Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?

[hd49728]

This thread plays as a reminder for all forum members, especially shit posters, whom have kept continuously to post their shitpost daily.
This thread is for old-era members, and for new-era members whom joined here after merit system kicked-off.

What are everyone's ideas for improving post quality?

I have mostly ruled out:

- Removing signatures or sig ads globally.
 - Requiring payment to wear sig ads.
 - Banning account sales.

Nearly a month later, merit system released
Merit & new rank requirements

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.

Around 2 weeks later, theymos wrote

It's too early to get a clear picture, but my thoughts so far:

First, most people complaining about merit are constantly posting garbage, and should not rank-up. The forum is not a welfare system; you don't run through a few hoops and then get paid for doing something that nobody actually wants. I like that good forum members can make money, especially when said forum members are in poorer countries and this is a major opportunity for them. I very much do not want to destroy the sig-ad/airdrop/bounty "industry". But I am not going to tolerate people posting garbage upon garbage. If the merit system completely fails and I can't think of anything else to replace it, then my next step will probably be to completely remove all ways for forum users to make money from posting (eg. removing signatures entirely).

Maybe there are ways for people who were making money by posting garbage on the forum to make money on other sites with easy bounties, etc. (For example, I don't know if they're actually any good, but https://bountyhive.io is currently advertising on the forum.) But people should use the forum to talk about these money-making ideas, not as a way of making money itself. Once you spend a lot of time here, you may be able to make some money here (which is great!), but you should consider this a far-off hope, not your primary objective.

BTW, if anyone has any ideas for simple things that these ex-nonsense-posters could usefully do to make money, I think that this'd be a good project right now. There are apparently quite a few people who were making money on the forum and could use guidance. Even though their past activities were not good for this forum, I doubt that they are useless in general.

Above is reminded section on theymos' standpoints on post quality, forum situation, plans and expectation to clean up the forum by merit system.
The system born as main tool to fight against spammers; keep them unable to rank up, and reduce spam posts.

Did it help as expected? Not.

Merit system failed at somewhat extents, spammers stucked on low ranks, but they kept spamming, globally.
That is why around 8 months later, in September last year, theymos moved further by derank Junior Members whom did not earn 1 merit (at least) by that day.

Due to excessive garbage-posting, you now need 1 merit to be a Jr Member. All existing Jr Members who didn't meet the requirement were demoted. Also, newbies can no longer set any signature or personal text.

One reason that I was hesitant to do this before is that there are an awful lot of newbie restrictions, and I don't want the forum to be unwelcoming to good newbies.

After that, it seems merit system and that demotion on old-era Junior Members have significant impacts on spamming here.
Newbies stopped spamming because they can not rank up to Junior Members. It is truly right with farm accounts, but there are 'companies' that run bumping services still use their Newbie accounts to spam globally.
In Welcome message (draft), admin wrote

A lot of people come here primarily looking to make money. The forum administration is very happy that people are able to use the forum in order to better themselves; indeed, one of the reasons for Bitcoin's creation was to break the artificial barriers which prevent so many people around the world from attaining prosperity. However, if your attempts to make money conflict with the forum's primary goal of enabling discussion, then you are swimming upstream, and you will not be sucessful in the end.

If you view the forum as some sort of "job" where you complete some basic tasks and get paid, then you will almost certainly be disappointed, and the forum administration will not be sympathetic. If you do make money using the forum, then it will be through innovation and entrepreneurship, not any sort of mindless busywork.

Question
My question stated in thread title: Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?


Solutions
Please stop or reduce considerably your spam posts. Admin actually want to keep signature and signature industry, for good users, to have extra income.
You should support admin's standpoints on post-quality and help the forum as less shitposts as possible.
Be good, be constructive, help the forum, and help yourself!

[1713620834]

1713620834

[1713620834]

1713620834

[AB de Royse777]

Introducing Merit was a good step. The amount of spamming we used to see in the later 2017 to early 2018, it was ridiculous. I can not speak very correctly since I do not have any data or I am not a data analyst but in the naked eyes, I see improvement. There are a lot of members still ranking up.

My question stated in thread title: Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?

Have not thought about it. Think is if you have a goal to contribute to the community then nothing else comes in the equations. I understand that not everyone has the same goal.

