Unused smerits shouldn't be destroyed but sent to merit sources after 1 month.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Each time i merit a user for their contribution to forum, I notice this message "There is no point in hoarding sMerit; keeping it yourself does not benefit you, and we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future. But what surprises me is some user still ignores this message, keeping the smerits they received as a trophy to themselves.
So I asked myself why is this the case, are they not seeing the message as I do. (If they aren't then it should be written in bold letters so they don't have an excuse of not seeing the message.) or do they have other intentions like hoarding those smerit to merit their alt accounts in future. As a defaulter you can't give the excuse of not seeing a post/reply worth meriting when the likes of LoyceV, bones26, Jet Cash, suchmoon, The Pharmacist etc. even with their strick criteria concerning post worth meriting are doing so almost daily.

When I look through some records of user when I'm about meriting them I just feel discourage sending them merits because their sent/received ratio is nothing to write home about. E.g cryptovigi and

~ don't you think you're doing others bad by not sending out your Smerits ~

You are right. I stopped thinking about merits all together and that was wrong. From now on I try to think about giving merits to others as well. It is only fair this way. Thanks for your input.

In conclusion, I feel the decay of unused smerits law should be implemented sooner and unused smerits should not be decayed /destroyed but instead recycled by sending them to merit sources to continue in their selfless service to the forum. And the duration for these smerits to be labeled unused should be 1months to keep the community members engaged.

PS: topic locked, it has already been discuss before

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[The Cryptovator]

There is another thread about it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4883843.msg44003797#msg44003797
It will better if you use search button before posting. Theymos not yet think about decay merit. There is enough merit source to genarate smerits. I think we should take rest few days before suggest about new merit system.

Problem is most of airdrop merit goes to bounty hunters and they never care about it. They are busy with hunting. They just need keep current rank. So decay or return isn't much worthy since there is merit source. But it's true that they are not respecting the system.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I'm not sure what Theymos's plan was when he wrote that statement about reserving the right to have unused sMerits decay, because I don't think it would serve any worthwhile purpose.

Some members just don't care about the merit system, as hard as that may be for some members to understand (especially lower-ranked ones who desperately want to rank up).  It just isn't important to everyone here, and I'm sure there are Hero and Legendary members still sitting on a pile of sMerits that were airdropped to them back in January.  Gameristo, TheButterZone, and BayAreaCoins are three members that come to mind, and I'm not sticking them out for doing anything wrong.  They tend to use bitcointalk for business purposes and probably couldn't care less about the merit system.

I think merit sources get enough sMerits to distribute without having to get more from members who don't use theirs.  Plus Theymos just added 36 additional merit sources and he'll probably add more in the future.  My point is that I wouldn't worry about members who're stingy with their sMerits, nor would I refuse to give merits to someone just because I thought they were going to hoard the resulting sMerits.  That's just me, though. 

[bones261]

I have all of the smerits that I can handle at the moment. I certainly don't need 1/120th of all the outstanding unused smerits out there.

[Ispep]

There are more than enough sMerits with merit sources for us to worry ourselves about members who hoard their Smerits,there is no compulsory law that prompts members to give out Smerits(except maybe merit sources),it's within their own powers to choose to give them out or not to give..

The forum itself was proactive and had to sort out the issue of users hoarding merits by introducing sources, and with the new merit system also comes with an increase in the merit sources,we cannot really take out Smerits from users simply because they did not give it out,as they either earned it or it was airdroped but the fact still remains that they hold the right to do whatsoever they wish with it..

Some users hoard Smerits for diverse reasons,they probably do not wanna get into the whole merit furore,they are simply here to engage in quality discussions and do not care if the get merited or if they merit someone else,they couldn't find any post worth meriting or find it difficult to merit one post/comment leaving the other(when both are worth meriting),hence they leave it all to the sources.

