Random merit giveaway threads. What do you think about them?

[Bitcoin_Arena]

As we have already noticed from time and time again, merit giveaway threads are being opened by anyone who wishes in the beginners board.
Spending merit and helping members ranks up is not bad, and I am not against it but I think something is wrong with this kind of approach.

It's understandable if a merit source or a very reputable and active member of the community opens up such a thread like this and this because besides their allocated monthly sMerits, they do have their personal sMerits to send out too which becomes quite tedious since they have to spend off before the next allocation.

But we are now seeing random members pooping out of nowhere and claiming that they are giving away merits to Newbies and Jr Members as it is the case here and here
Funny thing is that there isn't any strict criteria on what quality of post is being looked for and i don't know why such an act is not being heavily frowned by the community.
When I look at such threads, I think the merit system is getting played in the canny way.

1. Merit Farming: Starter of the thread expects members to support him and award him more merit for starting a merit giveaway thread which is pointless in my opinion. This is nothing to do with contributing to the forum. I mean someone just has only 7 sMerit but can't even make a few clicks on different boards to look for merit worthy posts and there they are that telling newbies to post their merit worthy links in their threads.

2. A way to Meriting Alts without getting detected: Very easy to do. Culprit starts a thread with his main accounts that has a few sMerits, maybe 10 and then posts different links from his alts and boom, all alts get merit. The process of account farming goes on an on

Quick Solutions
- At least Merit give away thread starters should be merit sources or very active reputable forum members and the number of merits to be spent has to be high, not just 10-15 sMerits
- Heavily frown merit giveaway threads started by random members who have very little sMerit to giveaway. In fact the threads should be deleted as soon as possible when cited.
- Not to encourage such fake giveaways by meriting the thread starter's post. Let them suffocate, until they start thinking it's not a good idea.

What are your thoughts?

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[Your Point Is Invalid]

1. Merit Farming: Starter of the thread expects members to support him and award him more merit for starting a merit giveaway thread which is pointless in my opinion. This is nothing to do with contributing to the forum. I mean someone just has only 7 sMerit but can't even make a few clicks on different boards to look for merit worthy posts and there they are that telling newbies to post their merit worthy links in their threads.

I don't know why people merit people who start giveaway threads, it seems pointless to me but I don't think there is anything wrong with the threads themselves, If you have sMerits but you don't want to spend hours sifting through all the sludge and spam to find a few good posts then starting threads like that can help. The merit-worthy posts will be presented to you without much effort o your part. There is no use in hoarding smerits.

2. A way to Meriting Alts without getting detected: Very easy to do. Culprit starts a thread with his main accounts that has a few sMerits, maybe 10 and then posts different links from his alts and boom, all alts get merit. The process of account farming goes on an on

Regardless of if they merit their alts through these threads, its very difficult to find out. Some would say starting these threads would make it harder for you to merit your alt(s) without suspicion.
[/quote]

- At least Merit give away thread starters should be merit sources or very active reputable forum members and the number of merits to be spent has to be high, not just 10-15 sMerits

I think the list of all merit sources is still private, that coupled with a very lose definition of "reputable forum members" will have this solution creating more issues than solving problems

[wwzsocki]

...What are your thoughts?

I think this answer from thread quoted by you summarises everything.

Man, people should stop making these threads honestly. The threads from merit whales makes sense, but now what pretty much even people with a dozen merits create them? Just read around topics and conversations and give merit to people who  actually deserve merit; because merits were intentionally made to be given that way in the first place. Not from these types of threads.

These threads are not merited by anybody so you can clearly see the community knows how to recognize and correctly value good quality content and merit system will defend itself.
The only thing that will happen is that a few newbies in need will receive a few merits which is a good thing.
This threads will die naturally no need to do anything, especially if merits indeed were awarded.

[lobcmt2]

Even someone try to create new topics to send merits to their alts, they will be not have enough merits to do this. Amount of airdroped merits are not too large, instead finite amount. So, they can not help their alts move to even Member rank, or Full Member rank. Nowadays, Junior Members have very limited chances to join campaigns, so I don't think it will be a huge problem. In addition, you are right about the potential abusements.
Moreover, I don't think you made a good title, "Random", I don't agree with the word, random. 
Because you made a good topic, that present current situation of the forum, not a serious one (in my opinion), I sent you 1 merit. Congrats!

[The Sceptical Chymist]

as it is the case here and here
Funny thing is that there isn't any strict criteria on what quality of post is being looked for and i don't know why such an act is not being heavily frowned by the community.

Rambotnic is a deviant little troll, and I suspect he had some nefarious motive for making that thread above, but Your Point Is Invalid probably had decent intentions.  He's not that active anymore and may genuinely want to give out some of his sMerits for worthy posts without having to go looking for them.

I don't have a problem with merit giveaways in general, as long as the merits are being used for what they're intended to do, which is to reward good posts.  They shouldn't be offered for services or favors or whatever, except if it's for providing information in the form of a worthy post.  I've even started a thread like that.  It wasn't a straight-up merit giveaway, but I was trying to entice members to help me out with some information by implying that I'd give them some merits for their effort.  I didn't get a lot of good responses.