[tranthidung]

I can not speak very correctly since I do not have any data or I am not a data analyst but in the naked eyes, I see improvement.

I don't have data on post quality, and honestly it is impossible to use any sort of tools to automatically assess post quality. Fortunately, there is data on some other parameters (new registered users, new posts, new topics - monthly), that are helpful.
It seems spammers only stop creating new accounts, and less spamming since Sept. 2018. Merit system (Jan. 2018) helped, but Enhanced merit system (Sept. 2018) helped further.

Interesting to see that when Bitcoin rocketed from bottom, within early months this year, spammers don't come back too work significantly from their hypernational period.

ABSTRACT

Note:
This thread might be updated monthly, based on data dumps from @Alex_Sr.

(1) Despite the rise of bitcoin to around $14,000, monthly registered accounts in last few months are too far away from all time high at 238433, in Dec. 2017.
(2) Minimum and maximum are 3 and 238433, in Nov. 2009, and December 2017, respectively.
(3) 50% of months (from Nov. 2009 to June 2019) have total monthly registered accounts in the range from 2611 to 24472 (the interquatile range).
(4) 50% of those months have total monthly registered accounts above or below 10691 (the median).
(5) The lowest and highest medians (of months for each year) found at 148 and 66895, in 2010 and 2018.
(6) From peaks on 20/12/2017, BTC close price and monthly registered accounts decreased 91.3%, and  81%, respectively, on 15/12/2018.
(7) Since 15/12/2018, BTC close price and monthly registered accounts increased 159%, and  7.8%, respectively, on 1/6/2019.

* Details of points (6), (7), please read the second post of this thread.

< ... >
Plot:

Plots
1) New members and new topics

A quick overview. It seems that monthly statistics on new members and new topics tend to hit peaks each two-year period.
2) New posts

More details are presented there:
Assumed monthly statistics on registered accounts of bitcointalk.org (2009-2019)
Time Series on monthly statistics of forum (new users, new topics, new posts)
Update with newest data from theymos

In the last 30 days:
 - 16441 users registered.

The total registed account in one-month period from 15 Nov. 2018 to 15 Dec. 2018 is at 20733.
It means that total registered accounts last 30 days is 20 percent lower than the figure in Dec. last year when Bitcoin bottomed out.

Code:

. di (20733-16441)/20733*100
20.701297

Latest given data from theymos, is another solid proof that spammers considerably reduce their pace of creating new accounts.

Code:

