So Far ... How Has the Merit System Fared?

[Opurum]

The Merit System was introduced into Bitcointalk this year, with the intent and purpose of promoting sanity and good values in the forum. Right from its inception in late January 2018 till date the Merit System has become one of the highly debated subjects on Bitcointalk.org. Forum members who are already at the upper echelon of the forum and who may have little or no need for Merits seems to generally favour the system on the grounds of spamming and junk posts by desperate lower cadre members, while most lower cadre members who need to progress on the forum are not very supportive of a Merit system which ties a member's progression on the forum to the amount of Merits earned by a member. And earning Merits isn't so easy.

Now, it is somewhat difficult to tell whose voice is louder in the debate, and even more difficult to tell who has the more valid point of view. And how about a little statistics? A nice way to evaluate the performance so far of the Merit system towards achieving the set objectives would be a measurement of the impact of the Merit system on the forum, and forum traffic is one important parameter.
An overview/analysis  by Similarweb.com of total visits to  Bitcointalk.org on desktop and mobile web in the last 6 months shows a steady and gentle increase from a little over 20m in Sept., 2017 to over 60m in January, 2018, and then to a sharp and continuing decline to 34.5m in Feb., 2018. This decline is not just happenstance. It perfectly coincided with the introduction of the Merit System.
See stats https://www.similarweb.com/website/bitcointalk.org.

The likely implication is that the Merit system is demoralizing low cadre members who needs to attain higher levels of membership. However, some here may argue that a few meaningful member activities is worth more to the forum than much activities of little or no value. Be that as it may, we should acknowledge the fact that traffic is equally important in the web  ranking and worth of the bitcointalk forum. So, I think BCT Administrators should have a  reappraisal of the Merit System – carefully weighing anticipated benefits against perceived costs – and come up with a more effective, yet forum friendly solution to the problems. What do you think?

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I think the merit system really helps, because there are fewer shit posts in these two months.
The decline of forum and the current bear market, people are not willing to contact the information of the encrypted money market to have a certain connection.

[godzillarekt007]

Honestly, I gotta say despite the fact that I know I won't rank up (even though I have semi-decent posts usually) I don't really care about it. The intent of merits was to stop shitposting essentially and if visits have gone down, it likely has done that. On the other hand though, bitcointalk apparently is supposed to be a place where you can thrive and earn a little bit of money. It really is a mixed bag but I am okay with the present system as is. A small shakeup wouldn't be bad, but it shouldn't be so drastic that shitposting runs rampant again. In any case whatever the mods decide, some people are going to be pissed off you simply can't please everybody.

[MUGOmugo]

I think the merit system really helps, because there are fewer shit posts in these two months.
The decline of forum and the current bear market, people are not willing to contact the information of the encrypted money market to have a certain connection.

Yes for me merits really help because it is one way that most of the participants would also know the limit in terms of posting opinion in the project because most probably the participants sometimes is out of topic.

[Opurum]

I think the merit system really helps, because there are fewer shit posts in these two months.
The decline of forum and the current bear market, people are not willing to contact the information of the encrypted money market to have a certain connection.

Yes. There are now fewer shitposts, but we have seen more of the meaningful posts either.

[coin5haker]

It definitely reduced multi-accounts which all belong to one champ. This made signature campaigns better for ones who play fair and not post one-liners just to receive a stake for numerous accounts. But it made ranking up so tough as a trade-off. I was 2 weeks close to Full Member 

[Spazzer]

I've been a long time lurker and I have only majorly contributed after the release of the merit system.

The merit system got me involved as it brought increased validation to some users. Allows the ability to pull out authentic posts and comments and it helps validate some of the Good and Services sellers. It works really well with the Trust system, but I think the Trust system needs some work, but that is for another conversation.

Yes, the system is working really well and is one of the reason I started contributing.

[Hagmonar]

Actualy this merit system is on favor only for those who are in high rank already like legendary or hero acount, more on favor in bounty manager, more on favor in staff and moderators only. As you can see some of them dont realy post a good and quality post but still they have a large amount of merit will its because the merit system is simply disign that in favor for them.

[RedUnicorn]

Lesser post count may be becouse of the bearish market that has been continuesly frustrating some investors to stay away from anything that has something to do with crypto
This merit system may be good to controll the flood of unwanted messages , but dont you think this can drasticly shake off people who come here for obvious reasons to participate in signature ad or isnt very enlighten about cryptocurrency world ? I know that in order to to get some you have to give by yourslef but sometimes its hard to stay on topic or even read one  fully when there is such an activity going and im not even mentioning about someone being eager to share there merits with someone who they barely notice there or find interesting or helpful as they dont have much experience and knowelegde here ?

[IgorShumilo]

Guys, relax and do not be nervous, we do not ever get a rank higher than they are now, put up with it. The train has already left, and this is done so that new members do not take money from the old men)

[HALLASTERA]

The Merit System was introduced into Bitcointalk this year, with the intent and purpose of promoting sanity and good values in the forum. Right from its inception in late January 2018 till date the Merit System has become one of the highly debated subjects on Bitcointalk.org. Forum members who are already at the upper echelon of the forum and who may have little or no need for Merits seems to generally favour the system on the grounds of spamming and junk posts by desperate lower cadre members, while most lower cadre members who need to progress on the forum are not very supportive of a Merit system which ties a member's progression on the forum to the amount of Merits earned by a member. And earning Merits isn't so easy.

Now, it is somewhat difficult to tell whose voice is louder in the debate, and even more difficult to tell who has the more valid point of view. And how about a little statistics? A nice way to evaluate the performance so far of the Merit system towards achieving the set objectives would be a measurement of the impact of the Merit system on the forum, and forum traffic is one important parameter.
An overview/analysis  by Similarweb.com of total visits to  Bitcointalk.org on desktop and mobile web in the last 6 months shows a steady and gentle increase from a little over 20m in Sept., 2017 to over 60m in January, 2018, and then to a sharp and continuing decline to 34.5m in Feb., 2018. This decline is not just happenstance. It perfectly coincided with the introduction of the Merit System.
See stats https://www.similarweb.com/website/bitcointalk.org.

The likely implication is that the Merit system is demoralizing low cadre members who needs to attain higher levels of membership. However, some here may argue that a few meaningful member activities is worth more to the forum than much activities of little or no value. Be that as it may, we should acknowledge the fact that traffic is equally important in the web  ranking and worth of the bitcointalk forum. So, I think BCT Administrators should have a  reappraisal of the Merit System – carefully weighing anticipated benefits against perceived costs – and come up with a more effective, yet forum friendly solution to the problems. What do you think?

These tendence not from Merit system thats because most of social networks ban ads. Quality of messages still worst because have not stimulation for newbies when they know thats system were easy a year ago.