Has the Merit faucet dried up? Solutions?

[vlad230]

Now... hold on... I know what what you guys think: "Look! Yet another a$$hole complaining about the merit system". Just read the post below before posting.

Let me tell you a few things about myself:

Before joining this forum, I have been reading the broads here for about a year on everything Bitcoin & Altcoin related, Exchanges, Trading, what to invest in and what not etc.
As you can see, I have joined at the end of Oct 2017 and by the time the Merit system was implemented, I was a Jr. Member thus 0 Merit by default.
Since then, I have managed to get approximately 0.5-1 merit per day and managed to rank to Full Member before having the necessary activity.
I even had my own FREE post review service thread: vlad230's post review service - Jr. Member and up where I helped people increase the quality of their posts (across 10 pages) and have seen a big difference on the post quality that people had before the Merit System was implemented so, this system has definitely helped to improve the forum.

I have noticed that It's been about a month since I have not received any merit although my posting habits have not changed, I'm mainly interested in Mining, Bitcoin, Altcoins, Trading, helping people with whatever I can etc. and I do have a few threads that I manage and try to create a good resource especially for miners on this forum:

• [CryptoNight] CPU mining guide & coins that will get you a return
• [CryptoNight] Forked coins, ASIC resistance and current algorithms
• Kraken, Bitstamp exchange via Revolut & Mr. Tango
• [NEW FEATURE] Seeing a post that quoted your post
• Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day everybody!
• etc

I have noticed however that the majority of merit is only sent out in some particular boards (Meta, Reputation etc.) or for stuff that is not really Bitcoin & Altcoin related like hundreds of merit statistics.
I am not really interested in being a blood hound for scammers, rule/merit abusers (although I appreciate the people who do it) and what not, nor am I interested in merit statistics but does that mean I don't get to rank up on this forum?

On the other hand, I see there is a lack of merit sent out in the Mining, Altcoin, Economics or Local (Romanian - no merit sources here BTW) boards where people have real issues that need to be sorted out. Isn't this the purpose of the community?
I realized some of the boards I mentioned have become spam hang-outs for a lot of people (and this may get your post buried instantly, thus limiting the people who can see it) but for some that are really interested in these topics is really hard to go on.


Maybe a solution for this issue would be to:

• select a few merit sources that are interested in these topics and regularly posts there for a better distribution of merits
• have something like a "Rank-a-Thon" (similar to Hackathon   ) where a list of users would be selected and the merit sources would go to their posts and merit whatever they find good
  UPDATE: I think a good start to creating the lists of users that the merit sources would review would be people whom already got the activity but are missing the merits

What do you guys think?

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[mdayonliner]

What do you guys think?

My mind is blank after responding to this topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4330297.msg40528258#msg40528258

By the way I can assure you that I have no complaint against the entire merit system.

PS: Hang on, I will try to put some feedback once I have a fresh mind.  

• select a few merit sources that are interested in these topics and regularly posts there for a better distribution of merits

I also feel that we need more merit sources (may be). There are already a long list of applications for merit source like pugman, babo etc. I believe adding few of them would increase the possibility of  sMerit circulation.

[pugman]

This is just the tip of the iceberg, I personally want to merit posts but every time I try to, I end up doing something else than what was intended. So basically, I just merit posts I come across and merit sources are very less, and the worse part is not all of them use their entire source merits, so if they don't , that sMerits ends up being destroyed forever.

We need a lot of Merit sources, it may take a while but currently, Merit faucet has dried up. The standards of people giving merits are so damn high. People don't merit normal posts,they merit high quality posts. That needs to be taken care of, to be honest. Otherwise, this ranking wouldn't work for what it was intended.

Also, like 90% of the posters who get merit, post in reputation, meta and technical discussions. People, the few non-spammers that don't post in such sections at all but post in the spam boards, unfortunately don't get merits, because other people have given up on reading anything there. 

[mdayonliner]

We need a lot of Merit sources, it may take a while but currently, Merit faucet has dried up. The standards of people giving merits are so damn high. People don't merit normal posts,they merit high quality posts. That needs to be taken care of, to be honest. Otherwise, this ranking wouldn't work for what it was intended.

I kinda like this. The higher the standards the better contents we will see in the future. throwing up 50 merits for a single line post seems very annoying and it happened a lot at the early stage of merit introduction.

Anyway whatever happens, it's actually pretty clear that we need more merit sources. I hope theymos has the same idea in mind or may be a better one.

[suchmoon]

On the other hand, I see there is a lack of merit sent out in the Mining, Altcoin, Economics or Local (Romanian - no merit sources here BTW) boards where people have real issues that need to be sorted out.

