sMerit participants – a worrying descending trend (!/?)

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>Work in Progress?

Not sure what your question refers to. If it’s related to the Merit System, it has recently evolved as I’m sure you are aware of, with actions taken on two fronts:

-   Increase the amount of Merit Sources (thereby more eyes on the field). Collaterally, since more people should be merited, we should get more meriters, and thus increase those figures shown in the OP (as has already happened this week as can be seen here: sMerit participants – A quick follow-up after the changes – Good so far ).
-   Increase the requirement to become a Jr. Member (+ demote non-compliant accounts).

The merit system is certainly not perfect, and plays out better in theory than in practice. It could be much tougher, but it normally leans towards being rather benevolent in an environment that is delicate to manage, and where the attraction to campaigns for many is viviously interpreted as a free pass to spam your way through the day, with minimum effort and engagement.

Ideally, Merit System should not exist, and it does kind of bring on a cognitive dissonance, where by one believes the system should and shouldn’t exist as contradictory simultaneous believes, albeit one being on the theoretical plane and the other on the practical one.

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[DesertOasis3]

<…>Work in Progress?

Not sure what your question refers to. If it’s related to the Merit System, it has recently evolved as I’m sure you are aware of, with actions taken on two fronts:

Yes I know it has recently evolved and I would like to think that these changes will mean more people getting noticed for posts that offer some level of contribution, but what I mean by work in Progress if it has evolved then it clearly needed tweaking. We won't know if the tweak will be the last until it's efficacy has played itself out so in that respect it is still in development.

Ideally, Merit System should not exist, and it does kind of bring on a cognitive dissonance, where by one believes the system should and shouldn’t exist as contradictory simultaneous believes, albeit one being on the theoretical plane and the other on the practical one.

Two words:- Shrodinger's cat! 

[LoyceV]

Damn, LoyceV broke my nice streak of 4s...

Sorry
I only saw this now. Since you've hit the limit, you should/could make your own version of the Vulpine Order of Merit. But wait until I no longer qualify, I don't want to suggest this so that I'm the first to reach it.

Which brings up an interesting dilemma - is it ok to send merits to LoyceMobile after this?

I think the limitation was meant to limit abuse, so you can't instantly bump a Newbie to Full Member. Assuming that's the reason, meriting an alt account shouldn't be a problem.
But LoyceMobile doesn't make many high quality posts. Mainly because I really dislike typing on a phone, editing quotes is terrible, and it keeps writing stuff I didn't intent to write.

Which brings up an interesting dilemma - is it ok to send merits to LoyceMobile after this?

I don't think so.
You might forget that you already merited him for a specific post and thereby give him double the credit he deserves

If you put it this way, it sounds bad. My interpretation was that suchmoon would merit a post that deserves it. An alt-account's post shouldn't be merited on behalf of a post made by the main account, that would be bad.

[suchmoon]

My interpretation was that suchmoon would merit a post that deserves it.

That was the reason for my question, yes. What if I see a good post made by LoyceMobile - should I refrain from meriting it because the person already got 50 merits from me?

This is further complicated by the fact that I actually negged one user for using alts to bypass the 50-merit limit, although that was a slightly different scenario - multiple alt senders.

Anyway, I decided against doing that. Sorry LoyceV, you're gonna have to make do with only 50 merits from me...

[eddie13]

<Thread about descending merit participants..
<Talking about Maxing out merits given from one legendary source to another, long time consistent merit participants, and their alts..
<Serves no purpose other than to halve (1/2) the amount of smerits that could possibly be sent to new/periodic participants..  

[LoyceV]

<Serves no purpose other than to halve (1/2) the amount of smerits that could possibly be sent to new/periodic participants..  

I'm pretty sure I can get my source sMerits increased if I manage to spend them all, so I see no reason not to send them to higher ranks. In the past days, I've emptied my source sMerits for the first time ever, I now have 345 sMerits "of my own" to distribute, and if I ever manage to do that, I'll PM theymos and ask to increase my source amount.

[eddie13]

<Serves no purpose other than to halve (1/2) the amount of smerits that could possibly be sent to new/periodic participants..  

I'm pretty sure I can get my source sMerits increased if I manage to spend them all, so I see no reason not to send them to higher ranks. In the past days, I've emptied my source sMerits for the first time ever, I now have 345 sMerits "of my own" to distribute, and if I ever manage to do that, I'll PM theymos and ask to increase my source amount.

People send you plenty, more than enough, don't they?
Not only are they halved, they are sitting in surplus..

I don't mean at all to say you don't "deserve" them, because you posts and work are awesome..
Just pointing out the deflation aspect, and this particular case is just an example..

