Is it easier to earn Merit without a signature?

[Jet Cash]

I don't look at signatures, so they don't affect my attitude as a merit source. However, I think that signatures have an effect on the poster. This thread is an indication of this to a certain extent. The need to post continuously regardless of the potetial for decent posts, reduces the quality of posts in my opinion. This can affect the reputation of the poster. Another problem seems to be the need to 'jazz up' low value posts with pictures and formatting, and this can result in the poster being added to ignore lists.

If you prostitute yourself by selling your signature, you have to put up with a lower quality in your love life with the forum.

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[Retty]

I've been stuck on here trying to earn some merit. I made a helpful post here a couple weeks ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3949893.0 Or at least it was helpful according to the comments.

I used to make really helpful posts often. I've been doing a signature bounty for the past couple of months. Would this stop members from sending me merit? Also, what's the incentive once members do get merit to make good posts? I've seen so many 1000+ merit accounts make such useful posts with their signature bounties.

My signature bounty ends in 2 days. I'll remove my signature and see if that makes a difference.

I think each case should be judged on its own merit. (pardon the pun!)

If the person is providing quality responses and contributing to the forum in a 'normal' fashion, trying to join in and genuinely here for the right reasons, then of course a signature campaign shouldn't influence someone's decision to award merits or not.

I find it fascinating that people would purposely overlook someone because of wearing a signature actually, i think its childish and akin to bullying almost. My take is, if you are here and you are active, contributing, looking and learning- you might aswell wear a signature right? You shouldn't be judged by someone because of what you're wearing! 

Just my opinion BTW.

[xiebaowang]

Merit's acquisition and signature have nothing to do!
If you publish a good article and others like your article, they will give you Merit!
Will not affect your Merit because you wear a signature!

[BurgerBar]

Useful thread for newbie to keep in mind in the future. I guess quality of posts is much more important than any other factors (eg: wearing signature or not) thanks!

[aminurrahaman]

<...>

The signature per se should not affect chances of getting merit. Most merited members bear a signature with no issue whatsoever. Participating actively in social media campaigns that require heavy reporting and/or spamming on the forum will affect chances, as often merit is given to a post after contrasting the posters posting history. Nevertheless, that is not your case.

It’s the post’s content and placement that matters most. Some sections are way more merited than others and sub-ecosystems do exist around the forum.

I’ve looked briefly through your posting history and found nothing wrong with it. I believe that you’ve even diversified posting in multiple sections (you were more concentrated on altcoins before) after asking in Meta a month ago.

You can study forum merit stats in case they come in handy here: BitcoinTalk Merit Dashboard .

Hi DdmrDdmr,
Can you tell me that which sections are more merited than others??

Thanks in advance.

It looks like the ANN, trading, and META receive the most merit according to the website. Try those

Thanks for your information.

[goatpo]

No, merit are not related to signatures. If you post badly you will never get sMerit.

[DdmrDdmr]

I've been taking a look at the data I downloaded this weekend. Focusing on all the merited users, the aggregates are as follows:

Rank   %WithSignature   AvgTotalMerit_NO_Signature   AvgTotalMerit_Signature
Jr. Member             53%             3,52                                       3,11
Member                 74%             8,67                                       9,71
Full Member           78%           10,20                                      12,31
Sr. Member            75%           16,11                                      15,71
Hero                      74%           12,44                                      20,10   
Legendary             74%           18,92                                      25,05
(I’ve skipped out the other ranks)

The merit taken into account is the received merit through a merit TX (therefore not considering initial airdropped merit per rank). The average is simply the rank’s total receives merit divided by the number of users in the rank that have received a merit TX (done for signature and non-signature bearers).

The signature is derived from checking whether the merited user profile has content in the Signature field, or not. We cannot therefore distinguish between a campaign signature and a personal signature (such as a personal message, a bitcoin address, etc.).
In addition, the signature is “as is now”: If a user dropped his signature yesterday, he falls into de “no signature category” (to do it 100% accurately, we would need to know the signature status at the moment of receiving the merit TX. This is impossible with current datasets).

The data suggests that baring/not baring a signature is not significant on the lower and mid-range levels, but has a positive influence in Heroes and Legendries. Perhaps it has to do with a larger amount of posts being placed (therefore, more writing more posts and better content could lead to the average being significantly higher).

[petyang12]

I've been stuck on here trying to earn some merit. I made a helpful post here a couple weeks ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3949893.0 Or at least it was helpful according to the comments.

