50 Merits for bounty threads.

[r1s2g3]

It would be insane. Because, a legendary is contributing to the forum far longer than the merit system exists. It is very much possible that a hell lot of posts created by him/her in past were worth of merit, but it were not awarded any. Now, if only the earned merit is considered, it'll be highly unjust to the old posters.

This is the worst defense statement. What happened to their contributing power after merit system implementation?
ok, if you want to say they are not active now (though nothing stop you to meriting old posts) but will you still agree on Activity Based Demotion i.e removal of 1 airdropped merit for 2 activity gained , after the implementation of the merit system.

I heard about huge merit giveaway in the situation of different kinds of deals between members.

I am interested in knowing what kind of deal is done here.

[o_e_l_e_o]

This is the worst defense statement. What happened to their contributing power after merit system implementation?
ok, if you want to say they are not active now (though nothing stop you to meriting old posts) but will you still agree on Activity Based Demotion i.e removal of 1 airdropped merit for 2 activity gained , after the implementation of the merit system.

Just because someone is no longer active or as active as they used to be, doesn't mean their previous posts or contributions should be devalued. We certainly shouldn't be looking to punish older members who took a big risk on bitcoin in its early days. Given that there have been 433 days since the introduction of the merit system, under your proposal, a member gaining maximum activity would have to have gained 216 merits just to break even, let alone thinking about ranking up. According to https://bpip.org/report.aspx?r=mostmerited, there are only 226 members who have achieved this. The purpose of merit was to stop shitposters being paid for shitposting - it wasn't meant to derank or limit the vast majority of members, which is what your proposal would do.

I still think the neatest solution is simply to change the requirement for a signature to earned merit. No one would be deranked, inactive legendaries would get to keep their legendary status, but shitposters who had their signature grandfathered in would no longer be able to get paid for their shitposting.

[btcsmlcmnr]

Let's look back further, with Satoshi Nakamoto contributions for bitcoin in particular and for crypto in general as well as his/her/ their dissapearance years ago.
I don't think there are someone who say that contributions of Satoshi Nakomoto is small, valueless, or devalued contributions over time due to growth of crypto recent years.

Just because someone is no longer active or as active as they used to be, doesn't mean their previous posts or contributions should be devalued.

Yes, I agree with your suggestion.
Simply depend on campaign managers, if they require strict rules for their participants, shitty users can not be qualified enough to apply and join.

I still think the neatest solution is simply to change the requirement for a signature to earned merit. No one would be deranked, inactive legendaries would get to keep their legendary status, but shitposters who had their signature grandfathered in would no longer be able to get paid for their shitposting.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

It’s more likely theymos will introduce a new rank than delete all Merit apart from Earned Merit.
Something like the following would be cool -

{New Rank}
Activity 2000+
Merit 2000+

[Bitcoin_Arena]

It’s more likely theymos will introduce a new rank than delete all Merit apart from Earned Merit.
Something like the following would be cool -

{New Rank}
Activity 2000+
Merit 2000+

This is cool but i think it could kind of be discouraging to new members unless merit circulation increases. Imagine joining as a newbie in this current situation where merit is hard to come by and you have to gather 2000+ merit to reach that rank 
Heck, i just have a little over 50 merits and i don't think i will even make it to 1000 

[daarul50]

This is very dangerous for you because it might be possible for people to judge that you have multiple accounts in this forum. But, I believe that you make this thread means that you also object to giving that much sMerit as well as this thread becomes a clarification from you so that people don't judge you with negative things about giving that much sMerit. I hope this forum admin can help solve the problems that you get now.

[JayJuanGee]

Imagine if Theymos decide to rollback all ranks counting only the earned merit so far, should be fun.

It would be insane. Because, a legendary is contributing to the forum far longer than the merit system exists. It is very much possible that a hell lot of posts created by him/her in past were worth of merit, but it were not awarded any. Now, if only the earned merit is considered, it'll be highly unjust to the old posters.

For example, there was no merit system in 2014. But, if this thread was created today, it probably would have received some merit. This is how many of our old threads are merit less, because they were created way before the merit system.

Looking at merits earned and merits received (airdropped) before the January 24, 2018 introduction of this new merit system are two different indicators based on different presumptions.  Of course, on a general basis there are a lot of threads and active posts that have not received merit for their posts prior to the introduction of the merit system because only a few members are going to go back and use their merits that way, and of course, some exceptionally notable historical posts have still received a decent amount of merits and attention drawn to them for such purposes too.

There is no injustice going on but just an overlap of two systems and some lack of consistencies, which is largely how th world works, anyhow.  Merits are not a reflection of objective goodness, even though there could be some of that going on, but there is also human subjective element going on too, as well as whimsical irrationality.. and sometimes not so good sides of humans shown through their use of their smerits. 

