Where the Merit Pours?

[zentdex]

Where the Merit Pours?

Hello fellow members!

Frequent questions are asking for thread or section which received most of the merit.  Thus, I created this based on theymos merit txt logs issued last March 1.

Here you go: https://bitcointalk.org/merit.txt.xz
Similar to trust.txt.xz, it'll be updated weekly. It will show only the last 120 days of data; someone else should archive the old ones if you want them.
I am especially interested in analyses of this data which could point to sub-communities where the initial sMerit is exhausted and new sources are necessary, and people who might be good merit sources.
Edit: Note that for a little while I had user_to and user_from as names, but I decided to change it to IDs.

There are 37,939 Merit logs in the dataset which pinpoint to 11,318 (29.83%) unique thread. That means most of the time (70%) merits are given to a thread with existing merits.
Below is the result of thread per section which received merit in any part of it either to the original post or post reply of members.

This show that most of the merit where been sent in the threads inside the Local section, but the highest number of merits was being sent in Economy section. On the other hand, Other section received the highest average merit per thread. Additionally, there are threads which I can’t retrieved and presume those are deleted post.

___________________________________________________________________________

I categorize each thread to One Page thread which consists of less than 20 replies, Short Thread with 20-500 replies and Long Thread with more than 500 replies.

Number of Merit per Thread per Category

Based on the table above it is remarkable that a longer thread tends to accumulate more merits.  I include here the list of threads who received the max merit per category. Just a reminder, merits includes merit received by the main post and replies; the data was captured last March 1 and may be different at the time of this posting.
One Page Thread – https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2895261 Deleted Post
Short Thread – https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827596
Long Thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336


Members who give Merit per Thread

The result is synonymous to the previous table. It is so amazing to see a single page thread with 59 users that give merit inside it, but unfortunately that post was been deleted.
One Page Thread – https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2895261 Deleted Post
Shot Thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2820637
Long Thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336

___________________________________________________________________________

I didn't want to seem inquisitive, but I browse thru each board for each section and found the following results.

Bitcoin Section

There are so many thread that received merit in the Bitcoin Discussion board it also received the most number of merit in a single thread. On the other hand, there are less than a hundred threads in the Project Development board who received merits.
Below are the list of topics which accumulate most of the merits.

___________________________________________________________________________

Economy Section

In this section Marketplace got the most number of thread with merits while the maximum merit in a thread can be found on Economics board.
Below are the list of topics which accumulate most of the merits.

___________________________________________________________________________

Other Section

Most of use expected this, the most number of merits pour on to the Meta board. It is also the board with threads got the most accumulated merit. Some even suggest creating a Merit board, but some say this could be temporary because soon people will get usual of merits. On the other hand, there are seven threads in Archival which received merits, I check one of that and it really helps.
Below are the list of topics which accumulate most of the merits.
 

___________________________________________________________________________

Alternate cryptocurrencies

Announcements and Altcoin Discussion seems to get equal share, but Announcements got much more higher number of topics with merit and average merit for a thread. 
Below are the list of topics which accumulate most of the merits.

___________________________________________________________________________

Local Section

The result above shows that Russian board lead the most number of threads with merits. While German board received the highest in terms of Average merit.
Below are the list of topics which accumulate most of the merits.

___________________________________________________________________________

Overall I see that Merits are distributed in every corner of the forum, even to those archival board and also to local board with the lesser amount of threads. I see no section or board that got zero merits, but we cannot deny the fact that there are sections that got most of the merits. I see most of the member Respect and Merited Satoshi for what he has started; two among his topics got the most merit in each board. infofront with his Wall Observer BTC… topic accumulate most of the merits. Which I think shows that we prioritize bitcoin price movement most of the time. And of course, the topic Merit & new rank requirements by theymos prove that the Merit System is efficient, agreed upon by most of the members and widely disseminated down to Local boards and in every corner of the forum.

Again, this is not an official stat; some may have found it quite confusing or misleading thus I am always open to comments and suggestion. I may miss some or many part of the analysis, but I know you could help me draw more conclusion. I hope this post answer most of your questions. Thank you for your support.

[1714811425]

1714811425

[1714811425]

1714811425

[1714811425]

1714811425

[1714811425]

1714811425

[FlightyPouch]

This is great and even before this chart is posted, I've been thinking that Local Boards should be really the boards that got the most given merit since the members using their own language can create good and constructive posts rather than pushing themselves outside that board where they can't really contribute. But I am wrong.

