Merit abuse by merit source Anon11073 [update: 30 merits abused]

[cotiniber]

Since I am not sure if this is allowed or not in the forum, let me ask in this thread:  Is it allowed for a merit source to send a lot of merits to announcement threads for coins for which he is the bounty manager and translator of the announcements?

I know some people send merits to announcement threads for their favorite coins as just "like".  I do not like that type of use as it is not suitable for the original aim of the merit system, but I admit that ultimately how to use merits depends on each person... However, what about if a merit source is sending merits to the announcement threads for which he is the bounty manager and translator?  To me, it smells like an abuse of merits.

I found this account  

Anon11073
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=969327

has sent 25 merits to announcement threads:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1847292
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2933939
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2821548
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2825011

From his post history, I found that he is actually the bounty manager for one of these coins.  

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2843223.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2843224.0

He is also a translator of the another coin's announcement thread.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2719420.0

Actually his post history shows that more than 90% of his recent posts are shit posts to these threads... so he has earned a few merits so far.  Wait, then why did he have a lot of smerits sent to the announcement threads?  I noticed one possibility... he must be a merit source.  My guess was correct, there was a clear transition in his merit sending history on March 20, and by checking his posts around the date, I found this post

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=877.msg32817882#msg32817882

in which he disclosed that he was designated as a merit source.  According to google translate:

"Today, three merit sources including me have been added to the Japanese board."

In addition, I found he is the moderator of the local board!

I do not know why this guy was designated as a merit source and moderator... he is absolutely not suitable for a merit source... you can check his merit history and that he wasted most of his source merits to the announcement threads... I think it is an abuse of merit, but is it allowed for merit sources to use their merits in such a way?

Update 1:

This merit source continues to award announcement threads... Here is new award, he abused 5 source merits in addition to the above 25:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2416310.0

Update 2:

I am sure he is a merit source as

1) he wrote that he was designated as a merit source,

2) there is a clear transition of his merit sending history, and

3) from direct calculation below:
Using the formula theymos provided and taking his rank Sr. Member and his register date March 15, 2017, his initial smerit should be less than

9.5 months / 12 months * 0.25 * 250 = 50

He has earned 16 merits = 8 smerits so far so his smerit is less than 58 in total if he is not a source.  However, he has sent 92 smerits in total, so he is a source.

The exact formula was:

Code:

yearActivity = activity in the last ~year, max 378
freeMerit = the merit (not sMerit) you started with
modifier =
  0.1 if member
  0.2 if full member
  0.25 if sr member
  0.35 if hero
  0.4 if legendary

return (yearActivity/378) * modifier * freeMerit

[shahzadafzal]

wow.. good catch just by following your instructions found out he is indeed awarding merits to ANN.

I think ANN/Bounties should never be receiving any merits. This is the problem first there are very few merit sources second they (some of them) are abusing the powers.

Anyway its up to the management to decide... you did your work by pointing it out.

Edit:
I have calculated his sent merits which does not seem much, and last merit sent was on April 11, 2018

Month…………………….	Total Merits sent
April	9
March	66
February	4
January	8
Total	87

May be he's not a merit source

[mdayonliner]

This is really sad an unacceptable. I have noticed merit abusing (I have a topic where I investigate merit abusers, list them and tag them with the hope of the DT members see it) are out of control on local boards but never thought that case like this was possible.

The message was very clear from theymos...

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

But the translations from merit abusers really makes me ashamed. I guess I need to add another translation on my topic. Award merit to the bounty managers to show your appreciation of the project.

A service has been created purely for marketing, supporting that with merit from a merit source is questionable. Some of these bounty managers are the cancer of all spamming on the forum.

 To me, it smells like an abuse of merits.

Of-course it's merit abuse and I hope other DT members and theymos will also see this thread and will give him/her a lesson

PS: I seen the user is a mod, I don't know if I am doing it right sending this message against him/her from my real account. I hope I am fine anyway.

Update: By the way OP, you seems new to the forum   But good job

[Vod]

Since I am not sure if this is allowed or not in the forum, let me ask in this thread:  Is it allowed for a merit source to send a lot of merits to announcement threads for coins for which he is the bounty manager and translator of the announcements?

It doesn't look to me like that account is a merit source.  :/

[Jet Cash]

Remove him as a merit source as he is effectively selling merit, and this is banned for merit sources. He should be red tagged and/or banned as well.

