Supporting of shitposting by merit source is it trustworthy?

[KTChampions]

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
 - Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

Recently, a new user from Ru local has become a Senior member.
I looked at his profile and was surprised MoxnatyShmel
His message is garbage, but very generously rewarded. Here are some examples:

+2 merit from chimik (merit source)

Burning fucking; D Sorry I have no Merit, you have to hold them for such cases; D

P.S. Oh, thanks chimk, Smartprofit, catch merit))

+4 merit from chimik +1 from Goran

Just do not say it to fuckers, who are waiting in the nearby threds for TON as a new bitcoin  

+4 merit from chimik

There is another question about where go from BNB. To the BTC, the high was barely updated, and to the ETH almost doubled in a couple of months. I think the bnb-eth-btc option can give more btc as a result. Well, or just kamikaze bnb - xem - btc type schemes, but this is for dudes with anaptanium eggs

+3 merit from chimik

chimk, decided when will roll over from bnb in BTC? I think to sell half may be

+ 4 merit from chimik

I am not at all in the IEO theme, it is easier to sit in stock tokens and sincerely wish good luck to the dudes on the front lines in the trenches  

+ 1 merit from chimik

I remember there was a dispute, it seems Gekfin with leonello. Gekfin wrote that not all hamsters were ludomans, Vlaslo had sold a crypto and bought a house, but leonello responded it means nothing, he would sell it again; D I didn’t think that it would be so soon  

+ 4 merit from chimik

Big blocks are like big eggs - it sounds scary, but in fact they are not needed and even interfere

And so on. These are messages from the section "Analytics, analysis, forecasts."

As you can see further, the flow of these merits goes in exchange, for example, with Goran.
A few examples:

+1 merit from MoxnatyShmel

Natural  born  scammer  
This fucker shill a lot of scam, well, what to say, he clearly didn’t sit up last time when they packed into a zugunder for fraud.
Even our Alevlaso with its coprophilia is far from it.

+1 merit from MoxnatyShmel

By all. Now it’s just a centralized OTC with a dildo - you can bury it.

+1 merit from MoxnatyShmel

+100
He said the same thing at the end of 2016 - beginning of 2017, 50 days from the season that gave ATH for  many alts

Sometimes his messages have more characters, but the essence does not change: this is all the small-talk with friends.

Merits are returned for such messages:

+1 merit from Goran

KYC my ass

+1 merit from Goran

Fuck, you have to buy monero on all the kidneys! 

+1 merit from Goran

After the words "one thing I can say for sure" in the context of the crypot, the rest sounds like banter

+1 merit from Goran

Let's force Vlaslo to check the speach, as he used to hedge, wagging both ways, a shotgun, shit  

and so on.

It seems to me that what is happening now in Ru local harms the forum and does not work as intended:

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
 - Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

[suchmoon]

It's "balls", not "eggs", and the rest of your out-of-context-poorly-translated accusation is not much better either.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Yep, those posts aren't merit-worthy, but that's my opinion.  Merit abuse/misuse is so inherently subjective that I stopped tagging people for doing it a long time ago.  And unless there's some seriously blatant and persistent abuse, there's not much that's going to happen in terms of repercussions.  

Maybe this guy has friends or alts, but who knows?  It's good you reported all of this here, but I'm not sure what's going to happen in terms of action about it.  We'll see what other members have to say.

It's "balls", not "eggs"

Eh?  I always called them "huevos mas grande".

[suchmoon]

Yep, those posts aren't merit-worthy, but that's my opinion.

They're completely out of context. This for example:

LocalBitcoins yбpaлa вoзмoжнocть пoкyпки и пpoдaжи кpиптoвaлюты зa нaличныe пpи личнoй вcтpeчe

нoвocть нa фoклoгe? пpoвepял ктo?
интepecнo пo кaкoй-тo кoнкpeтнoй cтpaнe или пo вceм?

Пo вceм .  Teпepь этo пpocтo цeнтpaлизoвaнный OTC  c дилдoй - мoжнo xopoнить .

Was an answer to a question. IMO deserves the one merit. The OP made it sound like some nonsense post.

Many other examples are missing quotes too, plus the awful translation, plus you have to keep in mind that many of these come from the Russian equivalent of the Wall Observer thread - context matters a lot there.

Don't fall for the OP's dirty tricks. chimk is an excellent merit source.

[KTChampions]

It's "balls", not "eggs", and the rest of your out-of-context-poorly-translated accusation is not much better either.

