Suggestion: Merit Phase 2 - Drain the Swamp (@theymos)

[TheQuin]

You are a good example of which contradicts itself.. You created a topic to complicate life...and He speaks " the Merit hasn't been working well yet" What's wrong with you guys? And so many people supported you ..People with good status, like to complicate life! Because in most cases, they support each other and on Newbie I'm pretty sure they don't care!

I'm not contradicting myself. I've listened to what people have said and that I have agreed with some of their points. That's why I gave JaredKaragen a Merit, he brought something to my attention that I hadn't realised was a problem. A quick look at his posts tells me there is something amiss in the mining sections if he isn't getting Merit. That needs to be addressed.

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[JaredKaragen]

You are a good example of which contradicts itself.. You created a topic to complicate life...and He speaks " the Merit hasn't been working well yet" What's wrong with you guys? And so many people supported you ..People with good status, like to complicate life! Because in most cases, they support each other and on Newbie I'm pretty sure they don't care!

I'm not contradicting myself. I've listened to what people have said and that I have agreed with some of their points. That's why I gave JaredKaragen a Merit, he brought something to my attention that I hadn't realised was a problem. A quick look at his posts tells me there is something amiss in the mining sections if he isn't getting Merit. That needs to be addressed.

Yep; tis' why I voiced it.

Another way to look at it:

We have the iTrader system.... yet, look at how many people buy and sell from 0 feedback people; and still leave no feedback.    It's an inherent nature of people to be lazy;  in fact, I remember back in the old vbulletin from ~07' when people got +REP...  it was much easier then to just tick a box;  not fill out a form as it is with merit.

[TheQuin]

Yep; tis' why I voiced it.

Another way to look at it:

We have the iTrader system.... yet, look at how many people buy and sell from 0 feedback people; and still leave no feedback.    It's an inherent nature of people to be lazy;  in fact, I remember back in the old vbulletin from ~07' when people got +REP...  it was much easier then to just tick a box;  not fill out a form as it is with merit.

That's true about human nature but this system relies on a smaller number of people who care about the forum and put the effort in to make this work. Have a look at the Merit stats pages and the top Merit senders. What is needed is for people who are active on the mining boards to step up and make an application to become a Merit source and point out the problem to theymos. Once that happens then it filters down, as the people who get Merit start to believe in the system as well. You'd be an ideal candidate imho.

[Woopiss]

You are a good example of which contradicts itself.. You created a topic to complicate life...and He speaks " the Merit hasn't been working well yet" What's wrong with you guys? And so many people supported you ..People with good status, like to complicate life! Because in most cases, they support each other and on Newbie I'm pretty sure they don't care!

I'm not contradicting myself. I've listened to what people have said and that I have agreed with some of their points. That's why I gave JaredKaragen a Merit, he brought something to my attention that I hadn't realised was a problem. A quick look at his posts tells me there is something amiss in the mining sections if he isn't getting Merit. That needs to be addressed.

Sure... and how did you solve the problem? putting merit??? Other people will not be more grateful for this and this once again proves that the old user support only the old,even if the system does not work ! Legends  do not get merits, but here you want to make life difficult for newbie, it's his weird  logic.

[TheQuin]

Sure... and how did you solve the problem? putting merit???

No, by making the suggestion that more Merit sources should be recruited in the mining sections.

Other people will not be more grateful for this and this once again proves that the old user support only the old,even if the system does not work ! Legends  do not get merits, but here you want to make life difficult for newbie, it's his weird  logic.

I gave a merit because I found out something useful from his post. That has nothing to do with rank. I've given Merit to Newbies and all other ranks as well. I've never given them to people who obviously didn't even read my previous replies, like you. You think it is weird logic because you didn't take time to understand.

 

[Woopiss]

you didn't take time to understand.

Complicating rules for newbie,complicate then for each rank separately! I spent a lot of time here and understand what you want to prove, but you do not understand me! People can have "red" days or not have a merite for thanks or they are too lazy...

[TheQuin]

you didn't take time to understand.

Complicating rules for newbie,complicate then for each rank separately! I spent a lot of time here and understand what you want to prove,

If you understood me you wouldn't have made your previous post as I had already answered your question.

but you do not understand me! People can have "red" days or not have a merite for thanks or they are too lazy...

You are right. I don't understand that, as it has no meaning.

[Woopiss]

If you understood me you wouldn't have made your previous post as I had already answered your question.

The first jr.member in many signatures do not participate!
Secondly, Awards for each rank are different!  So I say that "complicate then for each rank separately" !
Thirdly  If There are too many narratives in reports,it does not mean Super constructive answer, but only that a person likes to compose water!
And fourth if you write a highly constructive text,this does not 100% guarantee  that someone appreciates you and because of that many write "shitpost" because many people see no difference!!! More appreciating each other and will be less "shitpost" !

