sMerit deadline

[Theb]

I agree with what others have said and I personally think that it is a bad idea as well. Your solution of decaying sMerits won't have your intended effect as this will just encourage this higher rank members to distribute their unspent sMerits to their alt accounts, instead of giving to worthy post. Plus this way of encouragement to members won't be as effective as you are just encouraging them to send their merits but not encourage them to send it to quality post. This will just affect the merit system in a bad way.

[darklus123]

Won't limiting the spending of sMerits in itself cause people to farm their merits.

If someone told so many users that their sMerit will be decaysed by tomorrow, a lot will probably be more inclined to sell their sMerit immediately and get something from it (which is what we are really trying to avoid here).

Exactly the idea won't solve the problem. Yet instead it might just create a bigger problem because in the end cheaters will always be cheaters.

The current process is not perfect tho good thing about it is that it is way more simple than the proposed one. We have to first solved the root cause of the spamming problem which is not easy by the way

[jackg]

I agree with what others have said and I personally think that it is a bad idea as well. Your solution of decaying sMerits won't have your intended effect as this will just encourage this higher rank members to distribute their unspent sMerits to their alt accounts, instead of giving to worthy post. Plus this way of encouragement to members won't be as effective as you are just encouraging them to send their merits but not encourage them to send it to quality post. This will just affect the merit system in a bad way.

It'll also lead to alright posts being merited and that's not what we're after, I want to be able to merit posts that I think stand out and have taken effort to write.

[LoyceV]

It'll also lead to alright posts being merited and that's not what we're after

I think it's okay to merit "alright posts". If an "alright poster" ranks up, that's a good thing. I don't think Merit is meant to reject people who are "alright", it's meant to reject people with bad posts.
I'm not saying an "alright" post should get as many Merits as an excellent post, but some encouragement doesn't hurt either.

[sheenshane]

-snip
If an "alright poster" ranks up, that's a good thing. I don't think Merit is meant to reject people who are "alright", it's meant to reject people with bad posts.

There are some alright posters not noticeable by the merit source, aside from merit source those high rank must be used their unspent smerit was probably reserving to their alt accounts. So, OP I think was right it should have decaying of smerit if it is unsent. Two months is good enough for them to spread their smerit especially those newbies members here that deserving to have a smerit not for their alt or for forbidding activities.

[MainIbem]

Won't limiting the spending of sMerits in itself cause people to farm their merits.

If someone told so many users that their sMerit will be decaysed by tomorrow, a lot will probably be more inclined to sell their sMerit immediately and get something from it (which is what we are really trying to avoid here).

My idea was to set 2 months for deadline.

In my view, the merit system is a good development. But to limit the abuse, all smerit points should be withdrawn for everyone and handed to a selected and dedicated persons whose duty is to carry out the award of merits to deserving posts. In so far as merit remains in the hands of every member, there must be cheats. People must craft out a way to cheat.

[jackg]

Won't limiting the spending of sMerits in itself cause people to farm their merits.

If someone told so many users that their sMerit will be decaysed by tomorrow, a lot will probably be more inclined to sell their sMerit immediately and get something from it (which is what we are really trying to avoid here).

My idea was to set 2 months for deadline.

In my view, the merit system is a good development. But to limit the abuse, all smerit points should be withdrawn for everyone and handed to a selected and dedicated persons whose duty is to carry out the award of merits to deserving posts. In so far as merit remains in the hands of every member, there must be cheats. People must craft out a way to cheat.

You make it sound as if theymos can't just change the allocations of merit sources. If he particularly wanted to double source merits for sources, I doubt it'd take a lot of effort.

Why take some 100-300 smerits and centralise the system to a few merit sources, in my view that's a backwards step and exactly what we don't want? I doubt every merit source runs dry at the end of the month (some will, but others)...

[tranthidung]

This approach (if implemented) also might lead to potential abusements from part of those merit sources.

Why take some 100-300 smerits and centralise the system to a few merit sources, in my view that's a backwards step and exactly what we don't want?

Merit sources in the forum should be expanded to make a decentralized merit sources.
The most important reason is owners of those merit sources are human. Therefore, they need to take a rest and won't be able to join the forum 24/7.
And, decentralized merit sources also helpful in terms of allocated merits to different sources which located at different time zones globally.

I doubt every merit source runs dry at the end of the month (some will, but others)...

[Theb]

It'll also lead to alright posts being merited and that's not what we're after

I think it's okay to merit "alright posts". If an "alright poster" ranks up, that's a good thing. I don't think Merit is meant to reject people who are "alright", it's meant to reject people with bad posts.
I'm not saying an "alright" post should get as many Merits as an excellent post, but some encouragement doesn't hurt either.

