100 Days of Merit

[Kaniel-ouots]

most of merit has been gone to they mos lol good job bitcointalk comunity

[dumedoiiph]

most of merit has been gone to they mos lol good job bitcointalk comunity

Those merit points sent to Theymos during the early days after the launch of merit system, when lots of users didn't know how to deal with their sMerits, and part of them sent sMerits to Theymos as a way to show their respect to the forum admin from launching such amazing, helpful tool for the forum users.
By the way, you are likely that a big fan of "The Prison Break" film. ^^

[zentdex]

We have noticed before that some users send 50 merits to a nonsense post and I think some of them are now very careful in sending their sMerits which is a good thing. They are somehow forced to find a bit of quality in a post. Your efforts are appreciated. Keep up the good work.

Thank you. You are right, the number of member who give 50 merits in a single transaction decreases.

Seems obvious to me that this doesn't represent distinct entities but rather just new accounts--multiple accounts of people.
Nice data presentation, OP.

That is also what comes in my mind when I have see the values. But just like you said, it will be hard to determine which are alt accounts even considering IP. Thank you.

What activity number are you using for heros to rank up?
775 or 1030 or somewhere in between?

I use 1030, because It's really hard to pinpoint which is which.

some of them are afk/don't care

I'm with you by that. There are estimated more than 1,000 accounts who received merits but did not give back enough to others.

I would be interested to see how long their posts are compared to others (specifically those who are one rank higher), where these accounts tend to post (what sections), if these people are participating in any kind of advertising campaigns, how much trust these people have sent/received.

Good suggestion, thank you for that. It could took me a longer time to do that and may require a greater computing power.

So, why not publicly publish datasets?

~snip

Because the dataset is not what other user expected to be. I could be more harder to understand. For example, I have a separate table for user id and name, another for merit, another for post, activity and rank, another one for dates, table for who send and who received among others. I then create a queries to see what I am looking.

Is it possible to look at the average amount of merit given, per transaction? I'd like to see if there's a correlation between rank and the people who are gifting merit to friends or alt accounts.
Parameters likely need to include:

• Average of merit given per transaction, by rank level
• Being able to look at that average over shorter time frames would be useful (a week or 14 days maybe), the longer the duration the more likely the 1 merit transactions will dull the results, we're looking for spikes
• Can we isolate transactions by forum board? Some boards are more likely to have these questionable transactions (e.g., alternative currencies, local, etc.)
• We should isolate the received side of the transaction, an alt account is more likely to receive transactions that are arbitrary gifts than due to genuine quality of their posts - obviously just an unsupported hunch on my part
• Exclude people who've never given any merit

• Average amount of merit given, per transaction?  - 2.16 with deviation of 3.97
• Average of merit given per transaction, by rank level - see table above
• Can we isolate transactions by forum board? Some boards are more likely to have these questionable transactions (e.g., alternative currencies, local, etc.) - It is possible, but what is the purpose of isolating those boards?
• We should isolate the received side of the transaction, an alt account is more likely to receive transactions that are arbitrary gifts than due to genuine quality of their posts - obviously just an unsupported hunch on my part -I have stat that dived those two. see II. Giver and Receiver. But I can't isolate those who are alts because I have no further info who among are alts 
• Exclude people who've never given any merit - It is already excluded

Thank you for your suggestions.

I completely appreciate this STATS from the OP. I hope that some important statistics from this forum will show up lately.

Thank you for your appreciation.

~snip

Thank you for appreciating my posts.

I guess it is because of users do not bother to read tons of remaining comments to the thread,  it is actually true,  well,  one more idea for a new graphic  

Nice suggestion, if the page view per user data is available that could be done.

[sud]

@zentdex

Thanks for all the charts and info, good work mate!

Regarding decrease of new members registering per day, the January peak match almost exactly crypto marketcap ATH and after that it starts going down along with the whole market, even before merit system implementation. I wonder what has a greater effect on registrations number - merit and account rank up difficulties or bitcoin and altcoins price.

[criz2fer]

Another great data presentation.

I would be interested to see more information about those who can’t rank up because of merit. I would be interested to see how long their posts are compared to others (specifically those who are one rank higher), where these accounts tend to post (what sections), if these people are participating in any kind of advertising campaigns, how much trust these people have sent/received.