. list id day month2 year date regacc

     +------------------------------------------------+
     |  id   day   month2   year        date   regacc |
     |------------------------------------------------|
  1. |   1     2       11   2009   02nov2009        3 |
  2. |   2     2       12   2009   02dec2009        8 |
  3. |   3     1        1   2010   01jan2010        8 |
  4. |   4    31        1   2010   31jan2010       22 |
  5. |   5     2        3   2010   02mar2010        5 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
  6. |   6     1        4   2010   01apr2010       22 |
  7. |   7     1        5   2010   01may2010       15 |
  8. |   8    31        5   2010   31may2010       33 |
  9. |   9    30        6   2010   30jun2010      325 |
 10. |  10    30        7   2010   30jul2010      159 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 11. |  11    29        8   2010   29aug2010      148 |
 12. |  12    28        9   2010   28sep2010      190 |
 13. |  13    28       10   2010   28oct2010      204 |
 14. |  14    27       11   2010   27nov2010      383 |
 15. |  15    27       12   2010   27dec2010      384 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 16. |  16    26        1   2011   26jan2011      938 |
 17. |  17    25        2   2011   25feb2011     2202 |
 18. |  18    27        3   2011   27mar2011     2737 |
 19. |  19    26        4   2011   26apr2011     4936 |
 20. |  20    26        5   2011   26may2011    14048 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 21. |  21    25        6   2011   25jun2011     6250 |
 22. |  22    25        7   2011   25jul2011     3903 |
 23. |  23    24        8   2011   24aug2011     2938 |
 24. |  24    23        9   2011   23sep2011     1983 |
 25. |  25    23       10   2011   23oct2011     1965 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 26. |  26    22       11   2011   22nov2011     1835 |
 27. |  27    22       12   2011   22dec2011     1812 |
 28. |  28    21        1   2012   21jan2012     2082 |
 29. |  29    20        2   2012   20feb2012     1901 |
 30. |  30    21        3   2012   21mar2012     2158 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 31. |  31    20        4   2012   20apr2012     1969 |
 32. |  32    20        5   2012   20may2012     2057 |
 33. |  33    19        6   2012   19jun2012     2040 |
 34. |  34    19        7   2012   19jul2012     2145 |
 35. |  35    18        8   2012   18aug2012     2419 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 36. |  36    17        9   2012   17sep2012     2661 |
 37. |  37    17       10   2012   17oct2012     2958 |
 38. |  38    16       11   2012   16nov2012     2763 |
 39. |  39    16       12   2012   16dec2012     2611 |
 40. |  40    15        1   2013   15jan2013     3320 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 41. |  41    14        2   2013   14feb2013     4933 |
 42. |  42    16        3   2013   16mar2013    13816 |
 43. |  43    15        4   2013   15apr2013    18162 |
 44. |  44    15        5   2013   15may2013    11318 |
 45. |  45    14        6   2013   14jun2013     8095 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 46. |  46    14        7   2013   14jul2013     6703 |
 47. |  47    13        8   2013   13aug2013     5505 |
 48. |  48    12        9   2013   12sep2013     4137 |
 49. |  49    12       10   2013   12oct2013     5632 |
 50. |  50    11       11   2013   11nov2013    26804 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 51. |  51    11       12   2013   11dec2013    28776 |
 52. |  52    10        1   2014   10jan2014    29576 |
 53. |  53     9        2   2014   09feb2014    29839 |
 54. |  54    11        3   2014   11mar2014    22534 |
 55. |  55    10        4   2014   10apr2014    18065 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 56. |  56    10        5   2014   10may2014    13071 |
 57. |  57     9        6   2014   09jun2014    12180 |
 58. |  58     9        7   2014   09jul2014    10561 |
 59. |  59     8        8   2014   08aug2014    10925 |
 60. |  60     7        9   2014   07sep2014     9418 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 61. |  61     7       10   2014   07oct2014     8218 |
 62. |  62     6       11   2014   06nov2014     7974 |
 63. |  63     6       12   2014   06dec2014     8136 |
 64. |  64     5        1   2015   05jan2015    23256 |
 65. |  65     4        2   2015   04feb2015    36913 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 66. |  66     6        3   2015   06mar2015    33500 |
 67. |  67     5        4   2015   05apr2015     8450 |
 68. |  68     5        5   2015   05may2015     8577 |
 69. |  69     4        6   2015   04jun2015    10303 |
 70. |  70     4        7   2015   04jul2015    11773 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 71. |  71     3        8   2015   03aug2015     9725 |
 72. |  72     2        9   2015   02sep2015     7644 |
 73. |  73     2       10   2015   02oct2015    68601 |
 74. |  74     1       11   2015   01nov2015    44059 |
 75. |  75     1       12   2015   01dec2015    37106 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 76. |  76    30        1   2016   30jan2016    42233 |
 77. |  77    29        2   2016   29feb2016    24213 |
 78. |  78    30        3   2016   30mar2016    19336 |
 79. |  79    29        4   2016   29apr2016    16031 |
 80. |  80    29        5   2016   29may2016    19935 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 81. |  81    28        6   2016   28jun2016    12582 |
 82. |  82    28        7   2016   28jul2016    10646 |
 83. |  83    27        8   2016   27aug2016     9986 |
 84. |  84    26        9   2016   26sep2016     9844 |
 85. |  85    26       10   2016   26oct2016    10718 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 86. |  86    25       11   2016   25nov2016    10691 |
 87. |  87    25       12   2016   25dec2016    12429 |
 88. |  88    24        1   2017   24jan2017    13664 |
 89. |  89    23        2   2017   23feb2017    13893 |
 90. |  90    25        3   2017   25mar2017    15276 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 91. |  91    24        4   2017   24apr2017    20585 |
 92. |  92    24        5   2017   24may2017    31381 |
 93. |  93    23        6   2017   23jun2017    35866 |
 94. |  94    23        7   2017   23jul2017    40726 |
 95. |  95    22        8   2017   22aug2017    45026 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
 96. |  96    21        9   2017   21sep2017    70477 |
 97. |  97    21       10   2017   21oct2017    95568 |
 98. |  98    20       11   2017   20nov2017   144762 |
 99. |  99    20       12   2017   20dec2017   238433 |
100. | 100    19        1   2018   19jan2018   136872 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
101. | 101    18        2   2018   18feb2018   107237 |
102. | 102    20        3   2018   20mar2018    87087 |
103. | 103    19        4   2018   19apr2018    89659 |
104. | 104    19        5   2018   19may2018    83999 |
105. | 105    18        6   2018   18jun2018    72430 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
106. | 106    18        7   2018   18jul2018    61360 |
107. | 107    17        8   2018   17aug2018    41451 |
108. | 108    16        9   2018   16sep2018    41516 |
109. | 109    16       10   2018   16oct2018    35335 |
110. | 110    15       11   2018   15nov2018    31502 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
111. | 111    15       12   2018   15dec2018    20733 |
112. | 112    14        1   2019   14jan2019    20046 |
113. | 113     1        2   2019   01feb2019    16202 |
114. | 114     1        3   2019   01mar2019    18932 |
115. | 115     1        4   2019   01apr2019    17910 |
     |------------------------------------------------|
116. | 116     1        5   2019   01may2019    24472 |
117. | 117     1        6   2019   01jun2019    22357 |
     +------------------------------------------------+