I try to merit some posts in Mining and Altcoin Mining boards but there is no way I could find time to wade through the cesspool of Alt ANNs or Economics. I don't speak Romanian either. There need to be local sources for that obviously. Other than that, if users only post in ANNs or Economics or Bitcoin Discussion AKA Shitpost Central then we can't really do much to bring merits to them. If they have something useful to contribute they need to do that where it's not drowned in garbage.

select a few merit sources that are interested in these topics and regularly posts there for a better distribution of merits

Local boards - yes. English shitposting boards - not so sure. Would there be anybody willing to do that? Should we even try to incentivize those boards at all?

have something like a "Rank-o-Thon" (similar to Hackathon   ) where a list of users would be selected and the merit sources would go to their posts and merit whatever they find good

Random selection? No. Some sort of system that would bring attention to worthy posts might be useful but I don't have any feasible idea of how that should work. Perhaps the answer is just to add more merit sources and not expect merits on boards that have 20 threads bumped every minute by bounty hunters.

[Crypto_Sassy]

All the default Merit are exhausted and I think DmdrDmdr pointed out this in some of his earlier post that how merit became scarce with the days passed after implementation of the system. merit sources number are hovering around 80 and we have no idea how many merit source are actively performing the duty.

With so many accounts to unlock, so many copy paster to nuke, and with overall spam, I do not think this might be in Theymos priorities.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

People, the few non-spammers that don't post in such sections at all but post in the spam boards, unfortunately don't get merits, because other people have given up on reading anything there.  

This is the main reason why people aren't getting their posts merited--the only good sections of bitcointalk IMO are Meta and Reputation.  Everything else is just a spam-fest, and even if you wanted to post in sections like Bitcon Discussion, there's no point.  Anything you post is just going to get buried within seconds.  I posted a question about Changelly dropping Dash in Altcoin Discussion, and I actually wanted someone to answer it.  Guess what happened?  Nobody answered, probably because nobody even saw the question.  It was only after I started a new thread in Exchanges that someone answered it.

There's not enough merit sources to be sure, but I think the awarding of merits tends to poop out near the end of each month.  If I'm not mistaken, merit sources get new allocations of smerits at the beginning of each month.  They probably use them up before the month is over.  That's my guess, anyway.

No, it's a rolling replenishment, i.e.g today you'd get back the sMerits you spent 30 days ago, and so on.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.  I could swear I saw Vod or Jet Cash posting that their smerit supply got replenished at the beginning of each month.  Wouldn't be the first time I misread something.

[Coin-1]

Maybe a solution for this issue would be to:

• select a few merit sources that are interested in these topics and regularly posts there for a better distribution of merits
• have something like a "Rank-o-Thon" (similar to Hackathon   ) where a list of users would be selected and the merit sources would go to their posts and merit whatever they find good

What do you guys think?

I think that now the merit system is at the second stage of its evolving. The first stage is already gone past, it was useful for detecting an account farmers and a bounty cheaters which gave about 50 merits each other. At the second stage some users still have small amount of sMerit which has been distributed at 24 January 2018 and earned later, but they won't give them easy as they did it before. At the third stage the merit system will be mostly depended on the distribution of the merit sources, and ranking up will be harder than at the present time.

Probably your first solution will be useful in the future, but the second solution is similar to ranking up based on the user activity.

[suchmoon]

There's not enough merit sources to be sure, but I think the awarding of merits tends to poop out near the end of each month.  If I'm not mistaken, merit sources get new allocations of smerits at the beginning of each month.  They probably use them up before the month is over.  That's my guess, anyway.

No, it's a rolling replenishment, i.e. today you'd get back the sMerits you spent 30 days ago, and so on.

[qwk]

Yes, we need more merit sources.

Maybe a solution for this issue would be to:

• select a few merit sources that are interested in these topics and regularly posts there for a better distribution of merits
• have something like a "Rank-o-Thon" (similar to Hackathon   ) where a list of users would be selected and the merit sources would go to their posts and merit whatever they find good

Solution #1 is probably too difficult. Somebody's gotta find those new merit sources. Who will?
Solution #2 is something I've already seen from time to time, one way or another. Can't recall from whom exactly, but might have been Vod? (really unsure about that)

My personal suggestion would be something like "Let Legendary users vote for new merit sources".
Why the Legendaries? They are not likely to abuse it. I.e., make a thread (preferably one where only Legendaries can post) where you can submit suggestions for new merit sources and have the Legendaries vote on the suggestions. Might want to include the Mods in the voters as well.

[suchmoon]

Yes, we need more merit sources.

Maybe a solution for this issue would be to:

• select a few merit sources that are interested in these topics and regularly posts there for a better distribution of merits
• have something like a "Rank-o-Thon" (similar to Hackathon   ) where a list of users would be selected and the merit sources would go to their posts and merit whatever they find good

Solution #1 is probably too difficult. Somebody's gotta find those new merit sources. Who will?
Solution #2 is something I've already seen from time to time, one way or another. Can't recall from whom exactly, but might have been Vod? (really unsure about that)

My personal suggestion would be something like "Let Legendary users vote for new merit sources".
Why the Legendaries? They are not likely to abuse it. I.e., make a thread (preferably one where only Legendaries can post) where you can submit suggestions for new merit sources and have the Legendaries vote on the suggestions. Might want to include the Mods in the voters as well.