Why not bells?  
In any case, you can check everything yourself. It is a pity that you did not do this in the previous topic, everything ended up very interesting.

Many other examples are missing quotes too, plus the awful translation, plus you have to keep in mind that many of these come from the Russian equivalent of the Wall Observer thread - context matters a lot there. Don't fall for these tricks.

I quoted words that were written by those who received merit. It is a fact. What a person quotes does not apply to the content that he produces. The context of the messages can be checked by anyone, this is open information and I have provided links to it.

Don't fall for the OP's dirty tricks. chimk is an excellent merit source.

Yep

Top senders to permabanned users, last 180 days
239: chimk
115: dbshck
82: suchmoon
50: djnocide

chimk =~ top2+top3+top4

[NeuroticFish]

Yep, those posts aren't merit-worthy, but that's my opinion.  Merit abuse/misuse is so inherently subjective

Yup. I've seen the way I get merit. Some posts I consider good and informative are not merited at all sometimes, while sometimes posts get merited for no particular reason - I guess that somebody was just agreeing with me.
Also I've seen merit given out only for a funny picture or comment. So.. yeah.. it's extremely subjective.

On another hand, I think that theymos should spend a minute on this. This looks like "helping out" the people based on nationality. I mean, OK, he gives out 1 merit for a not-really-worthy post. But 4 merit is.. hmm..
If he also rewards big numbers of good posts, then it's false alarm. But I guess that it could be checked.

[suchmoon]

I quoted words that were written by those who received merit. It is a fact. What a person quotes does not apply to the content that he produces. The context of the messages can be checked by anyone, this is open information and I have provided links to it.

I checked and you're full of shit.

This looks like "helping out" the people based on nationality. I mean, OK, he gives out 1 merit for a not-really-worthy post. But 4 merit is.. hmm..
If he also rewards big numbers of good posts, then it's false alarm. But I guess that it could be checked.

He does and he's got a 500-1000 sMerits to send every month. He is essentially obligated to send more than 1 at a time and of course he's going to merit mostly Russian posts... that's the reason we have local sources.

[KTChampions]

I quoted words that were written by those who received merit. It is a fact. What a person quotes does not apply to the content that he produces. The context of the messages can be checked by anyone, this is open information and I have provided links to it.

I checked and you're full of shit.

Good arguments and facts. Thank you for your response.

He does and he's got a 500-1000 sMerits to send every month. He is essentially obligated to send more than 1 at a time and of course he's going to merit mostly Russian posts... that's the reason we have local sources.

No one forces him to merit shitty messages, quite the contrary:

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
 - Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

[TMAN]

Handing out merits is sometimes hard. I know when my merits build up and I haven’t handed out source merits in a while I get a lot more generous and know that if I don’t hand out all my source it gets burned, much better to be in circulation than have them vanish.

Not commenting here about the accused but 1-4 merits ain’t shit in the grand scheme of things, I’ve handed out 10+ for a funny joke or meme a few times

[ABCbits]

While i agree most of the reply isn't merit-worthy, it's not suitable to use trust feedback, flag or trust configuration in this case. Only theymos who can decide what do do.
But we don't know the context or topic of the topic and recent replies, so i might wrong.

IMO the merit source could give more merit amount to merit-worthy posts rather than give merit to mediocre post or a joke.

[marlboroza]

I checked and you're full of shit.

Maybe OP should check how many merits user Goran has shared in one of threads before and after post number #90753.

I don't think he is full of shit but with lack of proofs we can assume he is full of shit. This thread reveals nothing

[DarkStar_]

Top senders to permabanned users, last 180 days
239: chimk (2.87%)
115: dbshck (0.94%)
82: suchmoon (0.46%)
50: djnocide (35.71%)

chimk =~ top2+top3+top4

That's not really a useful stat by itself. Someone who sends more merits generally will send more merits to permabanned users, and you might have sent a lot of merits to a person who deserved it (markiz73 might be an example), and they end up getting permabanned for something they plagiarized a year ago. The merit source did nothing wrong in this case and you shouldn't expect sources to check an individual's entire post history for plagiarism before sending merits. If you look at the percentages, chimk is about triple the percent of total merits sent compared to dbshck, but it's still pretty low and nowhere near the levels of djnocide (35.71%) where it is almost certainly an issue.

