The flaws within the merit ranking system?

[Cobalt9317]

Good day fellas I have two questions in mind regarding merit system and the flaws within it?
The first question is a redundant catchphrase you always read somewhere, but the second one is about the flaws?

First question?

If some member is obviously exploiting the merit system what could be the possible outcome they have to face? Gradually I know they will be tagged as a merit farmer or spammer those two terms resemble each other so basically they just can't be a human member of this community and will always try their best to earn in Bounty, Sig camp, ICO, or any other similarities as long as there is always money involve. Furthermore those member will get rid of on the surface of the forum eventually and it is taken care of is there any fundamental aspect I don't know about merit system beside from not ranking up to the next rank without the required amount, score or quantity of merit?


Second question?

In all honesty this question is a statement consisting how a merit system is a flaw that hidden from the naked eye.
every spammers that spent a lot of time in this forum for the greatest cause they accumulated a random amount of merit calculated how long they've contributed well, now the problem is if someone with a good certain quantity of merit can send some to his/her alt but for very evident reason his account will be tagged along with all his alt account however if that person send noticeably wrong amount of merit to someone that person is highly possible to be tag as one of his alternate account that he is utilizing to rip of the forum in which he isn't.

how to prove that his account isn't involve in dishonest activity of that high rank member or similar situation?

I prefer that you answer my second question cause it is really a bothersome on my whole livelihood in a community and that question is subjective I can't disagree I just don't want to see question popping in meta (e.g a dude send me a merit and wreck my life or some psycho send me a dirty merit need to cleanse) how annoying to witness such event.

share your opinion if this question have been answered long time ago please refer me to the thread and I will read the whole content and locked this purposeless thread.

[Welsh]

Anything that was implemented by theymos would either have it's flaws or be detrimental to it's users. It's no different with the current solution that's been implemented but, really I can't think of another way which would of been better and I'm sure if you can make any improvements on the current system theymos would appreciate a private message about the matter.

The way merit was introduced to a forum which had already been running for many years is going to have a dilemma on it's hand.  Either you reset everyones rank or you allow people to keep their rank. Obviously, the first option isn't ideal and a lot of people would be disappointed having to start again especially when there are limits apposed to those that are a lower rank which could mean that members who have been here from the beginning would have to wait 360 seconds just to post which could be detrimental to their usage of the forum. All of these users have been through this already and probably wouldn't appreciate it a second/third time around as I recall the way you rank up as changed twice before this implementation. For example, when I joined first of all it only required making a certain amount of posts and activity didn't exist.  

People who abuse the merit system heavily will be easily found out. If they keep sending it to the same accounts it becomes somewhat fishy and might be monitored by the default trust. It's up to the discretion of the person whether they feel a negative or neutral or any feedback is beneficial.

There was another approach that could of been taken and was allowing everyone to retain their current ranks but, not give them any sMerit at all and only allow merit sources. Although, in my opinion this would mean the merit system would of been harder to judge in the early days and would of taken a lot longer to take off. At the end of the day people making poor quality posts will not be able to earn any more merit and will eventually run out of it and not be able to distribute this to their alt accounts. Plus allowing members to send sMerit at the beginning was likely monitored by theymos to find suitable merit sources.

To your second question though;   There's likely no easy way to prove that you haven't been abusing the merit system. But, it doesn't matter too much if it's being abused on a small scale. It will likely only become a problem if a merit source was abusing the system and there's ways to tell whether they are abusing it.

I honestly thought we would see more untrustworthy people sending merits to those they dislike. I thought the likes of Lauda and is alts /s would be targeted by this just to make it look from an outside view that they were abusing the system.

[Bardman]

Can we start reporting people that post the same repetitive shit about the merit system? If you truly are worried about getting tagged randomly, just make sure to never send absurd amounts of merit to anyone and you will be fine.

[Tyrantt]

The second question is one long, long single sentence...

Well the second problem is usually solved by, flagged user, sending signed message or IP check. Farmers usually merit one account a few times, so if one user merits a post from the farming user, they probably won't get flagged because just one meriting isn't suspicious at all.

Shortly: Account farmers would have to merit 50 once or lower amount for a few times.

[Cobalt9317]

-snip-

Thanks Welsh that explains a lot.

Can we start reporting people that post the same repetitive shit about the merit system? If you truly are worried about getting tagged randomly, just make sure to never send absurd amounts of merit to anyone and you will be fine.

Stop talking nonsense the way you present this statements clearly show that you didn't even read my thread it would be kind of you to spam in another thread.

The second question is one long, long single sentence...

Well the second problem is usually solved by, flagged user, sending signed message or IP check. Farmers usually merit one account a few times, so if one user merits a post from the farming user, they probably won't get flagged because just one meriting isn't suspicious at all.

Shortly: Account farmers would have to merit 50 once or lower amount for a few times.

Sorry but I don't quite understand what you mean. but if you are talking about the opposite question I get the point.