There is already a process - merit source applicants need to post a thread in Meta, theymos needs to review it. Not sure if he's not reviewing, not finding suitable applicants, not seeing the need for more than 80, but I don't see how a Legendary vote would fix that.

[mdayonliner]

There is already a process - merit source applicants need to post a thread in Meta, theymos needs to review it. Not sure if he's not reviewing, not finding suitable applicants, not seeing the need for more than 80, but I don't see how a Legendary vote would fix that.

I even seen a list created by someone, I can't find it now though. In that list I have seen several applicants, may be 15 to 20 (?)

I am not sure but I feel like this Legendary voting will create a mess.

[OgNasty]

Speaking personally, I don't think the problem is lack of Merit Sources.  I think the problem is that everyone is creating guides or making threads aimed at helping new users to try and earn a ton of Merits because that's how some Merit swindlers have chosen to reward themselves through their alts.  Then when the Merits don't come flooding in like in the threads they see from others, they get discouraged.  If you actually want to earn Merits, you will engage users that are encountering issues and help them resolve their problems.

[Vod]

Speaking personally, I don't think the problem is lack of Merit Sources.  I think the problem is that everyone is creating guides or making threads aimed at helping new users to try and earn a ton of Merits because that's how some Merit swindlers have chosen to reward themselves through their alts.  Then when the Merits don't come flooding in like in the threads they see from others, they get discouraged.  If you actually want to earn Merits, you will engage users that are encountering issues and help them resolve their problems.

I can't speak for other sources, but in the last few weeks I have just been so busy I have barely any time to respond to scammers on here, much less time to reward good posters.  Whatever little time I have left is going into the BPIP redesign.

[LoyceV]

I see there is a lack of merit sent out in the Mining, Altcoin, Economics or Local

Sorry, I don't read mining. I do merit in Altcoin, but it's hard to find any decent posts there. I barely read economics, and even "my own" local forum for that matter.

have something like a "Rank-o-Thon" (similar to Hackathon   ) where a list of users would be selected and the merit sources would go to their posts and merit whatever they find good

If users can apply on their own, I expect many spammers to join. But even if they're good users only, it'll be a lot of work to go over their posts (and context in the threads).

The standards of people giving merits are so damn high. People don't merit normal posts,they merit high quality posts.

Agreed. I try to "lower my standards", especially for Newbies. Of course quality posts should be merited a lot, but just regular good posts are already far above the spam for which the Merit was introduced.

I kinda like this. The higher the standards the better contents we will see in the future.

I disagree: you can't have a forum with only the very best people posting. That would mean the forum becomes very elite, and very quiet. One of the goals used to be promoting Bitcoin knowledge, and for that to happen, people should join.
I'm happy if posts range from acceptable to good, better, excellent (and nullius). If I see a new user with good posts, I don't want him to be limited in any way by a system that was introduced to stop the worst of the worst spammers.

From now on, I'll try to merit a bit more posts. Note that me meriting a post necessarily doesn't mean I agree with them, it means I consider them worth reading.

There is already a process - merit source applicants need to post a thread in Meta, theymos needs to review it. Not sure if he's not reviewing, not finding suitable applicants, not seeing the need for more than 80, but I don't see how a Legendary vote would fix that.

It took me more than 3.5 months, almost daily bumping, and many "vouches" in the thread to get processed. I haven't seen any sources added since.

[mdayonliner]

I'm happy if posts range from acceptable to good, better, excellent  (and nullius). If I see a new user with good posts, I don't want him to be limited in any way by a system that was introduced to stop the worst of the worst spammers.

I did not have excellent and especially nullius in mind by the way 

[Welsh]

To be fair your merit received is a little inflated due to Searings merit on your post review thread so it would be a little unrealistic to expect 0.5-1 merit everyday. However, your post quality is damn decent, and I'm not disputing that you don't deserve more merit than you've rgot so far. New merit sources are the answer, but I feel the roadblock we are hitting is that potential good merit sources aren't gaining enough sMerit in order to demonstrate that they would be a good merit source. I do understand that theymos asked for applicants to list 10 posts, however that's not really a enough if you haven't merited a few other posts yourself.

Also, just because someone doesn't earn sMerit themselves doesn't mean they aren't going to be a good source. You could be really good at spotting others good post quality, but maybe they don't tend to post much themselves, and thus don't demonstrate their ability to pick out good posts.

Several sections are being neglected, but it's only natural that the main Bitcoin section is going to get the most exposure. Places like Bitcoin Discussion are going to be lost within the spam, and places like Mining only appeal to a certain few. However, having said that we should make it a priority for finding merit sources that are actively reading these sections, and can maybe demostrate that by including 5 posts per section in their application instead of 10 general posts. The altcoin section does have some decent content, but I can't really blame those who don't want to wade through the shit that's there.

