Merit stat & all transactions more than 40 Merits

[coin5haker]

Wow! Nice work, you must be one familiar with Data analysis. I didn't know that it is available for public access. That what I call quality post.

[sncc]

Although I agree that we need more Merit sources, it can't necessarily be concluded from this. Many users^* distributed Merits to their alt-accounts, and this should end when their initial free Merits dry up.

^* From the Top-merited users, recent merit, many users have red trust for Merit trading (from the first 10: 452: pitipawn, 283: RichDaniel, 251: saulzaents and 151: niknik1966), and many are suspected to have traded Merit (such as Chachacoin17).

Another suggestion as what to look for: Accounts that suddenly received the required amount of merit to rank up. Like this one that took only 13 days to get the 150 merit required to go from Full Member to Sr Member. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3052556.msg31426338#msg31426338

It's even more suspicious if they stop getting new Merit right after they've reached the rank requirement.

Yes a certain percentage should be abuses, and I was trying to extract some rule to distinguish them.
In addition to focusing on the transaction with precisely necessary amount for rank up, and red trust, the pitipawn's merit history provides another rule; almost all the threads s/he was merited are "(Deleted/Off-limits/Ignored)".

I have no idea how easy that is to write a script to spot,

At this moment these rules are checked by human, maybe there is some nice way to code.

[Vod]

To date 179 posts have been given 50 merits by one person at one time.

Interestingly, there was only an additional 40 posts when I dropped the threshold to 40 merit or higher - 219 people.

[sncc]

To date 179 posts have been given 50 merits by one person at one time.

Interestingly, there was only an additional 40 posts when I dropped the threshold to 40 merit or higher - 219 people.

Right, I guess those who send 50 merits at one time do not care or recognize if they would be marked as a suspicious merit abuser, and those who care it are choosing sufficiently fewer numbers of merits rather than 49, 48 ... 40.  I assume a certain percentage of relatively large peaks at 20, 25, 30 in the histogram in the OP correspond to such transactions, and they might have sent like 25 + 25 or 20 + 30 or maybe 20 + 20 to avoid to reach the upper bound of 50.  Of course they could stop just sending 20 or 30 if that amount is sufficient for rank up or they try to avoid to be marked as abuses.

I think focusing on the 50-merit transactions is the first step, as it is the easiest and most efficient way I presume, after which it would be good to consider more decent analysis to shed light on the relatively large peaks at 20, 25, 30.

[LoyceV]

To date 179 posts have been given 50 merits by one person at one time.

Cloudflare blocks me from downloading from Bitcointalk through wget, so I can't update my records. I have 174 of them in my records, see this list (human readable format).

[LFC_Bitcoin]

To date 179 posts have been given 50 merits by one person at one time.

Interestingly, there was only an additional 40 posts when I dropped the threshold to 40 merit or higher - 219 people.

I would assume that anything higher than 10-15 merits sent by one poster to another in a single transaction looks shady as fuck unless it’s for an iconic post/thread started some time ago.

Look around the entire forum, it just doesn’t happen. Pretty much everybody except Merit Sources have shot their sMerit load.

So yeah, I’d be extremely suspicious of any scenario in the bolded text above.

[tbct_mt2]

To date 179 posts have been given 50 merits by one person at one time.

Interestingly, there was only an additional 40 posts when I dropped the threshold to 40 merit or higher - 219 people.

I guess, Theymos included in those ones, Vod.
Just kidding. There are very little qualitied threads/ topics which deserved to receive more than 20 merits, but there are also several threads/ topics worth more than 20 merits (just my opinion). The problem is most of those 50-merit-earnt threads are shitty ones, which are one-line, one-to-ten words, etc
Fortunately, most of them have been reported and banned. It is good for the forum.
By the way, thanks Theymos for launching the merit system.

