Merit Drying Up?

[darklus123]

After all i still consider myself as of the moment as a free merit distributor. I usually give my smerit just whenever I like the post or just feelin like I should give it to that certain posts.

I've also tried distributing my smerit by posting a certain thread to give out my smerit which is I think not a good idea even if the purpose is to help newbies posts who has not been seen by me.

That is why i have concluded that some other users who has still smerit to give are doing the same thing as me. They are just handing it out freely when they across to those certain posts. Instead of looking for some good posts having the purpose of distributing merit and that might be the reason why it seems that merit distribution is drying up

[1713933992]

1713933992

[mdayonliner]

I for sure agree! I am having trouble ranking up and I want to look trustworthy for my ANN! I feel no one is giving it out much anymore. Maybe the merit sources, but no one else. I personally have not even see merit sources give any out but then again I haven't been looking for it so I am sure they do.

Looking at your posting history - it not gonna work until you change your posting habit. I do not see any good post that is to contribute for the forum. My friendly suggestion - change your posting behavior, be a part of the forum. 

[askmecrypto]

Is it just me or has handing out Merit become a lot less common place now? I rarely see anybody handing it out now, certainly a lot less than a couple of months ago.

As a Merit Source (I don’t care if people know) I like to look around for good posts & tend to hand out at least 2 a day.

Do we, as a community, need to do more to reward high quality posts, should we be more actively looking to hand out Merit?

I guess when the system was first implemented those who weren’t Merit Sources had more sMerit & naturally would be more likely to hand it out. It’s been a while now though & lots of posters may simply have run out.

There has definitely been a big drop in the amount of posts I see Merited though.
If you still have sMerit do your bit, actively look to reward good posters.

I find the reason being that most of the profiles which were initially provided base merits are out of smerits by giving it to other people, later on since they themselves have not received any new merits, they are unable to give smerits to other profiles as well. Forum is mostly dependable on Merit Sources to receive merits now.

[Jet Cash]

Every day you should get back the source merits you spent 30 days ago.

Nothing I do ever seems to be normal or standard. I wasn't one of the merit sources in the initial appointments. I received an airdrop of 80 sMerits, and I was lucky enough to 'earn' quite a few more. I allocated these in ones and twos to post that I thought were interesting, and I haven't flown a spammers sig. I think these facts resulted in me being made a merit source in the secondary allocation. At that time there was a known flaw in the awarding software, and when I awarded merits, they were taken from both my source merits and sMerits. However, I think this may have been retrospective, and I had a constant source balance of 0. I wrote to Theymos, and he doubled my allocation, and this seems to be being replaced normally, but I suspect that I may still be on half rations. This isn't a problem, as I still have merits to award.

I opened a private invitation only chat room for merit sources and DTs, as I wasn't sure if my fairly severe policy towards awarding meits was beneficial to the forum. The discussions there were very helpful for me. If any merit sources feel that a private discussion about possible changes in the policy of awarding merits, they are welcome to join the room and open discussions. For obvious reasons, this offer has to be restricted to merit sources, DTs, staff and admins.

[Silent26]

That's a really important statement with which I totally concur. Instead of dividing the awards in between "Bad and good", we mentally can change and divide it into:
- NOt bad= 1 merit
- Good= 2
- Very good= 3
-Awesome= 5 or more.
As an example, of course.

This seems to be a good basis of distributing sMerits. I got some sMerits which will be enough to make a Jr. Member rank up to Member but I've been having some trouble looking for Quality posts from other members that's why I end up giving them to some of top Merited users around here. But seeing this, I think it's just fine to give users with a "Not bad" post ratings. The problem is, I'm also having trouble to find even post with a "Not bad" rating.

Yes. Some people have been acting like Merit Police recently.

Yeah, but almost over 80% of reported users who has been abusing Merits are proven guilty. The good news is, abusers are getting lesser lately.
Because a couple of months ago, Merit abusers used to send almost 50 sMerits to their alt account, friends etc to a post that doesn't deserve it but as we can see now, they are sending less sMerits, maybe it's because it's in order to keep their sMerits trading smooth and undetected.

Sometimes it's really unfair, those shitposters almost rank up receiving merits while their post are shitposts while there are some members who post good contents but can't even receive a piece of Merit.

I like it, but I always feel like I'm going to be questioned if I merit "not bad" posts. I already wonder what people might think about some of my Merit choices. I'm not sure if that's a rational fear though.

