Isn't this merit thing getting more monopolistic politics?

[r1s2g3]

Merits help others to rank up, mostly everyone here is just to earn a side income, and for most of them, it's a living if they are in a signature campaign. Just to stop others from being promoted to higher ranks so as to reduce competition and keep it low (with the fear of losing their own position in that campaign as few may not be confident enough of their capabilities of remaining in the same), they try their best not to share their merits ahead.

If somebody is hoarding the sMerits due to fear of losing a position in sig campaign is stupid.  For any btc campaign there is always more number of participant available then number of spots. If they are posting shit then they are not going to be included in campaign. Only solution is to make themselves a better poster.
With so many merit source, they can not stop any deserving poster so better to improve themselves instead of hoarding their sMerit

[Stedsm]

The crust of the issue is no one is under any obligation ti hand out merits (except merits sources, to a small degree).

I never said anyone is, what I'm trying to convey here is the fact that I believe, it's my opinion I've painted in the OP and it's for the better of low rank members as well as the forum, because if such deserving members are not getting/going to get rewarded in terms of merit only, they'll still be seen as shit posters due to possessing low ranks with high activity number. And yeah, it's not gonna work out the way you said (as the whole responsibility isn't for merit sources alone, everyone here is given the privilege to use their power to help others - I think that's one more reason why merits we're introduced - to see if forum members have the courage to give their shoulder to work as a stair for low rank members to level up).

Merits help others to rank up, mostly everyone here is just to earn a side income, and for most of them, it's a living if they are in a signature campaign. Just to stop others from being promoted to higher ranks so as to reduce competition and keep it low (with the fear of losing their own position in that campaign as few may not be confident enough of their capabilities of remaining in the same), they try their best not to share their merits ahead.

If somebody is hoarding the sMerits due to fear of losing a position in sig campaign is stupid.  For any btc campaign there is always more number of participant available then number of spots. If they are posting shit then they are not going to be included in campaign. Only solution is to make themselves a better poster.
With so many merit source, they can not stop any deserving poster so better to improve themselves instead of hoarding their sMerit

Once again, it was my opinion about what I feel may be one of the best fit reasons as to why one is hoarding their merits. I urge to those who get merits (whether newbies or higher) that they should also merit posts better than theirs (if they believe they've found something worth giving a merit but low level members should help mostly low level members* in order to keep the merit contribution going and let the circulation be carried out in a continuous manner).

* - I personally think that low level members who get merited mostly should consider their category to be promoted with them hand-in-hand but that's my opinion and once again, no one is bound to think and do the same way.

[TheBeardedBaby]

If you put focus on the forum as a discussion board, the merit is only a reward for the knowledge and the abilities the users have showed here, it is for reputation same as the ranks. So actually no one really needs merit nor ranking, the only reward you get is at certain point to wear avatar, and reduce some cool down times, really not so essential things. So basically what you earn is Reputation among the other users, that's all.

Once you look at the forum as a money-earning machine things change drastically. This is how most of the people are seeing the forum. They are desperately trying to rank up, trying the all possible ways both legal or illegal to abuse as much as they can the system for best income.

So if you look at the forum based on the first statement, merit and ranking is quite insignificant, but looking trough the eyes of all those trying to "support my family as we are poor" but all their relatives are working here, the hunger for merit is enormous.

I'd like to think about the forum as a place for discussion and improvement, place to meet friends and learn new things.
Now I have the privilege to make some income from my hobby which I usually spend on books, paying for Nodes, Internet, hosting, etc. It's mostly for fun.

[manfredmann]

Am glad this thread is open by a legendary member who don't need a merit cause he is already on the highest position in the forum before the introduction of the merit system, will it will not do you any good withholding your smerit because their are being generated just to be given to others who deserve it in other to encourage them for they hard works but this days it very difficult to earn merit.

Yes OP has been pointing out on merits as it was being monopolistic politics. I do not if OP has only doing it for sarcasm but basing on the content of the message the OP just want to spread some love by spending merits to those users who need it. It may be good to hear this but then again as expected from other users that may oppose for this idea because they only think that users that are good poster should have only the right to receive merit and to rank up.