I'd also recommend you read TMAN'S guide to getting merit.

I know myself that my english very bad and I'm working on it... for me it's not easy, I am ashamed for that but I can't silent! sry)...

[TheQuin]

If you understood me you wouldn't have made your previous post as I had already answered your question.

The first jr.member in many signatures do not participate!
Secondly, Awards for each rank are different!  So I say that "complicate then for each rank separately" !
Thirdly  If There are too many narratives in reports,it does not mean Super constructive answer, but only that a person likes to compose water!
And fourth if you write a highly constructive text,this does not 100% guarantee  that someone appreciates you and because of that many write "shitpost" because many people see no difference!!! More appreciating each other and will be less "shitpost" !

Everyone has their own criteria for awarding Merit. I prefer posts that mean I learn something or think about something differently after reading them. Sometimes I Merit them just because they made me laugh. I never think about who it is. It isn't surprising that the people that post in the areas I'm interested in tend to be the same group all the time. That doesn't make them my friends other than we have shared interests and talk about them on here. That is, after all, is what a forum is for.

That is off-topic though as it has nothing to with this thread.

I'd also recommend you read TMAN'S guide to getting merit.

I really haven't a clue what most of what you write is supposed to mean.

[wwzsocki]

I think that this is all too soon.

Meritt system was introduced 6 weeks ago and many people just don't get any merits as for today.
 
Bitcointalk stuff thinks to implement "signatures control" based on this Merit system.

I see that forum stuff and high-rank members are happy with Merit system and they are posting about successful spam reducing around the forum. This is obvious that they are happy with Merits because they already achieved highest ranks and the merit system will restrain others from ranking up so it will stop unwanted competition.

From another site, there are many posts on the forum from members who are not happy with the new merit system. These members are mostly affected by the new system: few days before rank up (like me), don't have good skills in English language, not posting frequently, no writing skills, not knowledgeable enough. They are not spammers or shitposters. They are normal forum users, normal people and this is about 75% of members.

We need to fight with spam and rules abuse but we have to do it wisely and not to harm innocent people.

[LoyceV]

Meritt system was introduced 6 weeks ago and many people just don't get any merits as for today.

That's not true. More than two full months ago you received red trust for merit trading from a Global Moderator. Merit was introduced almost 10 weeks ago.
 

Bitcointalk stuff thinks to implement "signatures control" based on this Merit system.

Stuff or staff? If I'd manage a signature campaign, I would require participants to have earned merit. It would save me time checking bad posts.

I see that forum stuff and high-rank members are happy with Merit system and they are posting about successful spam reducing around the forum. This is obvious that they are happy with Merits because they already achieved highest ranks and the merit system will restrain others from ranking up so it will stop unwanted competition.

Have you considered the possibility that people just really dislike spam? I love getting rid of spammers, and none of the spammers will ever be accepted into the signature campaign I'm in. That means they are no competition. Competition comes from users with useful posts, and merit encourages users to post better quality.

From another site, there are many posts on the forum from members who are not happy with the new merit system. These members are mostly affected by the new system: few days before rank up (like me), don't have good skills in English language, not posting frequently, no writing skills, not knowledgeable enough. They are not spammers or shitposters. They are normal forum users, normal people and this is about 75% of members.

Less than 1% of of all forum users has received merit. Not all accounts are active, but it affects much more than 75%. And that's a good thing.
From what I've seen quickly, your English isn't the problem. Small things like stuff-staff and site-side don't make you a shitposter. But if someone has no writing skills and isn't knowledgeable, he shouldn't post thousands of posts just to rank up. And that's what the merit system takes care of.

[Mr1mg]

@McWorse
I think your problem could be that you spend too much time on the Alt Boards, and some of us think that the Alt Boards attract the spam posters who are the cancer affecting the forum. There are a lot of great boards here, and a whole new life outside the Alt-World.

So we got trouble here.
I.e. I'm prefer alt-part coz there many new or interesting ideas.
Also there isnt not a lot that can be said in main part of forum. No, serious, copy-paste answers or write "RTFM" on  every second topic?

Well, its does not matter. The main point is... why use so tyrannicalstrange method get rid off bad guys?

Isnt we in 21st century, with HiTech, scripts, many types of analytics systems and so on?
Mean just do forum plugin to assist moderators to do better and easier their work.
i.e. HiLigth "Copy-Paste" posts or possible mults based on several parameters. For mults can be advanced option as statistical or/and stylistic analysis.(and yet for this still not needed  an AI  )

PS:
Merit system need only one restriction upgrade - limit to 1 or 2 sMerit given.
Then you can see for sure who boost low rank account (mean chain posr merited by 2 each)

[jonemil24]

Possibly I've been wrong, but most merits are distributed among coteries and groups. The posts that tend to belittle others and point fingers are the ones that have been receiving merits as well. Posts like ICO ANN and Bounties ANN by Bounty managers are receiving merits( WHY ).