Anyway, merit giveaway threads rarely are successful from what I've seen.  Actmyname had one going for a while last year or so, and people would link to their own shitposts, and the whole thing was a mess.  The only good one going right now is LoyceV's, which I can't find right now and thus can't link to it.  The big advantage of that one is that people aren't reporting their own posts.  And even then, it's still not as popular as it probably should be, nor is it a true giveaway thread.  It's more a call to merit sources to look at threads in which some good posts have been overlooked.

[yazher]

There's nothing wrong on helping others, but we should take note If we always spoon feed them there will be no room left for them to improve their skills, seeing that there always someone here helping them to rank up, the challenge is no longer difficult to them. Let's just do our job to help this forum to be a better community whether there is a giveaway or not, let's just focus on sharing our precious knowledge and forget the giveaway.

[bones261]

QuestionAuthority got canned as a merit source for running a similar giveaway to Rambotnic. There is nothing wrong with asking to give away merit for substantial posts. However, giving away merit just because people ask for it goes against the spirit of giving merit. I think such threads that encourage people to just beg for merit and get it should be treated similar to altcoin giveaway threads. If a merit source is running one, they need to be canned as well.

[mk4]

Pretty much your first point.

Those merit giveaway threads became a trend simply because the first few users that made the first few merit giveaway threads received a good amount of merits from other users. Now, people are trying to do the same and it's getting pretty obvious and pretty annoying. A good number of those people creating those threads haven't even earned a single merit, instead, all their merits are from the airdrop. The merit system wasn't surely made for those giveaways. It's so bad that I'd even go as far as proposing that those newer threads should be deleted immediately by mods/admins.

[TalkStar]

Sending merits to someone totally depends on senders hand where I think there's nothing worse to help others by giving stored merits to quality posters. In my opinion its a good step to encourage upcoming community users to keep continuing their quality works. On the other hand if you think its pretty much easier to attract forum users attention by opening a merits giveaway thread thread then I am not going to be 100% agree with you.

I have seen some merit giveaway threads where its hard to find big number of participants. It means that community users are not so much busy to grab merit giveaways from every merit giveaway opener. Yeah its true that merit giveaway threads can be a cheaper option to giving merits to Alts account but we can't say this for every merit giveaways.

I am agree with some of your suggestion like there can be rules for minimum number of Smerit to open a merit giveaways where forum Admin can make it 30 to 50 IMO.

[Theb]

At Rambotnic's case you will see that he only gave his merits as a way to show that he has a useless account now because it has received a lot of negative trust from trusted members, it's not about not really about him gaining anything its his only mean on getting back against the forum. In my opinion just as long as the merit giveaway isn't similar to Rambotnic's case I think that we shouldn't even take a look at this seriously as we can easily look at their merit history and the posts they are giving merits to if their is something fishy about it. Other than that I think that them receiving merits back from their merit giveaway threads is a given, most of the merit senders of these kinds of threads if not merit sources are DT members which means that they also show support towards these kinds of threads.

[OgNasty]

It's understandable if a merit source or a very reputable and active member of the community opens up such a thread like this and this because besides their allocated monthly sMerits, they do have their personal sMerits to send out too which becomes quite tedious since they have to spend off before the next allocation.

But we are now seeing random members pooping out of nowhere and claiming that they are giving away merits to Newbies and Jr Members as it is the case here and here

I find it fascinating that users with almost no sMerit are opening threads asking for help identifying merit-worthy posts.  As you stated, I can understand why Merit Sources would ask for a little help from time to time identifying good posts, but someone with a couple sMerit asking for this sort of help seems less than genuine.

[Quickseller]

It's understandable if a merit source or a very reputable and active member of the community opens up such a thread like this and this because besides their allocated monthly sMerits, they do have their personal sMerits to send out too which becomes quite tedious since they have to spend off before the next allocation.

But we are now seeing random members pooping out of nowhere and claiming that they are giving away merits to Newbies and Jr Members as it is the case here and here

I find it fascinating that users with almost no sMerit are opening threads asking for help identifying merit-worthy posts.  As you stated, I can understand why Merit Sources would ask for a little help from time to time identifying good posts, but someone with a couple sMerit asking for this sort of help seems less than genuine.

Take a look at my thread and see how much merit I received just for opening the thread— a lot, and the same is true for you and LoyceV.

IMO, at least one reason for these types of threads is to get merit, possibly to rank up.

I don’t think the forum should regulate who can open which types of threads. Although I think the merit system has caused some people to create a lot of “guide” threads with the hope of earning merit — in some cases the information is useful and informative to newer users, and this beats the alternative of people posting a bunch of garbage.

Perhaps one solution would be for someone to create a single merit giveaway thread in serious discussion (no signatures so no sig spam will be there), that anyone with sMerit can use to award what they believe to be good posts that are (self) reported in the thread. All/most other merit giveaway threads could be disallowed, with few exceptions.

