Is the Merit System Generating Enough Merits?

[Oulay]

First of all I wanna thank zentdex for his great analysis about how many merits each rank - on average - gains a month. I used some of the data he provided in his post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3015036.0

Now to my point:
I took my time to do the math and see how many members can the current merit system sustain and here are the results:

SUMMARY

https://imgur.com/a/snYsn




First of all let me remind you of rank requirements:

Newbie:           1 activity                   and     0 merits
Jr. Member:      30 activity                 and     0 merits
Member:          60 activity                 and     10 merits         needs 2 months to get the activity
Full Member:    120 activity               and     100 merits       needs 4 months to get the activity
Sr. Member:      240 activity               and     250 merits      needs 8 months to get the activity
Hero Member:   480 activity               and     500 merits      who knows?    around 12 months
Legendary:       775 - 1030 activity     and     1000 merits




There are currently - at the time of this post - 57 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 11975 sMerit per 30 days. Those are the merits generated by sources only, and given that a member can send half the merits he receives and imagining the best case scenario where every member sends all the merits he receives, the total amount of merits generated by the system would double to 23950 sMerit per 30 days. So, roughly 24k sMerit per month.

Now to the boring math:

Based on Zentdex's analysis the 24k merits are distributed between ranks in the following manner:
Legendary: 8%
Hero: 8%
Sr. Member: 14%
Full Member: 16%
Member: 19%
Jr. Member and Newbie: 23 + 11 = 34%


So...
Legendary members get 8% x 24k = 1920 merits
Hero members get the same amount 1920 which is enough for 1920/500 = 3.84 members to rank up every month. The No. of Hero members the system can sustain: 3.84 x 12 = 46.08
Sr. members get 14% x 24k = 3360 which is enough for 3360/250 = 13.44 members every month. The No. of Sr. members the system can sustain: 13.44 x 8 = 107.52
Full Members get 16% x 24k = 3840 which is enough for 3840/150 = 25.6 members every month. The No. of Full members the system can sustain: 25.6 x 4 = 102.4
Members get 19% x 24k = 4560 which is enough for 4560/90 = 50.67 members every month. The No. of Members the system can sustain:  50.67 x 2 = 101.34
Jr. Members and Newbies get 34% x 24k = 8160 which is enough for 816 members every month.

The time needed to rank up is easily acquired by dividing the amount needed to rank up by the average merits gained per month.

Conclusion (my opinion):
The amount of merits produced by the system is too very low, as we've seen that it would take an average member 3 to 5 times the time it took him to rank up in the previous system, I know that the purpose of this system is to create a better forum with better members but just imagine yourself a full member needing almost 2 years to get to senior. Is that fair? How frustrated you'd be? Well, this is the case for half of the seniors members in the forums!
Not to mention that I described the best case scenario and didn't go into calculating all the sMerits that are horded and not used and the merits that are sold on black markets.

[1715414906]

1715414906

[bitperson]

I know that the purpose of this system is to create a better forum with better members but just imagine yourself a full member needing almost 2 years to get to senior. Is that fair?

If two years is what it takes someone to receive 125 merits, then yes, that's fair for that particular person. Particularly since merit and rank do not affect users' ability to participate on the forum. Ranking up is basically eye candy.

Why are so many users complaining like it would be some kind of basic human right to become legendary by posting stuff that no one but their own mother considers useful?

[Oulay]

If two years is what it takes someone to receive 125 merits, then yes, that's fair for that particular person. Particularly since merit and rank do not affect users' ability to participate on the forum. Ranking up is basically eye candy.

Why are so many users complaining like it would be some kind of basic human right to become legendary by posting stuff that no one but their own mother considers useful?

It's not "that particular person" it's the average member which means more than half the members of this forum have this problem and even if you are a better poster how much above average you think you'd be? will you get double the amount an average user gets? triple? it would still take you much more than it did in the old system.

I'm not complaining about the merit system I'm complaining about the very low amount of merits it produces..

[cynical]

By the OP's numbers if I calculate correctly there have been almost 24,000 merits given out.

The OP's main argument is centered around Ranking Up.
This is only to earn crypto by posting a lot of meaningless posts in order to satisfy the bounty requirements,
This is why the Merit system was created to reduce or eliminate.
 
As bitperson states a persons rank does not prevent them from participating in the forum.
If people get involved in a positive and meaningful way ranking up will follow.

Ok for newbies it is difficult as presumably they are totally new to crypto but not always.
There are incentives for people to earn merit and get them on the "scoreboard" in the services section

sMerit for art - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2957836.0

Trade: merit for info - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2905371.0

sMerit post review - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2819141.0

I have sMerits to offer - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2985012.0

[bitperson]

even if you are a better poster how much above average you think you'd be? will you get double the amount an average user gets? triple? it would still take you much more than it did in the old system.

That's a Good Thing. If users would rank up as quickly as before, then the merit system would have failed. But now merit seems to work as intended: people who don't post useful stuff won't rank up (which means that they won't make it into signature campaigns, which means they no longer have any incentive to shitpost). As for those who do post useful stuff, why would the time factor be a problem? I don't mind if it'll take me 20 years to become legendary, as I can read and post just fine as member. As I hinted, it's not a human right to become legendary with close to zero effort.