Of course, merit sources are held to a bit of a higher standard, but even then various irrationalities and whimsicality still might exist and might not go beyond theymos's level of detection or tolerance.

[JayJuanGee]

If we update the figures I’ve drawn-up in the pastconcerning sMerit circulation, we get:

 600.000      sMerits Initial Airdrop
-350.129     sent sMerits (Merit Sources and regular forum members)
+175.065    Min estimate generated (first halving taken to its maximum theoretical degree, and not accounting for all the other halvings which I cannot estimate)
--------------------------------------------
424.936   Total unsent sMerits (aprox. *)

(*) Not all is really sendable really, due to inactive users, banned users, and so forth.


Now Merit Source pool is currently of 20.855 sMerits per 30 days. Being conservative, and taking into account that the pool size has varies over time, lets say a bare minimum average of 12k has been sent each month since the beginning of the Merit System. That would mean that at least 180.000 of the sent sMerits were originated by Merit Sources .The remaining 170.129 (350.129 – 180.000) would come from the Initial Airdrop and halvings.

So even in the “best” case scenario (no halvings), there are around 600.000 – 170.129 = 429.871 airdropped sMerits in user accounts (*).

After 15 months of the Merit System, I don’t know how likely they are to come into the scene, but they also constitute a risk for merit trading. I would think that, after 15 months on non-usage, they should be withdrawn from the accounts on the basis of avoiding risks and not being into the Merit game anyway.

I definitely appreciate your calculations, DdmrDdmr, about how many airdropped smerits likely remain outstanding. 

I both disagree with your conclusory assessments that there is a lot of abuse potential with those dormant smerits or that theymos needs to do something about those outstanding unused smerits (such as decay them)...

As far as I know, on at least, a couple theymos has already expressed a degree of reluctancy to decay unused smerits, and I doubt that use of old/stagnant smerits has yet risen to a level that such decay implementation would have become warranted.  Of course opinions are going to vary in this regard.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

Whatever you do it’s bound to be controversial:

On the one hand, airdropped sMerit was created in proportion to each one’s rank and activity, and therefore was respectful with both of these concepts that one gained historically. It is each person’s prerogative how and when they decide to use them. Some accounts will possibly be inactive for a longish period of time, and when they reactivate, they could well do with some sMerits to award.

On the other hand, 15 months of not using them is a fair amount of time, and the idea is not to hoard them. As often happens, the issue is not really the non-usage, but rather the potential mal practice that could become of it. Accounts that have not set the initial sMerit airdrop in motion may not really be bothered with the Merit System, and as such, may just let it be in their accounts, … or decide to trade with it. Of course, trade likely happens with non-airdropped sMerits too, but the aggregate potential amount of airdropped-smerit that exists is large, and perhaps a potential "risk" (i.e. underground sell of sMerits or accounts with them).

Perhaps if we encounter a period of sustained multiple proven merit abuse cases, then some sort of action may be required to reduce the risk, although likely only a small fraction of the cases are detected.

[JayJuanGee]

<…>

Whatever you do it’s bound to be controversial:

On the one hand, airdropped sMerit was created in proportion to each one’s rank and activity, and therefore was respectful with both of these concepts that one gained historically. It is each person’s prerogative how and when they decide to use them. Some accounts will possibly be inactive for a longish period of time, and when they reactivate, they could well do with some sMerits to award.

On the other hand, 15 months of not using them is a fair amount of time, and the idea is not to hoard them. As often happens, the issue is not really the non-usage, but rather the potential mal practice that could become of it. Accounts that have not set the initial sMerit airdrop in motion may not really be bothered with the Merit System, and as such, may just let it be in their accounts, … or decide to trade with it. Of course, trade likely happens with non-airdropped sMerits too, but the aggregate potential amount of airdropped-smerit that exists is large, and perhaps a potential "risk" (i.e. underground sell of sMerits or accounts with them).

Perhaps if we encounter a period of sustained multiple proven merit abuse cases, then some sort of action may be required to reduce the risk, although likely only a small fraction of the cases are detected.

I don't deny that some merit abuse is happening and additional abuse is not detected, but in the end, I doubt that it justifies the implementation of a smerit decay policy...

Of course, unilaterally theymos could decide either way, and I imagine that he would be receptive to evidence that is based on both facts and logic - and such evidence would likely need to show more benefits coming from such policy than the negative aspects of taking things away.... and such evidence would likely have to go beyond the concept that there are "undetected" smerit abuse cases out there or that there might possibly be undetected smerit abuse in the future.