[staff] xandry: may I ask an explanation? Response received!

[mdayonliner]

Time for the topic to be locked. Response from xandry

Thursday, June 21, 2018 @14:19 BST: For obvious reason the archive.is of 1^st to 44^th comment
An update reading is here please...
Another update reading

The moderator xandry gives merit for helping in moderating the forum. Russian section of the forum is very big sizes. And we promptly report the posts or threads violate the forum rules. For that sometimes he get merit...

In Russian section merit awarding for helping the mod is not ok looking in my opinion. Especially when it is coming from a staff and a possible merit source (my wild guess  ). Have a look: #, # etc.

Do you think this is a right way to award merit? This is not helping these users to improve their posting skills in the forum. I am pretty sure people will have different views however I am interested to hear it. I would appreciate your input in it.

Merit has been introduced to encourage high quality posting behavior. This explains everything...

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.

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.

I am calling out xandry for an explanation. xandry, may I ask an explanation? As a member of the forum I/we have the right to learn a valid point of view since the whole thing is not ok looking.

Thank you xandry in advance.

PS: The whole thing popped in my mind when I done creating this topic: List of members achieved 0 to 100+ merits.
Closely consider looking the isQuestionable? column. The column is no longer available.

Title changed: Merit for helping on moderating the forum (?!) Highlighting staff: xandry to calling out [staff] xandry for an explanation
Title again changed to [staff] xandry: may I ask an explanation? suggestion from AverageGlabella
30th June 2018: Body contents edited a bit

[coinlocket$]

Merit is not a good moderating reward in my opinion cause people can make 500 alts and boost reports on the main account

[LoyceMobile]

I noticed the exact same post today. I've seen staff and non staff give merit for many posts that report abuse, but xandry's merit history shows that most of the posts he merited have been deleted.
That doesn't highlight good posts, which is what the merit system is supposed to do.

[Cobalt9317]

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.

In this case this is bad according to Welsh input on my merit system flaw.

If the moderator is a merit source an action is required for this sort of phenomenon.

[npredtorch]

So let's say there is a spam topic, a person who would want a merit should report by clicking on the "Report to Moderator" button and at the same time requires to post a message that he/she have already reported the topic to the moderator. After the mod have checked the validity of the report, he will award the person with a merit (in that report post) and deletes the entire topic.

Is this correct?

#EDIT
If yes, I agree with coinlocket$ that it can be abused.
Abused in a way that anyone can make an alt account to post a nonsense topic and followed up with a report post from his/her main account to gain an easy merit.

[mdayonliner]

I noticed the exact same post today. I've seen staff and non staff give merit for many posts that report abuse, but xandry's merit history shows that most of the posts he merited have been deleted.
That doesn't highlight good posts, which is what the merit system is supposed to do.

In this case this is bad according to Welsh input on my merit system flaw.

If the moderator is a merit source an action is required for this sort of phenomenon.

P.S. Statistics of my reports are available to administrators

mdayonliner, do you have any more questions?

Maybe you don't trust the forum administrator which is appointed xandry staff of the Russian section of the forum?

The user Alex_Sr clearly indicating that the merits were awarded to help the staff (xandry) on moderating the Russian section.
My guess is they are reporting the posts and if the report comes out good then they are getting one merit for each report.

update:

Is this correct?

Yes, it's making sense perfectly.

Merit is not a good moderating reward in my opinion cause people can make 500 alts and boost reports on the main account

I agree with this logic. People can easily rank up their main account using this trick.

[coolcoinz]

I remember reading a thread about xandry's way of meriting some time ago and yes he was giving merit to people who help him with the spam in the russian section. IMO this is a double edged sword because what is stopping you from spamming with one account and reporting it with another in hope that xandry will see it and reward you? If he can't handle the spam himself, he should share the position with another staff member.

[mdayonliner]

I remember reading a thread about xandry's way of meriting some time ago and yes he was giving merit to people who help him with the spam in the russian section. IMO this is a double edged sword because what is stopping you from spamming with one account and reporting it with another in hope that xandry will see it and reward you? If he can't handle the spam himself, he should share the position with another staff member.

I am sure you are talking about commenting on this topic. That discussion never exposed. It finished at one post after your comment on that section. No one ever noticed that I guess since then.

[Vod]

Merit is not a good moderating reward in my opinion cause people can make 500 alts and boost reports on the main account

I agree with this logic. People can easily rank up their main account using this trick.