But don't you think that giving "alright post" posters more merits will lead them to sending their earned merits to crappy posters? I mean if they noticed that getting more merits with their kinds of posts is now easy it will lead them to literally donating all of their merits so that it won't be wasted with the decay system, it can even give them the idea to create their own alt accounts in the process as ranking up won't be so hard now.

[coinlocket$]

-snip
If an "alright poster" ranks up, that's a good thing. I don't think Merit is meant to reject people who are "alright", it's meant to reject people with bad posts.

There are some alright posters not noticeable by the merit source, aside from merit source those high rank must be used their unspent smerit was probably reserving to their alt accounts. So, OP I think was right it should have decaying of smerit if it is unsent. Two months is good enough for them to spread their smerit especially those newbies members here that deserving to have a smerit not for their alt or for forbidding activities.

Happy that someone thinks like me.
Two months is the time to prevent for a legendary to pass the merit on an account alt (when needed) to climb up to senior rank, I can post tens of examples of this kind of abusing.
Certainly they can do it in a shorter time, but certainly with the decay the thing is easily noticeable.

[LoyceV]

But don't you think that giving "alright post" posters more merits will lead them to sending their earned merits to crappy posters?

Maybe. But it's not something I consider when I merit a post.

[Jet Cash]

I think it would be better to punish the irresponsible and fraudulent awarders of sMerit, than to confiscate sMerit from the prudent with high standards, and give it to the profligate or irresponsible.

There is plenty of sMerit around, but very few members are prepared to do anything to collect it, all most people seem to do is to complain, and to try to change a system that is of obvious benefit to the forum. Take my translation initiative as an example. I've got loads of merit available for this, and I hoped that some of it would go to the under-merited posters on the local boards. Many members have been encouraging about this project, but what has happened in reality. We have two or three threads that are possibilities, and those were found by me and seoincorporation. Where are all the posters who complain that they aren't getting merits, when so many are avilable to be picked up for a small amount of work?

[Real14Hero]

I have another question relating to decaying merit.

How do I know that my smerit has decayed? I don't remember what my smerit was but now when I see I feel it has reduced as compared to what it should have been.

Where do I see a recorded of my decayed smerit?

[tranthidung]

Currently and in the past, Theymos stated that he have not had plans for automatically destroying unused sMerits.

Code:

There is no point in hoarding sMerit; keeping it yourself does not benefit you, and we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future.

In addition, I don't see reasons to destroying sMerits. Each user has own right to do with his/ her sMerits.
Nevertheless, forum users should send their sMerits away to deserved threads as one of ways to stimulate others to become more constructive. The reason is they will feel satisfied when good threads which they spend time to compose got merits from others users as rewards for their good works.
This is one of basic original objectives of merit system, that Theymos also stated too.

Code:

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
 - Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.

Rubbish threads will never get merits.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>
How do I know that my smerit has decayed? I don't remember what my smerit was but now when I see I feel it has reduced as compared to what it should have been.
Where do I see a recorded of my decayed smerit?

There is no sMerit decay in place. This thread is about ideas on the matter, which may go no further than the lifespan of the thread.
You have sent 31 sMerits and received 20 sMerits + initial airdrop.

I don't know if there is a track of what the initial sMerit airdrop was on a personal scale, since I was not an sMerit Airdrop candidate, so I'm not sure how it reflects in the personal merit log.

[Jet Cash]

It was calculated from rank and activity, and Theymos did post the formula.

[GDragon]

That will be a good idea but it seems that there are weak points like decaying merit will result such a rush giving merits without thinking.

I think my recommendation can help to yours. You can set a time frame every merits you will give like you need to give atleast 1 merit per 2 weeks.

[Mr.Jovetic]

In my opinion the merit will just disappear. People won't hurry up spending it, most members don't care about the Merit and they won't use it with the deadline or without

[coinlocket$]

In my opinion the merit will just disappear. People won't hurry up spending it, most members don't care about the Merit and they won't use it with the deadline or without

This is another point, if people don't care about the merit (cause you know, they can be already legendary) isn't better redistribuite it to sources so the ecosystem can grow a little?

[Jet Cash]

There is a difference between not caring about receiving it, and not caring about giving it.

In view of the fact that there is no shortage of merit to award, why does everybody want to re-allocate the sMerits that the careful awarders are keeping for posts that they consider to be worthwhile.