Here is the quality of posts after merit system

[gilangIDR]

I'm afraid that those shitposters will keep spamming the forums even if they get 1k activity and no merits. Sometimes I get a feeling that those are actually bots not humans with an intelligence level only enough to spam shitposts and won't even notice that they're not ranking up, they will just keep spamming shitposts no matter what.

They'll keep shitposting because their sig campaign manager allows those sort of shitposts. They (shitposters) know that as long as they spam their 2-liner generic and unreadable bullcrap, they'll still get X reward from their sig campaign, so there's no incentive (for old accounts with no merits and account farmers) to make an effort to write a decent post.

Must be a system from a more rigorous campaign manager and also better to choose a user who meets the appropriate criteria. However, if viewed from the current conditions then this has been quite improved, there are positive impacts that have been seen. Usually those who do shitposting certainly can not be accepted by the campaign manager, some managers who have been trusted must have had a specific criteria. We know that in this forum there are so many campaign managers that there should be an association that can regulate these criteria. Sometimes I doubt the campaign done in section altcoin, because usually campaign manager is entering many users and the criteria needed is not too high. I have known for a long time the characteristics of every manager in this forum and only a few who always apply high criteria, yes maybe yahoo, atriz, and lauda who always have high criteria.

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[Oulay]

I'm afraid that those shitposters will keep spamming the forums even if they get 1k activity and no merits. Sometimes I get a feeling that those are actually bots not humans with an intelligence level only enough to spam shitposts and won't even notice that they're not ranking up, they will just keep spamming shitposts no matter what.

They'll keep shitposting because their sig campaign manager allows those sort of shitposts. They (shitposters) know that as long as they spam their 2-liner generic and unreadable bullcrap, they'll still get X reward from their sig campaign, so there's no incentive (for old accounts with no merits and account farmers) to make an effort to write a decent post.

That's the point I wanna get to, they don't really care about ranking up, as long as they get paid for spamming shit it's all that it matters. I do hope that after a couple of months into the merit system Theymos starts a wave of bans for those shitposters to clean the forums of them.
This way old shitposters will get banned and new shitposters won't get out of Jr. member.

[Oulay]

Was this the purpose of Merit system ? Note that these are not newbies making these posts.

The merit system prevents accumulating more shit but doesn't clean the shit we already have 

[nc50lc]

Maybe, OP wanted to tell us that most of the spam are from Ranked members rather newbies.
Partly yes but, once (alt/farmed) newbie spammers find it impossible to rank up, they might stop.
Member to Legendary spammers may eventually stop their spam business once they got listed in SMAS or campaign managers established stricter requirements.

In addition to what @FlightyPouch said, the most notable effect is now there's less newbie accounts that spam the megathreads which may not be the majority of the spammers, but still a good immediate result.
Since there aren't too much new spammers joining, something like SMAS will become more efficient by the easier filtering job.

Perhaps, since spam has been being brought by bounties, and 0 merit to become a Jr Member to be able to join Altcoin bounties can be achieved by spamming, +5 merit should be required for newbies to become Jr and increase the Member merit requirement.

What I am trying to implement into campaigns I manage is users must have merits to join. I currently am allowing users without merits to join(partially), but have started paying higher rates to users with merits. Eventually I will make it a requirement to have merits in order to join campaigns I manage. I would also like to go as far as you must earn merits each week to stay in a campaign.

If all managers do something like I mentioned above, then eventually these shit accounts are phased out and not making any money anymore rendering their accounts useless. With the merit system being fairly new, I can't go full fledged merit crazy on everyone yet. Gotta give ppl a little time to earn some.

I am curious if a Member (10Merit) made it through the next rank Full Member (+90 earned Merit) is eligible to the full member slot since his 100merit was earned, not rank default.
A Full Member with 100 merit (+90 total in the merit history) is better than a Full Member with 105 merit (+5 in the Merit History), right?

[gabdel1]

I came here to point out the same thing. I'm pretty new around here, and even I noticed how wrong it felt browsing different sections of the forum.

I first joined thinking, hey this is a veterans forum so maybe It'll have plenty of constructive discussions and what not, but to my surprise it is mostly spam, and I suppose it's that way so people can climb up the ranks fast and start earning from bounties?

Eitherway, this doesn't promote a healthy environment for veterans or new comers.

[k1mera]

And they didn't get any merit.

Those who are bellow the Legendary rank won't rank up anymore. What is your point?

If the purpose of the ranking system was to reduce the spam it failed hardly.
If the purpose of the ranking system was to just freeze the ranks it successed.

I think this was the point of the person that opened this topic. I think this new system has just freezed all the ranks without any reduction of low-quality posts. Probably it could be a good idea to make a "reverse merit", I mean to "demerit" posts without any sense or spam-posts. In this way people can rank normally and also they will not post spam otherwise other people will demerit it and they lose rank or it will be freezed.

Also, the min necessary to rank up in merit is very high considering the low amount of merits that circulate between people.

Open to discuss but it is really clear that the merit system needs improvements because how it works now will not help anyone.