[TheQuin]

By the OP's numbers if I calculate correctly there have been almost 24,000 merits given out.

There's something wrong with that calculation though: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat

Most generous merit senders, all time
84187 merit has been sent in total.

[TheBeardedBaby]

There are many High ranked members not aware of the merit system yet.
They are also holding sMerit, which can be distributed and generates more sMerit.

If you calculate how many members are in each rank category, above Jr. and take into account the initial sMerit for every rank, you can pretty much add those sMerits to the actual pool we have at the moment.

I have already given 30 merits, even still a member only.

[DooMAD]

Whether the math in the OP is correct or not, I'd offer this counterpoint:

If we had reset the boards completely and started everyone from newbie status and 0 activity at the moment merit was implemented on 24th Jan, there are plenty of users who would have received sufficient merit to be Members, or even Full Members, but it actually would be the Activity preventing them from attaining that rank.  This alone makes me think we've got the balance correct.

[Oulay]

There's something wrong with that calculation though: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat

Most generous merit senders, all time
84187 merit has been sent in total.

Because this is the first month in the new system and people started with sMerits to give away..
Once those merits end and we start depending only on merits generated by sources the amount of merits generated per month will be around 24k if the number of sources or the amount they generate doesn't increase.

[Oulay]

There are many High ranked members not aware of the merit system yet.
They are also holding sMerit, which can be distributed and generates more sMerit.

If you calculate how many members are in each rank category, above Jr. and take into account the initial sMerit for every rank, you can pretty much add those sMerits to the actual pool we have at the moment.

I have already given 30 merits, even still a member only.

You're right.. but calculating that would be so hard to do and I will only get the amount they started with while not knowing how much they have left. On the other hand the current pool won't last forever and soon we'll need to depend on merit sources.

Whether the math in the OP is correct or not, I'd offer this counterpoint:

If we had reset the boards completely and started everyone from newbie status and 0 activity at the moment merit was implemented on 24th Jan, there are plenty of users who would have received sufficient merit to be Members, or even Full Members, but it actually would be the Activity preventing them from attaining that rank.  This alone makes me think we've got the balance correct.

I didn't really understand what you're saying..
But if you look at the profiles of the couple of guys who replied above, each one of them posted 3 to 5 times more than his activity in order to get near the amount of merits needed to rank up.. Is that the right thing to do?

The OP's main argument is centered around Ranking Up.
This is only to earn crypto by posting a lot of meaningless posts in order to satisfy the bounty requirements,
This is why the Merit system was created to reduce or eliminate.

As bitperson states a persons rank does not prevent them from participating in the forum.
If people get involved in a positive and meaningful way ranking up will follow.

Of course my argument would be about ranking up, the merit system's point is about ranking up...
And yes ranking up will follow but after so many years of dedicating your self to this forum.

[TheQuin]

There's something wrong with that calculation though: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat

Most generous merit senders, all time
84187 merit has been sent in total.

Because this is the first month in the new system and people started with sMerits to give away..
Once those merits end and we start depending only on merits generated by sources the amount of merits generated per month will be around 24k if the number of sources or the amount they generate doesn't increase.

OK, that makes a bit more sense. But taking a Sr. Member as an example you say in the OP:

"Sr. members get 14% x 24k = 3360 which is enough for 3360/250 = 13.44 members every month."

But it takes 8.5 months to get the extra 240 activity to become a Hero.

[Oulay]

OK, that makes a bit more sense. But taking a Sr. Member as an example you say in the OP:

"Sr. members get 14% x 24k = 3360 which is enough for 3360/250 = 13.44 members every month."

But it takes 8.5 months to get the extra 240 activity to become a Hero.

I calculated the number of members that rank up every month, but you're right it would have been better to calculate it your way because it gives a better understanding about the number of members the merit system can sustain. Because a Sr. member won't need those 250 merits in one month but he will need around 30 of them every month of the 8 months he need to get the activity.
Will edit the OP right away!
Thanks ^_^

[TheBeardedBaby]

OK, let me add some calculations too then.

We stated with 35 Merit Sources (MS for short) on the first day of the Merit system.

On 26th Jan. were already 49 MS. /reference/
Today they are 57 MS.
So for one month from 35 till 57 this is 22 new sources, awesome but...

14 were added for 1 day, so we exclude them to be more realistic /see the reference link above/

Then there are minimum around 8 new MS added per Month!

Since this is the first and only month till now and the data is not enough, we need to give more time to the system to actually see how it is working.
Now it's just speculations.


P.S. The image in the OP is not loading.

[Oulay]

OK, let me add some calculations too then.

We stated with 35 Merit Sources (MS for short) on the first day of the Merit system.

On 26th Jan. were already 49 MS. /reference/
Today they are 57 MS.
So for one month from 35 till 57 this is 22 new sources, awesome but...

14 were added for 1 day, so we exclude them to be more realistic /see the reference link above/

Then there are minimum around 8 new MS added per Month!

Since this is the first and only month till now and the data is not enough, we need to give more time to the system to actually see how it is working.
Now it's just speculations.


P.S. The image in the OP is not loading.