Some people will really question you for sure, it's because they're too judgemental. Meriting a "not bad" post is not too bad at all. It doesn't matter if they judge you or question you etc. What important is you gave a precious Merit to a poster you think that deserves it.

Over thousands of spam posts, there are still some good post hidden behind these garbages

~snip

Too bad for this guy. Even a "not bad" ratings won't fit any of your posts. But somehow you got about 40% over 100 to reach "not bad" rating. You need a lot of improvement and one thing, you should stop spamming in Megathreads, I have no reasons to wonder if your account get banned soon. Just saying. I and mdayonliner already warned you. Make some improvements buddy.

[Betfair]

I'm just curious is there any new merits being generated by the mods or it's all available and in the hands of users?

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Is it just me or has handing out Merit become a lot less common place now? I rarely see anybody handing it out now, certainly a lot less than a couple of months ago.

As a Merit Source (I don’t care if people know) I like to look around for good posts & tend to hand out at least 2 a day.

Do we, as a community, need to do more to reward high quality posts, should we be more actively looking to hand out Merit?

I guess when the system was first implemented those who weren’t Merit Sources had more sMerit & naturally would be more likely to hand it out. It’s been a while now though & lots of posters may simply have run out.

There has definitely been a big drop in the amount of posts I see Merited though.
If you still have sMerit do your bit, actively look to reward good posters.

I find the reason being that most of the profiles which were initially provided base merits are out of smerits by giving it to other people, later on since they themselves have not received any new merits, they are unable to give smerits to other profiles as well. Forum is mostly dependable on Merit Sources to receive merits now.

Agree with the bolded, I think I had something like 200-300 base meeit’s to begin with. I now only have around 5 left plus my source merit which I’m currently only able to hand out a handful per day.

I'm just curious is there any new merits being generated by the mods or it's all available and in the hands of users?

Would be good if everybody received an airdrop of sMerit, yes.

[Jet Cash]

Would be good if everybody received an airdrop of sMerit, yes.

I don't agree with that. There is no shortage of merits to award, but there is a shortage of meritable posts. There is also a problem finding them.

Merits are constantly being generated. Every award of a merit creates a half-child. The marriage of two half-children allows for the award of an sMerit, which gives birth to another half-child. This means that every source merit created effectively provides two sMerits for the community. Upon consideration of this, you will realise that half of the sMerits are available for the better members of the community to award, and not just for merit sources. If we can keep merits away from the Twitbook bounty spammers, then there will be more sMerit available for decent posts made by genuine members of the forum.

[Betfair]

Would be good if everybody received an airdrop of sMerit, yes.

I don't agree with that. There is no shortage of merits to award, but there is a shortage of meritable posts. There is also a problem finding them.

Merits are constantly being generated. Every award of a merit creates a half-child. The marriage of two half-children allows for the award of an sMerit, which gives birth to another half-child. This means that every source merit created effectively provides two sMerits for the community. Upon consideration of this, you will realise that half of the sMerits are available for the better members of the community to award, and not just for merit sources. If we can keep merits away from the Twitbook bounty spammers, then there will be more sMerit available for decent posts made by genuine members of the forum.

There is some good posts and threads in turkish language board but none of those getting any merits as far as i can see.Should i blame the system or users who have merits and not sharing them?

[Jet Cash]

There is some good posts and threads in turkish language board but none of those getting any merits as far as i can see.Should i blame the system or users who have merits and not sharing them?

I have always said that crypto is international, and so is bitcoin Talk. It is useful for us to know what is going on in various countries. For example, it would be good if there was a discussion about the proposed TurkCoin, and it was available for English speakers to read. One of the reasons I started Fit to Talk English was to try to bring these discussions to the English boards on Bitcoin Talk. Because it offers no benefits to Twitbook spammers, it seems to be under-utilised.

[LoyceV]

Would be good if everybody received an airdrop of sMerit, yes.

I don't think that will ever happen again, as it will be enable spammers to rank up again.

There is some good posts and threads in turkish language board but none of those getting any merits as far as i can see.Should i blame the system or users who have merits and not sharing them?

The system allows users to apply to be a merit source, I'm not sure of the Turkish section has one already:

If you want to be a merit source:

 1. Be a somewhat established member.
 2. Collect TEN posts written in the last couple of months by other people that have not received nearly enough merit for how good they are, and post quotes for them all in a new Meta thread. The point of this is to demonstrate your ability to give out merit usefully.
 3. We will take a look at your history and maybe make you a source.