[Kim Ji Won]

Well, the purpose of the merit system is to make shitposters like that to put in a lot of effort and thought on their posts for them to rank up. Unless they are okay with their current rank and doesn't care much on whether they get merited or not, I guess there is nothing much we can do about it.

What I am trying to implement into campaigns I manage is users must have merits to join. I currently am allowing users without merits to join(partially), but have started paying higher rates to users with merits. Eventually I will make it a requirement to have merits in order to join campaigns I manage. I would also like to go as far as you must earn merits each week to stay in a campaign.

If all managers do something like I mentioned above, then eventually these shit accounts are phased out and not making any money anymore rendering their accounts useless. With the merit system being fairly new, I can't go full fledged merit crazy on everyone yet. Gotta give ppl a little time to earn some.

What you've implemented in your campaign is great and the idea that every participant in your campaign must earn a merit every week is also good. That way, if there will be users who will cheat their way to earn merit and trade with their alts, we could ban those shits for their wrongdoing. We could ban a lot of users if that happens tho.

[richminded]

The merit system cannot stop people who post shit but of course this new system are limiting them to rank higher so they cannot join campaign and no increase in the payout. Basically if all campaign required merit system, its hard now to be part of it. Time will come, and those shitposter will make a lot of effort just to have merit in order for them to survive.

[greeklogos]

What I am trying to implement into campaigns I manage is users must have merits to join. I currently am allowing users without merits to join(partially), but have started paying higher rates to users with merits. Eventually I will make it a requirement to have merits in order to join campaigns I manage. I would also like to go as far as you must earn merits each week to stay in a campaign.

If all managers do something like I mentioned above, then eventually these shit accounts are phased out and not making any money anymore rendering their accounts useless. With the merit system being fairly new, I can't go full fledged merit crazy on everyone yet. Gotta give ppl a little time to earn some.

Nice idea which is really working. You were the first who do so and I think not the last one. I think it is going to become normal for whole the forum to accept users with merits only or to set different kinds of payments to users with and without merits.

[Kate Beckett]

Those who are bellow the Legendary rank won't rank up anymore.

The task of the Merit system is not to block the way to rank up. It is in the fact that only those who really deserve it, who write competent, well-founded posts, become and remain members of the forum. You are wrong if you really think that those who are bellow the legendary rank won`t rank up anymore. For example, newbie can become a junior member without any merit. That means every beginner has a chance to rank up, but if he wants to achieve more, then he must exert more effort than previously required.

[TheQuin]

If the purpose of the ranking system was to reduce the spam it failed hardly.

There is more to it than that. There has been a reduction in spam from account farmers as they slowly realise that the accounts have no value if they can't get merit to rank them up. Spammers that already have high ranking accounts need to be dealt with in other ways in addition to the merit system. It hasn't failed, it is slowly starting to work by stopping the influx of new spammers.

If the purpose of the ranking system was to just freeze the ranks it successed.

People that deserve to rank up have no problem getting merit at a faster pace than an average of 1 a day so they will rank up exactly as before. Have a look at the top 50 and see how much they got in the last 30 days:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topusers

I think this was the point of the person that opened this topic. I think this new system has just freezed all the ranks without any reduction of low-quality posts.

It probably was the point they were trying to make but it is incorrect. It froze the accounts that don't deserve to rank up and has reduced spam to some extent already and will do even more so over time.

Probably it could be a good idea to make a "reverse merit", I mean to "demerit" posts without any sense or spam-posts. In this way people can rank normally and also they will not post spam otherwise other people will demerit it and they lose rank or it will be freezed.

This is a terrible idea as it would just be abused by people demeriting things they disagree with.

Also, the min necessary to rank up in merit is very high considering the low amount of merits that circulate between people.

The other way to deal with that is to increase the supply of merit. That is what theymos has just done by adding another 20 merit sources.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources

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

[mobilazy]

Maybe it was a wrong topic to choose? This one, for instance, doesn't look terrible. If the topic is "Am I too late?" "Next 10x coin?" or similar crap, answers to it would also be shitposts. Much easier to eliminate those kinds of topics rather than monitor it for answers. Even better, collect 10 page of crap and delete it so scammer won't get his required post count. 

[dx_twisted]

The merit system cannot stop people who post shit but of course this new system are limiting them to rank higher so they cannot join campaign and no increase in the payout. Basically if all campaign required merit system, its hard now to be part of it. Time will come, and those shitposter will make a lot of effort just to have merit in order for them to survive.

The point of this new merit system is to cease the continues growth of high ranked accounts that are being controlled by sh**posters and spammers. Lots of alt accounts was also created that produced the same nonsense posts per day, over and over again. It's not only about the signature campaigns salary, etc. but the whole credibility of this forum that matters here.

Can we just appreciate what the administrators of this site has implemented? What matters right now is to reduce the population of at least Sr. Members to Legendary accounts that didn't really deserved that kind of status in the first place. Although its kinda late that this Merit system was implemented as some accounts (members) have already obtained such status, at least it halted the continuous growth of it that can make things worst in the future.

