Is the merit system flawed?

[cabalism13]

With the current number of cheaters, farmers, and abusers... Yes, it is flawed. If only Merits that was given to the shitty accounts can be removed, I guess it will be necessary to call that the Merit System is a success.

[STT]

As there is no incentive at all, for people to give away their smerit to others -- which doesn't make sense to me as people don't want to hand them out.

The incentive is human nature like much of this forum to begin with, why are we even here discussing matters.   We could just go and do it I guess, but actually there is a process of discovery and merit is part of underlining good points made.  
Its a perfectly reasonable system, nothing too serious and hopefully reduces any benefit to posting without any concern for the reader of the post.  Its a simple premise, not really harsh or specially restrictive though it no doubt slows the progress through ranks for some a bit.  Activity was already quite slow to accumulate I thought so I'm not sure its worse for any normal poster.


I was just going to comment as far as negatives are concerned I accidentally typo'd a merit twice over.   Call it lag or something but I only meant to give 1 merit and it went through twice.   Not a big deal and I did like the information in the post, useful so I dont mind that much.   But hey theres a possible negative, the random mistake factor I guess.

I sometimes just merit because I wanted a kind of bookmark for that post, maybe its an index to other posts or whatever.  I rarely give more then 1 merit, not exactly super generous here but I try to be consistent :p


Everything you see or will ever do is slightly flawed, the world is flawed.  Humans are most definitely flawed in everything they do, this is reality.    If ever encountering perfection it should knock your socks because its very rare in my experience. Its a reasonable system that serves some purpose, I see no great reason to oppose its existence.   Possibly distribution could be improved but it cannot be made too lax either, so its unknown at what balance it will best operate yet I think.

[qwirtiii]

I personally am not a big fan of the merit system for ranks on here, I think it pushes for people to simply beg for merit, account farm, or pay people to give them merit. As there is no incentive at all, for people to give away their smerit to others -- which doesn't make sense to me as people don't want to hand them out.

What do others see in regard to the flaws for the merit system? I'd love to see what some others think.

I think most of the user want a merit especially to those who has lowest rank and they pay for the merit to get a higher rank. They pay for it even if it is on a high value. And others sell merit because they want money they use it as a alternative to get money for they finacial needs. They cheat to have merit and Cheating is a sin. But they want money so they do cheating .

[charlzyeby]

I think merit system is just an experiment and the real thing is still not announced, honestly I always feel that this made system is incomplete, it was made so hi experienced people can share merits with new uses but the opposite is happening higher rank people are getting extra merits because of their experience. And many newbies are receiving any merit. No offence, have seen that some new users are getting merits but most of the users are getting nothing.

I think this is partly because cryptocurrency and blockchain technology which are the basics for the whole crypto environment are quite "new". I believe people struggled to understand and accept how the internet works in the early stages. Now, a very young boy or girl could lecture you on a topic about the internet. With time, most people here,including me will begin to understand the whole concept of crypto currency just as we have understood how the internet works. Blockchain and crypto lessons online would do a good job in this regard,then, we'd begin to raise good questions and give equally good answers. I believe merits would flow thenceforth.

[charlzyeby]

I personally am not a big fan of the merit system for ranks on here, I think it pushes for people to simply beg for merit, account farm, or pay people to give them merit. As there is no incentive at all, for people to give away their smerit to others -- which doesn't make sense to me as people don't want to hand them out.

What do others see in regard to the flaws for the merit system? I'd love to see what some others think.

I think most of the user want a merit especially to those who has lowest rank and they pay for the merit to get a higher rank. They pay for it even if it is on a high value. And others sell merit because they want money they use it as a alternative to get money for they finacial needs. They cheat to have merit and Cheating is a sin. But they want money so they do cheating .

Every system has its flaws but I believe the pros of the merit system far outweighs the cons. People here have begun helping moderators to identify and cut out spammers, cheats and fraudsters. I don't people used to help the mods as often as they do now because they get merits for their efforts. In a way the forum is becoming "cleaner" daily as people are becoming more aware of account farming and other fraudulent activities. We'll also get there someday, gradually but surely.

[tranthidung]

It's true and is one of the most important advantages of merit system and new rank requirements.

Every system has its flaws but I believe the pros of the merit system far outweighs the cons.

I am not sure what you said have been actually happened in the forum after the launch of merit system or not. Nevertheless, merit farms, account farms will keep appearing in the forum. Personally, I strongly believe in the merit system because it has massive amazing impacts on farms by keeping farming accounts stucked at low ranks in the forum.

In a way the forum is becoming "cleaner" daily as people are becoming more aware of account farming and other fraudulent activities.

[dionisi]

With the current number of cheaters, farmers, and abusers... Yes, it is flawed. If only Merits that was given to the shitty accounts can be removed, I guess it will be necessary to call that the Merit System is a success.

You will always have these people everywhere. You have to design your system to protect from them accordingly. In my opinion, we may see more changes in future to the merit system in order to combat the techniques used by these abusers currently.

It is nice to see good posts here especially the ones concerning the improvement of this forum after the merit system.

[Ayuluv2001]

as far as i do not wish to think about merit, but the merit thing is halting my advancement to be very very honest.

And I had to admit the rank could be most useful for signature bounties and it aint really fair if the old timers are the ones hogging to the pie only

[madnessteat]

I think that the merit system works fine, except that the transfer of merit to their own accounts also for profit or sale should be severely punished. To avoid a closed system.