^^I don’t think the above should be implemented until the issue referenced in the OP gets worse than it is now.

[The Cryptovator]

Do not feed them, whoever open inappropriate giveaway thread. I had detected few giveaway who had not spent single merit but he had opened merit giveaway thread. I just simply asked question why he had not spent any smerit? and suggest them to locked thread. However, all merit giveaway thread intention isn't gain merit or gain reputation. Some peoples want to helps newbie and I appreciate them. But whoever open suspicious merit giveaway thread, I really not feed them. 

[o_e_l_e_o]

I find it fascinating that users with almost no sMerit are opening threads asking for help identifying merit-worthy posts.

I don't want to link to it and single out any individual member, but a new merit giveaway thread has recently popped up, and looking at the OP's merit history, they have 5 sMerits to give.

I can understand the point if you have 50+ or even 100s of sMerit to give like some users (and like me, you prefer to give 1 or 2 merit to lots of different users rather than just give your entire allocation to a couple of users), but I don't understand the point at all if you have single figure sMerits. If you have 5 sMerits to give, and you aren't coming across any meritable posts, then you are spending too much time posting and not enough time reading, IMO. Given the number of merit giveaway threads that now exist, you can always just go in to a pre-existing one and hand out some more merits there, rather than starting yet another one. Or just go through your own recent merit sending history and double up on any particularly good posts.

As mentioned, I suspect most of the junior users who open such threads have an ulterior motive.

[OgNasty]

Perhaps one solution would be for someone to create a single merit giveaway thread in serious discussion (no signatures so no sig spam will be there), that anyone with sMerit can use to award what they believe to be good posts that are (self) reported in the thread. All/most other merit giveaway threads could be disallowed, with few exceptions.

Given the number of merit giveaway threads that now exist, you can always just go in to a pre-existing one and hand out some more merits there, rather than starting yet another one.

I like this idea.  The only problem is, who starts it?  I was going to make a new thread with the idea that thread starters be given the ability to disable merit on their thread, so that the user who starts the thread for public Merit giveaway entrants isn't accused of doing so for the Merit.  I didn't though, because I don't want to be accused of proposing the idea just for the Merit. 

[mikeywith]

if you think it's okay for someone to do it, then it should be okay for everyone else to do it too. This is not some sort of escrow service or anything like that, and I see no reason why it should be an exclusive "privilege" for certain people.

I had two merit giveaway threads , one has ended and one is still open in my local board, there are many reasons why some of us need to start  such topics, the one which i think of as the most important is the lack of time/interest in surfing the forum sometimes, so once i have all the potential posts in one place according to my "rules" it becomes easier to evaluate posts and spend those merit.

[suchmoon]

There is already a solid merit distribution thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0

No need for anything new unless you have some very particular plan but even then you might want to use it instead of creating your own. There are multiple merit sources subscribing to that thread so that's a huge advantage over any individual one.

[Harlot]

You don't really expect shitty members receiving merits on opening up their own merit giveaway thread it's just that other members know that these members have opened up their own merit giveaway thread to receive merits in return. Trust me is that obvious as you will see the difference in quality of their giveaway threads compared to the ones created by known members.

[jademaxsuy]

Your point might be true OP but still we should still think that those threads started by Ognasty and Quickseller are legit. They reward merits that are deserving which are posted in their merit.giveaway threads. One cannot say that the merit giveaway posts is a way to cheat and merit alt accounts.

Meaning that wether it was a cheat merit give away thread or not it will depend on the merit source how he/she will support that thread. If merits source think that it is legit so we could expect to get a support from.them.

[Pmalek]

I have such a thread that I opened back in December 2018, I think about a week before LoyceV created his thread. I don't like calling my thread a merit-giveaway thread. Although it is meant to give away merits to Newbies and Jr. Members, calling it a giveaway implies anyone there gets merits the easy way just be applying. It is not like that and I have turned down more members than I have merited due to users sending totally incomprehensible posts.
I also have many rules in place and check the entire posting history of the members that apply. Several users have even been reported and banned due to plagiarism during my checks. If users post mainly bounty and social media related posts - I don't merit them.

It is true that I have been awarded many merits in that thread and I am thankful for those, especially recently by suchmoon that allowed me to surpass the 1K merit limit. Thank you again for that!
I also take that very seriously and have adjusted the total allocation several times taking into account the received merits. Some users have merited me and posted that those merits should be used and distributed to low ranked members and that is what I intend to do. And I keep that number in my mind so whenever I merit other users outside of my thread (on a daily basis) I make sure to never go below the amount of merits meant for Newbies.

There was some talk a few months ago that these types of threads should be moved to the Off-topic board. I was against that idea because I think that new members frequent the H&B a bit more and I don't really like the Off-topic nor spend any time there anymore.

I even PMed theymos asking if my thread is OK where it is or if I should move it elsewhere. Screenshot of my PM is posted in the thread where he says, if I remember correctly, 'the thread is OK as it is because it is substantially different than other similar threads'. He was probably referring to the Rules I have there.