Should ANN and services threads be excluded from the merit system ?

[athanz88]

To summarize: They gave away 176 Merit to this thread since introduction, and earned 5 new sMerit in the past 120 days.
My conclusion: this phenomenon will die out once they run out of sMerit.

Looking at this conclusion of yours, based on your reference, i too, believe that it will die out once they run out of sMerit. It is just kinda hurt to see some ANN thread got so many merits, while some members made a good thread.

And i hope the OP of that ANN threads use and give the merits wisely. Because it can create a new chain again if it is not.

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[d5000]

I would have no problem with the merit functionality turned off in ANN threads. However, I don't know if this makes any sense.

People would then probably spam the "Altcoin Discussion" board with trivial threads about (obviously biased) "comparisons" between coins and similar stuff, and then merit these posts instead of the ANN's, which is even less desirable. "Altcoin Discussion" is already a trashcan, but I sometimes find something interesting there, as sometimes there are interesting developments in the altcoin space (in <2% of the coin projects). (My dream would be a strictly moderated "Cryptocurrency Technology" subforum for not-Bitcoin-related technical stuff, but for now, "Altcoin Discussion" is the place where these threads belong.)

I have merited a handful of ANNs because I considered the coins interesting experiments. And in some altcoin ANN threads there are still "real" discussions taking place, so somethings there are posts (for example, tutorials) that deserve a Merit.

Just a comment: I really don't get how that "ANN bumping" can make sense. Does someone really open the "Announcements" subforum to find interesting projects to invest? I think it was in 2015 or so when I searched for "worthy" altcoins in this subforum the last time (excluding threads about coins I already know and have on my watchlist).

[hilariousetc]

I was thinking about this the other day. Users are just wasting their merit on them to be honest, and they're just needlessly giving them away as a "like" or "thanks" instead of to posts that are actually of substance. Wouldn't surprise me if some of the bounties are requesting that users merit their ANN bounty threads as well in exchange for higher bounties. I wouldn't be against removing the merit button from certain sections and the first post in Ann threads would be a good candidate.

[bitart]

I was thinking about this the other day. Users are just wasting their merit on them to be honest, and they're just needlessly giving them away as a "like" or "thanks" instead of to posts that are actually of substance. Wouldn't surprise me if some of the bounties are requesting that users merit their ANN bounty threads as well in exchange for higher bounties. I wouldn't be against removing the merit button from certain sections and the first post in Ann threads would be a good candidate.

If you remove the merit button from e.g. the ANN threads, they will open a similar topic in the Offtopic section and they will use that to distribute the merits, if they really care and want...
And in the offtopic, they just can't be blamed, if it's not too obvious that they buy/sell merits there...

[Welsh]

And in some altcoin ANN threads there are still "real" discussions taking place, so somethings there are posts (for example, tutorials) that deserve a Merit.

I think this the what the majority of people miss. I've said this a few times, but there are some worthy posts within the announcement threads, and actual meaningful discussion. Unfortunately, it's these threads which get drowned out by the rest of the garbage posted there, because they aren't the ones promising free coins, and using bumping services.

[Joel_Jantsen]

ANN Threads - Yes!

That's just awful.  I don't quite get why people are meriting ANN threads.  Are these thread-starters getting some sort of kickback from this?  Is it to get the threads on the "most merited threads" list?  Are people just kissing ass?  I wouldn't think that would be the case, since I can't imagine all these people would throw away their merits on ass-kissing.

- Shit-posters are having a hard time to understand what merit is or how it functions. Legends say, in Indonesia you can buy a pizza in exchange for merits. The number of merit beggars in Philippines have caused a havoc in their economy.

I was thinking about this the other day. Users are just wasting their merit on them to be honest, and they're just needlessly giving them away as a "like" or "thanks" instead of to posts that are actually of substance. Wouldn't surprise me if some of the bounties are requesting that users merit their ANN bounty threads as well in exchange for higher bounties. I wouldn't be against removing the merit button from certain sections and the first post in Ann threads would be a good candidate.

Yes I've seen such cases where the bounty manager asks all the participants to merit the ANN thread as it makes the project look more 'legitimate'. ANN threads will be a good place to block merits.