[DarkStar_]

Since I am not sure if this is allowed or not in the forum, let me ask in this thread:  Is it allowed for a merit source to send a lot of merits to announcement threads for coins for which he is the bounty manager and translator of the announcements?

It doesn't look to me like that account is a merit source.  :/

He claims that he's a merit source, and given his Moderator status in the Japanese board, I wouldn't be too surprised if that was true.

本日より、日本語板には私を含め3人のメリットソースが追加されました。
メリットソースによってメリットを受け取れる機会が増え、日本語板でのMeritの流通が改善されると見ています。
今後の盛り上がりに期待ですね！

Which translates to

Today, three merit sauces including me have been added to the Japanese board.
We see opportunities to receive benefits depending on merit sauce will increase and Merit's distribution on Japanese board will improve.
It is hoped for excitement in the future

(OP did put this in his post, but it was kinda easy to miss)

[BTCeminjas]

Ohh it's a good report buddy.

Hopefully, admins will look into it. Announcement thread obviously will not meritable to the merit source.
Let's wait for the further result and what will be taken action from our admin like this activity.

Maybe he appreciates those works that's why he merited those ANN threads.

Of-course it's merit abuse and I hope other DT members and theymos will also see this thread and will give him/her a lesson

Precisely mate, well, we will wait for the DT members comment to this.
Let's find out.

[athanz88]

if it can be proven as a merit trading and involves money in it, then the buyer must be tagged too because it is a shady action, right?

@mdayonliner
I guess he is not a new member. Just a new account to accuse someone, in case he made a wrong accusation, his main account would not be affected.

[coin5haker]

Oh, now we have merit source as an abuser, great! On top of merit exchange/selling, happened because of default merits.   Hope theymos will react swiftly and remove this member from being merit source. This gives an entirely wrong picture to new members trying to rank up. They will have another reason not to believe in the merit system.

[botany]

Oh, now we have merit source as an abuser, great! On top of merit exchange/selling, happened because of default merits.   Hope theymos will react swiftly and remove this member from being merit source. This gives an entirely wrong picture to new members trying to rank up. They will have another reason not to believe in the merit system.

Isolated instances of abuse cannot be used against the implementation of a system. The criteria for judging merit sources is pretty strict. In any case, proof that the merit system is working wonderfully well is the number of complaints against the merit system in Meta.

[Quickseller]

Since I am not sure if this is allowed or not in the forum, let me ask in this thread:  Is it allowed for a merit source to send a lot of merits to announcement threads for coins for which he is the bounty manager and translator of the announcements?

This is certainly a conflict of interest if he is managing bounty campaigns for the project he is giving merit to.

I don't think this is a huge issue if he is only providing translation services to the project as the amounts in question are much smaller, as are the number of people qualified to perform said services.

From what I can tell, this is only an issue for one of the posts he gave merit to (unless I am missing something on the other you linked).

I think this can be remediated by allowing him to use his sMerit that is not part of his "source" sMerit to "pay for" the post in question.

It might be a good idea to allow for merit sources to specify if they are sending merit from their "source sMerit" or that is the result of the merit they received via their posts from others. As it stands now, merit sources must first spend all of their "source sMerit" and once that is gone, they will spend sMerit they have as a result of the merit they received from others. This would allow merit sources to avoid the appearance of having a conflict of interest when they give merit to these types of posts (or if they wanted to sell merit that is not "source sMerit").   

[Coffee_Lover]

I think ANN/Bounties should never be receiving any merits.

I think this should be as well, bounties should be given merits since they are not really topics being discussed. I see some bounties that are being merited.

It is really great that you have been tracking this merit abuser so the admin can look into this and thoroughly check if this is really and I hope he/she will be punished accordingly.

[coin5haker]

Giving merits to Bounty threads and BM is like bribing the government official. Can be done by appreciation but looks like a person trying to butter BM and make one's stakes to count without issues. Like giving a present to the policeman for doing his job so exceptionally well.

[Thirdspace]

Of-course it's merit abuse and I hope other DT members and theymos will also see this thread and will give him/her a lesson

It doesn't look to me like that account is a merit source.  :/

I remember theymos saying he wants a few merit sources for local boards to distribute merit
seeing that user is also a staff, I think he might already consulted and got a green light from theymos
but we will know about it once theymos read this thread, he will make a statement as usual (when he has time )

[theymos]

It's not inherently bad for someone to merit announcement threads, since you might legitimately view them as particularly interesting and noteworthy. But some of those do look like a conflict of interest...


