Want to get some opinion about this. [Maybe a Proposal to Eliminate Farmers]

[1993jochico]

In this simple suggestion it will help a lot to stop abuse from those already tagged users with high ranks.

If an account is already tagged as a merit abuser or anything their merit will be automatically disabled.
In this way we can instantly stop their abuse to send merits in creating new accounts.

Benefits to the forum and community:

1. No more merit abuse from that account: It will lessen reports that already tagged because if that account has many sMerit he will surely create a new account and pass his merits to the newly created accounts (that is happening right now).

2. It will be easier to clean the community: If their merits is disabled they cannot abuse anymore, and they will surely start from the start, and learn how to use the forum in the right and fair way.

3. They are forced to forget the account that has red tag: If their purpose is to join a lot of signature campaign which is the only reason for them to spam the forum, for sure that account with negative trust will never be active anymore because it has no use for them.

An possible example of one account that have already been tagged and trying to make a way to distribute his merits to his alts.
LINK: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3189979.0


Disadvantage: The only disadvantage of this that I see is that those accounts with negative trust and still active because they are promoting their service and others cannot send merits anymore, but its okay because there are only few of them.


Any other positive or negative suggestion's are welcome and will be appreciated.  

[aksen]

In this simple suggestion it will help a lot to stop abuse from those already tagged users with high ranks.

If an account is already tagged as a merit abuser or anything their merit will be automatically disabled.
In this way we can instantly stop their abuse to send merits in creating new accounts.

Benefits to the forum and community:

1. No more merit abuse from that account: It will lessen reports that already tagged because if that account has many sMerit he will surely create a new account and pass his merits to the newly created accounts (that is happening right now).

2. It will be easier to clean the community: If their merits is disabled they cannot abuse anymore, and they will surely start from the start, and learn how to use the forum in the right and fair way.

3. They are forced to forget the account that has red tag: If their purpose is to join a lot of signature campaign which is the only reason for them to spam the forum, for sure that account with negative trust will never be active anymore because it has no use for them.

An possible example of one account that have already been tagged and trying to make a way to distribute his merits to his alts.
LINK: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3189979.0


Disadvantage: The only disadvantage of this that I see is that those accounts with negative trust and still active because they are promoting their service and others cannot send merits anymore, but its okay because there are only few of them.


Any other positive or negative suggestion's are welcome and will be appreciated.  

This is a good suggestion in my opinion because:

1) It helps to prevent wastage of merit points. I know that the merits sent by a person with red trust will be examined more strictly but we should not forget that those merits get wasted even if further abuse is topped.

2) In order to avoid the wastage mentioned in first point, once the merits are disabled for such user, the remaining merits of that user should be added to quota for merit sources so that those merits are still in circulation.

[Silent26]

Well, First of all, that's really good idea of yours. But I think

Disadvantage: The only disadvantage of this that I see is that those accounts with negative trust and still active because they are promoting their service and others cannot send merits anymore, but its okay because there are only few of them.

Is not the only disadvantage of your idea. Because not all account with Negative Trust are abusing Merit/Merit System. For example is this Guy Mr. Wesimon
Profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=882355
As you can see, Yeah he's account is tagged with Negative Trust. But I can prove that he's not abusing his Merit. You can check this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3175633.msg32872726#msg32872726 made by Mr. Wesimon. This thread is a "Free merit for quality posts". It only proves that he's not trading or abusing his Merit and I'm sure that he is not the only Member with Negative Trust who uses Merits for good.

What do you think?
Not because some Members here have Negative Trust doesn't mean we're gonna trash them. Some Members with Negative Trust already regretted their mistakes in the past and now moving on to a new world of peace. Lol

[1993jochico]

Well, First of all, that's really good idea of yours. But I think

Disadvantage: The only disadvantage of this that I see is that those accounts with negative trust and still active because they are promoting their service and others cannot send merits anymore, but its okay because there are only few of them.