[suchmoon]

That's not really a useful stat by itself. Someone who sends more merits generally will send more merits to permabanned users, and you might have sent a lot of merits to a person who deserved it (markiz73 might be an example), and they end up getting permabanned for something they plagiarized a year ago. The merit source did nothing wrong in this case and you shouldn't expect sources to check an individual's entire post history for plagiarism before sending merits.

QFT. tvplus006 is another one. This was already pointed out to the OP in another thread but he continues to push this conspiracy theory. Very misleading and dishonest.

Another fun fact: chimk sends about as many sMerits as the rest of the Russian board combined. Obviously he's gonna be the biggest "merit fan" of many users on that board, including some less-than-perfect ones.

[Theb]

If I'm a merit source I wouldn't mind giving away 1 to 4 merits to the post that I at least agree with. Even if the post you have given example have some bad words in it I still think it's worth 1 to 4 merits for the merit source, it's really nothing unusual. Also that's really nothing compared to one-liners receiving 20-50 merits for each worthless post they have, the amount of merits sent to these kinds of post simply doesn't justify it.

[KTChampions]

Handing out merits is sometimes hard. I know when my merits build up and I haven’t handed out source merits in a while I get a lot more generous and know that if I don’t hand out all my source it gets burned, much better to be in circulation than have them vanish.

I agree with you. But it seems to me better to spend time and give away 50 merit for a good post than to encourage poor quality / junk posts.

I checked and you're full of shit.

Maybe OP should check how many merits user Goran has shared in one of threads before and after post number #90753.

I don't think he is full of shit but with lack of proofs we can assume he is full of shit. This thread reveals nothing

Russian is my native language, so it is very easy for me to check the information under discussion.
I checked MoxnatyShmel posts that was merited by chimk. My personal opinion: only two (1,2) of them (28 total) have at least some quality or utility. The rest of the posts are either friendly chatter, or outright trash.

Top senders to permabanned users, last 180 days
239: chimk (2.87%)
115: dbshck (0.94%)
82: suchmoon (0.46%)
50: djnocide (35.71%)

chimk =~ top2+top3+top4

That's not really a useful stat by itself. Someone who sends more merits generally will send more merits to permabanned users, and you might have sent a lot of merits to a person who deserved it (markiz73 might be an example), and they end up getting permabanned for something they plagiarized a year ago. The merit source did nothing wrong in this case and you shouldn't expect sources to check an individual's entire post history for plagiarism before sending merits. If you look at the percentages, chimk is about triple the percent of total merits sent compared to dbshck, but it's still pretty low and nowhere near the levels of djnocide (35.71%) where it is almost certainly an issue.

I agree with you. This indicator in itself does not mean anything. But if you take it in conjunction with others, then you can see some patterns. I see that chimk destroys Ru local with his distribution of merit. Many users (especially those who are trying to make content and write high-quality posts) seeing such plentiful encouragement of shit posts turn into trolls and oppositionists.
Nobody likes criticism (so chimk ceases to give merit to critics), and chimk's favorites defend their privileged position ... as a result, the local turns into a garbage dump where various factions swear.

QFT. tvplus006 is another one. This was already pointed out to the OP in another thread but he continues to push this conspiracy theory. Very misleading and dishonest.

My theory (although this is only a set of facts but not theory) made it possible to reveal more than 20 malicious fraudsters and to make the forum a little cleaner. If some DT members (from Ru local) were engaged in identifying fraudsters, and not protecting them, the figure would have been more than 100.

If I'm a merit source I wouldn't mind giving away 1 to 4 merits to the post that I at least agree with. Even if the post you have given example have some bad words in it I still think it's worth 1 to 4 merits for the merit source, it's really nothing unusual. Also that's really nothing compared to one-liners receiving 20-50 merits for each worthless post they have, the amount of merits sent to these kinds of post simply doesn't justify it.

You're right. But I'm not talking about individual cases, but about the system. MoxnatyShmel received 79 merit from chimk. As I wrote above, I consider 2 of his posts to be not junk and not an ordinary friendly conversation. These are 5 merits from 79. Is he a shit poster? (total number of posts ~5000 in less than 2 years and only one created topic) most likely not. But he is definitely not a user who should be generously gifted for low-quality posts.

[eternalgloom]

Handing out merits is sometimes hard. I know when my merits build up and I haven’t handed out source merits in a while I get a lot more generous and know that if I don’t hand out all my source it gets burned, much better to be in circulation than have them vanish.