I am especially eager to have merit sources in sub-communities such as the local sections.

[@oweljayr]

Is it just me or has handing out Merit become a lot less common place now? I rarely see anybody handing it out now, certainly a lot less than a couple of months ago.

As a Merit Source (I don’t care if people know) I like to look around for good posts & tend to hand out at least 2 a day.

Do we, as a community, need to do more to reward high quality posts, should we be more actively looking to hand out Merit?

I guess when the system was first implemented those who weren’t Merit Sources had more sMerit & naturally would be more likely to hand it out. It’s been a while now though & lots of posters may simply have run out.

There has definitely been a big drop in the amount of posts I see Merited though.
If you still have sMerit do your bit, actively look to reward good posters.

Absolutely sir, I have been trying hard to capture the heart and the mind of so many veteran members of bitcointalk to get at least 1 merit ( I could jump high celebrating from where I am standing right now seeing a merit in my account) for all the replies, quotes and post I am doing.  But life's too hard for it.  I thought I should pass over a needle hole before I could get at least 1 merit.  Too bad but I am still hoping and never giving up finding 1 kind heart veteran.  

[mdayonliner]

Absolutely sir, I have been trying hard to capture the heart and the mind of so many veteran members of bitcointalk to get at least 1 merit ( I could jump high celebrating from where I am standing right now seeing a merit in my account) for all the replies, quotes and post I am doing.  But life's to hard for it.  I thought I should pass over a needle hole before I could get at least 1 merit....  

Sir, madam, friend - would you point me one topic from your post history which you think worth merit. Unfortunately, I can not find a good one to merit. I have one sMerit to spend.

Looking forward.

PS: Listen mate. You need to improve your post quality if you really want to start receiving merits.

Update:

Too bad but I am still hoping and never giving up finding 1 kind heart veteran.  

Stop looking for kind heart. It sounds, you are begging.  

[Jet Cash]

 I thought I should pass over a needle hole before I could get at least 1 merit.  Too bad but I am still hoping and never giving up finding 1 kind heart veteran.  

We've tried to help people to improve their posting skills on Fit to Talk . There is even a thread there about the eye of a needle quote that is attributed to Jesus.
https://fittotalk.com/english-talk/index.php?topic=48.0

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Would be good if everybody received an airdrop of sMerit, yes.

That would be catastrophic, I'm afraid.  If you think merit sales are bad now, can you imagine what would happen if the spammers and scammers suddenly got a sMerit award?  They'd be selling them left and right, not to mention giving them to their alt accounts.  I would not support that.  What we need are more responsible merit sources, and hopefully that will happen in time.

im meriting from time to time the "usual suspects".

Yeah, same here and I'm comfortable doing so, because there are some members who consistently make good posts and they deserve those merits.  And remember, Hero members also need merits to rank up to Legendary, so I don't have a problem giving those members my sMerits when I have them to give.  I have found some lower-ranked members making one or two good posts recently, but they seem to be rare.

I thought I should pass over a needle hole before I could get at least 1 merit. 

You mean 'squeeze through a needle hole'?  I think the problem might be your language skill.  I haven't looked at where you post, but you might do better on the local boards than in the main section.  You basically have to be pretty good at English to stand out in the main sections.  There are so many non-English-speaking spammers posting for their signature campaigns that if I catch a mistake within the first sentence of a post (assuming there's even any punctuation that would delineate a sentence), I just skip right over it.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Would be good if everybody received an airdrop of sMerit, yes.

That would be catastrophic, I'm afraid.  If you think merit sales are bad now, can you imagine what would happen if the spammers and scammers suddenly got a sMerit award?  They'd be selling them left and right, not to mention giving them to their alt accounts.  I would not support that.  What we need are more responsible merit sources, and hopefully that will happen in time.

im meriting from time to time the "usual suspects".

Yeah, same here and I'm comfortable doing so, because there are some members who consistently make good posts and they deserve those merits.  And remember, Hero members also need merits to rank up to Legendary, so I don't have a problem giving those members my sMerits when I have them to give.  I have found some lower-ranked members making one or two good posts recently, but they seem to be rare.

I thought I should pass over a needle hole before I could get at least 1 merit. 