You can see the image here: https://i.imgur.com/BGE88BT.png

You're right.. I only hope that it will cope with the huge number of accounts on this forum. We'll wait and see  

Edit: sorry about the image, here you go this should work: https://imgur.com/a/snYsn

[TheBeardedBaby]

You can see the image here: https://i.imgur.com/BGE88BT.png

Looks like it's deleted. :

Code:

Zoinks! You've taken a wrong turn.

Edited>  Now it's working

[LTU_btc]

I think we need to give some time to Merit system, only one month passed. If theymos will see that there aren't enough sMerits generated, he just will add more Merit sources.
I think there is another issue that we have. Just visit Bitcoin Discussion, Altcoin Discussion, Bounties, Politics & Society or another spammy board, open several profiles of Full Members and above and you will find that mostly of them haven't sent any of their sMerit so far. It means that there are still so many users who still aren't aware about Merit system and just holding their sMerit without knowing about it.

[seoincorporation]

First of all I wanna thank zentdex for his great analysis about how many merits each rank - on average - gains a month. I used some of the data he provided in his post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3015036.0

Now to my point:
I took my time to do the math and see how many members can the current merit system sustain and here are the results:

SUMMARY

https://imgur.com/a/snYsn




First of all let me remind you of rank requirements:

Newbie:           1 activity                   and     0 merits
Jr. Member:      30 activity                 and     0 merits
Member:          60 activity                 and     10 merits         needs 2 months to get the activity
Full Member:    120 activity               and     100 merits       needs 4 months to get the activity
Sr. Member:      240 activity               and     250 merits      needs 8 months to get the activity
Hero Member:   480 activity               and     500 merits      who knows?    around 12 months
Legendary:       775 - 1030 activity     and     1000 merits




There are currently - at the time of this post - 57 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 11975 sMerit per 30 days. Those are the merits generated by sources only, and given that a member can send half the merits he receives and imagining the best case scenario where every member sends all the merits he receives, the total amount of merits generated by the system would double to 23950 sMerit per 30 days. So, roughly 24k sMerit per month.

Now to the boring math:

Based on Zentdex's analysis the 24k merits are distributed between ranks in the following manner:
Legendary: 8%
Hero: 8%
Sr. Member: 14%
Full Member: 16%
Member: 19%
Jr. Member and Newbie: 23 + 11 = 34%


So...
Legendary members get 8% x 24k = 1920 merits which they don't need to rank up.
Hero members get the same amount 1920 which is enough for 1920/500 = 3.84 members to rank up every month. The No. of Hero members the system can sustain: 3.84 x 12 = 46.08
Sr. members get 14% x 24k = 3360 which is enough for 3360/250 = 13.44 members every month. The No. of Sr. members the system can sustain: 13.44 x 8 = 107.52
Full Members get 16% x 24k = 3840 which is enough for 3840/150 = 25.6 members every month. The No. of Full members the system can sustain: 25.6 x 4 = 102.4
Members get 19% x 24k = 4560 which is enough for 4560/90 = 50.67 members every month. The No. of Members the system can sustain:  50.67 x 2 = 101.34
Jr. Members and Newbies get 34% x 24k = 8160 which is enough for 816 members every month.

The time needed to rank up is easily acquired by dividing the amount needed to rank up by the average merits gained per month.

Conclusion (my opinion):
The amount of merits produced by the system is too very low, as we've seen that it would take an average member 3 to 5 times the time it took him to rank up in the previous system, I know that the purpose of this system is to create a better forum with better members but just imagine yourself a full member needing almost 2 years to get to senior. Is that fair? How frustrated you'd be?
Not to mention that I described the best case scenario and didn't go into calculating all the sMerits that are horded and not used and the merits that are sold on black markets.

Good analysis. I believe the merit system is still too young and it will be needed some time to all users to get used to it. Now, everyday I read publications abput how to get merit (mostly made by newbies), but I understand even in the higher ranks now it is really difficult to rank out, for example from hero to legendary.
Due to the preocupation rising here in the forum about merits, I feel this is the right time to begin a campaign or something, a kind of contest, where people can participate and the better publications earn some merits. I think this will encourage people to write about important stuff rather of asking or begging for merits. What do you people think about?
It is time to create a kind of Merit-contest?? We can pick a topic and let the people talk about it, and see what happens...

[oaktree]

I think the issue is that on some forums lots of merits are given out - eg posting on Meta.

On other forums hardly any merits are given out (speculation, trading, altcoins and bitcoin discussion).

That means that if you want merits you need to post exclusively in Meta.

A potential solution is to get merit sources to "patrol" a specific forum to award good posts. That way, the distribution will be more even.

[AngelSky]

Since new participants cannot able to analyze the quality post. High rank members have the knowledge to understand which one is quality post. If meriting option goes to less rank members it will become another spam here.

Now Hilariousandco starting washing out the merit sellers and exchangers. You may find many people have bee tagged in this, Hope he will take this as a huge list.

[coolcoinz]

I think the issue is that on some forums lots of merits are given out - eg posting on Meta.

On other forums hardly any merits are given out (speculation, trading, altcoins and bitcoin discussion).

That means that if you want merits you need to post exclusively in Meta.