I agree with you. But it seems to me better to spend time and give away 50 merit for a good post than to encourage poor quality / junk posts.

That's highly subjective and I personally think there's no right or wrong way to spend your merits. (as long as you're not abusing the system)
What you think is a junk post, might be quality for someone else.

I know some people only consider posts with +10 sentences merit-worthy, while others only look at the content and general helpfulness of the post.
It's good that there's a lot of diversity between merit sources, that's going to "cover the most ground" IMO.

[chimk]

Hello. Thank you for a balanced, careful consideration of the issue. I think in each local section, there are users who do not like Bitcoin and criticize it, giving different definitions.

I think in each local section, there are users who do not like Bitcoin and criticize it, giving different definitions. In the Russian section, people who “criticize” bitcoin also periodically appear. Recently, very active in this
KTChampions, fxpc and of course amaclin1. They appear in active topics where bitcoin is discussed and with pressure, sometimes in a rude form, they begin to give the “arguments” to the failure of btc, sometimes with insults. For example, KTChampions likes to call the Bitcoin pyramid, the community Bitcoin sectarians and freaks.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5150471.msg51350186#msg51350186

KTChampions created the "Coздaтeль биткoинa o btc." He calls Crag Wright the creator of BTC and his manifesto is in the subject.

fxpc likes to call Bitcoin "digital emptiness", a pyramid, a community sectarian. The possibility of an attack of 51%, argues that the owners of large pools will come with soldering irons and torture will force them to make an attack.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4871955.msg51134751#msg51134751
with amaclin1, you probably know each other.

I argued a lot with these gentlemen and other users of the Russian section also argued. About a month ago, they began to make ridiculous, unsubstantiated charges. The last accusation that I am a corrupt source of merit, they called me in the Russian section. I saw some objective reviews in Russian.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5105163.msg51693656#msg51693656
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5105163.msg51688078#msg51688078
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5105163.msg51689108#msg51689108

Now KTChampions has come to the English section again, using the language barrier to manipulate the facts and distort them. I can report on every accusation message. They are taken out of context, they do not convey the nature of communication and the personality of the author and other specific nuances. Let me tell you a little about my work on the distribution of merit.

If you look at the TOP 10 on the merit assignment, we will see the following -
https://bpip.org/profile.aspx?p=chimk

Has given 8382 merit 3420 times, to 679 profiles ( 12.3 merit/profile)
Has received 483 merit 366 times, from 114 profiles

Profile   Number   Sum 

Goran_   128   314
This is a respected member of the Russian community, he writes a lot of good analytics, gives a lot of diverse information. Active in the largest and most popular Russian theme.

taikuri13   100  287
The active participant, helps the forum in matters of rules, DT, explains the system merit, a supporter of bitcoin, reveals the principles of decentralization, talks a lot about economic and social models.

igor72   95   241
Very helpful user. It supports several technical topics on hardware wallets and Electrum wallet, always helps people in solving their technical issues. A very sympathetic person and I see that he does it disinterestedly.

TheFuzzStone   55   184
A supporter of Monero, well aware of everything that happens in Monero. Also active in many other topics, writes a lot about cryptovalues, wrote a few instructions.

Xal0lex   57   181
Moderator, performs a lot of work on the section. helps with individual information.

imhoneer   61   174
An experienced trader, an analyst, writes a lot about the principle of decentralization and bitcoin.

xenon131 53   165
Пoлeзный члeн cooбщecтвa. Texничecки гpaмoтный пoльзoвaтeль, пишeт инcтpyкции, пoмoгaeт paзбиpaтьcя в тexничecкиx вoпpocax.

QWeB   57   150
The most active member of the Russian community, in the subject Lightning Network.

leonello   47   138
Bitcoin enthusiast, Bitcoin maximalist, well sees the global economy, model, understands the causes of BTC, a dedicated member of the Bitcoin community. Dear member of the Russian section.

m2017   53   132
A versatile user writes in many topics related to Bitcoin and hardware wallets.

There are many other useful people in the Russian section. For example -
witcher_sense who received 125 merit from me. Investigates by fraudulent ICO. In the topic I created, “BTC people. Andreas Antonopoulos” adds subtitles to the video. In this topic we collect Andreas Antonopoulos videos for the Russian section in Russian. We do not have enough translators. I can cite many such examples, interaction with people, for the sake of the development of the forum and the BTC community. I love Bitcoin, even though I came to the community in the fall of 2017. I saw how the Russian section was before the introduction of the merit system and how it is now. There are a lot of positive changes.

