lazy when we write incoherent sentences.
By showing our willingness to spend our time on making 1000 useless posts, we confirm that we are in fact useless. Its then natural to have disdain for such actions. Accusing the other person of racism then is no defence. If you really want to mount a defence, then do some real work and prove your worth.

This constant trend to use salutations  (Sir, Dear, Respected) is also a cultural difference. To you, it maybe normal to show respect to someone in a position of power over you, but as far as netiquette and western work culture is concerned, this is considered sycophancy/ ass-kissing. This is considered the hallmark of an incapable, scheming individual and not of respect. So avoid this like a plague. Instead, address people with a normal Mr./ Miss

It's true that Eastern people use the words Sir/ Dear Sir, Respected Sir because they want to respect the addressee.  In our countries if young addresses his elders without using respect paying words, he/she is treated as an uncivilized, uneducated person.  In response elders are expected to treat younger with love and respect.  But in West is opposite.  They take it otherwise.  This is the forum created and developed by the westerns.  The language is also western, i.e. English.  But the promoters / founders / developers wanted to spread it breaking national boundaries.  That is why we have been allowed access to this platform though no one works without self interests.
So if someone gets hurt / angry by my cultural respect habitual behavior  ; I must try to be intelligent enough not to pay so much respect and avoiding usage of such words while talking them.
Though ass kissers are not exceptions.

[mdayonliner]

This constant trend to use salutations  (Sir, Dear, Respected) is also a cultural difference. To you, it maybe normal to show respect to someone in a position of power over you, but as far as netiquette and western work culture is concerned, this is considered sycophancy/ ass-kissing. This is considered the hallmark of an incapable, scheming individual and not of respect. So avoid this like a plague. Instead, address people with a normal Mr./ Miss

I am from eastern culture but spend a lot of my time in western culture and this is something always annoys me. I feel embarrassed hearing people calls me sir, dear, respected etc instead I feel comfortable with mate, dude, mr; Problem is in eastern culture when we learn English, the teachers teach us salutations like sir, dear are only way to show respect.

Other day I went to the doctor and I asked how should I call you. He said call me "Sir" from my reaction when he realised that it annoyed me then he said you can call me Dr. X (his name)

Point is: To me you are a Doc, you might be a teacher/professor and for them you might be "Sir" but for me you are just a Dr.


PS: The whole post is a brilliant work. Good job on putting everything in one place.