What are Merits to you?

[Stedsm]

IMHO, Merits to me are clearly nothing, yeah nothing. With that said, it is but something of an important value to me till I saw something and so, I stopped thinking a lot about the same. Again for me, Merits are nothing but a token, a reward that you get when your post is liked by someone on the basis of some part of humor and some part of your knowledge that you present in that post.

Merits are rewards for your brilliance.

To me, it is also a responsibility of a user to get the cycle go on by circulating them continuously while giving / sharing them with the most hilarious and humorous people around.

Merits bring responsibility with that reward to circulate and spread them amongst the best.

Now, why I don't like it and don't think of it too much, anymore!

The reason this Merits thing has become tragic for me is due to the fact that I've seen too many people getting merited for using slangs like (Fuck your mother, fuck you, fuck this, fuck that) kinda bullshit and many more shit that you can't even imagine that "Hey, did this post deserve a merit?" So, after seeing that the system made by theymos is good but people are misusing it in their own way, I stopped caring a lot about this thing. Obviously everyone have their own choices to give it to anyone for anything including all this shit, but then, I don't believe Merits to be a measurement to judge anybody's character, quality of posts or their behavior (like I said, it's kinda "LIKE" feature button for me).

Merits in today's time cannot be used to measure anyone's posting quality but just limited to being used as LIKES.

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[DdmrDdmr]

I find that the concept of merits evolves over time on a personal level. Recapping from the top of my mind, in my specific case, it is/was:

- January 2018: Merits is something weird to do with ranks. God knows what sMerits are. Why is there such a complication on a forum? I’ll take a look into later on at some point (no need to be bothered with it for now, since I’ve just got here, and may not even stay for more than a brief experimental period).

- February 2018: Ok, managed to get one on my Local Board. Felt glad for a while. Still experimenting here (social network stuff not my piece of cake). 10 Merits needed for Member. Might be nice to achieve.

- March 2018: Received 76 merits. Gee!. It didn’t feel like a ‘like’, but rather more like a token of a certain appreciation in the content of the generated posts. Fair enough, I did put quite some time into it, and although what I posted on was not too crypto-related, it was probably useful for the forum to some degree.

- April 2018: Received 128 merits. Ok … Now comes the counterpart: I should start awarding the generated sMerits. Which criteria should I follow? Guidelines kind of point towards quality.. what is quality really here ?

I’ll have to read through a bunch more post now, and award based on what I consider to be, as per my criteria (one or multiple of): effort related, informative and well versed, helpful to others, got a good discussion going, witty at times, stated a point cleared than I would have put it, technical to a degree I can understand (or beyond, but instructive), very exceptional meme, and so on. Agreeing could be one of the criteria, but I do not think that it is one to be primal. Of course meriting someone you disagree with is humanly more difficult to do so.

- May 2018 .. August 2018:  yada yada yada ..

- September 2018: knighted (small to begin with; larger later on) Merit Source. Ok, more reading to do ...

- October 2018 ..  January 2019: yada yada yada.

- February 2019 .. to date: More concentrated on keeping my available sMerits to send low that receiving them. Still appreciate them, but less of a thrive now; after all, above a certain number there is no potential need for them technically to date (not entirely true, as for example, some campaigns may require a certain degree of earned merits over the last x months or so). I also let my (smallish) ego stop racing on certain rankings, which I entered laterally, and prefer to be pretty unconcerned with.

Now of course that is how I see it: not as a ‘like’, but as a multipurpose token of one or more of those criteria I explained above (April 2018 entry). I may have awarded some sMerits as a ‘like’, but normally I like a post because of a second layer motive. A like really has both conceptual levels to it: the liking feature, and the reason for it.

Criteria is diverse here, and not necessarily on the same page when it comes to merit (plenty of discussions here on what is meritable, in which boards, for doing what, what gets left out, merit circle-jerking, abuse, political issued – extended to DT issues, and so forth), but if the core majority of merited posts that you see seem decent enough in content, then one may not be too misaligned with what is was meant for.