A potential solution is to get merit sources to "patrol" a specific forum to award good posts. That way, the distribution will be more even.

Unfortunately, I've noticed that there are some sections that get much more attention from users who have a lot of merit and who are willing to give their merit away.
If you help newbies in beginners and help your chances of being merited are much lower than if you do the same thing in technical discussion usually because those newbies will have no merit to share. As for meta, I can agree with you because most if not all of my merit was earned here.

[qwk]

Legendary members get 8% x 24k = 1920 merits which they don't need to rank up.

I don't need merits to rank up, but I do need sMerit so I can give merit to other people.
Being a "nice guy", I'm actually getting much less merit than I'm giving away.
I'll sooner or later run out, which is unfortunate, since I tend to reward people who make meaningful contributions to my threads.

[greeklogos]

I know that the purpose of this system is to create a better forum with better members but just imagine yourself a full member needing almost 2 years to get to senior. Is that fair?

Well, I am exactly in this situation. More of that I've reached Sr. Member rank by my activity in a short time after Merit system saw the light, so I count that totally unfair, cause on now with my current speed of earning merits the target seems just impossible. I think moderators should to think about those members who are on boarder between two ranks and to make the mission to them a little easier.

[onnz423]

Well, I don't really see how they can be mad, they're newcomers to the community, and newcomers always have a hard time integrating or becoming established among well known members, this is true for all industries. I do believe the initial entry barriers are slightly too high, but I've always believed that Hero and Legendary member status should only be reserved for people clearly established in the community, those that contribute greatly to the forum and offer value. It shouldn't simply be a post good quality material thing, but something like a privilege bestowed by the mods, community votes or admins. Or perhaps it should be something like, the top 10% of merit earners per rank are eligible to rank up immediately after reaching the activity requirement.

[TheBeardedBaby]

I know that the purpose of this system is to create a better forum with better members but just imagine yourself a full member needing almost 2 years to get to senior. Is that fair?

Well, I am exactly in this situation. More of that I've reached Sr. Member rank by my activity in a short time after Merit system saw the light, so I count that totally unfair, cause on now with my current speed of earning merits the target seems just impossible. I think moderators should to think about those members who are on boarder between two ranks and to make the mission to them a little easier.

I thought that in the beginning, I was just a fresh Member when the Merit was introduced. I had some old good posts and started getting merit just keeping those up to date.

 I'm still a member but tomorrow evening I'll reach the needed activity points for Full Member, got enough merit til now to prove that the system is really working if you are helping the community in some way and stay away from shitposting. I guess these 30 points I'm missing will not be
a problem , but I'm not In hurry. I'll be happy to wear avatar some day.

As I like to say, "don't blame the system, blame yourself" is applicable here too

[Oulay]

Good analysis. I believe the merit system is still too young and it will be needed some time to all users to get used to it. Now, everyday I read publications abput how to get merit (mostly made by newbies), but I understand even in the higher ranks now it is really difficult to rank out, for example from hero to legendary.

It's for sure still too young and I think most users are having a hard time ranking up no matter what rank are they currently in.

It is time to create a kind of Merit-contest?? We can pick a topic and let the people talk about it, and see what happens...

Those kinds of contests are already taking place.. Like here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2957836.0
There are also people giving away merits to other members who refer them to an under-merited post of theirs.
As long as you have the sMerits to give away you can create one yourself!

The admins are letting people create merit contests/giveaways but first you'd need the merits to do so, leading us to the heart of the problem which is: There isn't enough merits!

Since new participants cannot able to analyze the quality post. High rank members have the knowledge to understand which one is quality post. If meriting option goes to less rank members it will become another spam here.

I never said that I wanted new members to be in charge of giving away merits..

Now Hilariousandco starting washing out the merit sellers and exchangers. You may find many people have bee tagged in this, Hope he will take this as a huge list.

Banning merit Sellers and exchangers would be of great help to us! As more merits will be available to legitimate users.

[Oulay]

I know that the purpose of this system is to create a better forum with better members but just imagine yourself a full member needing almost 2 years to get to senior. Is that fair?

Well, I am exactly in this situation. More of that I've reached Sr. Member rank by my activity in a short time after Merit system saw the light, so I count that totally unfair, cause on now with my current speed of earning merits the target seems just impossible. I think moderators should to think about those members who are on boarder between two ranks and to make the mission to them a little easier.

Theymos could've solved this problem the time he created the merit system.. He could've easily given every member merits based on activity and not ranks, for example: A full member like you who has 250 activity should have been given around 200 merits to start with not only 100 (the amount needed for member rank).
But he must have his reasons not to do so...

Well, I don't really see how they can be mad, they're newcomers to the community, and newcomers always have a hard time integrating or becoming established among well known members, this is true for all industries.

A hard time is something and 1, 2 or even more than 3 years for every rank upgrade is a totally different thing!

I thought that in the beginning, I was just a fresh Member when the Merit was introduced. I had some old good posts and started getting merit just keeping those up to date.

 I'm still a member but tomorrow evening I'll reach the needed activity points for Full Member, got enough merit til now to prove that the system is really working if you are helping the community in some way and stay away from shitposting. I guess these 30 points I'm missing will not be
a problem , but I'm not In hurry. I'll be happy to wear avatar some day.