You mean 'squeeze through a needle hole'?  I think the problem might be your language skill.  I haven't looked at where you post, but you might do better on the local boards than in the main section.  You basically have to be pretty good at English to stand out in the main sections.  There are so many non-English-speaking spammers posting for their signature campaigns that if I catch a mistake within the first sentence of a post (assuming there's even any punctuation that would delineate a sentence), I just skip right over it.

Fair point (re: bolded). I didn’t consider that.

[friends1980]

Absolutely sir, I have been trying hard to capture the heart and the mind of so many veteran members of bitcointalk to get at least 1 merit ( I could jump high celebrating from where I am standing right now seeing a merit in my account) for all the replies, quotes and post I am doing.  But life's too hard for it.  I thought I should pass over a needle hole before I could get at least 1 merit.  Too bad but I am still hoping and never giving up finding 1 kind heart veteran.  

Allow me to be very pretentious by quoting myself, whilst giving you some valuable advice:

Don't wanna sound all mellow but I think the idea of contributing positively to the quality of the forum, is already a reward on its own. In return, you get quality threads and quality replies from other members. That's at least how it's supposed to be: getting rid of all those useless spam replies.

Gaining Merit, thus gaining other members' respect, as well as receiving higher bounties, makes that reward even more worth the effort. But if receiving Merits to get higher bounties is your only purpose, you're condemned to leading a very bitter life, my OP friend, cuz you'll be searching so desperately to write something down that's been done before anyway, that you'll be making a complete fool of yourself.

And just in case this still wasn't clear enough, let me say it in another way:

If you would jump high celebrating for a Merit, you don't need to get Merit.

You need to get a life, man. Or sir.

[nakamura12]

Absolutely sir, I have been trying hard to capture the heart and the mind of so many veteran members of bitcointalk to get at least 1 merit ( I could jump high celebrating from where I am standing right now seeing a merit in my account) for all the replies, quotes and post I am doing.  But life's too hard for it.  I thought I should pass over a needle hole before I could get at least 1 merit.  Too bad but I am still hoping and never giving up finding 1 kind heart veteran.  

Allow me to be very pretentious by quoting myself, whilst giving you some valuable advice:

Don't wanna sound all mellow but I think the idea of contributing positively to the quality of the forum, is already a reward on its own. In return, you get quality threads and quality replies from other members. That's at least how it's supposed to be: getting rid of all those useless spam replies.

Gaining Merit, thus gaining other members' respect, as well as receiving higher bounties, makes that reward even more worth the effort. But if receiving Merits to get higher bounties is your only purpose, you're condemned to leading a very bitter life, my OP friend, cuz you'll be searching so desperately to write something down that's been done before anyway, that you'll be making a complete fool of yourself.

And just in case this still wasn't clear enough, let me say it in another way:

If you would jump high celebrating for a Merit, you don't need to get Merit.

You need to get a life, man. Or sir.

For me it's still the same as getting merits only even if he/she is trying to get the respect of a certain person. If one's mindset is for forum purposes then i'm sure lots of merits will come along the way.

You need to get a life, man. Or sir.

That's why @oweljayr trying to earn merit and the person's trust so that the next time he post it will be easily gain merit from the person trusted @oweljayr. The purpose of theymos with the merit system is for the forum not for the members (users/people) in the forum.

[coinlocket$]

I think reducing the amount necessary to go up a level could be a good solution (20-30%). What is the difference in earning 90 points or 60 to move up from member to full member?
Shitposter will never rank up, you will increase the chances for people who have problems with English.(And before you say yes, but there are local sections, some of them are without "active" merit sources).

[TitanAI]

I don't think replying gets you any merit points though, there are good threads with tons of replies, not many scroll through all the posts and read them. Everyone usually reads between 3-10 pages and that's all, what if someone on page 100 had a good opinion on-topic, who will merit that one?
I understand that the merit system was created to stop spammers and shit-posters, but what about real posters that just say their 2 cents about a topic and that's it? I mean why does a post need to be 1000 lines with 10 million arguments(I probably exaggerated here:) to be considered a good quality post?
Anyways, I stopped long ago trying to get merit, people still make shit-posts in places they shouldn't, because some just don't care if it's a shit post or not as long as the thread stays up and it's visible(referring here more to paid posters that bump threads).
P.S. I stopped trying to get useful information about bitcoin or other interesting stuff related to cryptocurrencies... I began to use the search button more often to find what I really wanna read...something interesting for me.