It seems from the opinions within this thread, and others that I've observed merit distribution isn't exclusively the problem. There's certain sections which are overrun by the spammers which would likely be because of the moderation team is currently covering several sections of the forum, and as a result are spread thin. If the community as a whole started to report a little more then maybe we could reclaim Bitcoin Discussion, and other sections as well has having a few dedicated mods here, and there. Economics section doesn't seem to get that much merit apart from the Wall observer thread which I've seen some wasted merits on just memes, and pictures of unrelated stuff to the thread.

Also, like 90% of the posters who get merit, post in reputation, meta and technical discussions. People, the few non-spammers that don't post in such sections at all but post in the spam boards, unfortunately don't get merits, because other people have given up on reading anything there.  

I think this is just because of the amount of spam that's in other sections. Plus, people seem to like giving out merit based on people who find scammers, abusers, and those who break rules. I can't say I'm against that, but a lot of users that post high quality content unrelated to these things are missing out. Especially when concerning users breaking the rules. They could just be reported. We've seen several members opening up topics reporting like 1-5 users, and they receive merit for it. I think this has subsided now due to the amount of people who started doing this.

I'm not entirely against this, but I do feel that moderation is separate to merit. At least currently due to the limited amount of sMerit which is available right now.

I kinda like this. The higher the standards the better contents we will see in the future. throwing up 50 merits for a single line post seems very annoying and it happened a lot at the early stage of merit introduction.

Yeah, but that was only natural as people didn't truly see the value of merits in the beginning. Plus, it was likely abused by a few individuals.

[max2607]

There's no point in making this post; merit sources claimed themselves that they couldn't find any good posts to merit.

The best solution is to buy a legendary account and do this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2198758.msg23660639#msg23660639 (https://archive.is/dDnCk). Don't get me wrong but literally, till now so many people have abused this merit system, there were even merit sources involved but you can see around people readily exchange merits between their alts and when users like me report it mods don't care,DT members just become blind and theymos is literally in his world

You should be happy you got 50 merits for literally doing nothing (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3212390.0). Yes, you did merit me because you felt my post deserved it but do you think you deserved those 50 merits.
Most members(including) are here to make money if you go back to the old days and see the posts they just used to be one-liners this all so-called "quality post" is just a joke.

I'm sure after posting this I will get backfired, but at the end, even you would agree with me.

Edit:
Honestly, I can't deny the fact that why you don't get merit, imagine you were a merit source and saw a post like this

hello I think the forum needs to introduce the likes.
likes can put Jr. Member and Member. Because they can not share the merit, But they can put a like worthy post.
10 likes in 1 merit

Replying to the above quote this is the worst idea ever if this get's implemented it will increase the number of merit abuses, you can already see around there are so many spam bots created daily and when this get's implemented these spam bots will start spamming likes as well and with the current moderation system where merit abusers don't get punished I don't think we are ready for such a feature

[yavorskiy616]

hello I think the forum needs to introduce the likes.
likes can put Jr. Member and Member. Because they can not share the merit, But they can put a like worthy post.
10 likes in 1 merit

[Welsh]

hello I think the forum needs to introduce the likes.
likes can put Jr. Member and Member. Because they can not share the merit, But they can put a like worthy post.
10 likes in 1 merit

If this forum ever does turn into Facebook/Reddit, then likes/upvotes should without a doubt not contribute towards ranking up. Personally, I can see the appeal of the like system, but honestly I don't think it's needed.

[Joel_Jantsen]

This is the main reason why people aren't getting their posts merited--the only good sections of bitcointalk IMO are Meta and Reputation.

That is bad. Meta and Reputation are the boards where most of the forum politics, bitching takes place. I'm surprised you called them good sections because it dissolves the entire point of running a bitcoin forum. Most happening topics in those boards revolve around leaving feeback back to each other and how untrustworthy someone is.

 Everything else is just a spam-fest,

Excluding Development & Technical Discussion/ Technical support sections.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Excluding Development & Technical Discussion/ Technical support sections.

OK, you got me there.  I made a statement that was overbroad--it's the main sections (B.D., A.D., Economics, Trading Discussion, Speculation) that have been overrun with spam.  I still find things useful in Exchanges, and I'm sure the mining section isn't bad. 

I think the reason I like Meta as much as I do is because it naturally draws people who actually care enough about the forum to talk about it--or to engage in its politics, as you stated.  From my experience some of the most capable writers tend to post there, whereas the illiterate shitposters flock to areas like Bitcoin Discussion.  You're right, it should not be this way but it is.  I think shitposters want to post in spam megathreads because they know their posts are diluted with 1000 other shitposts and therefore they won't get reported--and they're right! 

[OgNasty]

I'm sure the mining section isn't bad. 

I've found the mining section to be moderated very well and full of helpful and knowledgeable individuals that support each other's efforts. 

[DdmrDdmr]

I think we all kind of see that there seems to be a lack of merit sources (*) and perhaps a need to find placements for them in specific board sections/subsections. Apart from the voluntary personal postulation to become a merit source, we’ve also suggested ways to help locate these potentials (i.e. through the sMerit network size, as discussed some weeks ago) and thus allow for the Forum to proactively ponder the selection process in a proactive manner.