I see you give out a lot of Smerits and I admire that,but not all users have the time to check plagiarism,post history,foul play etc before meriting,so hence they stay away from it

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

There are two kinds of unspent sMerits: those originated in the day to day received merit halvings, and the large remnant still unspent, originated in the initial sMerit airdrop. The former I estimated a week ago to be around the 34k area, and the latter is above the 400k area.
The >400 k (from the initial 600K airdrop) is not likely to suddenly be placed into circulation at short notice, and likely belongs to accounts that do not really want to be engaged in the merit system, or even accounts that have turned inactive over the past months. The other 34K sMerits have likely a greater chance of being awarded in the short run.

Moving some of these sMerits to current Merit Sources, however active they may be, would not help with one of the most important factors in my opinion, which is the number eyes on the field. Merit Sources, as we know, on aggregate do not finish off their monthly allowance, so adding more sMerits to their pool would likely not have a visible impact on the number of Receivers (it would on the amount of sMerit per TX though).

It would be better to appoint more Merit Sources (more eyes on the field), and in any case let some of them be the receivers of some of those unspent sMerits, although it would not really be necessary if they are dimensioned well enough from the start since it is system generated.

[vphasitha01]

I just quickly gone through with merit dashboard and found out that there are 44 Hero members still didn't sent any sMerit from their initial airdrop of 1000 Merits and also there are 44.133 Merits (around 22K sMerits) hoarding by those 44 Hero Members alone.   

[Marcel666]

I believe the merit sources have enough smerits and do not need extra motivation of additional smerits to send out.
And I hardly see a problem with the merit circulation, with combined effort of sources and merited members.
Decaying or sending unused smerits to sources would hardly have any effect.

[AdolfinWolf]

I just quickly gone through with merit dashboard and found out that there are 44 Hero members still didn't sent any sMerit from their initial airdrop of 1000 Merits and also there are 44.133 Merits (around 22K sMerits) hoarding by those 44 Hero Members alone.  

The airdrop was 500 for 95% of the Hero members,  not 1000, and i'm pretty sure the sMerit that was received from the airdrop was absolutely not a 2:1 ratio. (So 500 Merit ≠ 250 sMerit.) It was wayy less.

[DarkStar_]

I have all of the smerits that I can handle at the moment. I certainly don't need 1/120th of all the outstanding unused smerits out there.

I agree. If anything, merit sources should be able to delegate sMerits to others so that their unused merits could allow someone else to give more merits.

[Peacemaker1994]

The merit system was made to reward a good work and article. I think is only right if you see and article that interest you and after you must have gone through it you can just merit it if you have smerit.

I think the community will grow if we can encourage a good work. Yes it's truth there are merit sources and they have really been active.  But as an individual we can all still contribute to the development it not only legendary members that has to give merit. 
Even with 2merit you can be able to give out a merit

[Thekool1s]

I just quickly gone through with merit dashboard and found out that there are 44 Hero members still didn't sent any sMerit from their initial airdrop of 1000 Merits and also there are 44.133 Merits (around 22K sMerits) hoarding by those 44 Hero Members alone.  

The airdrop was 500 for 95% of the Hero members,  not 1000, and i'm pretty sure the sMerit that was received from the airdrop was absolutely not a 2:1 ratio. (So 500 Merit ≠ 250 sMerit.) It was wayy less.

Exactly, I got 1000 merits from the airdrop and the sMerits I received were around 70 if I remember correctly of which I only have 12 remaining. I doubt these heros got 250 each.

[asche]

I just quickly gone through with merit dashboard and found out that there are 44 Hero members still didn't sent any sMerit from their initial airdrop of 1000 Merits and also there are 44.133 Merits (around 22K sMerits) hoarding by those 44 Hero Members alone.  

The airdrop was 500 for 95% of the Hero members,  not 1000, and i'm pretty sure the sMerit that was received from the airdrop was absolutely not a 2:1 ratio. (So 500 Merit ≠ 250 sMerit.) It was wayy less.

Exactly, I got 1000 merits from the airdrop and the sMerits I received were around 70 if I remember correctly of which I only have 12 remaining. I doubt these heros got 250 each.