Never thought that the economy section will get the highest max merit given since I never thought that people are reading the posts of the members there.

[Tyrantt]

Ah those russians and turks. It almost seems like the [ANN] threads are being merited by default. Tho a good number of those posta made in local boards were merit trades. Maybe I'll make the similar post to this one but for merit trading. 

[rlim475]

Really great thread. It's no surprise to see Meta coming out on top. It also shows that it really pays to speak a second language with how many merits are about in the local sections.

May I ask why you didn't include a table showing the average per thread and such for the economics section like you did for all of the other sections?

[jointherevolution]

Nice data, it must have taken a long time to gather. This is a thread that deserves many merits.

[elena_rose19]

Very informative thread! Nowadays merit is really a big thing here in forum, so it's essential for me to read posts like. Bottom line is merit is shared every where in this forum just have to got enough knowledge to share to everyone.

[langongbachieu]

Thanks for great topic about merit statistics, bro. However, you should correct it a little bit. Please edit deviation to standard deviation. It will be more correct with the term (standard deviation, not deviation).

[vosicuoicung559]

Thank you Zentdex. You should add statistics for average/ median merit points received for each topics in different boards in the forum.

[cabalism13]

What a nice thread you have here and although some are only conclusions, I really cant hardly suggest the tracking of every data collected from this forum because it will be a hassle to do even though you have so much time to spend on it.
Updating this thread every week may also give you a hard time but you can atleast twice a week or once per month.
Thanks for the informations, this will be notified as an easy understanding on how the Merits being distributed to this community.

[KendiMint]

Informative I will visit those thread. A clickable table of top merit thread is more useful OP?

[DaftAjax]

Overall, I could say that these are very informative infographs. I could really conclude that the Merit System is working as expected, and are being used. So those people who always complain about the Merit System, and having a hard time getting Merits, they should visit this. I'm sure they will realize that they are the only ones who are complaining about it. Most of us are being grateful to the System, that the Rank is not just a title but a worthy title.

Based on the infographs, especially in the local boards. I've noticed that the Russian board, seems to be spending a lot of sMerits there, very suspicious indeed.

[HabBear]

Those Russians love to "spend" their merit on their comrades!

The next bit of analysis should be to translate those Russian posts that have received merit to assess how little one has to write in Russian to get 5, 10, 20, 50 merit!

If Theymos restricted merit spending in the Local board do you think we could minimize the opportunities for people to give merit to their alts or friends without, ummm merit?

Maybe people should be allowed to spend how they want.

To the OP, can you produce a chart that shows merit spend over time (daily), how much merit is spent each day? by which boards? I'd like to see the spending, i.e., economy, of this merit system.

Thank you!

[MainIbem]

This is a well thought out post. Quality analysis and graphical representations of fact. Great job.

[Naitik]

Why Russians have the maximum merits as well as Turkish???
Do there are less numbers of Russians and Turkish people in the forum??
This may be the only possible reason.
Can you tell me about this.

Thanks for this information keep it up.

[athanz88]

Well i have made this kind of thread giving some statistic from a valid data which i gathered my self from my thhread and from QA merit activity, i am proud of my work back then,but your work in these, i would say that your job is remarkable, very interesting, and a solid valid data given out to people about merits, and it answer some of people question and statement like
1. Only meta section getting merits
2. Local board didnt gives merits
3. Dumpster board wont gives you any merits
4. Etc
Wonderful job man. I guess this kind of thread can make a lot and good discussion between members, and one thing that you can consider to add in the OP is the links to the thread youve stated or maybe some example of the post that got merit in the thread.

Thank you.

[greeklogos]

What A great job done! If I would still have sMerits I would reward it as well. I think this thread should be fixed on the top of Meta section (cause of here all merit topics discussed exactly here) to work as teaching aid for newbies and for everybody who search support about merit.

[zentdex]

This is great and even before this chart is posted, I've been thinking that Local Boards should be really the boards that got the most given merit since the members using their own language can create good and constructive posts rather than pushing themselves outside that board where they can't really contribute. But I am wrong.

Never thought that the economy section will get the highest max merit given since I never thought that people are reading the posts of the members there.

Really great thread. It's no surprise to see Meta coming out on top. It also shows that it really pays to speak a second language with how many merits are about in the local sections.

Thank you for your appreciation.
In my opinion speaking thru local language will increase the understanding and agreement level of members thus increasing the chance to get merit.
I think Economy section got so many merits because of the Marketplace, there are merits given away thru Q&A and the like, which I found good and helpful.