[amicrypto]

I am one of those users who came in after the new Merit system and understand the pros and cons of the system. The new system will definitely do wonders for bettering the forum in terms of shit post and signature spams.

The only bone of contention comes from users that were airdropped the merits on the basis of their existing rank. They are the only people in my opinion who would still be posting sig spam. They had not earned those merits and what the forum can do is that they can have the airdropped merits removed now because we have had ample time to earn merits by posting quality posts and proving our initially held rank. Why give them a favour of having a Legendary/Hero rank and qualifying for highly paid signature campaigns without earning the right by getting merits through their posts? Or we can reduce their airdropped merits in some proportion that can be calculated by using the current post/merit earned of that user. This would ensure that their previous effort (when meriting a post was not so prevalent) is duely appreciated in merit calculation.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

My question stated in thread title: Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?

Before January 2018, actmyname and I started tagging shitposters around the time both of us got added to DT.  This created a firestorm in Meta, since having red trust from a DT member disqualifies a lot of campaign participants.  I've since admitted that it was a bad use of the trust system, but you have to understand that the situation was out of control and nobody had any tools to combat shitposters. 

Theymos did not approve of our actions and "requested" that all those feedbacks be removed or else I'd get removed from DT.  That message was relayed through my DT1 sponsor at the time.  Then the merit system was created (or it could have been before; I can't recall exactly), which was a huge relief to me, because I was spending a considerable amount of time seeking out the worst posters and giving them negative trust.  After the merit system was put into place there was no need for negging spammers/shitposters.

That probably had nothing to do with preventing sig campaigns from being erased, but my actions along with actmyname's at least lit a fire under some people's asses and made people realize that something had to be done, that the quality of the forum was becoming unbearable.

Introducing Merit was a good step. The amount of spamming we used to see in the later 2017 to early 2018, it was ridiculous. I can not speak very correctly since I do not have any data or I am not a data analyst but in the naked eyes, I see improvement. There are a lot of members still ranking up.

Hell yes it was a good step.  It's one of the best improvements I've ever seen here, and I'm very grateful to Theymos for coming up with something so clever.  And while there are still tons of shitposters, I've definitely seen a lot of improvement in a lot of members' post quality as a result.  If you have some incentive to rank up in the form of earning more money in a campaign and the only way you can do it is to improve your post quality, you know damn well a lot of members are going to step up and try harder.  And they have.

[actmyname]

You have reported 24920 posts with 97% accuracy

I actually want to see a short-term experiment on a forum-wide sig ban.

[tranthidung]

Hell yes it was a good step.  It's one of the best improvements I've ever seen here, and I'm very grateful to Theymos for coming up with something so clever.  And while there are still tons of shitposters, I've definitely seen a lot of improvement in a lot of members' post quality as a result.  If you have some incentive to rank up in the form of earning more money in a campaign and the only way you can do it is to improve your post quality, you know damn well a lot of members are going to step up and try harder.  And they have.