But, think of the average users that mostly are not getting merit. I feel pity for them but since merit is for the good poster and admin does want it like that then so be it. We do not have other choice but to follow what they think is right even if other users may having some hard time.

They got their point though to think that merit will be a strategic way to prevent users to shit posting. But as days gone shit posting are relatively had been minimized and it is only that there were still some threads and posts that are poorly constructed that was being made from the past few months. We are still in the transition process from shitposting to not too good poster but an average poster.

[Kakmakr]

I am a hoarder by nature and I know how valuable sMerit can be for others, if they post quality content and manage to rank up higher. Do we want to dish out sMerit left right and center to people who does not deserve it or do we want to manage sMerit in such a way to increase quality posters on the forum?

I would much rather hoard my sMerit and give it to someone deserving and share the forum with higher ranking quality posters. 

Giving sMerit just because you have to, will defeat the purpose of the sMerit system. 

[RivAngE]

... mostly everyone here is just to earn a side income, and for most of them, it's a living if they are in a signature campaign.

That's why I don't give merits to members of signature campaigns. I do not want to encourage people to post garbage for money.

I also ignore members of signature campaigns so I never see their posts. As a result, I give away very few merits because 90% of the members are here trying to make money.

If your only judgement on people are their signature and that's enough for you to not merit them, or even ignore them, then that's funny.
In your own signature you have 2 reference links (most likely paid) and a link to an anti-signature campaign!

Sure, you don't get paid PER post, but you would still get more views on your signature the more often you post... does that make you a spammer by your own standard?


Thankfully many are not sharing your standard and I was able to slowly reach Member rank within the 13 months in the forums (starting from 0 merits) even though I almost always have a paid signature on.
You may not care for the 10$-20$ per week a signature campaign might offer because you might be rich, you might be an early believer of BTC, or you might even be a scammer who made a lot of money on others' loss.
Having a signature or not doesn't change the kind of person you are, the quality of posts you make or whether you deserve meriting or not.


With that said.... filling up your ignore list with newbie and jr. accounts is not that helpful, they'll keep creating new accounts and trading a merit or two. I just read the first 5 words of a post and I immediately know if it's a spam. Most of the spam is identical after all ("wow this is a great investment", "I agree with the post above", "I agree with the above post which agrees with the one above it")

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

* - I personally think that low level members who get merited mostly should consider their category to be promoted with them hand-in-hand

So what you're trying to say is users with member rank should consider only meriting users on the same level with them and (maybe) lower ranks?. I disagree because  doing so will defeat the purpose of the merit system as it was introduced to highlight quality posts made by forum users of all rank instead of concentrating on a particular rank.

Out of generosity of helping lower rank users rank up, one can concentrate on meriting them but that shouldn't stop you from meriting quality post from higher rank users when you see them.

I believe the main purpose of the merit system was to highlight a quality post when you see one so that shouldn't be neglected irrespective of the posters rank.

[KingScorpio]

The words I used in the subject above, have got a few more questions to ask:
- Are merits actually being circulated between those who really need it?
- Are they also helping out others through their sMerits?

There's a different sort of thinking I've come across - most people don't use their merits by not sharing them with those who deserve them.

Reason?!

Merits help others to rank up, mostly everyone here is just to earn a side income, and for most of them, it's a living if they are in a signature campaign. Just to stop others from being promoted to higher ranks so as to reduce competition and keep it low (with the fear of losing their own position in that campaign as few may not be confident enough of their capabilities of remaining in the same), they try their best not to share their merits ahead. But for your information, they're given only with the purpose to share on the basis of "Give & Take" tradition and keeping them to ourselves will be stupid and never be useful to us nor others. So, keep sharing merits and love to those users who really deserve those higher ranks we're at.

jes it is and we know that since it was established or even planned being established.

trust system is even worse. bitcoincultists punish all opposition.