Is not the only disadvantage of your idea. Because not all account with Negative Trust are abusing Merit/Merit System. For example is this Guy Mr. Wesimon
Profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=882355
As you can see, Yeah he's account is tagged with Negative Trust. But I can prove that he's not abusing his Merit. You can check this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3175633.msg32872726#msg32872726 made by Mr. Wesimon. This thread is a "Free merit for quality posts". It only proves that he's not trading or abusing his Merit and I'm sure that he is not the only Member with Negative Trust who uses Merits for good.

What do you think?

I know your higher ranked than me but I want you to search deeper on that Wesimon's profile and read my report about that and you will see that he is just hiding to that event to trick the community and not get noticed that he is transferring his merits to his alts.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2290127.msg31592514#msg31592514 3
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2726080.msg28395901#msg28395901 2
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2372313.msg32626889#msg32626889 4

to this post and your post only gets 1.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3092808.msg31919039#msg31919039

I can assure you that this is a diversion to trick the community.

[Silent26]

Are you talking about that "Dingdong7" account? Because yeah looks like you were right, it seems like he transferred most of his Merits to that account.  
Well, if your suspicions were true. It means he just fooled me and other member of this Forum
What a shame .

But yeah, let assume that Mr. Wesimon really is a Merit abuser . But, don't you believe that there are still some Members with Negative Trust who who contribues well in this Forum? We can't asaure if those tagged accounts really are abusing Merits. Maybe there are still some of them who didn't abuse it.

[SFR10]

If an account is already tagged as a merit abuser or anything their merit will be automatically disabled.
In this way we can instantly stop their abuse to send merits in creating new accounts.

You should change "merit" to "sMerit".

Any other positive or negative suggestion's are welcome and will be appreciated.  

I like the idea but at the same time, I can easily argue on both sides. If this was part of the current system, then we wouldn't be able to easily spot alt accounts of these abusers or those they're connected to.
Instead of that, I'm looking forward to this:

Merit sales, transfers to aliases, back-and-forth trading, etc. are not much of an issue. All illegitimate merit will decay, and will account for a tiny and very expensive fraction of the total merit economy. It's basically a rounding error; fight it where convenient, but waste no sleep over it.

[Talk merit]

The underlying premise here is that the ability to award sMerit should a privilege and not a right. I agree with this, and also the suggestion that any member who abuses the merit system should be deprived of the ability to award sMerit.

This creates another consideration - Who should be trusted with the ability to award sMerit? I believe that everybody should be trusted initially, from brand new right up to Legendary. Abusers of this trust should have the ability removed, and it may be useful to have an appeal procedure.

[Avalonist]

The underlying premise here is that the ability to award sMerit should a privilege and not a right. I agree with this, and also the suggestion that any member who abuses the merit system should be deprived of the ability to award sMerit.

This creates another consideration - Who should be trusted with the ability to award sMerit? I believe that everybody should be trusted initially, from brand new right up to Legendary. Abusers of this trust should have the ability removed, and it may be useful to have an appeal procedure.

What if somebody is really generous awarding users with sMerit? If you take away the ability to award from some of the users, it'll be ten times harder to earn one. Not to mention, that in these days it is already almost impossible for newbies to get award

[Talk merit]

What if somebody is really generous awarding users with sMerit? If you take away the ability to award from some of the users, it'll be ten times harder to earn one. Not to mention, that in these days it is already almost impossible for newbies to get award

I don't think anybody is suggesting that. What is being suggested is that merit abusers lose the right to award sMerit. For example, much to my surprise, I seem to have picked up a couple of merits. If I were to award an sMerit to Jet Cash, then that is clearly an abuse of the system, and should be punished.

It isn't impossible for new members to receive merit. They just have to accept the primary purpose of the forum, and not look on it as a free lunch.

[Loveboard]

I'm sure I'm the minority in this who would disagree with this proposal. And i'm sure Theymos and crew would too.

