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.