As I like to say, "don't blame the system, blame yourself" is applicable here too

Well, good for you being one of the high quality posters!
But let me remind you that you needed to post 3 times as much as your activity to get those merits.. Almost every member with merits enough to rank up soon after they got enough activity have posted 3 to 5 times their activity, which is 3 to 5 posts a day! Not all members can dedicate that much time for the forums...
On the other hand it makes activity totally useless if someone needed much more than the number of posts needed for maximum activity in order to get enough merits..

As I like to say, "don't blame the system, blame yourself" is applicable here too

I guess it's partially applicable but I'm not blaming anyone.. I'm merely hoping for an improvement in the system.
Cuz u know if only the best posters get those merits and above average posters don't get them despite trying too hard to improve their posting quality will lead them to leave the forums in the end and we don't want that do we?
I believe the forums is not only for the very best members, but rather that it's for everyone who is willing to contribute!

[Welsh]

I don't need merits to rank up, but I do need sMerit so I can give merit to other people.
Being a "nice guy", I'm actually getting much less merit than I'm giving away.
I'll sooner or later run out, which is unfortunate, since I tend to reward people who make meaningful contributions to my threads.

This is the reason why Hero members and legendary members need to receive merit so they can distribute it all the same as other members. I imagine in a few months time or a year from now when we have an adequate number of merit sources receiving merit and redistributing it won't be a problem. 

[seven2smoke1]

I don't need merits to rank up, but I do need sMerit so I can give merit to other people.
Being a "nice guy", I'm actually getting much less merit than I'm giving away.
I'll sooner or later run out, which is unfortunate, since I tend to reward people who make meaningful contributions to my threads.

This is the reason why Hero members and legendary members need to receive merit so they can distribute it all the same as other members. I imagine in a few months time or a year from now when we have an adequate number of merit sources receiving merit and redistributing it won't be a problem. 

Maybe theymos will take a look about this idea, and increase the sMerit points for Hero members and legendary members (Which they are active and reputable), Or to increase the number of merit sources, which will be enough merit for each one to receive. Honestly, I didn't know how theymos choose the 57 merit sources, It's random or what? , I think there is some criteria if this is not RANDOM.

[Oulay]

Maybe theymos will take a look about this idea, and increase the sMerit points for Hero members and legendary members (Which they are active and reputable), Or to increase the number of merit sources, which will be enough merit for each one to receive. Honestly, I didn't know how theymos choose the 57 merit sources, It's random or what? , I think there is some criteria if this is not RANDOM.

This is a great idea actually! if Legendary/Hero members would get 1 sMerit for every merit they receive instead of 0.5 it would distribute the responsibility of spending those merits instead of it being mostly put on sources.

I guess the merit sources where hand picked, knowing they're only 57 of them it won't be so hard to do.
Either way, "established members" can apply for being a merit source:

If you want to be a merit source:

 1. Be a somewhat established member.
 2. Collect TEN posts written in the last couple of months by other people that have not received nearly enough merit for how good they are, and post quotes for them all in a new Meta thread. The point of this is to demonstrate your ability to give out merit usefully.
 3. We will take a look at your history and maybe make you a source.

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

[Sexie]

If two years is what it takes someone to receive 125 merits, then yes, that's fair for that particular person. Particularly since merit and rank do not affect users' ability to participate on the forum. Ranking up is basically eye candy.

Why are so many users complaining like it would be some kind of basic human right to become legendary by posting stuff that no one but their own mother considers useful?

It's not "that particular person" it's the average member which means more than half the members of this forum have this problem and even if you are a better poster how much above average you think you'd be? will you get double the amount an average user gets? triple? it would still take you much more than it did in the old system.

I'm not complaining about the merit system I'm complaining about the very low amount of merits it produces..

 
Anyway, dont be too Focus about merits  and  rankings. Be thankful if anybody Will give merits to your post. If no one did it, Its okay, make  a better post next time. IM not good in English as what they always say that you must be perfect in English to get some merits. But most of those have merited are using Links for average people like me to understand of what they are saying in their  quotes  for  no more further details.

[TheQuin]

Theymos could've solved this problem the time he created the merit system.. He could've easily given every member merits based on activity and not ranks, for example: A full member like you who has 250 activity should have been given around 200 merits to start with not only 100 (the amount needed for member rank).
But he must have his reasons not to do so...

He answered this in another thread.

.....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.....

I wouldn't agree with this reasoning but there it is.

[TheUltraElite]

Anyway, dont be too Focus about merits  and  rankings. Be thankful if anybody Will give merits to your post.

Means every two minutes of your online time you are going to visit your profile page on bitcointalk to check how many new merit points you have got?

If no one did it, Its okay, make  a better post next time.

And if you dont get merited on the second post?

IM not good in English as what they always say that you must be perfect in English to get some merits. But most of those have merited are using Links for average people like me to understand of what they are saying in their  quotes  for  no more further details.

Let me be clear here because I dont want to sound like a troll.

I can understand the situation the newbies and junior members are into because of the merit system. But that does not mean you will stop contributing to the forum.

