When everybody says “Merit” I'm asking: What about Activity???

[cryptovigi]

Since 1 merit for Jr Member revolution everybody talks about this magic thing.

Newbies (including me) try hard to get their first one. They read guides, starting new threats writing their first “valuable” posts. What is interesting in 99 out of hundred cases they try to convince everybody how happy are they now and how perfect solution is rising the requirements of ranking up.

Ranked users also make a lot of discuss about this “merit revolution”. Mostly pointing out its advantages as lowering the spam allover the forum thanks to temporarily kicking out thousands account from signature bounties. They also considering is one merit for Jr enough? Maybe this limit should be lifted up higher like 5 or 10 or even more merit.

But… let’s leave merit for a while (today probably everybody are fed up this word).

When everybody says “Merit” I'm asking: What about Activity???

Activity on this forum is a parameter based on the post count and time since being registered. Being more precisely it’s minimal value from the total number of posts  and the number of 14 days periods one’s posted since registration multiplied by 14.

activity = min(time * 14, posts) 

The idea of providing this parameter was also decreasing spam. After this implementation spamming more than one post per day became useless if ones purpose was only get higher rank. Other words it became impossible to rank any account faster than fixed period of time.

Ok, that happen in 2013 and it works until today. Has anything changed since 2013? I think it has! Few years ago new era – ICO’s Era has come. But I don’t want to talk about altcoins in general but only about two activities connected with ICOs - bounty and airdrop.

Why? What makes the difference?

Before bounty and airdorp threads have started, each post even shit one had “meaning”. By posting anything you started a new topic of discussion or simply took a part in existing one. Even if the posts were only “Yes”, “I don’t agree”, “I like this project”, “Bulshit!”, etc. they were somebody's voice in discussion. It also means that poster at least has read a few post from the thread to chose if his answer should be “You’ve right!” or “What a nonsense!”.

What about airdrops and bounties? Posts in such threads in 99,99% only inform about 2 things:
1. "I want free coins!”
2. “I did my job - here is my report/retweets/reposts...”
And that’s it... nothing else... Other words they have completely no meaning from discussion board point of view. This case they shouldn’t also be treated like any kind of activity on forum. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against bounties or airdrops I’ve also taken part in many of them, but look the situation:

Today it’s possible that guy whose only activity on forum was asking for free coins 60 times (airdrop) or taking part in few bounties is writing one good post (or get 10 merits in other way – as you all know it’s unfortunately possible) and he is automatically given Member rank. Does such guy really deserve Member rank?

Even in signature bounty campaigns posts from bounty threads are not counted so why we should count it while calculating important Activity parameter.
Summing up: my idea is to cut off the posts written in bounties section from the number of posts used to calculate activity parameter.
I’m not sure how difficult it could be from the developer side, but if there are future, which divides all written post into 14-days periods and then calculated only not empty periods probably there would be also possibility to cut off post from bounty board while calculation activity.

[Welsh]

It has been discussed before that activity shouldn't be counted in certain sections. Certainly, the bounty section. I would probably agree. But, it wouldn't help with the spam problem. People posting there have no issues with not receiving any activity from posting there. They are only there to collect their money. Activity isn't really the limiting factor anymore when it comes to ranking up. In almost all cases the merit requirement will be the hardest to fulfill. There's only a select few which would find activity a limiting factor rather than merit.

[Steamtyme]

Today it’s possible that guy whose only activity on forum was asking for free coins 60 times (airdrop) or taking part in few bounties is writing one good post (or get 10 merits in other way – as you all know it’s unfortunately possible) and he is automatically given Member rank. Does such guy really deserve Member rank?

Even in signature bounty campaigns posts from bounty threads are not counted so why we should count it while calculating important Activity parameter.
Summing up: my idea is to cut off the posts written in bounties section from the number of posts used to calculate activity parameter.
I’m not sure how difficult it could be from the developer side, but if there are future, which divides all written post into 14-days periods and then calculated only not empty periods probably there would be also possibility to cut off post from bounty board while calculation activity.

I don't think activity really matters anymore. The landscape here has changed over the years and that's why a new metric such as Merit was introduced at a time when more was needed. Other than it's a historical/traditional aspect of the forum ranks don't matter much either. Today merit is the gauge of an account that is more than likely to provide you with information of interest or usefulness. This will be more accurate as time goes on and we've gotten further removed from the air dropped merit distribution.

Your changes are not very difficult for the Admins to implement as it has been done in other sections, but I do not see it as an effective way to keep these members low on activity. They will just spam some other board if they actually need the activity, which is the easiest part of the equation now.

A more effective idea to remove bounties from spoiling the forum would be to remove the ability to merit in bounty threads or boards.

[CryptoSifus]

One thing you guys have missed is that airdrop and bounty posts are no longer limited to those channels.

New airdrop/bounty requirements are often simply to show activity in BCT forums (excluding bounty and off topic).
So all that has happened is that the spam has moved from a designated area and spread out into other threads.

I personally think merit should be activity based and not arbitrarily held in the hands of the few who decide if a noob is worthy of joining their ranks.
Personally ranking is like grading in school. it's someone else's opinion of your worth or value. When you have character it is irrelevant.

I couldn't really care less what others think of me. I will still state my opinions and thoughts here regardless.
I'm here to participate and have a voice in the discussions that I find interesting.
If I can benefit from airdrops etc through having the signature, then great. I just find these arbitrary rule changes super annoying.