You two don't understand how the merit system works.  500 alts would have 0 sMerit to give away.  :/

[eddie13]

Merit is not a good moderating reward in my opinion cause people can make 500 alts and boost reports on the main account

I agree with this logic. People can easily rank up their main account using this trick.

You two don't understand how the merit system works.  500 alts would have 0 sMerit to give away.  :/

I think he means using alts to make things to report to get merit.. Like make a shitpost and then report your own post..


I don't see a problem with him giving merit this way as long as you trust him not to be selling merit.. You aren't accusing him of that are you?


As far as the 500 alts scheme.. Don't you think xandry would catch on to that and stop it?


OP, you got a heck of a good chunk of your merit by helping mods and the forum police didn't you?

[Welsh]

I have mixed feelings on this. Xandry likely has innocent intentions, but doesn't realize that this could very easily be abused, and could result in more spam/infringing posts. I would like to think they would stop rewarding merits if they suspected this to be the case. I don't think Xandry should face punishment for this, nor be removed as a merit source. I think they should definitely stop awarding merits for reports, because of the likelihood of abuse especially now that it's more public than it was before.  

If they aren't a merit source, and was awarding members with sMerit they'vereceived himself through their posts I don't think there would be too much of a problem, because at the end of the day it's up to the person what they perceive worthy of merit. However, if they are a merit source which looks likely then it could quickly become a problem as merit sources have more merits to send out, and are 'responsible' for rewarding high quality posts. Looking at the merit sent in seems that a few people have caught on to it, and it's the same users that keep popping up. I'm not sure if they've always reported, but at a external point of view looks like they've found an easy way to earn merit.

It's a strange one, because he's sending the merit to posts that have since been deleted which means that those users would of had to post in that thread before it was deleted. Makes me wonder on how they are reporting whether they are using the report to moderator button or simply just posting in the thread with instructions to the OP on what they have done wrong etc.

All of the above is on assumption, and viewing it from an external point of view. It would be interesting to see what Xandry has to say about it. I don't think we should be too quick to judge. I think the only problem I see is:
1. Xandry is a merit source
2. How easy it is to abuse.

@OP
You know how to plug your threads don't you?

[coinlocket$]

~
You two don't understand how the merit system works.  500 alts would have 0 sMerit to give away.  :/

I Know....

If I have not misunderstood in the Russian section, if I report a spammer with the "report to moderator" I have a chance to have a reward in Merit.
From here, if I create 500 alts to spam and report them with my main account, I will increase my chances of having Merit.


@eddie13, 500 is a symbolic number can be even 1, (but more is better for the newbie spam protection timer).

I like this idea because I personaly report many messagges but it easy exploitable.
I have no doubt about the goodness of the gesture of mod but I know the human tendency to turn the rules for a personal profit.

[mdayonliner]

You two don't understand how the merit system works.  500 alts would have 0 sMerit to give away.  :/

oho! We all are dumb to some extent

These people are earning merits by reporting shit posts. Let's say this is my main account. The rule is I will get 1 merit to report one shit post. I can create one ALT and can make 10 shit posts from that alt. Now, from my main account, I report those 10 shit posts and I am getting 10 merits in my main account for those 10 reports  

Wait, I guess I realize now, what I did not understand...
I do not need 500 ALTs. May be 10 alts and create 100 shit posts from those 10 alts. From my main account keep reporting one after another. I will have 1000 merits which is enough for becoming a Legendary member.  

You don't mind big smiles vod, do you?  

PS: I need to be a bit careful on reporting though so that the mod do not get my trick.

Update:

OP, you got a heck of a good chunk of your merit by helping mods and the forum police didn't you?

Yes, good chunk but not most of them. Don't you think I am working really hard to earn them?

You aren't accusing him of that are you?

No, I am not accusing him but it's not the right way. It does not satisfy the principal of awarding merit IMO and you can see others have the same opinion.

All of the above is on assumption, and viewing it from an external point of view. It would be interesting to see what Xandry has to say about it. I don't think we should be too quick to judge. I think the only problem I see is:
1. Xandry is a merit source
2. How easy it is to abuse.

I do think the same. We need to hear Xandry's opinion. May be he has this innocent idea to help the community but it is an abuse from outside.

@OP
You know how to plug your threads don't you?

Is that a compliment?  