If I remember what I read about this it depended on activity at the time and on how many activity/posts you made in the last 6 months or something like that.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>
The exact formula was:

Code:

yearActivity = activity in the last ~year, max 378
freeMerit = the merit (not sMerit) you started with
modifier =
  0.1 if member
  0.2 if full member
  0.25 if sr member
  0.35 if hero
  0.4 if legendary

return (yearActivity/378) * modifier * freeMerit

So the most you could get is if you were a Legendary who maxed out your activity points in the last year, in which case you would get 1 * 0.4 * 1000 = 400 sMerit.

Note that I later made an adjustment giving 500 extra merit to some hero members, but no extra sMerit was given here.
<…>

That gives us as maximum potential initial airdropped sMerits per rank of:
Member:  10 * 0,1= 1 sMerit
Full Member:  100 * 0,2= 20 sMerits
Sr. Member:  250 * 0,25= 62 sMerits (floored)
Hero Member:  500 * 0,35= 175 sMerits
Legendary :  1000 * 0,4= 400 sMerits

That was the potential maximum, but the real value for each case, as per the above formula, varied depending on their activity over the prior year.

[vphasitha01]

I just quickly gone through with merit dashboard and found out that there are 44 Hero members still didn't sent any sMerit from their initial airdrop of 1000 Merits and also there are 44.133 Merits (around 22K sMerits) hoarding by those 44 Hero Members alone.  

The airdrop was 500 for 95% of the Hero members,  not 1000, and i'm pretty sure the sMerit that was received from the airdrop was absolutely not a 2:1 ratio. (So 500 Merit ≠ 250 sMerit.) It was wayy less.

I didn't say those 44 members were Hero Members at the time of introduction of merit system but now. They were most probably Legendary at that time and they all got 1000 airdrop merits according to the merit dashboard. You can simply go to the merit dashboard and check with the ranking up pipe line and they still got those 1000 merits in their pockets without spending any at all.

<...snip...>
So the most you could get is if you were a Legendary who maxed out your activity points in the last year, in which case you would get 1 * 0.4 * 1000 = 400 sMerit.

Here we go.. that means those 44 most probably have nearly 17k unspent sMerits.

I agree. If anything, merit sources should be able to delegate sMerits to others so that their unused merits could allow someone else to give more merits.

This is what Jet Cash already suggested as dMerits (delegate merits). He already done a trial with  @seon by giving away his 10 source Merits to help with Spanish local board and it all goes well. Sometimes merit sources not having enough time to going through every boards for looking posts which truly deserved to be merited. Because I have recently seen that one of the merit source already started a thread in Meta by asking how he should spent his source Merits.

So deligating a apperentice for spent unused merits wouldn't be a bad idea at all. But those delegate merits shouldn't been added to the total merit count of the apprentice of merit source.

[Ardavan2150]

Funny that you quoted my post here haha. I though about what you said and decided to think about giving merits.
But honestly, I do not think we have an issue with lack of merits on the forum. Whenever I see a post that contains worthwhile information, it has been +merited.
An issue with merits is that each day many accounts are getting banned forever, even legendary accounts and hero accounts, which causes the total number of merits available to decay faster than you think.

[cryptovigi]

...
And the duration for these smerits to be labeled unused should be 1months to keep the community members engaged.
...

The idea isn't bad but the time of smerits expiry should be significantly longer at least 3 months (maybe even more - 6 months) rewarding with merits it's not a race we should have enough time to choose a right recipient - that applies especially to people who have little smerits to give away or starting their journey with merit system....

I just quickly gone through with merit dashboard and found out that there are 44 Hero members still didn't sent any sMerit from their initial airdrop of 1000 Merits and also there are 44.133 Merits (around 22K sMerits) hoarding by those 44 Hero Members alone.  

When I compared only hero members (at the time of introducing merit system) who have ever "earned" a merit with hero members who ever give at least one merit away i found 430 Legendary, 306 Hero users and 508 Senior users who "earned" merit but never sent any away.

You also forgot, that there are only users who has recieved or sent at least one merit in dashboard. That means, you won't see there users many thousands of users (if there are 50%-80% ranked users have never get a single merit probably at least a similar percentage did not send them either)
 

...