[lxgiwyl18]

Hey guys!
So, this is a long lists of the users who sent plenty of merits in one person. I didnt bother to check each and everyone of them, but I know there are those who deserves 50 merits ( but I think that would be in a rare condition ) and some of them are just giving away tons of merits just to rank up a specific account regardless of the senseless mediocre posts ( which is I think is against the forum rules ).
Btw, I just want to add this profile on the lists here below :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1915943

Please check his earned merits.

[puzzling_rvat]

As for me - It is a really interesting and attractive thread for people who like numbers, calculation and analyses. Really awesome, curious patterns were noticed and ofc 10 merits is more popular then 8, 9 or 11 due to reasons which everyone knows 

[LFC_Bitcoin]

As for me - It is a really interesting and attractive thread for people who like numbers, calculation and analyses. Really awesome, curious patterns were noticed and ofc 10 merits is more popular then 8, 9 or 11 due to reasons which everyone knows 

You’d think that they would at least make an effort to not make it totally obvious by sending 8 or 9 Merit’s & trying to get the 1 or 2 remaining Merit’s from somebody the legitimate way.

Idiots.

[sncc]

Update: new transactions more than 40 Merits.

Date	Time	Merit	From	Post	To
2018/05/10	17:37:32	50	serje	->	udivkx
2018/05/09	22:07:45	50	batesresearch	->	spartak_t
2018/05/08	10:16:35	50	erre	->	zTheWolfz
2018/05/06	18:26:00	50	serje	->	zhengqi
2018/05/06	09:12:29	50	farl4web	->	Vinylriff
2018/05/06	08:24:22	50	farl4web	->	Lasergun
2018/05/05	16:06:02	50	johny08	->	bcmine
2018/05/08	17:53:47	45	Urbinklin	->	udivkx
2018/05/04	21:58:11	42	roslinpl	->	edgycorner
2018/05/08	10:20:09	40	erre	->	Aleks09

Btw, I just want to add this profile on the lists here below :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1915943

Please check his earned merits.

This is on May 11 so will be included in the next data release, great that you found it before that.

[sncc]

Update: new transactions more than 40 Merits.

Date	Time	Merit	From	Post	To
2018/05/16	19:55:51	49	Southpaw0	->	zazarb
2018/05/15	06:11:36	47	valtin	->	winterrose
2018/05/14	20:54:37	40	identifyuser	->	alexberezov
2018/05/11	23:13:02	40	djnocide	->	Ben K.

[Jet Cash]

I think there is another reason for awarding 50 merits to a member, and this is to pass the obligation to find meritable posts to someone else. I suspect this might be the reason that some of the 50s went to TMAN for example. TMAN is unlikely to be involved in any merit scams, but he has been active in awarding merits, and I can see that a member might want to support him in that. I have also been awarded 50 merits, and this was by a member with whom I have had no interaction, and I wonder if it ws for the same reason.

[krishnaverma]

I think there is another reason for awarding 50 merits to a member, and this is to pass the obligation to find meritable posts to someone else. I suspect this might be the reason that some of the 50s went to TMAN for example. TMAN is unlikely to be involved in any merit scams, but he has been active in awarding merits, and I can see that a member might want to support him in that. I have also been awarded 50 merits, and this was by a member with whom I have had no interaction, and I wonder if it ws for the same reason.

Another possibility is that someone wants to get his account painted red as revenge. This can be done from a useless high rank account that got some merit points to give by default. Whatever is the case, I hope the staff which makes the final decision keep in mind all aspects while making the final decision.

[tbct_mt2]

I think there is another reason for awarding 50 merits to a member, and this is to pass the obligation to find meritable posts to someone else. I suspect this might be the reason that some of the 50s went to TMAN for example. TMAN is unlikely to be involved in any merit scams, but he has been active in awarding merits, and I can see that a member might want to support him in that. I have also been awarded 50 merits, and this was by a member with whom I have had no interaction, and I wonder if it ws for the same reason.

Totally with your point of view, Jet Cash.
Two main factors should be taken into consideration:
1) Excessively high merit points for one thread from single user.
2) Quality of the thread.