The forum is for people to ask questions and learn about the crypto world. It is not supposed to be a rank-up warzone to get into high paying signature campaigns. So keep it to that.

If you have something to contribute then do so. Otherwise dont come to this forum.

[milugau]

I think you should not answer such a non-sense question. The more rare merit system is, the more meritorious high-quality posts are. 

[guschin]

I think we need to give some time to Merit system, only one month passed. If theymos will see that there aren't enough sMerits generated, he just will add more Merit sources.
I think there is another issue that we have. Just visit Bitcoin Discussion, Altcoin Discussion, Bounties, Politics & Society or another spammy board, open several profiles of Full Members and above and you will find that mostly of them haven't sent any of their sMerit so far. It means that there are still so many users who still aren't aware about Merit system and just holding their sMerit without knowing about it.

He had already been adding new merit sources since this new system was launched. I am sure that he must be keeping a watch on these threads especially with some solid evidence and stats regarding members ranking up after the merit system. As per my personally experience, I am satisfied with the merits I have got. I am not much active here as I am very much busy with my work. However, I really feel that this forum has really started getting detailed posts especially in meta section after the new merit system .

[Argie021213]

Based on the new merit system it is pretty obvious that ranking up is now very hard to reach and possibly the system wants to prohibit users to rank up just by completing the required post count. With this chances are majority in this forum are junior and members since reaching full member is quite difficult to achieve.

[LTU_btc]

I think we need to give some time to Merit system, only one month passed. If theymos will see that there aren't enough sMerits generated, he just will add more Merit sources.
I think there is another issue that we have. Just visit Bitcoin Discussion, Altcoin Discussion, Bounties, Politics & Society or another spammy board, open several profiles of Full Members and above and you will find that mostly of them haven't sent any of their sMerit so far. It means that there are still so many users who still aren't aware about Merit system and just holding their sMerit without knowing about it.

He had already been adding new merit sources since this new system was launched. I am sure that he must be keeping a watch on these threads especially with some solid evidence and stats regarding members ranking up after the merit system. As per my personally experience, I am satisfied with the merits I have got. I am not much active here as I am very much busy with my work. However, I really feel that this forum has really started getting detailed posts especially in meta section after the new merit system .

Yeah, but before doing changes in Merit system, we should wait at least few months to get more clear view and to be sure that changes are necessary.
Maybe you are right that now we can find more detailed posts in Meta and some other boards, users started to put more effort into to make posts. But now we just have too many topics about Merit here. Many users are just desperately posting nonsense just to get Merit. And instead of 20 words, they are using 100, no matter of content. And they are sure it is enough to earn Merit.

[ACVinegar]

Legendary members get 8% x 24k = 1920 merits which they don't need to rank up.

I don't need merits to rank up, but I do need sMerit so I can give merit to other people.
Being a "nice guy", I'm actually getting much less merit than I'm giving away.
I'll sooner or later run out, which is unfortunate, since I tend to reward people who make meaningful contributions to my threads.

You are really nice guy because you always think other people, even you can't get any benefits from your gaining smerit you always think to help the other users to grow up. As of today I can't experience to shares smerit due to I was newly and I have no smerit in my account, however if I got some smerit I will share it too, to others but they need to make a some helpful and constructive posts. In addition, my answer to the question "is the merit system generating enough merits?" for now I can't judge this merit system since I can't gain some of this, but if in case I try it then I give my full opinion regarding on that merit system.

[TheQuin]

There are currently - at the time of this post - 57 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 11975 sMerit per 30 days. Those are the merits generated by sources only, and given that a member can send half the merits he receives and imagining the best case scenario where every member sends all the merits he receives, the total amount of merits generated by the system would double to 23950 sMerit per 30 days. So, roughly 24k sMerit per month.

I don't know if it is as a result of this thread or not but it looks like theymos agreed that there wasn't enough Merit. There has been an update to the Merit Sources.

Merit sources
There are 57 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 14750 sMerit per 30 days

The same number of sources but more sMerit.

[TheUltraElite]

Based on the new merit system it is pretty obvious that ranking up is now very hard to reach and possibly the system wants to prohibit users to rank up just by completing the required post count. With this chances are majority in this forum are junior and members since reaching full member is quite difficult to achieve.

The system never wanted to prohibit people from ranking up. It wants people who contribute more to the forum and post quality content to be recognized differently from the shitposting noobs who come here to increase post counts and and get signature campaign payments. The latter are the low-level bottomfeeders who need to get a job and not spam this forums boards with nonsense idiotic vomitposts with infectious fluids in the Bitcoin Discussion and the Altcoin Discussion boards.

Let the junior members be as they are. If you are really willing to contribute to the forum discussions then your rank should not be a matter of debate. Your contribution on the other hand, does. Thats what a forum is for, not for signature campaigns and bounties.

[solovev]

Based on the new merit system it is pretty obvious that ranking up is now very hard to reach and possibly the system wants to prohibit users to rank up just by completing the required post count. With this chances are majority in this forum are junior and members since reaching full member is quite difficult to achieve.

It is difficult o rank up in comparison to past for sure. But this is for all ranks not only the lower ranks as you mentioned. The merit requirements are higher for those upper ranks and they are more difficult to achieve in my opinion. For instance, the member rank requires only 10 merit points which appears to be the easiest in my opinion. Once you have become a member and have enrolled in a campaign, you will already start getting paid for your posts. Thus, the forum still encourages you to rank up.

