The OP has done great work on the local board and I feel like it did not receive the merit it deserved.
You're linking to a locked topic with a Merit earning quiz. If he has done great work, you should post links to those great posts.
A large number of users believe that merit is the holy grail, and also that older members do not want to give merit to their posts. Many accusations that the merit system is unfair to new and lower-ranked members.
Then we have a thread like this, where it is openly offered to link quality posts to be rewarded with merit, and then you get a suggestion where you need to translate the whole thread from Indonesian to find a post worth merit. A little effort is not amiss if you require someone else to pay attention to you.
Of course, merit sources are going to have varying standards and even varying level of time that they are able to spend reviewing posts, and I suppose that I don't really have any problem with the idea of both attempting to draw the attention of merit source members to quality posts or even some interesting things that are happening in other parts of the forums (such as in some of the Locals).
Of course, these days translation is becoming easier, yet I do find that some of the browsers that I use are more friendly to translation than others, and for me, if I am on some kind of a mobile, it can sometimes be quite difficult to translate - and maybe it is my own lack of looking more into the matter.. so maybe part of the point might be that it is likely a lot easier for merit source members to stick with the threads that they visit regularly rather than exploring other threads - and merit sources do not have any obligation to explore other threads - including getting back to the idea of their own concerns about how productive they are being in their own ways of spending their time on the forum as well as other life obligations (interests).
I did send an smerit to the OP in the above referred to thread with the quiz and the game of earning merits, since I found it to be a kind of interesting approach, but still sometimes I even find it problematic to want to give too many merits in the context of what sometimes could border upon some form of merit begging.. and surely I would prefer to just organically come across various members posting in creative, interactive ways that may well have some links to supporting materials and making some interesting points, even if I might not completely agree or understand all of the points that are being made..
I suppose there can be some burn out in terms of reading so many mediocre posts.. or posts that might be difficult to determine if they are adding much if any value too.. ... Of course, some of the higher ranking members make great posts - almost every single time, and I don't necessarily want to ONLY send smerits to the higher ranking members, and even sometimes if I have sent smerits to the same member several times in a day, I might also become reluctant to send more smerits to that same member on the same day, even if that member might seem to be continuing in making relatively great posts.
I am not going to claim to know the solution. but surely there still can be hope to place some blame on members to be providing decently good posts in threads that I already follow rather than expecting me to go around learning about new threads.. and yeah, sure maybe we can blame theymos too.. hahahahahaha.. in terms of there might be some needs to increase some of the merit source members.. which there may well be some work involved in regards to both selecting the new merit sources and then maybe some follow up monitoring that might be helpful..
and surely as far as I know, so far in the more than 6 year of the existence of the merit source system, there has not been any appointment of a merit czar, and not to be too atopically critical of LoyceV within his own self-moderated thread, I am not sure if his somewhat seemingly high standards (referring to his stating that he has somewhere in the ballpark of 4k smerits in his bank of smerits. .which seems like too many to have in reserves, yet I cannot even second-judge him too much in terms of why those smerits had built up to such high levels in his bank) in regards to sending smerits would be good for any possible merit czar - even though I am pretty sure that at some point he had volunteered to serve in such a position.. . and again, I am not even claiming to know much of anything in regards to what kinds of concerns might be happening behind the scenes in terms of appointing a merit czar and maybe increasing the number of merit source members (such as doubling and or perhaps having a longer term goal of tripling them), and yeah maybe the newer merit source members might start out with an allocation of maybe 30 source smerits per month and work their way up to 100 or whatever might be some reasonably tailored goals. without the problems of newly appointed merit sources (or the czar himself) turning into some kind of a monster that creates more problems than he solves....