Regardless I believe that there is also a need to consider the ranking-up numbers which, are a derivative of the matter. A key (business) question is what is a healthy rate of ranking-up forum wide (per rank level) in a given period of time for the system to be considered as going well? That constitutes a business goal and governs the flow of merit that should circulate in the system in order to fulfill these goals.

Looking at the ranked-up members with the merit system so far on the Dashboard, we seem to have so far:

  8 Sr. Members to hero
  37 Full Member to Sr. Members
  56 Members to Full Members
 24 Jr. Members or less to Full Members
1819 Jr. Members or less to Members

Whether those numbers are ok or low depends on the objectives, and these have to be placed in such a way that the model works without dying from starvation.

(*) merit sources pump newly created merit into the system, but are also making up for the mass of airdropped initial merit which has not even started to see the light (600k initial sMerit airdrop and only 171k merited in txs - and from that we should substract the part that came from merit sources and halved merit, so at least 450k roughly is static).
Perhaps the initial projections have not been met, since most of the airdropped sMerit has not been placed into it’s initial run, and thus merit sources are relied upon to make up for it with an overhead in work.

[funsponge]

(*) merit sources pump newly created merit into the system, but are also making up for the mass of airdropped initial merit which has not even started to see the light (600k initial sMerit airdrop and only 171k merited in txs - and from that we should substract the part that came from merit sources and halved merit, so at least 450k roughly is static).
Perhaps the initial projections have not been met, since most of the airdropped sMerit has not been placed into it’s initial run, and thus merit sources are relied upon to make up for it with an overhead in work.

That is the merit sources job though they are the ones which should be actively looking for posts to reward. Anyone else who earns sMerit or has their initial sMerit might not have the time to merit so that 600k will not be fully used.

Merit sources are selected because they are active and know how what is a good post and what is not. The majority of us who have the initial sMerit either do not have the time or only look at certain boards where there is not that many good posts.

[pugman]

I kinda like this. The higher the standards the better contents we will see in the future. throwing up 50 merits for a single line post seems very annoying and it happened a lot at the early stage of merit introduction.

Anyway whatever happens, it's actually pretty clear that we need more merit sources. I hope theymos has the same idea in mind or may be a better one.

Exactly, the frequent posters of meta like having this high standard thing whereas most of them who post in the spam boards don't. The rest already have enough merits or they don't care.

People, the few non-spammers that don't post in such sections at all but post in the spam boards, unfortunately don't get merits, because other people have given up on reading anything there. 

This is the main reason why people aren't getting their posts merited--the only good sections of bitcointalk IMO are Meta and Reputation.  Everything else is just a spam-fest, and even if you wanted to post in sections like Bitcon Discussion, there's no point.  Anything you post is just going to get buried within seconds.  I posted a question about Changelly dropping Dash in Altcoin Discussion, and I actually wanted someone to answer it.  Guess what happened?  Nobody answered, probably because nobody even saw the question.  It was only after I started a new thread in Exchanges that someone answered it.

There's not enough merit sources to be sure, but I think the awarding of merits tends to poop out near the end of each month.  If I'm not mistaken, merit sources get new allocations of smerits at the beginning of each month.  They probably use them up before the month is over. That's my guess, anyway.

No they don't. I had come across somewhere that not all merit sources spend their entire source merits. So that goes away.

The standards of people giving merits are so damn high. People don't merit normal posts,they merit high quality posts.

Agreed. I try to "lower my standards", especially for Newbies. Of course quality posts should be merited a lot, but just regular good posts are already far above the spam for which the Merit was introduced.

So did I. Well, look at my merit history and you'll see that lowering standards won't work if you don't find good enough posts. Also when I do, the post is plagiarized.

It took me more than 3.5 months, almost daily bumping, and many "vouches" in the thread to get processed. I haven't seen any sources added since.

So it will take me a year atleast to become a merit source. Nice.

[funsponge]

So it will take me a year atleast to become a merit source. Nice.

Not really 4 months is not even half of the year and I would think that looking in depth in someones merit history to determine whether they are meriting to the standard of the other merit sources is a pretty time consuming thing to do. theymos probably checks for several other factors too.

[suchmoon]

It took me more than 3.5 months, almost daily bumping, and many "vouches" in the thread to get processed. I haven't seen any sources added since.

So it will take me a year atleast to become a merit source. Nice.

I have a feeling that 80 is the limit for now. When the number dropped to 79 LoyceV got approved quite quickly.

[pugman]

Not really 4 months is not even half of the year and I would think that looking in depth in someones merit history to determine whether they are meriting to the standard of the other merit sources is a pretty time consuming thing to do. theymos probably checks for several other factors too.

I hate when people don't get sarcasm. Let me tell it out loud, THERE WAS SARCASM IN THAT POST!

Obviously, I know theymos checks other factors, he wouldn't be an admin if he won't do his own research. Come on, man..