Why? Because currently sMerit abuse isn't a hard and fast rule, unless you're sending it to alts. And there's so many avenues that one could abuse the merit system without there being a catchall provision. For example, selling merit isn't illegal, but it's negative trust-worthy. You can't suddenly freeze an account's sMerit just because they sold sMerit, which is not illegal. To give an official punishment for a crime per se, rather than an official crime, is an unfair exercise of power.

That said, I agree with the other person on this thread that people who gain a negative trust, then realize they can't use their account for sig campaigns, they end up holding free sMerit giveaways for people with quality posts. I've seen such threads. If you totally lock their sMerits, it disallows for this kind of opportunity.

I'm unaware of the current status of sMerit flow -- is it capped, is it flowing freely, are people just not sending them? Who knows. But I'd say that it isn't a good idea at this time to lock down sMerits from someone with negative trust who may or may not have abused the merit system.

Besides, if someone sends sMerit to an alt, that alt will no doubt spam the forums and be weeded out too easily and receive a negative trust... and the number of sMerits that alt can give gets halved anyway. It continues to get halved until none are left.

We're simply waiting on a radioactive halflife called SsMerit (Spammer's sMerit). It decays by 1/2 for every account banned. It's only a matter of time before the harmful radioactive decay depletes itself.

[1993jochico]

For example, selling merit isn't illegal, but it's negative trust-worthy. You can't suddenly freeze an account's sMerit just because they sold sMerit, which is not illegal. To give an official punishment for a crime per se, rather than an official crime, is an unfair exercise of power.

Who says that selling sMerit is not illegal?
Isnt it unfair that they abuse signature campaigns many times?
They already get a big profit here from cheating bounty campaigns, are they not contented with one account?
This is the perfect time to clean the forum its time for them to payback.

May I know the reason why do you think that they dont deserve to be punished?

That said, I agree with the other person on this thread that people who gain a negative trust, then realize they can't use their account for sig campaigns, they end up holding free sMerit giveaways for people with quality posts. I've seen such threads. If you totally lock their sMerits, it disallows for this kind of opportunity.

No they didnt, they just distributing their merits to their alts.
Please read the report.

I'm unaware of the current status of sMerit flow -- is it capped, is it flowing freely, are people just not sending them? Who knows. But I'd say that it isn't a good idea at this time to lock down sMerits from someone with negative trust who may or may not have abused the merit system.

If someone gets tagged they either abuse the system, cheat or scam...

Besides, if someone sends sMerit to an alt, that alt will no doubt spam the forums and be weeded out too easily and receive a negative trust... and the number of sMerits that alt can give gets halved anyway. It continues to get halved until none are left.

Can you catch and report them all? we are looking for a better way to stop those farmers instantly.

[SM23031997]

As theymos already said that the negative trust should be in extreme conditions.
I don't think it is needed as people still have to put some efforts to get more point and to achieve a higher rank. That is what we want(Quality). Isn't it?

[1993jochico]

Does merit abuse isnt an extreme condition? Because for me merit abuse is an extreme condition, the system is introduce to reduce spam and eliminate farmer accounts.

Yes, we want quality but we also want to reduce spammers and farmers.

Or... you are just not considering it because you once done it?



Sorry for this but most of the time I check the profiles of those who are replying on my post.

[hilariousetc]

This isn't really a solution. If a user has already been tagged for merit farming/trading then it would be pretty easy to spot his other accounts because that's likely where the merit will go. Besides, feedback can be removed so would that mean their merit comes back magically? I really can't see theymos implementing this and it probably would do more harm than good in this instance.

[1993jochico]

Besides, feedback can be removed so would that mean their merit comes back magically?

I didnt think of that, this sentence makes sense.
But what if it is only disabled and not vanish, only some of the comments here that concludes that their smerit will vanish or gone.

[SM23031997]

Does merit abuse isnt an extreme condition? Because for me merit abuse is an extreme condition, the system is introduce to reduce spam and eliminate farmer accounts.