Ah those russians and turks. It almost seems like the [ANN] threads are being merited by default. Tho a good number of those posta made in local boards were merit trades. Maybe I'll make the similar post to this one but for merit trading. 

That's great, just send me a PM if you need some hand for doing that.

May I ask why you didn't include a table showing the average per thread and such for the economics section like you did for all of the other sections?

I have those table, maybe it didn't load well. Kindly try to refresh the browser to see the images.

Nice data, it must have taken a long time to gather. This is a thread that deserves many merits.

Thank you for your appreciation.
theymos provide most of the data.

Thanks for great topic about merit statistics, bro. However, you should correct it a little bit. Please edit deviation to standard deviation. It will be more correct with the term (standard deviation, not deviation).

Thank you for your appreciation and suggestion.
I'll add the word Standard next time.

Thank you Zentdex. You should add statistics for average/ median merit points received for each topics in different boards in the forum.

Thank you for your appreciation and suggestion.
That could be manageable but it will be a super long post which I doubt most people will not hesitate to read.

What a nice thread you have here and although some are only conclusions, I really cant hardly suggest the tracking of every data collected from this forum because it will be a hassle to do even though you have so much time to spend on it.
Updating this thread every week may also give you a hard time but you can atleast twice a week or once per month.
Thanks for the informations, this will be notified as an easy understanding on how the Merits being distributed to this community.

Thank you for your appreciation and suggestion.
Yes, it will be so hard to update it frequently, but I think I could do a monthly stat.

Informative I will visit those thread. A clickable table of top merit thread is more useful OP?

Thank you for your appreciation and suggestion.
I never thought of that, I suddenly scratch my head after reading your suggestion. I'll try it next time if time provides.

Rank is not just a title but a worthy title.

Thank you for your appreciation.
I agree with you by that.

To the OP, can you produce a chart that shows merit spend over time (daily), how much merit is spent each day? by which boards? I'd like to see the spending, i.e., economy, of this merit system.
Thank you!

Thank you for your appreciation.
And that is a very good suggestion. I will put it top of my list!

Actually, I can analyse and make interesting charts using time series analysis if I have data. Raw data from Theymos is not enough, and I don't know how to get more data from the forum.

I think I could also analyze more clearly if I have your skills.
can you PM me those analysis methods you think about.

This is a well thought out post. Quality analysis and graphical representations of fact. Great job.

Thank you for your appreciation.

Why Russians have the maximum merits as well as Turkish???
Do there are less numbers of Russians and Turkish people in the forum??
This may be the only possible reason.
Can you tell me about this.

Thanks for this information keep it up.

They got more thread with merits that others.
As of the moment I don't have number of members belong or post to those boards, sorry about that. I'll try to include those next time.

Wonderful job man. I guess this kind of thread can make a lot and good discussion between members, and one thing that you can consider to add in the OP is the links to the thread youve stated or maybe some example of the post that got merit in the thread.
Thank you.

Thank you for your appreciation.
Your the second one to suggest it so I'll better do that next time.

What A great job done! If I would still have sMerits I would reward it as well. I think this thread should be fixed on the top of Meta section (cause of here all merit topics discussed exactly here) to work as teaching aid for newbies and for everybody who search support about merit.

Thank you for your appreciation.
A simple thank you will suffice.

[SergiuDemerji]

Thank you for sharing this information . For me now is more clear where i must post because since i start being active user of bitcointalk i didnt received any merit point . But i think i deserve at least some point for some of my post where i spend at least one hour to write it . But not complaining just keep writing with hope what someone will send me some merit points at least to feel what what i`m writing is interesting and people are reading and appreaciate. Here is one of my post just i want to hear opinion what i did wrong
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3103449.msg32045858#msg32045858

Cheers and good luck

P.S. Thank you for your article

[AhmadM]

An informative thread and great infographic calculation. I think meta section is received the most of merit since the merit system applied to the forum. Maybe you can update this thread monthly or weekly (if possible).
Really awesome work, good job

[Jet Cash]

Here is one of my post just i want to hear opinion what i did wrong
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3103449.msg32045858#msg32045858

The first point is that it is on the alt boards, and I don't read those. That's just an explanation as to why I hadn't seen it.

It is too long, and it appears to cover a variety of topics. It might be better to focus on one aspect, and to concentrate on the salient facts.

Also, I foind you english hard to follow, and this was a bit of a deterrent, and I'm sorry, but I didn't read the bulk of the post.