It took me more than 3.5 months, almost daily bumping, and many "vouches" in the thread to get processed. I haven't seen any sources added since.

So it will take me a year atleast to become a merit source. Nice.

I have a feeling that 80 is the limit for now. When the number dropped to 79 LoyceV got approved quite quickly.

Oh.. Thanks for the encouragement. Really helps. Really..Loyce V, you should thank digaran if that's the case. I am waiting for him to accuse you, that, you paid theymos to make you a merit source and also that you wanted to use your merits to give it to your chipmixer alts.

[interna]

I agree that this problem exists. One suggestion I would to add here is that staff should use some accounts from newbie status and post in different sections to realize the depth of the problem themselves. I know this will consume some time but will benefit the forum with accurate evaluation of current situation.

[Welsh]

That is bad. Meta and Reputation are the boards where most of the forum politics, bitching takes place. I'm surprised you called them good sections because it dissolves the entire point of running a bitcoin forum. Most happening topics in those boards revolve around leaving feeback back to each other and how untrustworthy someone is.

Can posts that identify others as scammers not be high quality posts? There's several threads within the reputation thread which have gone into depth, and investigated their claims quite thoroughly. These investigations take time, and effort. Just because there is a lot of bitching that goes on within that section doesn't take away from the fact that there's some genuinely good posts in there.

There's also a few bitching that goes on within the Development & Technical support sections. Although, I'll admit to a much lesser degree. But, I've seen a few posts which attack each other for no real reason other than they disagree with each other. In fact a few members like to push their agenda against achow101 over there for whatever reason.

I also enjoy some of the discussions that come out of Meta, and although there's been a massive up rise in shit posts here recently its not all bad. For example, recently there's been some pretty good suggestions regarding moderation, and how to identify, and deal with the current problems of the forum.

[Piggy]

Maybe a solution for this issue would be to:

• select a few merit sources that are interested in these topics and regularly posts there for a better distribution of merits
• have something like a "Rank-o-Thon" (similar to Hackathon   ) where a list of users would be selected and the merit sources would go to their posts and merit whatever they find good

What do you guys think?

I had made this tool indeed to respond to something similar: "knowing which people are more active distributing merits in a particular section of the forum" so ideal candidates to become merit sources:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4393868

In some cases is evident who could be appointed, hopefully somebody will have a look at the names showing up and consider if making them merit sources.

[digaran]

We'll have a problem when people see that administration doesn't really care about everybody equally, if you see that nobody cares whether you are being abused by some people or not, you'll automatically stop caring yourself.

Personally I do still care about this forum and I still want to become a source in order to distribute them on many boards and not just one board like meta.
I'd like to suggest theymos to replace inactive merit sources with new ones. it doesn't matter if I have negative trust or not, I'll help if it is needed.
However what I want is more than 200 sMerits per month to distribute, this time I'm not going to resign though.
Now come on theymos make me a source again, note that if I become a source I'd have no other choice than canceling my services on service section because I don't want to be treated differently, if you notice people who are merit sources or DT members get special treatment from others, so I'll cancel my services to avoid receiving any special treatment from people.

@Puggy, you should also merit the posts you have included on your application, don't wait for theymos to give you source merits.(come on man merit my post number 5 in your application thread already. lol.)

[vlad230]

Wow! I have read every single post in this thread and was not expecting such a high interest in it. Although I may not agree with some of you, I appreciate the time taken to comment and your thoughts. Thanks!

To be fair your merit received is a little inflated due to Searings merit on your post review thread so it would be a little unrealistic to expect 0.5-1 merit everyday.

The initial idea when the Merit System was implemented, was that everyone who was creating decent posts (not spam - the thing merit was intended to fight) would get 1 merit per day, thus aligning with the 1 activity/day you were already receiving and not blocking you to rank up.  

You should be happy you got 50 merits for literally doing nothing (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3212390.0). Yes, you did merit me because you felt my post deserved it but do you think you deserved those 50 merits.

Both of you guys don't have a clue on the amount of time needed to review hundreds of applicants and not only review their selected posts but also their post history.    I did all of this for FREE, to do my part in trying to stop the spam and making people read the forum rules.

Remember that review thread, as well as others I have created overtime, were not post & forget. They were constantly maintained and researched. Take a look at the mining guide or other threads I have created, these are months worth of work and research to provide a good research for people who enjoy mining like I do.

Probably your first solution will be useful in the future, but the second solution is similar to ranking up based on the user activity.

Nope. With the second solution the human factor would be in play and no one who isn't deserving to rank up would. The old system was automated and you would just rank-up automatically.

I think a good start to creating the lists of users that the merit sources would review would be people whom already got the activity but are missing the merits. I think I saw a list about that in some merit analysis thread.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>
I think a good start to creating the lists of users that the merit sources would review would be people whom already got the activity but are missing the merits. I think I saw a list about that in some merit analysis thread.

I figure you mean missing only a "few merits", not merits in general, since that list would be long and ever increasing is size.