According to History of bitcointalk.org's rank system, it is the second changes on forum's rank system; and it is a biggest one, so far.
So far, we have witnessed three periods with three rank systems

• Without activity requirements (November 22, 2009 - January 22, 2018)
• Activity requirements (June 18, 2013 - January 23, 2018)
• Activity requirements + Merit requirements (January 24, 2018 - by now)

[AB de Royse777]

The only bone of contention comes from users that were airdropped the merits on the basis of their existing rank. They are the only people in my opinion who would still be posting sig spam.

I agree with the fact that there are still many high ranked member who shitposts. They were lucky to get the airdropped merit. It was not that hard to rank up before.

But there are so many uses who are good posters despite they got their rank when there were no merit. Those users are regularly earning merits and some of them have few thousand of merits to be honest.

The easy way to differentiate a shitposter than a good one is to see how frequent they earn merit. However one have to admit this fact that not all good posts gets merit. There are a lot of factor involves in earning merit not just good quality post.

You have reported 24920 posts with 97% accuracy

I actually want to see a short-term experiment on a forum-wide sig ban.

You seems pushing it hard :-P

[pugman]

You have reported 24920 posts with 97% accuracy

I actually want to see a short-term experiment on a forum-wide sig ban.

Wanna know an easier way? Be a dick to shitposters -> they get mad -> they enrage all across the forum -> someone goes deep in on them, dig out the shady stuff -> expose them -> get them tagged -> they never use the account ever again-> repeat. Voila. All because of saying "fuck you bitch", or something you'd possibly say: "go to Halifax"

[LTU_btc]

As average forum member without much power I can't much. I'm just not spamming myself, trying to report worst shitposts and not giving merits to spammers. Maybe I could do more, but lack of time and laziness don't help :/. And I'm doing these mentioned things without thinking about signature campaigns. I just want to see quality forum. And I feel huge respect to users who reported thousands of shitposts or avarding best posters with merits actively. They're making this forum into better place. And in my opinion, merit system is doing it's job very well.

[Baronets]

I actually want to see a short-term experiment on a forum-wide sig ban.

Signatures are an important way for the forum to reward active and responsible members. Almost all of the forums that don't allow signatures with links are of a far lower quality. However, it is a privilege and not a right, and members should respect it. Members should be aware that links and comments in their signatures affect their reputation, and they should research any projects they are promoting, before they add them to their signature. Even better is to restrict yourself to the promotion of services and products that you actually use, and thus have some knowledge and experience of them.

Signatures are also used for political comments, and news reports that some members consider to be important. I think this is a useful benefit as long as it is used responsibly.

So what could be a viable alternative to a global ban? One possibility is the removal of signature rights from a member who is promoting a fraudulent product. If this ban was for 3 or 6 months, then just the threat of it could encourage members to research the sites they are considering promoting before adding them to their signature. That ban could be imposed across all known alts as well.

[hd49728]

Signature itself is harmless, it is just as same as username. If users don't abuse it with harzadous links, or abuse it by spamming and get a few cents from their spams.
Basically, everyone has rights to show off their ideas, discussions here; but if they abuse and make mono-conversations, thing will be different.
I hope the thread reminds shitposters that admin gave them second chance, or third chance (second one is merit system, third one is upgraded-merit-system, with Junior Member demotion), more correctly; to keep signature industry running here; gave them chance to earn some money. But if they ignore kindness of admin, who knows they will have fourth chance or not?

[TheBeardedBaby]

In the summer of 2018 the situation with the spam was so awful and I got so tired reporting alone so on 21 of July, I created the SpamBuster's Club, after that we have reviewed more than 20 000 accounts, significant part of those got banned. Thousands of comments got removed,and I think we pushed theymos to come up the badge idea,(just assumption here). Many things changed after the club was announced.

[hd49728]

In the summer of 2018 the situation with the spam was so awful and I got so tired reporting alone so on 21 of July, I created the SpamBuster's Club, after that we have reviewed more than 20 000 accounts, significant part of those got banned. Thousands of comments got removed,and I think we pushed theymos to come up the badge idea,(just assumption here). Many things changed after the club was announced.

Merit system (original version), upgraded merit system (aims at Junior Members); your Spambuster club in 2018; and the bot to fight against plagiarism this year; together contribute to clean the forum. This year, thousands of accounts banned with supports from that bot.
I think the upgraded merit system brought a powerful tool to stop spammers creating new accounts, and their spamming severity and intensity decreased considerably too.
Bot (this year) cleaned up more by searching, reporting, and consequently help to ban so many accounts permanently, not only Brandnew, Newbies, but also top-ranks, like Hero and Legendary.
I guess which kind of next upgrade for merit system? KYC, possibly?