[digaran]

It is OK if a mod and a merit source is meriting known and good forum members, however it is not OK to merit every random member for reporting and helping him.

[Tyrantt]

~
You two don't understand how the merit system works.  500 alts would have 0 sMerit to give away.  :/

If I have not misunderstood in the Russian section, if I report a spammer with the "report to moderator" I have a chance to have a reward in Merit.
From here, if I create 500 alts to spam and report them with my main account, I will increase my chances of having Merit.

I like this idea because I personaly report many messagges but it easy exploitable.
I have no doubt about the goodness of the gesture of mod but I know the human tendency to turn the rules for a personal profit.

If this idea came to practise, mods would be buried in reports. Since you can go to bounty section or bitcoin discussion and just click away, pretty much, every other post and basically get enough merit for a few ranks. 

Also, this would allow farming of alts again, same method. Sooo.... Nope, not a good idea.

[Welsh]

If this idea came to practise, mods would be buried in reports. Since you can go to bounty section or bitcoin discussion and just click away, pretty much, every other post and basically get enough merit for a few ranks.  

Also, this would allow farming of alts again, same method. Sooo.... Nope, not a good idea.

I'm never against people getting rewarded for their efforts, but reporting is something which is easily abused if there's gain associated with it, and it seems like Xandry may have been rewarding per report which is even worse due to the sheer amount that could be reported for merit. Maybe there is a way to reward those who report, but merit is not one of them, and anything else that I can think of would quickly lead to abuse at least the way it is users are reporting for the right reasons.

[esmanthra]

As I am the one who recieves merits from xandry, I'll try to clarify some points.
For a start - let him speak for himself (since he answered in a thread in Russian section devoted to similar question):

[...] Indeed, when merit system appeared, I got the opportunity to encourage users for help in moderation, which was frankly lacking. (Note: In Russian section.) At first I tried to apply it to "service" threads (about bans, ranks, forum rules, etc.), but sometimes I haven't got enough time to watch if something useful in these topics appeared, so when I click on a link in report and notice that person not only sent a report, but also, for example, explained to author of violating post what they did wrong (thereby I don't need to explain it myself), I endeavor to gratitude them in a merit form. By the way, it turned out, that "violators" often take such user warnings into consideration and move their topics to the correct sections or delete their posts.
Regarding the possibility of obtaining merits this way. Here're some situations when I don't give them:
1. You were wrong and I do not see any violations.
2. You wrote a message with an explanation, but I trivially did not read it.
3. You didn't reach even a Jr. Member rank "naturally".
3. You collected too much merit in the last 30 days, try again later. This is not my personal limitation - it's set by the forum.

Therefore, we have some kind of game of chances here.

That is to say:

1. He doesn't give merits for reports themselves. Currently you can receive merits only if you report some violation and simultaneously leave a message for the author of violating post/topic explaining what was wrong and how to avoid alike situations in future. These messages receive merits since they're considered as helpful enough. Next the topic/post is deleted, so you can see that "Deleted/Off-limits/Ignored" thing on the stats page.

2. He doesn't give merits for every report. See the clarification about chances above.

3. Also trust me you don't need to create alts and post nonsense in order to report something and obtain merits in Russian-section: we've got enough "actual" violators there. In fact in some subsections (like Newcomers or Bitcoin news) dozens of new topics are being created daily, and every second topic breakes the rules. People just don't care about reading them - all they think about is their neverending bounty-reports.

I hope this would help to make the situation a little bit clearer.

In addition: For some of us the so-called "help in moderation" isn't limited to "what's-wrong-explanations". For instance, my reports mostly aren't followed by any messages and don't imply any rewards (you can look at my history here). The same applies to replies in "service"-topics mentioned by xandry.

[digaran]

I'd say that he is either seriously farming merits and accounts or is lazy. now that people know about this issue he should change his meriting tactics and we should also move on. now he knows that we're on to him. please do not continue doing this.

[Jet Cash]

If a merit source doesn't have the time, or the inclination, to look for posts to award with merits, then he shouldn't be a merit source in my opinion.

[hilariousetc]

You don't even know what he's been giving it out for yet and if in fact he has been doing it as all you're going on is the post of one person, but how would this be any different than people getting merit for their posts/threads in Meta or Reputation for helping out and reporting/busting spambots, farmers and merit traders etc? I don't think people should be getting merit for every report or something, but I don't see a problem with those who help out by making posts that help moderation etc.