[elena_rose19]

I think the current system is serving its purpose. With the system we have, ranking up requires real hard work and creativity. Anyone can contribute their knowledge but nt everyone will be rewarded with merit so members need creativity in posting, something that will catch the attention, answer queries and share knowledge.

[romanovst]

I think the current system is serving its purpose. With the system we have, ranking up requires real hard work and creativity. Anyone can contribute their knowledge but nt everyone will be rewarded with merit so members need creativity in posting, something that will catch the attention, answer queries and share knowledge.

We should the positive side of merit system:

1) First of all, you are right that it has resulted in competition among the members here. This is good for the forum as all members will compete with each other for making quality posts here.

2) Another thing that I really like about the merit system is the excitement it brings for the members. Every time I login here and I see some merits on my profile, I get really happy.  I check the post that got merited and than try to make my future posts similar to that. It has thus motivated me to contribute more here.

[flashmark]

Whether the math in the OP is correct or not, I'd offer this counterpoint:

If we had reset the boards completely and started everyone from newbie status and 0 activity at the moment merit was implemented on 24th Jan, there are plenty of users who would have received sufficient merit to be Members, or even Full Members, but it actually would be the Activity preventing them from attaining that rank.  This alone makes me think we've got the balance correct.

Yes. I agree with your argument.

[rhamzter]

First of all I wanna thank zentdex for his great analysis about how many merits each rank - on average - gains a month. I used some of the data he provided in his post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3015036.0

Now to my point:
I took my time to do the math and see how many members can the current merit system sustain and here are the results:

SUMMARY

https://imgur.com/a/snYsn




First of all let me remind you of rank requirements:

Newbie:           1 activity                   and     0 merits
Jr. Member:      30 activity                 and     0 merits
Member:          60 activity                 and     10 merits         needs 2 months to get the activity
Full Member:    120 activity               and     100 merits       needs 4 months to get the activity
Sr. Member:      240 activity               and     250 merits      needs 8 months to get the activity
Hero Member:   480 activity               and     500 merits      who knows?    around 12 months
Legendary:       775 - 1030 activity     and     1000 merits




There are currently - at the time of this post - 57 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 11975 sMerit per 30 days. Those are the merits generated by sources only, and given that a member can send half the merits he receives and imagining the best case scenario where every member sends all the merits he receives, the total amount of merits generated by the system would double to 23950 sMerit per 30 days. So, roughly 24k sMerit per month.

Now to the boring math:

Based on Zentdex's analysis the 24k merits are distributed between ranks in the following manner:
Legendary: 8%
Hero: 8%
Sr. Member: 14%
Full Member: 16%
Member: 19%
Jr. Member and Newbie: 23 + 11 = 34%


So...
Legendary members get 8% x 24k = 1920 merits which they don't need to rank up.
Hero members get the same amount 1920 which is enough for 1920/500 = 3.84 members to rank up every month. The No. of Hero members the system can sustain: 3.84 x 12 = 46.08
Sr. members get 14% x 24k = 3360 which is enough for 3360/250 = 13.44 members every month. The No. of Sr. members the system can sustain: 13.44 x 8 = 107.52
Full Members get 16% x 24k = 3840 which is enough for 3840/150 = 25.6 members every month. The No. of Full members the system can sustain: 25.6 x 4 = 102.4
Members get 19% x 24k = 4560 which is enough for 4560/90 = 50.67 members every month. The No. of Members the system can sustain:  50.67 x 2 = 101.34
Jr. Members and Newbies get 34% x 24k = 8160 which is enough for 816 members every month.

The time needed to rank up is easily acquired by dividing the amount needed to rank up by the average merits gained per month.

Conclusion (my opinion):
The amount of merits produced by the system is too very low, as we've seen that it would take an average member 3 to 5 times the time it took him to rank up in the previous system, I know that the purpose of this system is to create a better forum with better members but just imagine yourself a full member needing almost 2 years to get to senior. Is that fair? How frustrated you'd be?
Not to mention that I described the best case scenario and didn't go into calculating all the sMerits that are horded and not used and the merits that are sold on black markets.

Good analysis. I believe the merit system is still too young and it will be needed some time to all users to get used to it. Now, everyday I read publications abput how to get merit (mostly made by newbies), but I understand even in the higher ranks now it is really difficult to rank out, for example from hero to legendary.
Due to the preocupation rising here in the forum about merits, I feel this is the right time to begin a campaign or something, a kind of contest, where people can participate and the better publications earn some merits. I think this will encourage people to write about important stuff rather of asking or begging for merits. What do you people think about?
It is time to create a kind of Merit-contest?? We can pick a topic and let the people talk about it, and see what happens...

You know what you have a point with that computation, which make me to admire you because I think you are best mathematics. But I guess you can't get the point the simple logic made by "theymos" it is not about the merit you earned or the spendable merit it's about how they can help each one to be matured in digitalization world. They trying to wake up in the reality of modernization, try to look first the present before you looked in the future.