I used to make really helpful posts often. I've been doing a signature bounty for the past couple of months. Would this stop members from sending me merit? Also, what's the incentive once members do get merit to make good posts? I've seen so many 1000+ merit accounts make such useful posts with their signature bounties.

My signature bounty ends in 2 days. I'll remove my signature and see if that makes a difference.

Types of post that mostly get merited are good quality, conatructive in any ways, contributing to the forum. Even if you have signature you would still get merited if your topic or post is helpful and informative.

[Tuanken897]

In my own opinion, the best way to earn merits is not to expect or focus on the merit itself. Being genuine in helping out to this forum is the main key for you to get merits. No need to rush things just to rank up with all shitty posts.

[Dudeperfect]

To be honest, I think that it has nothing to do with your signature when it comes to the point of gaining merits. The merit feature is still new so it will take some time to inculcate the habit of awarding merits to others. If you are concerned about it then you should focus on sharing your knowledge in a best possible way with others. Since there are some limits on the outgoing number of merits, everyone would consider high standards to determine the quality of the post before sending the merits.

[matthewoz101]

I've been taking a look at the data I downloaded this weekend. Focusing on all the merited users, the aggregates are as follows:

Rank   %WithSignature   AvgTotalMerit_NO_Signature   AvgTotalMerit_Signature
Jr. Member             53%             3,52                                       3,11
Member                 74%             8,67                                       9,71
Full Member           78%           10,20                                      12,31
Sr. Member            75%           16,11                                      15,71
Hero                      74%           12,44                                      20,10   
Legendary             74%           18,92                                      25,05
(I’ve skipped out the other ranks)

The merit taken into account is the received merit through a merit TX (therefore not considering initial airdropped merit per rank). The average is simply the rank’s total receives merit divided by the number of users in the rank that have received a merit TX (done for signature and non-signature bearers).

The signature is derived from checking whether the merited user profile has content in the Signature field, or not. We cannot therefore distinguish between a campaign signature and a personal signature (such as a personal message, a bitcoin address, etc.).
In addition, the signature is “as is now”: If a user dropped his signature yesterday, he falls into de “no signature category” (to do it 100% accurately, we would need to know the signature status at the moment of receiving the merit TX. This is impossible with current datasets).

The data suggests that baring/not baring a signature is not significant on the lower and mid-range levels, but has a positive influence in Heroes and Legendries. Perhaps it has to do with a larger amount of posts being placed (therefore, more writing more posts and better content could lead to the average being significantly higher).

Excellent data! That leads me to my next question, is it good to makes tons a post every day? Would posting 10 times a day increase the chances of getting merit? Low quality posts would make it lower, but let's assume each post is of the same high quality. Would more posts mean more merit? Or would members check my profile and see lots of posts per day, and that may come off as spam?

[paxmao]

Excellent data! That leads me to my next question, is it good to makes tons a post every day? Would posting 10 times a day increase the chances of getting merit? Low quality posts would make it lower, but let's assume each post is of the same high quality. Would more posts mean more merit? Or would members check my profile and see lots of posts per day, and that may come off as spam?

- I don´t care if you are on a campaign. You are supporting a project and that is not wrong. Most times you will get nothing.

- No. Posting 10 sh*ts a day won´t make you earn merit. Posting 10 great posts increases your chances of a merit source finding them and you also help the forum.

- I don´t take into account if you have also "fill in" posts, as long as they are not in "serious discussion" or sections where they are irrelevant. Campaigns require them and if the forum does not want these they can limit the number of posts allowed for campaigns.

Now, there just one thing that will get you perma-ignored: Trading merit or farming accounts. That is a NO-NO.

[odolvlobo]

Excellent data! That leads me to my next question, is it good to makes tons a post every day? Would posting 10 times a day increase the chances of getting merit? Low quality posts would make it lower, but let's assume each post is of the same high quality. Would more posts mean more merit? Or would members check my profile and see lots of posts per day, and that may come off as spam?

From what I have seen, simply posting more does not increase your chances of receiving merits. Quality is still the primary requirement.

1. I think the first post in a thread is more likely to receive merits, so starting more threads may increase your chances. However, quality still seems to be a necessary requirement, so a single post with thoughtful, insightful, and valuable content is more likely to receive merits than any number of mediocre posts.