Does anyone really think that I am sending a complaint to the shitposting with one hand, and awarding the shitposting with the other hand? I check for plagiarism posts, I try to check the authors of posts. I always watch how they dispose of merit, it’s enough for me if they send them. I checked many profiles for plagiarism and these active users became helpers for me. When they write interesting posts, I send them merit, knowing that they, in turn, will distribute them. I believe that such a model makes it possible to make the merit distribution system as decentralized as possible, covering various groups of users. Such an approach reduces the participation of sources of merit to a reasonable minimum.

Yes, there is a problem with this statistic.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendban
I distribute a lot of merit. Several users let me down. I trusted them, was grateful for their active participation and did not manage to check their profiles completely, they were later blocked for plagiarism. Is my fault here? Perhaps ... And for that I am ready to apologize.

The first few months I kept statistics on sections and topics of the message with merit, counting everything manually in the exel table. I know how big the coverage is in my work. I have my own tricks with which I try to get people interested in communication in this historical forum, because I believe in it and not by chance I spend a lot of time on it, sometimes depriving myself of personal development. For me, this is normal. And I want to ask you to figure out for yourself how competent I am. Look at what messages I write, for what I get merit, look at the great statistics on the issued merits and believe me, I am not your enemy.

Submission of material by interested parties, often one-sided. I can easily accept the resignation. There is no need to be a source of merit; one can be a source of knowledge, a source of support, a source of positive. But it will not be correct if the reason for this is unfair manipulation. For a month now I have been forced to fend off insults and false accusations. I have a lot to do in the Russian section, not just personal. I have open cases where I suspect the participation of criminal groups and I do not have enough time to collect complete information.

I hope I gave a fairly comprehensive answer. Thank you for your patience. Sorry for bad english. Regards chimk.

[JayJuanGee]

Handing out merits is sometimes hard. I know when my merits build up and I haven’t handed out source merits in a while I get a lot more generous and know that if I don’t hand out all my source it gets burned, much better to be in circulation than have them vanish.

Not commenting here about the accused but 1-4 merits ain’t shit in the grand scheme of things, I’ve handed out 10+ for a funny joke or meme a few times

For example, TMAN, I merited your cited above post because I was kind of feeling in the mood  to merit some posts, and I realized that I had not merited any of your posts for a while... so there is a bit of randomness to the matter, too.

Furthermore, I merited OP too, because I think that OP brought up a decent framing of a topic and provided a number of examples that seems to show some kinds of consideration that are at least springboard conversation points.... even if s/he/it might be wrong about some of the raised points.

  Just superficially looking at some of OPs post history does seem to support that s/he can be a bit of a shit poster him/herself..... but I still don't mind spreading out some merits to a variety of members with perhaps some glimmer of hope that some of these more active members are providing some kind of substantive help to various other members (and even to lurkers), to spark various conversations and even to encourage a bit of diversity of participation, thoughts and even springboards for thoughts.

I do admit that I get a bit irritated by shitposters who repeat themes that denigrate bitcoin or pump some other coin or project with misleading information, while sometimes trapping some innocent newbie bystanders into buying into their crap/scam projects.  At the same time, even scam/crap projects can serve some purposes to teach dumb money or even to provide avenues of investment and relief for dumb money.  It's not like we are going to absolutely get rid of dumb money, and I even know those kinds of people in real life.  They might not be teachable, and they tend to make the world more interesting and also they can cause mediocrely smart people feel even smarter.... hahahahahaha

I guess part of my point here is that there can be a bit of randomness to sharing and/or spreading out smerits, and even while sources have greater obligations to NOT engage in self-dealing with their source smerits, they also enjoy a decent amount of discretion that will inevitably have some subjective components and luck involved when they do end up spending their smerits that also might revolve around some of their real life happenings that can be difficult to know or trace, especially if the source might not say that s/he is feeling like x, y or z on a particular day when s/he sends out some smerits....

And lastly, a kind of repetitive point regarding the seeming randomness that might even be a bit irrational from time to time, I doubt that theymos wants bots serving as merit sources, so to the extent that people recognize, understand and accept that real people have irrational behaviors (from time to time), that irrationality seems to be a kind of feature, rather than a bug....even when some merit sources might be better able to consistently keep such  irrationality features under better control than other merit sources.