I don't see reason to judge anyone who received more than 50 merits from someone.
There are several topics, threads which are helpful, informative and, of course, worth more than 50 merits. They are invaluable topics/ threads.

[stompix]

I think that merit awarded in the firsts few days can't be considered abuse, most users didn't have a clue it was limited, thought of it to be like Facebook likes and just kept awarding merit left and right for everything.
Same for a legendary member getting 40-50 now, what would be the point of it?
But a member who has 0 merits from 300 posts and suddenly gets 20,30 or even 50 for a simple two line posts..that's shady.

I remember that in the first minutes of the merit system I was reading how Lauda tried to give Luptin negative merit   , I tried to do the same to Theymos   but he fixed it before I was able to .....

[kenjionline]

Update: new transactions more than 40 Merits.

Date	Time	Merit	From	Post	To
2018/05/10	17:37:32	50	serje	->	udivkx
2018/05/09	22:07:45	50	batesresearch	->	spartak_t
2018/05/08	10:16:35	50	erre	->	zTheWolfz
2018/05/06	18:26:00	50	serje	->	zhengqi
2018/05/06	09:12:29	50	farl4web	->	Vinylriff
2018/05/06	08:24:22	50	farl4web	->	Lasergun
2018/05/05	16:06:02	50	johny08	->	bcmine
2018/05/08	17:53:47	45	Urbinklin	->	udivkx
2018/05/04	21:58:11	42	roslinpl	->	edgycorner
2018/05/08	10:20:09	40	erre	->	Aleks09

Btw, I just want to add this profile on the lists here below :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1915943

Please check his earned merits.

This is on May 11 so will be included in the next data release, great that you found it before that.

Omg, take a look at these posts, this is an obvious purchase of merit. Surprised that they have not yet been punished.

[sncc]

I think there is another reason for awarding 50 merits to a member, and this is to pass the obligation to find meritable posts to someone else. I suspect this might be the reason that some of the 50s went to TMAN for example. TMAN is unlikely to be involved in any merit scams, but he has been active in awarding merits, and I can see that a member might want to support him in that. I have also been awarded 50 merits, and this was by a member with whom I have had no interaction, and I wonder if it ws for the same reason.

Another possibility is that someone wants to get his account painted red as revenge. This can be done from a useless high rank account that got some merit points to give by default. Whatever is the case, I hope the staff which makes the final decision keep in mind all aspects while making the final decision.

Totally with your point of view, Jet Cash.
Two main factors should be taken into consideration:
1) Excessively high merit points for one thread from single user.
2) Quality of the thread.

I don't see reason to judge anyone who received more than 50 merits from someone.
There are several topics, threads which are helpful, informative and, of course, worth more than 50 merits. They are invaluable topics/ threads.

As mentioned in the OP, large amount transactions do not necessarily mean that all of them are suspicious, but some of them does seem so.  This list provides candidate transactions that require a closer look of each case, and the decision should be made only after that.

[Flyne d Coin Digger]

It's getting in to something.... most likely this person has nothing to do and trying to be hero in some way.. . I hope I had 100 merit to award you for spending your time tracking this person who gives merit to other members, well we have our own hobbies by the way.... life is short my friend why not spend your time earning then go for a tour or vacation to relax rather than monitoring this bunch of people? Well if this make you happy then "fighting!"

[realaccountakira]

Been doing a little digging with this list, and it seems the 50 merits list is a great way to find alt accounts who are abusing both merits and bounties.

Here is an example of one such account that has escaped red paint: Chacoin17

The said account was given a total of 150 merits ALL on February 9 for spam posts that aren't even in completely proper english. All the 150 merits came from known alt abuser accounts which have already been red painted by ThePharmacist:

marcuslong
theend1949
chickennado

I've found more of such accounts and i can probably post a separate thread for them but for now I'll let you guys decide if this should be red painted. Going back to the topic, this just further shows how useful merit analysis actually is. Kudos to the original poster.