I make my posts and offer my voice to contribute to the conversation all the while being subject to unregulated mod censorship (having my posts deleted even though they were 100% on point and relevant to the conversation or channel) and demotion by these rule changes.

New contributors often feel like they are going backwards the more they do to try and be active. I went from junior member back to noob and lost my signature privileges and airdrop revenue that got me here contributing in the first place.

What's the choice to get it back? Beg for merit (that's the real spam)? Hope that someone with merit takes note of your post and benevolently gifts you a merit point (wishful thinking in a field of 1000's of weekly posts)?

All that will happen is the real value (new users) will be driven to the next best thing.
It might not happen right away, but if these types of rule changes and restrictions continue I believe that will be the first best choice for a new contributor. Find another forum where your voice will be allowed and you will be recognized fairly for your contributions.

[Mpamaegbu]

A more effective idea to remove bounties from spoiling the forum would be to remove the ability to merit in bounty threads or boards.

I would really love to see Theymos experiment on removing every bounty and signature campaigns and let's even see how things will pan out here with all these hypocrites denying they aren't posting here for reward, especially the high ranking members. At least, one month should be ok to test run this and see if posting activities won't be drastically reduced and traffic affected here.

[matthew1981]

Getting merit is very hard to get and can make you really quit. In my opinion, I think they must review the post of others that is good and maybe there is chance that can be ranked up as Jr member who is deserving even though have no merit.

[Welsh]

Getting merit is very hard to get and can make you really quit. In my opinion, I think they must review the post of others that is good and maybe there is chance that can be ranked up as Jr member who is deserving even though have no merit.

Its really not that hard, and for sure anyone is capable of getting 1 merit. Sure, if you have hundreds of alt accounts I imagine its going to be a pain in the arse to get that 1 merit, but anyone that doesn't have alt accounts I imagine are going to be pretty much unaffected.

[cabalism13]

Getting merit is very hard to get and can make you really quit.

I just hope they'd actually quit if they feel that way. But instead they don't give any shit on this, and they will just find some bounties that accepts newbies.

In my opinion, I think they must review the post of others that is good and maybe there is chance that can be ranked up as Jr member who is deserving even though have no merit.

Find one on your Local Board. Every Local Board has its own Merits Sources. As long as you make a good posts you shpuld be rewarded.

English is everything so everybody should know it, without this you can't communicate to other country. For me it's the mother of all language.

[jademaxxiss012]

A more effective idea to remove bounties from spoiling the forum would be to remove the ability to merit in bounty threads or boards.

It will not resolved the problem try to figure out if it will happen then where will these people go? Spamming on META section just to get merit!

I would really love to see Theymos experiment on removing every bounty and signature campaigns and let's even see how things will pan out here with all these hypocrites denying they aren't posting here for reward, especially the high ranking members. At least, one month should be ok to test run this and see if posting activities won't be drastically reduced and traffic affected here.

Yeah that would be a better idea to remove the bounty campaign program and ability for the people here to earn and im pretty sure more or less 70% of the people here will left due to the fact that they are here only to do bounty hunting and not really fan of discussing bitcoin market price movement. Spamming will be less likely to happen because the high traffic of post on SMT sections are for complying bounty requirements for them to get paid on their shitposts!

[cryptovigi]

So... summing up for most of you activity seems to have almost no metter...
And despite my intention expressed in topic of this thread... we came back to merit again ;-)

A more effective idea to remove bounties from spoiling the forum would be to remove the ability to merit in bounty threads or boards.

I like the idea of removing the ability to merit in bounty threads very much! It pisses me off when I see post with twitter/facebook raport or even airdrop application rewarded with merit. It's such a shamelss behavior.... One sholud at least pretends writing one post in any other topic. So cutting this possibility off (as well as not counting bounty posts to activity parameter) would make me feel a little bit better.

...
It will not resolved the problem try to figure out if it will happen then where will these people go? Spamming on META section just to get merit!

It's already happen, but at least some of them try to write something in full sentences with any meaning.

[paxmao]

...
I couldn't really care less what others think of me. I will still state my opinions and thoughts here regardless.
I'm here to participate and have a voice in the discussions that I find interesting.
If I can benefit from airdrops etc through having the signature, then great. I just find these arbitrary rule changes super annoying.
...

The problem is precisely that those discussions and voicing of opinions are under threat of being impossible due to massive loads of useless posts. Rules are annoying  for everyone, you have to be quite careful in this forum, but it seems the only way to keep it useful.

[crypt0j0e]

I would really love to see Theymos experiment on removing every bounty and signature campaigns and let's even see how things will pan out here with all these hypocrites denying they aren't posting here for reward, especially the high ranking members.

There's a motivation to create posts on the forum because these projects have their activity requirements. If no one could add signatures or personal text to their profiles on bct many would loose their incentive to create new posts which could possibly force projects to look for forum alternatives with less restrictions.

But there's a delicate balance between having too many rules and potentially driving users away or not having enough, allowing spam posts to flood the forum reducing it's usefulness.

When everybody says “Merit” I'm asking: What about Activity???

Merit still appears to be an effective way for managing and reducing spam and tweaks can always be made down the road to help improve its effectiveness but you also make a good argument for removing posts made in the bounties sections from the activity calculation. Perhaps making this change would also improve the quality of posts on the forum.