I just checked on the Merit Dashboard, to see how many would be on such a list. If I go to the Ranking-up Pipeline Tab, and select Sr. Members for example, there are 500 who could have ranked-up (they have enough activity), but have not due to lack of merit.
Out of those 500, 6 are in the [80%..100%) range of their merit goal to reach Hero Member, 39 are in the [60%..80% range) and 455 are in the [40%..60%) range.
The 6 should probably get there soon with no additional help, the 39 would need to be analysed to see how they are evolving, and the 455 have barely advanced since the initial airdrop.

If you go down a rank, there are 2.022 Full Members that have enough activity but not enough merit.

I can’t quite see how these lists would be managed in an even manner without favoring a subset such as "the least needed" or "the most needed". Regardless, the lists are easy to draw if needed.

[vlad230]

I just checked on the Merit Dashboard), to see how many would be on such a list. If I go to the Ranking-up Pipeline Tab, and select Sr. Members for example, there are 500 who could have ranked-up (they have enough activity), but have not due to lack of merit.
Out of those 500, 6 are in the [80%..100%) range of their merit goal to reach Hero Member, 39 are in the [60%..80% range) and 455 are in the [40%..60%) range.
The 6 should probably get there soon with no additional help, the 39 would need to be analysed to see how they are evolving, and the 455 have barely advanced since the initial airdrop.

Yes, you are correct, there are a lot of users and this would only emphasize that the number of merit sources is too low. We do need to start from somewhere as the current system is clearly not working as intended.

BTW, if I remember correctly I've seen those stats in one of your posts Good job!

[Strufmbae]

Regarding to the cause of why merit was implemented, scammers go over around the forum looking for people to devour and as i have read some threads most complains about merit was/were. "it is unfair", "it is so difficult to have even just one" , "there are abusers"... etc. And most of the complainants are jr. Members, members,  full members, who does not have good english ( fluency.) Some are posters from a thread which has 10 pages and up.

[VolkoB]

Merit definitely improves the quality of the forum. But getting it task is not easy. Align this situation could be through regulation (Merit for the time of activity on the forum). What do you think?

[DdmrDdmr]

Merit definitely improves the quality of the forum. But getting it task is not easy. Align this situation could be through regulation (Merit for the time of activity on the forum). What do you think?

No way! There are many crappy posters on the forum that just lurk around and post detritus all day long because they have nothing better to do. Activity, or the amount of time active in the forum (which is what I guess you mean) has nothing to do with posting by good standards, and therefore should not be rewarded as an automatism.

[funsponge]

Merit definitely improves the quality of the forum. But getting it task is not easy. Align this situation could be through regulation (Merit for the time of activity on the forum). What do you think?

This would defeat  the purpose of having the merit system in the first place. Before the merit system this is how ranking worked through activity. It is suppose to be not easy to get merit as it is suppose to promote good quality posters and reward them for that.

[AlanMilano]

I think at least 70% of the users of this forum have no or very little knowledge regarding Crypto in general. Their only purpose is to join Bounty, Airdrop and cheat those things to make money.
Those people have crushed the few who really admired Crypto. And a newbie, despite having a good post, a good idea, a high help response ... can answer questions or solve problems for those people ... but will not receive any merit.
This forum is also very classy, I can feel the contempt of senior members with newbie (though not the majority).
Therefore, do not expect the senior members to share their merit to the Newbie, Jr ... if there are also just a few rare exceptions like you for your great efforts.
Not everyone can do the same, because of the limited knowledge and ability as well as the rigidity of higher level members.

[VolkoB]

Merit definitely improves the quality of the forum. But getting it task is not easy. Align this situation could be through regulation (Merit for the time of activity on the forum). What do you think?

No way! There are many crappy posters on the forum that just lurk around and post detritus all day long because they have nothing better to do. Activity, or the amount of time active in the forum (which is what I guess you mean) has nothing to do with posting by good standards, and therefore should not be rewarded as an automatism.

I looked at your statistics, it's impressive  5 months - 436 merits, really proves that everything is possible)

[funsponge]

I think at least 70% of the users of this forum have no or very little knowledge regarding Crypto in general. Their only purpose is to join Bounty, Airdrop and cheat those things to make money.
Those people have crushed the few who really admired Crypto. And a newbie, despite having a good post, a good idea, a high help response ... can answer questions or solve problems for those people ... but will not receive any merit.
This forum is also very classy, I can feel the contempt of senior members with newbie (though not the majority).
Therefore, do not expect the senior members to share their merit to the Newbie, Jr ... if there are also just a few rare exceptions like you for your great efforts.
Not everyone can do the same, because of the limited knowledge and ability as well as the rigidity of higher level members.

The fact that they have no knowledge is not a problem. Its their willingness to learn about it and ask the right questions and participate in discussions intellectually which will then be rewarded with merit points/

If everyone was as knowledgeable as the developers of bitcoin then there would be no worthy discussion on the forum.

