Incentive to the Merit Sources to Achieve their Quota?

[nngella]

Given that there are reports that the current actual number of merits given in the past months did not meet the expected merits for circulation, please let me propose an idea.

Give an incentive to the Merit Sources for them to be proactive in achieving their quota.

This will serve as a positive reinforcement to the Merit Sources to encourage them to attain the quota of number of merits for circulation for the month (or for a given period).

An incentive can be a form of payment (bitcoin?), special privilege (additional feature on their profile?), or anything that is beneficial to them.

What do you think?

[1715123508]

1715123508

[1715123508]

1715123508

[1715123508]

1715123508

[mdayonliner]

Give an incentive to the Merit Sources for them to be proactive in achieving their quota.

They are merit sources and I think this is the biggest incentive. It's the honor, recognition and privilege.

What makes you think (your are sounding like you are not happy with them) that merit sources are not doing their job correctly?

[Don Pedro Dinero]

At first sight it seems a good idea to me but I don’t think bitcoin payment is gonna happen and additional features on their profiles don’t seem too motivating for me.

Give an incentive to the Merit Sources for them to be proactive in achieving their quota.

They are merit sources and I think this is the biggest incentive. It's the honor, recognition and privilege.

What makes you think (your are sounding like you are not happy with them) that merit sources are not doing their job correctly?

Some of them aren't sending all the smerits, even some are not too active on the forum.

[nngella]

Give an incentive to the Merit Sources for them to be proactive in achieving their quota.

They are merit sources and I think this is the biggest incentive. It's the honor, recognition and privilege.

What makes you think (your are sounding like you are not happy with them) that merit sources are not doing their job correctly?

Sorry but I do not mean that one.  I am not saying that merit sources are not doing their job correctly.  We just all know that there are times that they will become busy because they too have their own priorities (e.g. family, business, work, school, etc).

I think being a Merit Source is a tedious job hence I just think that giving them something in return is a wonderful thing.

[hilariousetc]

Why is this necessary? People shouldn't be encouraged with monetary rewards for this because it will just lead to abuse and is one more system to game. We already have an issue with merit abuse yet you want to further incentive it by monetising it? People will just give their merits away needlessly to hit their quota and win a prize, thus merit is likely just going to those that don't really deserve it.

[nngella]

At first sight it seems a good idea to me but I don’t think bitcoin payment is gonna happen and additional features on their profiles don’t seem too motivating for me.

Why is this necessary? People shouldn't be encouraged with monetary rewards for this because it will just lead to abuse and is one more system to game. We already have an issue with merit abuse yet you want to further incentive it by monetising it? People will just give their merits away needlessly to hit their quota and win a prize, thus merit is likely just going to those that don't really deserve it.

I ran out of idea regarding on what incentive to give.  But the main point is to give them an incentive as a form of recognition to them.

[mdayonliner]

Some of them aren't sending all the smerits, even some are not too active on the forum.

In this case I am sure theymos is keeping an eye on them and some day they may be removed from the sources or anything else that he thinks is appropriate.

Sorry but I do not mean that one.  I am not saying that merit sources are not doing their job correctly.  We just all know that there are times that they will become busy because they too have their own priorities (e.g. family, business, work, school, etc).

Understood.

People will just give their merits away needlessly to hit their quota...

Will ruin the whole spirit of the merit system if that comes from the merit sources.

Forget to quote:

special privilege (additional feature on their profile?)

This will do harm to them. People will start to PM or spam them to receive merits from them. Jet Cash has a topic which is demonstrating the issue.

[Vod]

Give an incentive to the Merit Sources for them to be proactive in achieving their quota.

Merit sources have an indirect (unplanned) incentive to spend their merit.

We are more likely to receive merit in return for passing out our own merit.  :/

[bitmover]

Give an incentive to the Merit Sources for them to be proactive in achieving their quota.

Merit sources have an indirect (unplanned) incentive to spend their merit.

We are more likely to receive merit in return for passing out our own merit.  :/

I think that most merit sources do not need any merit.
Actually merit sources should not need merit at all. To avoid conflict of interest.

Anyway I think there is no need for an incentive.

Maybe we need more merit sources, because there are lots os comments daily in this forum and just a few (about 80 last time I saw) cannot read all of them.

[Vod]

Actually merit sources should not need merit at all. To avoid conflict of interest.

Give us extra, unpaid work to read more posts than usual to find some worthy of merit, then penalize us so we can't advance in rank?

Doesn't make sense...  :/

[bitmover]

Actually merit sources should not need merit at all. To avoid conflict of interest.

Give us extra, unpaid work to read more posts than usual to find some worthy of merit, then penalize us so we can't advance in rank?

Doesn't make sense...  :/

How can you advance forward legendary?

But I didn't said you can't advance in rank, just that you don't need merits. Many merit sources have enough merit to the next rank already, that's why they don't need merit .. this is what I tried to say..

[Jet Cash]

I think that most merit sources do not need any merit.
Actually merit sources should not need merit at all. To avoid conflict of interest.

This post illustrates the one major flaw in the merit system - it has a commercial value. It really should be a means of recognition and guidance for posters. The commercial value means that some members are prostituting themselves to gain merit.

I don't understand how there can be a conflict of interest in awarding merits to merit sources. If you don't understand the function of a merit source, and how they work, then I created an article for my blog site.
https://talkmerit.com/the-source/index.php/articles/the-bitcoin-talk-merit-system

[LoyceV]

People shouldn't be encouraged with monetary rewards for this because it will just lead to abuse and is one more system to game.