The Japanese section is in a very poor state, so I ended up selecting merit sources in that section who were all less than ideal according to my usual metrics, due to a lack of better alternatives. My idea was that if the quality of the Japanese section is currently 0 out of 10, and these merit sources are generally ~4 out of 10, then at least some increase in quality may be achieved. I just looked through the merit histories, and I did see a few good posts there getting merit, at least.

I'm starting to regret creating the Japanese section at all, since there are many posts there, but incredibly few that actually deserve merit. (It's especially frustrating for me because I can kinda-sorta speak Japanese, but not fluently enough that I could actually be an effective moderator or merit source there.)

[shahzadafzal]

It's not inherently bad for someone to merit announcement threads, since you might legitimately view them as particularly interesting and noteworthy.

That is something new... there are high chances people will start using merits as "likes"... if they like something they will give merit to it. Specially announcements and bounties are mostly sugar coated, nicely formatted and attractively written posts and they will gets likes for sure so you won't be able to find loopholes at first glance only later at stage truth gets revealed.

Also there should be a difference between announcement and bounty traps and merit sources should consider this.

Edit: Have the merit sources decreased recently?

[cotiniber]

Oh look, he gave another 5 merits to announcement thread...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2416310.0

So in total he abused 30 source merits to announcement threads of his favorite coins...  Why this guy can be a merit source...  He should be red tagged...

May be he's not a merit source

It doesn't look to me like that account is a merit source.  :/

In addition to the fact that he wrote that he was designated as a merit source and that there is a clear transition of his merit sending history, one can explicitly check that he is a merit source as follows:  Using the formula theymos provided and taking his rank Sr. Member and his register date March 15, 2017, his initial smerit should be less than

9.5 months / 12 months * 0.25 * 250 = 50

He has earned 16 merits = 8 smerits so far so his smerit is less than 58 in total if he is not a source.  However, he has sent 92 smerit in total, so he is a source.

The exact formula was:

Code:

yearActivity = activity in the last ~year, max 378
freeMerit = the merit (not sMerit) you started with
modifier =
  0.1 if member
  0.2 if full member
  0.25 if sr member
  0.35 if hero
  0.4 if legendary

return (yearActivity/378) * modifier * freeMerit

[Pablito89]

using Merits in this way is inconceivable. The suspicion that they may have been sold or traded is very high.
I believe that as people are banned when an "exchange" is suspected, measures should also be taken for those who waste them in this absurd way.

[Jet Cash]

It might be a good idea to allow for merit sources to specify if they are sending merit from their "source sMerit" or that is the result of the merit they received via their posts from others.

Conceptually there is a difference of course, but from a practical point of view, a merit is a merit when it hits the posters profile. It doesn't really matter what type of merit has been awarded. The real difference derives from the person awarding the merits. Merit sources are trusted by the administration, and in my opinion, wherever the merits came from, a breach of that trust is still a breach.

[Anon11073]

Hello, cotiniber.

I received PM from theymos.


Well, I certainly are Merit source.
However, there is no fact that I misused sMerit.


About the matter of Cosplay Token.
I am currently the bounty manager of Cosplay Token, but I know this project before being appointed as Bounty Manager from the development team.
First interaction with the development team.

はじめまして、Cosplay Tokenのadminです！！！
使い方に慣れていませんが、皆さんから勉強させてもらいます。
よろしくお願い致します！

こんにちは。Anon11073と申します。
ICO等を行うのであれば、以下ボードにてアナウンススレッドを立てる事をおすすめします。
各国向け(日本語も含む)に各ローカルボードへの投稿もして頂ければと思います(もしチームでの翻訳が困難な場合、トークン等を報酬にしてバウンティキャンペーンを行うという手もあります)

Announcements (Altcoins)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0

日本語 (Japanese)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=252.0

The development team does not instruct me to send Merit to the announcement thread.


About Merit transmission to Minexcoin development team.
I am a fan of Minexcoin. I have not received money from the development team. I am working as a volunteer.
When I translated the announcement thread, the bounty campaign had already ended.


About CEDEX Bounty.
This evaluated Sylon who distributed Stakes without delay. I have not received this token yet.


As a result of the above, selling of sMerit has not been done at all.
I have not received any money from the people you pointed out and I have not told you that I misused Merit.

I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.