The above information may give somewhat of an indication of how effective the merit system is working.

This could be a basis where the member are paying more attention for healthy discussion. We can also see the topics that topped at merit for a certain section and also the poster.

Giving and receiving of merits are the most important data so far. I think Senior and Hero members should start working on some merit distribution to add more stats on members that really deserve a merit.

[vlad230]

Thanks a lot for the detailed stats

Merit Day & Time
Are you looking when the perfect day to post so that your will got a higher chance of getting merit is?
The figure below shows that most of the members give merit during Monday.

Interesting fact, I assume you're basing your stats on forum time so, it could be that Sunday US time is the best time for getting merit
I see you posted on a Sunday too 

From this table it looks like the more of a higher ranked member you are, the least important merit becomes

I would be curious how many merit transactions were created for high amounts of merit. Let's say over 20 merits/transaction. Could you provide something like this?

[Annapelova]

This is actually a great thing that you have reacted so fast to the number of new accounts increasing. Could that be due to bounties as well as they are getting more and more popular and this forum is the main source of it all?

From that perspective, it's a good thing that it's harder to rank up as it will filter the members who are hard working from the competition that spams and doesn't add any value at all. I really believe bounties are the future of work, giving opportunities to people from all over the world to make extra income.

Perhaps it would be interesting to see which sections get the most attention when it comes to giving and receiving merit?

Also, have you considered that a "black market" might emerge... people buying and selling merits OTC? It sounds silly but who knows...

[tuanytcc]

most of merit has been gone to they mos lol good job bitcointalk comunity

Theymos actually deserved those merit points due to his long-lasting contributions to the forum, despite the fact that he doesn't need those merits.
The forum members have their own rights to send their sMerits to Theymos if they want.

[Bershie]

Based on the DATA mentioned above, it really seems that the quality posters are also on the verge of decreasing, and with this numbers the Merits being distributed are also not that high... We might say that the system is effectively working with the standards of posting but the thing is some are now quite fond of not having Merits anymore.
It's absolutely amusing that the DATA stated above, that on the 1st month of this system was also an evidence that the Merits are being abused on that time, and now the difference is quite big more than ever. We already witnessed that this abusers are now having their punishments, getting tagged and  being permanently banned from this forum.
I completely appreciate this STATS from the OP. I hope that some important statistics from this forum will show up lately.

\\\\\\\\Merits in the long run well be depleted, so it become more harder to get the rank that you want even if you try hard to get that. Ergo, all well gonna stuck in the position were standing. Only few merit sources against thousands of post in the forum trying to get 1. Well Good Luck to us!

Maybe this what theymos planning all along, multiple accounts well never be gone, but atleast this may slow them down. I can't wait to see the system in it's anniversary special.

[madnessteat]

Thank you author for the informative topic. I think the hardest thing is to raise the rank of Junior member. Many do not give a low rank measure because they think it is another person with multiple accounts.

[coinlocket$]

Thank you author for the informative topic. I think the hardest thing is to raise the rank of Junior member. Many do not give a low rank measure because they think it is another person with multiple accounts.

Not really, merit is decreasing but as you can see from this Table (hoping I will do the format in good way), higher ranks needs a lot more merit than Jr

_____________	________________	______________
Rank	Activity min	Merit to earn from past rank
Brand new	0	0
Newbie	1	0
Jr Member	30	0
Member	60	10
Full Member	120	90
Sr. Member	240	150
Hero Member	480	250
Legendary	775-1030	500

Do you still think it's difficult when one has to earn the same merit 50 times?
Certainly a hero could be helped in the sense that he is more informed about this world but the difference is abysmal expecially now that the airdrop is almost gone.

[The Cryptovator]

I really appreciate for your informative thread and graph. I have read also your other thread about merit explrination. Really merit system reduce spamming and increase HQ post. Members must be make quality post to get merit.

[sagor0707]

The Merit system was a very good decision. Otherwise, spamming started a lot. There are currently too, but very few. Moreover, the account sellers are  in great danger. They are not able to raise account rank again. I have seen some accounts in some bounties, which were created in 2010 but are being used for 2 months. I certainly welcome the launch of the system.