2. I believe that a reply posted earlier in a thread is more likely to receive merits. Replying early gives you the chance to state something that hasn't already been stated. Also, once a thread winds up or starts filling up with worthless replies, readers stop caring about it. Take this reply, for example. It might a quality post, considering the time and effort I have put into it, but it is #33, so I doubt that many people will read it, and even fewer will consider giving it merit.

3. Don't bother posting in "mega-threads". There are many mega-threads with hundreds of replies and none of the replies receive any merit. Anything you might want to say in a mega-thread has already been stated many times, and nobody cares about an opinion that has already been stated 100 times.

4. You will easily exceed the activity requirement for a rank long before you reach the merit requirement. Unfortunately, many people have not yet figured that out and the forum continues to be flooded with worthless posts.

Anyway, that's how I see it.

[richan]

It won't make any difference if you decide not to put on a signature. The merit will be given only when your post is deem fit for it, not just removing a signature. Those with already merits like 10 and 100 merits obtained it automatically when the merit was introduce into bitcointalk forum.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

In relation to post positioning and its relation to getting merited (quality/interest aside), I did an in-depth study on merited posts analyzing features such as with/without image, with/without quotes, post number (position within thread), post date, time between posting and receiving merit and post length. You can see the whole study here: Forum Merited Messages- Does size count?.

In terms of post position within the thread, 15% of merited posts are OPs (first post), being 40,21% awarded to posts within the first page of posts in a thread.
Surprisingly, 32,58% of merited posts are on mega threads, 40,31% if we count post position 201 onwards. Ann sections and Economy (The Wall Observer is the extreme case) are behind these cases. These sections conform their own ecosystems and follow patterns that only happen there.

(post number is post position within thread. This is a global overall view, which will vary if we focus on a specific forum section/subsection).


Aside from post position, images tend not to help (statistics and a few others a logical exceptions).  Also 56,50% of the merited posts are merited within the first 24 hours, adding up to 76,97% within the first week after the post is published.
Post do not need to be too lengthy either, since 65,07% of merited posts contain less than 100 words, with an additional 18,41% between 100 and 200 words. Longer posts do seem to get more merits, but cases are fewer and have studies and information that require the post to be long.

Even with all the said above (which is really about the meta-structure of the post), it is the content that matters, and that is not statistically derivable.

Excellent data! That leads me to my next question, is it good to makes tons a post every day? Would posting 10 times a day increase the chances of getting merit? Low quality posts would make it lower, but let's assume each post is of the same high quality. Would more posts mean more merit? Or would members check my profile and see lots of posts per day, and that may come off as spam?

I believe that the idea should be to post less, but with much more thought and/or research in each post. The more post of this kind, the more chances (but you need to invest a lot more time). On the other hand, posting lots of crappy posts standout way too much on the posting history, and the history is what builds your character and is often checked before awarding merit.

[wulian18]

There is no relationship between them and they will not affect each other. Signature is just a promotion method. It doesn't matter with your posts. Sometimes the signature will be deleted because of its own data problem, but it won't affect you to get merit.

[Kakmakr]

To me it does not matter if you are wearing a signature or not. I know that there are a lot of Sighaters on this forum and they dislike and also discount anything that a signature member is posting, but that is their loss. I have seen some of the best posts being done by signature members on this forum, because they are measured and judged by their signature managers and by other people that hate them.

A member that does not belong to a signature campaign can simply post what they want, but signature campaign members have to abide by the signature campaign rules and have to scrutinize every post they make. Quality posts takes a lot of time and extra effort.  

[trungdinhthi]

<...>

A signature is a kind of passive feature that does not presume anything bad in my opinion, as long as your posts are aimed at contributing to the forum, and not at quick responses to cover the signature campaign posting requirements. If the posts are ok, then the signature does not conform an issue.

Social bounties on the other hand very often clog one’s posting history, standing out, and tend to define a profile as you say of a non-contributive forum member. Those I believe should probably avoided if possible.

thank you

[BestSSS]

The signature does not affect merit. It is not easy to get merits, but it is necessary to make quality posts. For today very few moderators handing out merits.
If you participate in bounty companies and want to continue to receive merit you should not do a huge number of meaningless posts just to reach a certain number of posts per week.

[Ramonranger]

The signature does not affect merit. It is not easy to get merits, but it is necessary to make quality posts. For today very few moderators handing out merits.
If you participate in bounty companies and want to continue to receive merit you should not do a huge number of meaningless posts just to reach a certain number of posts per week.

It's hard to get merit, but as long as we can access in bitcoin forums it is an with be. We cannot do about thier meriting system.