I've rarely tried to please people and have also tried to increase the quality of my posts in the past months, but I've rarely received merits from unknown sources, just people that know or those I have merited (dunno if it was a gesture or anything but I never asked them for it).  

A lot of people have been harping on the Sig campaigns thing. Here are a couple of things:

Q1. Why do companies have Sign Campaigns?

A. To
    (a.) To grab eyeballs so that people know about them and invest or use those services.
    (b.) To pay posters who make good posts on BCT.

I think it's the (a.). (Correct me if I'm wrong or have a wrong notion anywhere in this post.)

Q2. Do people make decisions to invest in ICO or use a service based on the Sign Holders?
A. I've seen people wear the Signature of a Mixer, I have looked into the service and it looks AWESOME. I wouldn't care if a racist half-wit is wearing that signature and spamming endlessly (actually someone racist is wearing it), I have and will use the service.

I've also seen many good posters wear the sign of a Mining company and I have looked into it again, will I invest, HELL NO!

Q3. What's the use of merits and such regulations then?
A. I hate to say it, but the winners are ICO Bounties that need to pay less (Sorry Satoshi, but Centralized Institutions are winning), because people won't rank up. I think the only useful system is the TRUST, that too when u are trading and not proselytizing your political opinions. As for rest, all Ranks and Merits should be abolished and each Bounty Manager shud be made to count posts and assess the quality and pay for them. ICOs are happy to have 100 Jr. Members Shit-Post and say Good Project while grabbing attention to their projects, because that also is a form of marketing. Why do the PAUL BROTHERS and their gangs have Millions of views when all they make is SHIT, because even cringe is appealing and makes for good marketing.

Q4. What's my proposed solution?
A. Read the BOLD part up.
EDIT : Initiatives such as SMAS list by Lauda is a good reference point and I applaud them, although I'm on the list (Rightly so!) and believe that it has little utility in terms of marketing. (Again grabbing eye-balls is more important !)


My 2cents : All of us can agree that Sign campaigns pay well, but do they pay to make good posts or to grab eyeballs. If it was to make good posts, add that in Article Bounties. I hope someone points out valid loopholes and assumptions that I made.

Thanks.


P.S. Can some marketing veteran point it out that my logic has fallacies, but remember that most investors in ICOs are extremely clueless and not a reformed crowd that they would care for quality of adverts or advertisers. We also have instances in the past to prove it. MIOTA raised a small seed on forum and was being called a SCAM all the time. The marketing was shit, but most of us can agree that the project is doing good today.

I would like to share more about this post:

I've only known this forum when I accidentally went to an event while looking for investments about new technologies. The event host raised a question, how did they know about cryptocurrecies, one guy answered this forum. The host bluntly said; do not click anything below every posts you see on that forum or you will be a victim of scam ICOs, scammers came that forum.

If this merit system is all about signature bounties, would you trust an ICO based on someones post, or his rank?

We all know that this merit system is to prevent people from ranking ups based on their activity on this forum, but will it prevent the scam ICO?

Before every high ranking members single out the shit posters, they should have cleaned up the mess on altcoin announcement thread section where you will see low ranking members posting- Great project!, The best platform ever!, I like your idea/ project!, This will surely moon!, posters like this should be removed for they only bumping and piling up a good post.

[Jet Cash]

 But if someone has no writing skills and isn't knowledgeable, he shouldn't post thousands of posts just to rank up. And that's what the merit system takes care of.

Not completely. Mother Nature has a philosophy of creating millions of seeds, and spraying them everywhere she can in the hope that one or two germinate. Spammers have the same philosophy. A while ago, I think one sale per million email spam messages was considered good. That is the sort of mentality we are up against.

[TheQuin]

I've only known this forum when I accidentally went to an event while looking for investments about new technologies. The event host raised a question, how did they know about cryptocurrecies, one guy answered this forum. The host bluntly said; do not click anything below every posts you see on that forum or you will be a victim of scam ICOs, scammers came that forum.

If this merit system is all about signature bounties, would you trust an ICO based on someones post, or his rank?

One of the things that is often missed about advertising is that value of name recognition. I remember reading a study on why people pay 10x the price for branded painkillers for a headache rather than buying the generic one that is chemically identical. You can tell people not to trust or click on the signature adverts but if you asked most people on this forum to name one mixing service I can a have a good guess which one it would be and that's the one they will most likely end up using. That doesn't really mean anybody trusts it based on whose signature it is in, it's just the familiarity with the name. Advertisers then want to choose the people whose signature get the most exposure.