Also, with an average of 8,636.79 post per day. Don't expect the admins that they can monitor each post from time to time. It is a very difficult task to do so, since they are short-handed of staffs.

[bobrova]

If this continues, theymos said that he will eliminate signatures and other ways of earning of money in this forum.

He actually said that! where? I thought he ruled out eliminating sig camps because I'm sure I've seen him state this in one of his old posts..
Would you please put a link or quote what he said?

Yes, he has said that in a recent post. At the time when he was asking for suggestions regarding how to remove spam from the forum, he ruled out the option of removing signature campaigns completely. Later merit system was implemented and members started complaining that it is not working. He said that he might have to remove signature campigns if merit system fails to fight against spam.

I think he actually meant the last four posts. I mean when you visit a board you see the threads ordered according to the time of the last reply in each thread, what I think he did is that he picked the last 4 threads (which are placed at the top of the page ) then picked the last reply in each of them.

This is actually what I meant and you expressed it better than I would have. I am in no way against merit system, I wanted to make the point here that a lot of members are still adding shit posts and they do not care about merit system. How is spam removed then ?

[TheQuin]

I am in no way against merit system, I wanted to make the point here that a lot of members are still adding shit posts and they do not care about merit system. How is spam removed then ?

Spam has been reduced by cutting off the flow of new spammers into the system and catching some of the alt accounts and getting them painted red. There's a very simple way to remove the rest but it will not be very popular with a lot of people. Make a change to the forum so that signatures and avatars of anyone that has not earned at least 1 merit in the last 3 months are automatically hidden. That will force all the campaign managers to make earning merit mandatory.

[bobrova]

Spam has been reduced by cutting off the flow of new spammers into the system and catching some of the alt accounts and getting them painted red. There's a very simple way to remove the rest but it will not be very popular with a lot of people. Make a change to the forum so that signatures and avatars of anyone that has not earned at least 1 merit in the last 3 months are automatically hidden. That will force all the campaign managers to make earning merit mandatory.

Why is it required to do coding change to the forum to implement this. I mean the admin cannot just make it compulsory with an announcement for all campaign mangers to accept members only with certain number of merits as per the rank.

And those alt accounts being painted red, was it the purpose of merit system ? Was the admin aware of the fact that some people will try to cheat the system and start giving merits to their alt accounts. Admin must be laughing hard if this was intentional on his part but I never expected senior members to make it so obvious by sending merits like 50 or so to a single post.

[TheQuin]

Why is it required to do coding change to the forum to implement this. I mean the admin cannot just make it compulsory with an announcement for all campaign mangers to accept members only with certain number of merits as per the rank.

That just makes it harder to enforce. Who is going to go through all the campaigns and check every account? I just suggested a way it could be automated to make it easier.

And those alt accounts being painted red, was it the purpose of merit system ? Was the admin aware of the fact that some people will try to cheat the system and start giving merits to their alt accounts.

Everyone was very aware of it as it has been going on an industrial scale for a very long time. They've been getting caught and tagged for a very long time as well, but until the merit system that was only a minor inconvenience to them as they just farmed more accounts to replace them.

Admin must be laughing hard if this was intentional on his part but I never expected senior members to make it so obvious by sending merits like 50 or so to a single post.

They are not exactly the smartest people so it was fairly easy to anticipate that a lot them would not be able to resist temptation and make themselves easy to spot.

[digaran]

Well, the purpose of the merit system is to make shitposters like that to put in a lot of effort and thought on their posts for them to rank up. Unless they are okay with their current rank.

They will never put in any effort. they don't know how. Jet Cash is trying to teach them English. that is impossible to do by one person with other important things to do. if he could spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, his students couldn't learn anything, because they are busy posting with 10-20 accounts.

if there will be users who will cheat their way to earn merit and trade with their alts, we could ban those shits for their wrongdoing. We could ban a lot of users if that happens tho.

They don't know how to write a post with a minimum quality, if somebody is giving merits to his own alts, if they are giving them to constructive posts, you'll never find out if they are alts of each other.

doesn't care much on whether they get merited or not, I guess there is nothing much we can do about it.

There is something. charging a fee per post. any forum member not earning a minimum 10 merits in 30 days should pay a fee per post if they are wearing a signature. if they don't want to pay, they could report garbage posts and for every accurate report, they could post one time for free.

[illiki23]

We were doing some stuff with BCT post visualization (word clouds!) before I dissapeared on you guys again to go work for Oyster.

Anyways, I am now really curious if we can use data analysis to identify meaningful differences between post data before and after the merit system was announced.

I mean, we have post data before and after this date and a means of gathering it via a benign crawler.

Once I am done with Oyster I will be back to pursue this again.  In the meantime someone else should totally do some text analysis and get back to us about significant differences.

[Jet Cash]

The task of the Merit system is not to block the way to rank up.

Actually that is the reason the merit system ws introduced. It is designed to block upranking for posters who don't respect the forum and its rules.