[Coyster]

My major contribution to stop spam has been to develop myself hugely in over a year on the forum, learning how and the right way to post, so I do not fall on the wrong side of the line and increase the number of shitposters that roam the forum everyday.

To me that's a wonderful personal contribution, one that if everyone takes they'll be better persons here and it'll reflect on the forum, instilling sanity and stamping out laziness.If only everyone can behave in the most appropriate way expected, then in here would be a better place for sure.

I guess which kind of next upgrade for merit system? KYC, possibly?

This one is never going to happen, to put in the words of theymos:

I'll get right on that, just as soon as hell freezes over.

[TheBeardedBaby]

In the summer of 2018 the situation with the spam was so awful and I got so tired reporting alone so on 21 of July, I created the SpamBuster's Club, after that we have reviewed more than 20 000 accounts, significant part of those got banned. Thousands of comments got removed,and I think we pushed theymos to come up the badge idea,(just assumption here). Many things changed after the club was announced.

Merit system (original version), upgraded merit system (aims at Junior Members); your Spambuster club in 2018; and the bot to fight against plagiarism this year; together contribute to clean the forum. This year, thousands of accounts banned with supports from that bot.
I think the upgraded merit system brought a powerful tool to stop spammers creating new accounts, and their spamming severity and intensity decreased considerably too.
Bot (this year) cleaned up more by searching, reporting, and consequently help to ban so many accounts permanently, not only Brandnew, Newbies, but also top-ranks, like Hero and Legendary.
I guess which kind of next upgrade for merit system? KYC, possibly?

No need to upgrade anything anymore, now we just have to agree with the mods what and how to fight the HQ spam with its fake conversations giving 0 value to the projects, useless comments just for a post count which are hidden in just repeating the things already posted. That's all, for the rest the bots are doing their work.

[gentlemand]

Hmm. I think I've gotten so used to shitposts I kind of look through them.

I always report phishing stuff, blatant shilling of junk and necroposts.

When it's a 'Dear, bitcoin is a most excellent system of money for we can make profit' type post it's invisible to me.

As for merit my own views are - 3-5 to move up from newbie. Lower requirements for the middling ranks and the removal of all legacy ranks and airdropped merit.

It's been long enough now.

[hd49728]

Hmm. I think I've gotten so used to shitposts I kind of look through them.

I always report phishing stuff, blatant shilling of junk and necroposts.

When it's a 'Dear, bitcoin is a most excellent system of money for we can make profit' type post it's invisible to me.

As for merit my own views are - 3-5 to move up from newbie. Lower requirements for the middling ranks and the removal of all legacy ranks and airdropped merit.

It's been long enough now.

Admin does not want to change seriously and make the forum unfriendly for good newbies. I don't think he will require more merits for the Junior Member rank.

Remove of airdropped merits will make old Senior Members, Hero Members and Legendary members feel paranoid, like what theymos said on misuse or too serious use of trust system months ago. Good old users can rank up again, even their airdropped merits removed and they will be deranked. They definitely don't have issue to move up again, just need a little bit time. Nevertheless, once again, I don't think airdropped merits will be removed because of probably paraniods.

[UmerIdrees]

[Lucius]

Remove of airdropped merits will make old Senior Members, Hero Members and Legendary members feel paranoid, like what theymos said on misuse or too serious use of trust system months ago. Good old users can rank up again, even their airdropped merits removed and they will be deranked. They definitely don't have issue to move up again, just need a little bit time. Nevertheless, once again, I don't think airdropped merits will be removed because of probably paraniods.

I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect that airdropped merits may be removed in the future, but this is up to admin to decide. Still, I understand some members who think differently on this, but old ranking up system is just upgraded with merits, and anyone who is ranked without merits is invest lot of time to reach Hero or Legendary rank.

Maybe airdropped merits could be assigned in a slightly different way, so that every member who hold any rank should prove itself by earning some extra merit.

For example every Legendary member could only get 900 merits and become Hero member, and every Hero member 400 merits. Maybe this is not best idea, but it is much better then take all airdropped merits.