[Bitminer1224]

This is actually a great thing that you have reacted so fast to the number of new accounts increasing. Could that be due to bounties as well as they are getting more and more popular and this forum is the main source of it all?

From that perspective, it's a good thing that it's harder to rank up as it will filter the members who are hard working from the competition that spams and doesn't add any value at all. I really believe bounties are the future of work, giving opportunities to people from all over the world to make extra income.

Perhaps it would be interesting to see which sections get the most attention when it comes to giving and receiving merit?

Also, have you considered that a "black market" might emerge... people buying and selling merits OTC? It sounds silly but who knows...

The system really did work out fabulously. Also that "black market" will definitely be a problem and there is no way it will be tolerated. It would be completely unfair to buy your way up while others have to contribute their time and knowledge to earn their fair share of merit.

[Zackgeno96]

Good work zentdex and keep it up, it was a very informative post. So now we can say that introduction of merit system has really helped to control the creation of alt accounts. It would be really interesting to see if we get the data of those users who are frequently exchanging the merits between the fixed users. 

[zentdex]

~snip

Thank you. It continuously decreasing indeed.

~snip

Yes, information here could be theoretically correct.

This quote is alarming. It's like when data scientist (zentdex) is telling to CEO(theymos) that something goes terribly wrong.

Just a clarification, I am not telling that there are something wrong about it. It could maybe go according to their plan.

I believe the price of bitcoin itself is the only contributing factor to new accounts, especially because most newbies don't know about or understand the merit system. When you compare the peak dates on the merit implementation chart, they align rather well to bitcoin price spikes.

Good observation, I have draft to do your observation and I see some probability.
I better study and create something like that.

I think we need more Merit Sources, trustful ones (maybe the own mods) to encourage good posters to keep going. This is kind of unfair to make a real effort and can't rank up due to the lack of merits, either in your local board or in the English one.

Yes I think we need more merit source and more merit giver...

Frankly, the work done with all these graphics is just amazing.
For me, it just lacks a graph with the places of the forum where merits are most given.
Let me explain, there is some local (where people speak little or bad English, like me), where the merits have all been given for over a month already and where it becomes difficult to win again .

I forgot to include those; Actually, I have done it before in Where the Merit Pours?

Good thing exist because of bad things.

I agree with that notion.

so perhaps Theymos is hoping that merit starvation will help to improve the quality of posting.

Maybe, no one knows what are the other plans of theymos in this merit system

I am happy to see that newbies are also getting good number of merits. They need it the most. If I have to choose one post with equal weightage to merit, I will give it to newbie over an old member.

Regarding the merits for staffs, that figure appears very low. Does it include the merits they got on official thread like one related to merit system itself  ?

I try to check the figure but, yes those are right. However, merits on the first three days were excluded.

~snip

Yes, it could be a factor.

[MainIbem]

The presentation is very informative, although OP did not conclude but allow us to form our opinion on the presentation. There are observations I made: The merit score has in more way than one, limited creation of multiple accounts. It is steadily instilling the culture of quality and constructive posts. I am sure the OP had gone into research of this post for the quality of it and for the improvement of the forum, which is a value of the merit system.

Had the merit system not been introduced, by now the stats would have been over 20,000 new accounts created per day.

The forum should keep this merit system but develop a strategy to checkmate the cheats.

[lebrone08]

all graph seems to be very informative, it shows how this merits affect each member. most of the  graph dominated by a higher ranks in giving merits to everyone. you can also determine that full member and above are the most active in giving merits to a person that they think they deserved to have merits. it also shows that merit system become more effective to avoid shitposter to rank up their account.

[jakirtanvir]

I just like the way you describe the whole things.
all the graph are so informative and very helpful for us.  actually your presentation really deserve more view and merit.
I hope we will get something more like this.
thanks very much. 

[Coffee_Lover]

What a thread! The stats were easy to interpret and understand, I wonder why is it that giving sMerits decreased as time goes by in this forum. Maybe because merit givers cannot find any posts that are worthy of their merits..  Is it true? 

Merit Average
Based on the table below it clearly shows that Newbie and Jr. Member have an average of 3 merits received in the span of 100 days.
It could be assumed that they could easily rank up to a member rank.


Well, i guess i need to wait more that 300 days to rank up. I hope not though.