[nngella]

I have the same sentiments with you.
The intention of merit is to prevent spammers and encourage us to make quality posts.  However, what is happening now is instead of making posts to share your knowledge and learn from one another, the forum community is now posting for the sake of earning merits (especially the low rank members like me).

This is the link of my first thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4468266.msg40069856#msg40069856

Moved the above thread twice (from altcoin discussion to service discussion (altcoins) to beginners and help).  I moved it because I noticed that the merit distribution on the altcoin discussion threads are fewer compare to other threads.

[AlanMilano]

The fact that they have no knowledge is not a problem. Its their willingness to learn about it and ask the right questions and participate in discussions intellectually which will then be rewarded with merit points/

If everyone was as knowledgeable as the developers of bitcoin then there would be no worthy discussion on the forum.

Yes, and according to the script, after the discussion, merit sources will favor + merit for those who answer, help (senior members) .... in the discussion, not for questioners (newbie, jr ...).

Although after the discussion, people who ask questions and learn what they need to know will understand everything (may not be understood at all). But that does not mean that they will be distributed merit for asking good questions!

It is the difference between having knowledge and having no knowledge. Just as in real life, people with good knowledge, graduates from big universities, etc... will find it easier to earn better jobs and salaries than those who only finish high school.

[funsponge]

The fact that they have no knowledge is not a problem. Its their willingness to learn about it and ask the right questions and participate in discussions intellectually which will then be rewarded with merit points/

If everyone was as knowledgeable as the developers of bitcoin then there would be no worthy discussion on the forum.

Yes, and according to the script, after the discussion, merit sources will favor + merit for those who answer, help (senior members) .... in the discussion, not for questioners (newbie, jr ...).

Although after the discussion, people who ask questions and learn what they need to know will understand everything (may not be understood at all). But that does not mean that they will be distributed merit for asking good questions!

It is the difference between having knowledge and having no knowledge. Just as in real life, people with good knowledge, graduates from big universities, etc... will find it easier to earn better jobs and salaries than those who only finish high school.

That is something that needs to be addressed. I will admit though that I have not seen that many unique questions and most of them are just repeated questions that have been answered several times already.

Graduates dont find it easier theres several different studies which support this and only prestigious degrees actually allow you too. Engineering for example is much more sought after than a degree in history.

[yakovs]

I think at least 70% of the users of this forum have no or very little knowledge regarding Crypto in general. Their only purpose is to join Bounty, Airdrop and cheat those things to make money.
Those people have crushed the few who really admired Crypto. And a newbie, despite having a good post, a good idea, a high help response ... can answer questions or solve problems for those people ... but will not receive any merit.
This forum is also very classy, I can feel the contempt of senior members with newbie (though not the majority).
Therefore, do not expect the senior members to share their merit to the Newbie, Jr ... if there are also just a few rare exceptions like you for your great efforts.
Not everyone can do the same, because of the limited knowledge and ability as well as the rigidity of higher level members.

One has to start somewhere. I do not mind the beginner questions, that is obvious.

What is hampering this forum is the spam caused by some people and I am sure they are not new to this platform. The embers who are doing this unintentionally because they are not aware of the rules are just a small portion of the problem. And member level has nothing to do with crypto knowledge in general.

[max2607]

You should be happy you got 50 merits for literally doing nothing (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3212390.0). Yes, you did merit me because you felt my post deserved it but do you think you deserved those 50 merits.

Both of you guys don't have a clue on the amount of time needed to review hundreds of applicants and not only review their selected posts but also their post history.    I did all of this for FREE, to do my part in trying to stop the spam and making people read the forum rules.

Remember that review thread, as well as others I have created overtime, were not post & forget. They were constantly maintained and researched. Take a look at the mining guide or other threads I have created, these are months worth of work and research to provide a good research for people who enjoy mining like I do.

See this is the biggest problem, most of the new members just joined this forum to make money and nothing else. And forgetting the fact merits are given if someone makes good posts what you did here is a community service. I report so many posts daily to mod but I never begged anyone to give me any merits for it. As long as people like you join this forum just to make money nothing's gonna change

And as I also said this isn't your fault as well theymos implemented a system without taking any measures to solve problems like these. This merit system is only made for legendary members, most merit sources merit their fellow here/legendary members for good quality posts they don't care for members like us.

[centralbanksequalsbombs]

As I understand it, (outside of receiving merit from others), i have to wait 30? days for my smerit to replenish? or is it 120 days?

[DdmrDdmr]

As I understand it, (outside of receiving merit from others), i have to wait 30? days for my smerit to replenish? or is it 120 days?

Neither really. The only case where the sMerit supply is refilled is when you are a Merit Source (for the given quota). See here: question: re:Who can award merits.

[coin5haker]

What I noticed many people on the forum still posting hoping one day merit system would be canceled or made easier. They create countless topics about how merit system is unfair firmly believing that their opinion counts. So, Mr.Newbie! This is not your democracy, if you don't like the system, please find yourself some better place to post!