We all know that this merit system is to prevent people from ranking ups based on their activity on this forum, but will it prevent the scam ICO?

theymos banned ICOs from bidding on the forum banner space auctions for this reason but I don't think he wants to get in the business of censoring what we can advertise in our signature spaces.

Before every high ranking members single out the shit posters, they should have cleaned up the mess on altcoin announcement thread section where you will see low ranking members posting- Great project!, The best platform ever!, I like your idea/ project!, This will surely moon!, posters like this should be removed for they only bumping and piling up a good post.

If more people used the 'Report to moderator' link in the bottom corner of the posts then more of them would get banned. Not that I'm any help there as I have that on my ignore board list.

[8count]

I generally don't post in the meta section due to the fact that since the merit system come in, it seems to be full of spam post like "Merit is to hard to get", "Why the merit system is bad?" and I wouldn't be surprised to see one say "The merit system took my baby"

Now I do signature campaigns from time to time (Usually short ones as life is busy and I enjoy being outdoors) and use this forum to improve my knowledge of cryptocurrency. I will read up on and try to improve my knowledge on mining, current events and the latest information on my investments. Most of the signature campaigns I do require me to post in the Altcoin section. That's fine with me as I have a interest in altcoins. I do not spam the section to get my post up, I take my time and try and find a post that I have knowledge in or have a strong option on.

Now I haven't gotten any merit and I'm fine with that. I'm happy to stay at this level. But I don't think that just because I haven't got a single merit my account should be banned.

I know not all my post are awesome but I'm happy for you to go through my post, pretty sure it wouldn't be worth banning. (some post will have bounty reports that are required to be posted)

[LeakBarak]

The Merit system has been with us for six weeks now and is clearly having some success in reducing the spam. It is now very hard, if not impossible, for account farmers to provide a constant supply of high ranked accounts. This, of course, is good news for any of us who have become tired of finding any interesting content quickly buried under a pile of shitposts.

What this hasn't addressed is the large number of accounts already in the hands of shitposters. Let's be honest about what rank is all about - signatures and the ability to gain income from them. The ability of someone who is already in possession of, for example, a Hero account (or 10) to continue to get paid for every shitpost they tack on the end of a spam megathread has not diminished or been restrained by the Merit system.

Some campaign managers have taken the initiative to make minimum Merit requirements compulsory to join their campaigns but those managers were already the ones with high standards. They were not the problem, it has always been the managers that just blindly accept the first x hundred people to apply and pay them regardless of the spam they produce.

I have noticed that these spammers are very easy to spot now, they are the ones stuck on 100, 250, 500 or whatever merit number they were initially given. They haven't managed to gain one single Merit point in the last 6 weeks.

So to my suggestion:

Amend the forum to hide signatures of any account that hasn't earned at least 1 Merit in the last 2 months.

This will bar them from getting paid to post and not have any negative impact on anyone making even the tiniest contribution to the forum. Nobody loses their rank and even if someone is away from the forum for a while they can quickly get their signature back.

I also agree with this, but I think this will be make new upcoming members will just use their account only for social media campaign or article campaign, because so hard earn merit for newbie account, I just see merits circulated at high rank and newbie rank (second account of user with high rank only) Because I seen they have good post and I'm not believe if they are beginner.
I have seen many beginner tried to do the best, but they not get any merit, so they will not participate at this forum anymore.
I think will be better if there is be more merit source to fix this problem, or make a board for merit.

[hoangvuthach]

Well I'm a person who has not earned a merit for nearly a year and 6 months, but I agree with you ... why not limit posts instead of signing signatures if applicable as you say, The Junk articles will be more

[o_e_l_e_o]

I have seen many beginner tried to do the best, but they not get any merit, so they will not participate at this forum anymore.

A lack of merit does not hamper their ability to participate in the forum whatsoever - it only hampers their ability to be paid for their signature space. If they are leaving for the sole reason that they are not receiving merit, then their only reason for being here was to farm bounties. The merit system is preventing that, and therefore doing what it was designed to do.

[DdmrDdmr]

Well I'm a person who has not earned a merit for nearly a year and 6 months <...>

The Merit system was actually introduced on the 24th of January of the present year, so really that is the baseline to measure how much merit has been gained by a forum user (either from initial airdrop or gained since kick-off).

Therefore, really you should be counting the two months and a half and not a year and a half (although arguably the period of time previous to the merit kick-off contributed to the initial merit airdrop through rank achievement).

Fun fact: theymos was the first to award a user with merit (1 sMerit awarded to AdolfinWolf in this post) : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818066.msg28853325#msg28853325