Walking the plank - the hunt for posts to award with merits.

[wiser]

I think your reports would be useful, actually. I'm not nearly as busy on this forum as you are, but somehow I seem to have run into all the same repetitive posts you have, including the Newbies sadness thread, which is pretty ridiculous.

The part I found most interesting in your report was that you consider technical support posts to be merit-worthy, both for the person seeking support and the person granting support.

I'd be interested in seeing what other merit-worthy posts you encounter. Personally I tend to figure that if the post contributes something useful, even if it's putting old information into a different format, then it's merit-worthy. But statistically, there aren't that many posts like that. A lot more people begging for merit and such, which I find tiresome.

I should also mention... that if people openly share a story about how they were scammed and what they learned from the experience, I will often award some merit to that, at least to counter all the know-it-alls who insist on piling on about what an idiot they were to fall for it in the first place. Soft spot, pet peeve. So yeah, if I ever were to become a merit source, that would be one way to get merit out of me LOL.

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[Jet Cash]

I think that a forum is useful for a number of reasons. Community help is one of them, but we have a problem here. A member can ask a question, and receive two or three helpful replies. Then the sig spammers kick in, and you get posts containing the same replies rehashed, or incorrect replies. This makes it difficult to spot and constructive additions to the original question.

Another useful function is the dissemination of information, but again this generates spam responses such as  'great, I'll check it out later'. Idle banter is great for relaxation, and the wall thread is a great example of this. It isn't a problem if it is confined to one or two threads, and I guess the admins have to decide if posting there should be included in activity and post counts.