[Oulay]

You know what you have a point with that computation, which make me to admire you because I think you are best mathematics. But I guess you can't get the point the simple logic made by "theymos" it is not about the merit you earned or the spendable merit it's about how they can help each one to be matured in digitalization world. They trying to woke up in the reality of modernization, try to looked first the present before you looked in the future.

Sorry for messing the point and commenting on your English but you should really think of improving it.
I read some of the posts in your history, I'm not a native English speaker but I can tell you this:
After "to" and "can/can't" you should use the infinitive form of the verb. In your current post you should've said: "trying to wake up", "try to look first at the present"
There is much more for you to improve but I don't feel like I'm qualified enough to give you more suggestions, but I would suggest for you to go take a look at this thread and post in it if you'd like, I'm sure the people there would be of much more help than me: The english language improvement thread   

[Oulay]

I don't know if it is as a result of this thread or not but it looks like theymos agreed that there wasn't enough Merit. There has been an update to the Merit Sources.

Merit sources
There are 57 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 14750 sMerit per 30 days

The same number of sources but more sMerit.

I don't think this was because of my thread. I believe that Theymos is closely monitoring the merit system and would know if there isn't enough merits. He probably was waiting for the default merits to dry up before increasing merit generation.

[guschin]

I don't think this was because of my thread. I believe that Theymos is closely monitoring the merit system and would know if there isn't enough merits. He probably was waiting for the default merits to dry up before increasing merit generation.

We will be able to connect the dots only after seeing the future changes. But I must say that it must have took a lot of time for him to plan all this. Many people are worried about loopholes being exploited (like members being able to send merits to alt account) but I think this is all intentional on his part. It would be interesting to see the future announcement he is going to make regarding this. It should happen within 1-2 months as per my expectations.

[Vod]

I think the issue is that on some forums lots of merits are given out - eg posting on Meta.

On other forums hardly any merits are given out (speculation, trading, altcoins and bitcoin discussion).

That means that if you want merits you need to post exclusively in Meta.

The answer is simple.

Stop giving merit to posts in Meta.  

Stop nitpicking about the forum, and just use it.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

I also think the system is not generating enough merits but, in my case, I’m not worried about ranking up. What I miss is the possibility of giving more merits for good posts.

I think the system would be improved if everybody above a certain rank would get some merits at the beginning of the month, like merit sources do. Not many, but maybe 5 for members 10 for full members and so on.

It’s happened to me some times, and I think to many people, that I would have liked to give merit to a certain post but I couldn't.

[galkina]

I also think the system is not generating enough merits but, in my case, I’m not worried about ranking up. What I miss is the possibility of giving more merits for good posts.

I think the system would be improved if everybody above a certain rank would get some merits at the beginning of the month, like merit sources do. Not many, but maybe 5 for members 10 for full members and so on.

It’s happened to me some times, and I think to many people, that I would have liked to give merit to a certain post but I couldn't.

Better option is to increase the  merits allotted to merit sources. I am not in favor of default merits or any automatic merits given to members every month. Most of them will be abused as it is happening currently. Even some senior rank members did this which is pathetic. If we increase the merits for merit sources, it is safer. This is because only trustworthy people are selected for that role. It will also solve the problem that you mentioned. Since these people will have more merits to give to all rank members, the members receiving those merits will also get Smerits for spending.

[DaftAjax]

~snip

~snip

You know what you have a point with that computation, which make me to admire you because I think you are best mathematics. But I guess you can't get the point the simple logic made by "theymos" it is not about the merit you earned or the spendable merit it's about how they can help each one to be matured in digitalization world. They trying to woke up in the reality of modernization, try to looked first the present before you looked in the future.

He did say that, "may not be so accurate..." didn't he? So that means that he's not the best mathematician (BTW not mathematics). I'm not saying that its worthless, in fact its great, its just that he already claimed that its not that accurate.

He's simply reflecting that in those times it is possible that you may earn specific number of merit(s). Because in those times I'm sure you may improve to eventually make quality posts.

He has the same point of view as you are, you just don't realized it.

[TheQuin]

I don't know if it is as a result of this thread or not but it looks like theymos agreed that there wasn't enough Merit. There has been an update to the Merit Sources.

Merit sources
There are 57 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 14750 sMerit per 30 days

The same number of sources but more sMerit.

I don't think this was because of my thread. I believe that Theymos is closely monitoring the merit system and would know if there isn't enough merits. He probably was waiting for the default merits to dry up before increasing merit generation.

I get the impression that the initial allocation of merits is pretty well all spent at this time. Also another increase in sources, 20 new sources added.

Merit sources
There are 77 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 17650 sMerit per 30 days

[Theb]

You forgot one big factor that will actually affect the duration of ranking up. And that is Merit Sources increasing, as of posting this we now have 77 merit sources which is 20 more compared to the 57 we have last time. And now Merit Sources can generate up to 17650 sMerit per 30 days which is a big number.

Assuming that 17650 merits is being given per month. Half of those will be sendable by the receiver of the sMerits which is 8825, adding with some positive assumption those receivers can create a ripple effect of new sMerits to give as you will always receive .5 per every sMerits you receive. Hopefully with an addition of 20 new merit sources other members would be generous of sending their merits now.