[krishnaverma]

as far as i do not wish to think about merit, but the merit thing is halting my advancement to be very very honest.

And I had to admit the rank could be most useful for signature bounties and it aint really fair if the old timers are the ones hogging to the pie only

You can only focus on own profile. Many members who joined after you advanced to the next rank. You can see various threads here sharing data about how many members advanced to next level after the merit system. You can also do this if you focus on the correct things. Good luck.

[Jet Cash]

I think most of the user want a merit especially to those who has lowest rank and they pay for the merit to get a higher rank. They pay for it even if it is on a high value. And others sell merit because they want money they use it as a alternative to get money for they finacial needs. They cheat to have merit and Cheating is a sin. But they want money so they do cheating .

It saddens me when I read posts like this. It sounds as if your opinions have been formed in the underworld here ( the bounty spammer boards ), and it makes me feel that if bounty spammers are abusing merits like this, then I should try to avoid giving them any merits to feed their system.

[TheBeardedBaby]

I think most of the user want a merit especially to those who has lowest rank and they pay for the merit to get a higher rank. They pay for it even if it is on a high value. And others sell merit because they want money they use it as a alternative to get money for they finacial needs. They cheat to have merit and Cheating is a sin. But they want money so they do cheating .

It saddens me when I read posts like this. It sounds as if your opinions have been formed in the underworld here ( the bounty spammer boards ), and it makes me feel that if bounty spammers are abusing merits like this, then I should try to avoid giving them any merits to feed their system.

I read somewhere a month ago that 1 merit costs around 40$, if that's true I have given for free more then a few couple of thousands to the folks.
There will always be a way to cheat the system.
What disturbed me was a thing that someone mentioned a service where you can buy merit from the Hero or Leg, but he is writhing a quality post for you, which you get to post as your own and then he merits this post. Idk what is the price and how he is doing this but man, this is crazy...
Just rumors I read in some of the local broads...

[Jet Cash]

I read somewhere a month ago that 1 merit costs around 40$, if that's true I have given for free more then a few couple of thousands to the folks.
There will always be a way to cheat the system.
What disturbed me was a thing that someone mentioned a service where you can buy merit from the Hero or Leg, but he is writhing a quality post for you, which you get to post as your own and then he merits this post. Idk what is the price and how he is doing this but man, this is crazy...
Just rumors I read in some of the local broads...

Isn't it mad? You can make a post on your local board, submit it to the Fit to Talk translation promotion project, and receive at least 5 merits if it is approved - that's $200 according to your report. Also, everything is in public view, so you are not going to get red tagged for doing it. So far we have had no takers - it really makes me wonder about the new posters in the Bitcoin Talk underworld.

[joulion86]

I read somewhere a month ago that 1 merit costs around 40$

Users spending money on merit is the best indicator for the merit system being a huge success and merit actually having a real value. If you want to discuss Bitcoin and the related topics, it is really hard to find a platform for it that isn't overloaded with bad ads. If you want to get your avatar up, your signature, you need to put your time in for quality posts. I would love to see how many people stopped using Bitcointalk because they can't simply come here and spamm their ref link in 20 channels.

[TheBeardedBaby]

I read somewhere a month ago that 1 merit costs around 40$, if that's true I have given for free more then a few couple of thousands to the folks.
There will always be a way to cheat the system.
What disturbed me was a thing that someone mentioned a service where you can buy merit from the Hero or Leg, but he is writhing a quality post for you, which you get to post as your own and then he merits this post. Idk what is the price and how he is doing this but man, this is crazy...
Just rumors I read in some of the local broads...

Isn't it mad? You can make a post on your local board, submit it to the Fit to Talk translation promotion project, and receive at least 5 merits if it is approved - that's $200 according to your report. Also, everything is in public view, so you are not going to get red tagged for doing it. So far we have had no takers - it really makes me wonder about the new posters in the Bitcoin Talk underworld.

Don't give those cheaters extra ideas man, I'm sure they are already sniffing around for merit backdoor.
BTW why don't you put up a link in your sig to this Fit to Talk project?
Seems useful but a lot of ppl are unaware of it,definitely needs more popularity. My English is also a bit broken, so I'll trow an eye on it too if I get enough free time and you need to be in a mood for such things, right

[Jet Cash]

BTW why don't you put up a link in your sig to this Fit to Talk project?

I've started quite a few projects, and i just dip into them when I see fit - this is my blog as a merit source - https://talkmerit.com/the-source/index.php - it's really only the walk that has got anything interesting in it. I'm also starting a site to discuss the urban mining of Bitcoin.

In the meantime I'm updating my domain name dealing business. I really don't want to try to force people to take part in my projects. If they aren't interested, then they are welcome to go their own way, and I'll see if I can pick up a bit of ad revenue to leave the project running in case it picks up again.

[Vannie12]

I think that there is no perfect system that could eliminate farmers, spammers and abusers at the same time. But if I may say, merit system works great. The main idea of the merit system is to freeze accounts of such abusers which worked in my opinion. Users that only aimed to rank for greater benefits were reduced. Though spammers and shit posters are still present, I can say that some of them got tired already and this forum has less spammers since the merit system was implemented.
Lastly, farmers can be the least affected especially those who are having high-ranked accounts already but somehow the merit system can be a device or tool that can determine account farmers and abusers just to rank up.
In general, it works perfectly. I have no doubt that merit system helped this forum live for more years to come.