Rank	number of users	number of users       received at least 1 merit	number of users       with who didn’t earn any merit
Full Member	18 181	3 173 (17,45%)	15 008  (82,55%)
Sr. Member	9 016	1 818 (20,16%)	7 198  (79,84%)
Hero Member	4 143	1 105 (26,67%)	3 038  (73,33%)
Legendary	2 145	1 133 (52,82%)	1 012  (47,18%)

...

this case there are probably a dozen or even tens of thousands of users who froze their smerits, what could make even several hundred thousand of frozen merits. Some of them are probably dead souls (users who abonded BTT in 2017 or 2018) but large part of them simply doesen't care merit system.


I found one more interesting thing:
I've read that at the start of merit system there were 57 merit sources, today i checked 57 most active merit givers and found such numbers:

16 users sent away more than 1.000 smerits
17 users sent away 501 - 1.000 smerits (we have @theymos in this group - I doubt that he has chosen himself as merit source but he didn't have to as long he has received more than 2.800 merits)
24 users sent away 323 - 500 smerits

so last from the list of 57 users gave 323 merits if the system works 269 days (data stored from 2018.01.24 - 2018.10.19) it makes only 1,2 merit be day from this source while the first from the list gave away 6.266 merits what makes 23,29 merits per day. It's a huuuge difference - I'm wonder why?
I understand that probably the lower limit has not been set but 1 merit a day per merit source is rather poor result (I'm also sure that some of first 57 users aren't merit source at all - they gave away their "own" merits what makes this situation even worse)....  

[suchmoon]

so last from the list of 57 users gave 323 merits if the system works 269 days (data stored from 2018.01.24 - 2018.10.19) it makes only 1,2 merit be day from this source while the first from the list gave away 6.266 merits what makes 23,29 merits per day. It's a huuuge difference - I'm wonder why?
I understand that probably the lower limit has not been set but 1 merit a day per merit source is rather poor result (I'm also sure that some of first 57 users aren't merit source at all - they gave away their "own" merits what makes this situation even worse)....  

Merit sources have different allocations - rumor has it those can range between 50-1000 sMerits per month. That's not much more than 1 per day at the lower end.

Also top 57 is not all original merit sources. As you noticed, some in the top 57 might not be sources at all, but also those who are sources might not be the original ones so they have been sending merits for less than 269 days.

Having said that, it's true that we routinely send less than we should as evident from the monthly stats:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources - 23045 source merits available (per month), i.e. potentially 40k+ after halving, give or take rounding.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsend - 19056 merits sent in the last 30 days.

That's not even half of what's available each month, not to mention remaining airdrop sMerits.

That gives us as maximum potential initial airdropped sMerits per rank of:
Member:  10 * 0,1= 1 sMerit
Full Member:  100 * 0,2= 20 sMerits
Sr. Member:  250 * 0,25= 62 sMerits (floored)
Hero Member:  500 * 0,35= 175 sMerits
Legendary :  1000 * 0,4= 400 sMerits

That was the potential maximum, but the real value for each case, as per the above formula, varied depending on their activity over the prior year.

There was something wonky with that formula. I think theymos actually halved those sMerits. I had max activity and I got 200 and I don't know of anyone else who got more than that.

[coinlocket$]

There was something wonky with that formula. I think theymos actually halved those sMerits. I had max activity and I got 200 and I don't know of anyone else who got more than that.

No, was 400 for a Legendary with max activity, see the following quote as reference. read some posts above someone already posted the theymos's quote.
Is possible that are you remembering wrong or are you 100% sure about it?

So the most you could get is if you were a Legendary who maxed out your activity points in the last year, in which case you would get 1 * 0.4 * 1000 = 400 sMerit.

[TheBeardedBaby]

There was something wonky with that formula. I think theymos actually halved those sMerits. I had max activity and I got 200 and I don't know of anyone else who got more than that.

No, was 400 for a Legendary with max activity, see the following quote as reference. read some posts above someone already posted the theymos's quote.
Is possible that are you remembering wrong or are you 100% sure about it?

So the most you could get is if you were a Legendary who maxed out your activity points in the last year, in which case you would get 1 * 0.4 * 1000 = 400 sMerit.

LoyceV also complained about not getting the max points, so I don't really know if someone got 400 airdropped sMerit at all.