Exactly!
I have a much better incentive: with Merit, I can help improve the forum.

Note that merit sources don't have "quota", it's a maximum.

I think that most merit sources do not need any merit.
Actually merit sources should not need merit at all. To avoid conflict of interest.

Merit isn't only meant to rank up, it's also meant to highlight quality posts. Exluding people from that doesn't make sense.

Give us extra, unpaid work to read more posts than usual to find some worthy of merit, then penalize us so we can't advance in rank?

How can you advance forward legendary?

Vod and I are in a quiet race. First, he congratulated me on overtaking him, then he overtook me, and now he's closing in again

[bitmover]

I think that most merit sources do not need any merit.
Actually merit sources should not need merit at all. To avoid conflict of interest.

This post illustrates the one major flaw in the merit system - it has a commercial value. It really should be a means of recognition and guidance for posters. The commercial value means that some members are prostituting themselves to gain merit.

Merit has commercial value , because it allows accounts to rank up and receive money from the account.

Of course people will prostitute to make money, someone also said somewhere that they were trading sex for merit lol

I don't understand how there can be a conflict of interest in awarding merits to merit sources.

I didn't said that awarding merit to merit source would be a conflict of interest.
I said that merit sources lacking merit to rank up could have a conflict of interest.

[Probinus]

Given that there are reports that the current actual number of merits given in the past months did not meet the expected merits for circulation, please let me propose an idea.

Give an incentive to the Merit Sources for them to be proactive in achieving their quota.

This will serve as a positive reinforcement to the Merit Sources to encourage them to attain the quota of number of merits for circulation for the month (or for a given period).

Not only this would be pretty much abused just like said above, merit sources would also be forced to give out what they have. If this happen, sources may give undeserving members merit which literally destroys the purpose of the system. I say let the sources give those who they deem worthy.

An incentive can be a form of payment (bitcoin?), special privilege (additional feature on their profile?), or anything that is beneficial to them.

Monetizing the merit system? Hell no.
Additional feature on profile? I think this would remove the anonimity of the merit sources, which is also unlikely.

[Vod]

How can you advance forward legendary?

By getting a certain number of activity points for the next level, which has not been determined yet.

[TheUltraElite]

Given that there are reports that the current actual number of merits given in the past months did not meet the expected merits for circulation, please let me propose an idea.
Give an incentive to the Merit Sources for them to be proactive in achieving their quota.

Being a merit source is already a method to make them proactive. There is no need to "push them" in order to get other people ranked up. Let them work at peace.

An incentive can be a form of payment (bitcoin?), special privilege (additional feature on their profile?), or anything that is beneficial to them.

No.

What do you think?

In my opinion there was an initial craze about the merit system till last month which has decreased now and initially I thought it was because of the dearth in number of merit sources but it seems that its not so. Maybe if they stop meriting and start becoming inactive, theymos would have to actually look into the spamming of the forum and redesign the merit system. Currently the spam problem will not be controlled without increasing the number of mods.

[DdmrDdmr]

As in everyday life, many volunteer tasks go unpaid. The reward is in contributing through fulfilling their task, and does not need nor expects any other kind of compensation. When one feels that the task at hand starts to become a burden, one can always leave it and pass the baton on to the next one in line.
Theymos I’m sure monitors Merit Source awarding totals, and probably leaves ample margin for self-management, bearing in mind that one will personally have different windows of spare  time available.
Merit Sources I doubt need much more incentive than the Forum’s recognition for their task, and a bit of freedom to manage how they fulfil it.

What is true though is that there seems to be a rather extended feeling that there aren’t enough available Merit Sources. This nevertheless is really a subset of overall Forum’s weekly total merit being awarded, which is in the area of 3,9k to 4,4k per week lately.
If we take May 2018 for example (to get a complete month), the total awarded sMerit adds up to 19.807 sMerits. That is just little more than a thousand over what the Merit Sources have at their disposal in a 30 day window. We do not know however what proportion of May’s sMerit has been awarded by Merit Sources, and how much by regular forum members.
Even so, it does seem quite a shocker to me that the maximum potential sMerit for all Merit Sources is nearly equal to all the sMerit awarded forum wide within the month of May. If Merit Sources were at their máx., it would practically mean that only they alone are awarding sMerit on the forum (we know that is not the case really, but neither do we know how far this is from being true).

By the way, the official stats now states that there are 81 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 18.700 sMerit per 30 days. I wasn’t aware of the newly appointed Merit Source whoever he/she may be.   

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Merit sources don't need any incentive.  The incentive is *for everyone else* to increase the quality of their posts, but that doesn't seem to be happening.  So threads like this are both unnecessary and prove that the system is working by demonstrating that new members aren't ranking up too quickly.

I've said it before, and it seems like it's the general consensus that this forum probably needs more merit sources--especially on the local boards.  But until sig campaigns start paying for posts there, that won't keep the non-English speaking population from trying to post in the main section and murdering the language in the process.  There have been a couple of new merit source applications as of late, and that's encouraging.

People shouldn't be encouraged with monetary rewards for this because it will just lead to abuse and is one more system to game.

Word.  OP might not realize that anything here that can be abused, will be.

[Strufmbae]

I ran out of idea regarding on what incentive to give.  But the main point is to give them an incentive as a form of recognition to them.

Isn't it a great privilege being a merit source(s)?.

If i have huge amount of merit, i will be happy to give it to those who only deserves it, to a post where anybody can connect themselve to crypto industry.

 I believe that receiving merits from other is also a recognition of your contfibution to the forum. 

Just a smiple thank you is enough with it, they'll appreciate it.