[suchmoon]

<Thread about descending merit participants..
<Talking about Maxing out merits given from one legendary source to another, long time consistent merit participants, and their alts..
<Serves no purpose other than to halve (1/2) the amount of smerits that could possibly be sent to new/periodic participants..  

Merits are for good posts. If LoyceV makes good posts he gets merits. I've sent merits to perhaps 500+ different users, who in turn could distribute them to thousands more users if they wanted to, which I would not be able to do alone. That's the purpose.

Merits are not scarce, theymos can produce any number of them at any time, which he did just recently.

[LoyceV]

Anyway, I decided against doing that. Sorry LoyceV, you're gonna have to make do with only 50 merits from me...

"only"
Just a thought: if you were to send 40 Merit to userX, and then send 12 Merit to his known alt, you're exceeding 50 without getting an error warning.

People send you plenty, more than enough, don't they?
Not only are they halved, they are sitting in surplus..

I can't complain about a shortage of Merit indeed I must admit hI've always had a hard time sending out more than I receive, but I'm working on tipping the scale.

I've sent merits to perhaps 500+ different users

Make that 698 as of last Friday:

Code:

     1. 5412 Merit sent by suchmoon (#234771) to 698 unique users in 1609 transactions

See suchmoon's full Merit history.

Merits are not scarce

This is indeed a common misconception. I think (but I'm not sure) this is what eddie13 means too.

[hidden_legend]

I think members of this forum either ignore or don't pay attention to merit someone's post even its worthy and informative.Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators or any famous manager who managing bounties.Its my observations only and it can be wrong too.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

Not really:


The above is the overall sMerit sent from one rank (left) to another (top) (**). Look at it in detail and you’ll see that for example Sr. Members (38.244) have received more sMerit than Heroes (25.291), Full Member (42.830) than Sr. Member (38.244), and Members (51.601) more than any. Of course one has to remember that the number of people in each rank decreases the higher the rank, but even so, the assertion is not correct on aggregate terms.

It’s better to look at it on Merit Dashboard (Tab labelled From/To Ranks), where you can filter by dates and delimit the above data to recent months for example.

Note (**): Ranks are current ranks for each user, not ranks at the exact time the merit was awarded (not feasible with currently available data).

[Jet Cash]

I think members of this forum either ignore or don't pay attention to merit someone's post even its worthy and informative.Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators or any famous manager who managing bounties.Its my observations only and it can be wrong too.

I get so tired of reading this rubbish. Do your really think that I go through a thread reading the posters column, and only read a post if I see a certain rank in the poster profile? When I look through a thread, I read the replies, and I ignore everything else, including the signatures. If a post ticks my merit box, then I'll have a look at the poster details, and I might then check to see if any sMerits he picks up will get distributed in the underworld. That's really the only thing that will make me change my mind about awarding merits.

[qwk]

Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators

Actually, the opposite holds true to a certain extent.
I tend to give less merit to a good post by a Legendary, especially when I'm low on sMerit.
Simply because he won't need it as much as an aspiring Newbie / Jr. / ... / Hero.

OTOH, many Legendaries tend to make more relevant, insightful, helpful posts.
Simply because they tend to be a lot more experienced and usually are well beyond the "chatter childhood" of new users.

[coinlocket$]

Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators

~

Actually he is right, but the graph is infuenced by merit source (most of them are with very high rank), also last update I made was around 2 months ago
As we can see people tend to merit rank similar at their rank.

[Jet Cash]

I see newbies get most merits from other newbies and juniors. That would tend to confirm the spambie promotions of alts and bots. This is another reason for being extra careful when awarding them with merits.

[suchmoon]

I think members of this forum either ignore or don't pay attention to merit someone's post even its worthy and informative.Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators or any famous manager who managing bounties.Its my observations only and it can be wrong too.

Yes, it's completely wrong. This lazy drive-by yapping about undermerited posts needs to stop. Go ahead and post your merit source application, show us those "worthy and informative" posts that deserve merit.

[art.vrn]

With each month to get the merit is becoming increasingly difficult. It's hard for me to understand how constructive and good a post should be to get at least 1 merit for it. I want to develop on the forum, but I don't know how to receive merit at the initial stage of existence? Few people will give me a merit, because I have a newbie's rank, and few will take my words seriously. Even staying 1-3 years on the forum is very difficult to get at least the rank of a full member, and it's scary. It would be desirable, that, users with an initial rank could receive a merit easier, than the skilled users who constantly receives it.

It is important for beginners to get a merit, because this motivates them to further develop on the forum.

[riyarana1123]

The decision to remove those user who operate multiple accounts by system of merit is good idea but somewhere it also effect the number of people in the forum.