Does Decaying sMerits will be healthy for the forum?

[Kakmakr]

The sMerit system can be exploited if someone post exceptional posts for a few months and accumulate a lot of sMerits and then after achieving that goal, he or she starts to post non-constructive posts again. If the sMerit decays over time, people will have to continue posting quality content to retain their high sMerit scores.  

sMerit (sendable merit) is not the same merit which determines your rank. Decaying merit would be a huge change which would also impact the flow of sMerit. Why would decaying sMerit encourage a sMerit hoarder to post more quality content if that sMerit disappeared after certain period of time? They don't spend it anyway.

Not in the scenario that I explained. The sMerit allocated to members can also decay over time, to encourage them to continue posting quality content and not just the sMerit that they have in reserve to allocate to other people. So in this scenario ALL merit points decay over time and people will have to keep on posting good quality post to retain their sMerit count.

It would be a bit unfair if they did that, because previous good posts will always be good posts, nothing has changed since those post were awarded those sMerit. I now understand that the goal of these decaying sMerit is the ones that are unused by people hoarding sMerits.    

[1714116113]

1714116113

[The Cryptovator]

It's true merit is decaying due to ban issue but there is merit source to fill that smerit. I don't think there is huge amount merit decaying because most of all are only newbies. So this isn't major forum issue. However I think we need more merit source, so decayed merit will ne recover earlier.

[1miau]

It's true merit is decaying due to ban issue but there is merit source to fill that smerit. I don't think there is huge amount merit decaying because most of all are only newbies. So this isn't major forum issue. However I think we need more merit source, so decayed merit will ne recover earlier.

I've asked LoyceV two weeks ago if he can scrape the number of destroyed Merits during the ban wave but I think it's very much data to analyse. But there was a topic comparing destroyed Merit and new Merit. The result was: [MERIT][NSFN] We're destroying more merits than we're sending. Like, way more.

I've just asked suchmoon if she has time to scrape new data since the ban wave has solwed down for a few days now.

[tranthidung]

Despite of all things raised above on why sMerits should not be destroyed / decayed, I want to point out another one thing:
- Inactive users might come back someday, inactive status does not mean that they leave the forum forever. So, part of them might become mad when their unused sMerits destroyed if theymos suddenly makes decision without pre-announcements. What we have seen here is theymos has never made pre-announcements on exact days when he implement new things. He only asks for opinion on which things he want to improve.
- What if theymos actually announces that all unused sMerits from airdropped merits in January of 2018 will be destroy one month later? Let me guess. I believe that we will see another wave of merit abusements, and most of them will be caught. Later then, Meta board will become crowded with lots of shitty topics and some kinds of boring debates/ wars.
I don't think we need such situation, so let users do anything they want with their airdropped sMerits.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

However I think we need more merit source, so decayed merit can be recovered easily.

More? I don't think so, 8 new sources were just added few weeks back. We're still waiting to see the impact of those new sources. I'll recommend advocating for an increase in the amount of smerits allocated to them (if there be a need for more smerits in circulation) instead of advocating for new sources.

[nakamura12]

More? I don't think so, 8 new sources were just added few weeks back. We're still waiting to see the impact of those new sources. I'll recommend advocating for an increase in the amount of smerits allocated to them (if there be a need for more smerits in circulation) instead of advocating for new sources.

It's either bad or good when there are new merit sources rather than increasing the smerit that the merit sources. New merit sources means there are new criteria. Each person have their own criteria on how they reward their smerit so new merit sources will reward smerit base on their own criteria and those who are constructive poster or those who want to contribute have a chance to be rewarded with smerit. Not all person can pass the strict criteria of a merit sources.

Merit source 1 = Strict Criteria : me ( not pass )
New Merit source = new criteria : me ( I have a chance to pass )

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

I’m with your line of though on this one. I’ve always vouched for the more eyes on the playing field the better, favouring a more diverse criteria when awarding sMerits that a closer circled one. Ideally though, Merit Sources would have less weight in the overall aggregate of sMerit awarding.

Both criteria are not incompatible (number of Merit Sources and their specific sMerit allowance), and can be tweaked at will if required without needing hypothetical sMerit decay to be transferred to them.