Yes, we want quality but we also want to reduce spammers and farmers.

Or... you are just not considering it because you once done it?



Sorry for this but most of the time I check the profiles of those who are replying on my post.

Do you think that was the abuse of merit system? If yes, think twice before you speak again. I don't think any explanation is necessary in that case.

[athanz88]

Does merit abuse isnt an extreme condition? Because for me merit abuse is an extreme condition, the system is introduce to reduce spam and eliminate farmer accounts.

Yes, we want quality but we also want to reduce spammers and farmers.

Or... you are just not considering it because you once done it?



Sorry for this but most of the time I check the profiles of those who are replying on my post.

Do you think that was the abuse of merit system? If yes, think twice before you speak again. I don't think any explanation is necessary in that case.

Haha i thought of this before, this guy will go over the limit and going rampage and suspect anyone of merit abusing.  Come on 1993jochico, your merit abusing accusation to  SM23031997 is kinda funny, if you really want to suspect people, please give valid and enough evidence rather than just seeing to other person merit. So what if anyone gives 20 merit to a post? I got 20 from QuestionAuthority and a lot of people got +20 from him/her, so you would suspect him/her giving merit to his/her alt account by using a giveaway method too???

Remember, your action can lead into a destruction

[1993jochico]

Do you think that was the abuse of merit system? If yes, think twice before you speak again. I don't think any explanation is necessary in that case.

Im sorry to say sir but I have to say Yes after seeing this.

If I were to award an sMerit to Jet Cash, then that is clearly an abuse of the system, and should be punished.

I think we can base on Jet Cash's statement.

[1993jochico]

Haha i thought of this before, this guy will go over the limit and going rampage and suspect anyone of merit abusing.  Come on 1993jochico, your merit abusing accusation to  SM23031997 is kinda funny, if you really want to suspect people, please give valid and enough evidence rather than just seeing to other person merit. So what if anyone gives 20 merit to a post? I got 20 from QuestionAuthority and a lot of people got +20 from him/her, so you would suspect him/her giving merit to his/her alt account by using a giveaway method too???

Remember, your action can lead into a destruction

I not judging him...yet, and if I do I will add this to my report but I didnt because I know that Im lack of evidence.
"So what if anyone gives 20?" Its totally abuse especially if it is your alt.
Dont compare your 20 from QA its an event reward and you deserve it.

I can clearly see that QA's event is legit unlike the link on this OP.
I know that all of us can notice the real and fake events.

EDIT: I just want to add sir that he twice send 20 merit to his alt in one day.

[SM23031997]

Haha i thought of this before, this guy will go over the limit and going rampage and suspect anyone of merit abusing.  Come on 1993jochico, your merit abusing accusation to  SM23031997 is kinda funny, if you really want to suspect people, please give valid and enough evidence rather than just seeing to other person merit. So what if anyone gives 20 merit to a post? I got 20 from QuestionAuthority and a lot of people got +20 from him/her, so you would suspect him/her giving merit to his/her alt account by using a giveaway method too???

Remember, your action can lead into a destruction

I not judging him...yet, and if I do I will add this to my report but I didnt because I know that Im lack of evidence.
"So what if anyone gives 20?" Its totally abuse especially if it is your alt.
Dont compare your 20 from QA its an event reward and you deserve it.

I can clearly see that QA's event is legit unlike the link on this OP.
I know that all of us can notice the real and fake events.

EDIT: I just want to add sir that he twice send 20 merit to his alt in one day.

System says "You have soandso sendable merit (sMerit) which you can send to other people. There is no point in hoarding sMerit; keeping it yourself does not benefit you, and we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future."

That day I found a guy who deserves a rank up. So, I helped him. Interestingly he never came up with a new post and hence never received merits from me.

Most of the time these kinda post come from legendary members who don't need a rank up.

Still, I Have 30 sMerit left and love to send them in bulk but for that, I need someone who deserve them.