[Stedsm]

--snip--

I could have done that TL;DR thing just the way I snipped your complete post, but you know something? Your posts are darling to me, you're what you are and I love the way you describe things here. And yeah, I never ever meant that like kinda thing for you guys such as LoyceV and you, you guys are the example of what needs to be done and what exactly should be merited, how the standards are set, how the efforts are made and last but not the least, a challenge to yourself that you are only your best friend and your worst enemy too. I've seen many good posts being merited too but those misusing their merit power by giving it to people who just abused in that post or there was nothing but insult there and some more specific things that I didn't like, I believe those merited posts should be considered to come under the category of this like thing because it was their (merit sender's) like or choice to give it to such people for the ugly behavior.

Your achievements are priceless and the cost it takes to become the next DdmrDdmr is beyond hard work, extra efforts to know more and more as well as over efficiency to do what's in your mind (here: post).

[tranthidung]

I don't think I should rewrite what I already wrote here, so I quoted it.

There is one point to add:
Merits are always issues for forum newbies. Who don't want to rank up and have rights to wear an avatar? Joining signature campaigns or not, wearing signature always a good thing, this is a kind of way to show our 'face'. From my experience, I can say: "When time passes, and at a specific period of each user, s/he will feel like merits are no longer their interests. A good poster will feel hard to type and make a shit post. Consequently, s/he makes good posts in a row, over days, and merits automatically find his/her good posts, instantly or a bit delayed period.
A few days ago, my total merits outweigh my activity, it is the milestone, from which I began don't care too much about merits.

You can see that I spent more time to hit Full Member, and Senior Member ranks with new rank requirements, with merits, compared to old system. However, from Senior Member rank to Hero Member rank, the old system requires nearly 7 months; and I believe that I will hit Hero Member rank from Senior Member rank within less than 7 months (in fact, I made on within nearly 3.5 months). I make the comparison simply to emphasize that if you are a good poster, you can rank up at the same speed as of old system.

Ranks	Time-required (old system)	Between ranks	My spent period (since reg. day)	My time between ranks
___________________	_____________________________	___________________	_________________________________	__________________________
Full Member	4.5 months	n/a	~ 13 months	n/a
Senior Member	8.5 months	4 months	~ 16 months	~ 3 months
Hero Member	15.6 months	~7 months	~ 19.5 months	~ 3.5 months

I earned my 600th merits on 9th September 2019.
< ... >
From my story, there are lots of things to learn in the forum (I actually keep learning every day); and there are also lots of things, and lots of different ways to help others (with what you have). Maintaining your positive attitude, to learn, and to help; you will rank up, gradually, and nearly effortlessly.

It is ridiculous to say you have to make efforts effortlessly, but it is fact, believe me. When time goes on, and you become a real constructive user, your posting habit changed completely, and you will be unable to make shit posts. That is why I use the term: Making efforts effortlessly!

I don't know that @DdmrDdmr remembered me or not, but I remembered him. In 2018, we both struggle with our very first merits, and I noticed what @DdmrDdmr started with very basic statistical threads, but over months he built up his site, and his statistical analyses have higher quality over time. Now, he earned more than 2000 merits, which he deserves and reflects what he has contributed so far.

Moreover, he is one of the seven merit-earning beasts, includes admin.  

CLUB OF ABOVE 2000 MERITS-EARNED

Rank	User name	BPIP profile	Total Earned-Merits	Trust
Administrator	theymos	theymos	5108	Trust: +28 / =2 / -0
Legendary	LoyceV	LoyceV	3540	Trust: +21 / =2 / -0
Legendary	suchmoon	suchmoon	2863	Trust: +15 / =1 / -0
Hero	DdmrDdmr	DdmrDdmr	2616	Trust: +3 / =1 / -0
Hero	o_e_l_e_o	o_e_l_e_o	2543	Trust: +4 / =0 / -0
Legendary	micgoossens	micgoossens	2427	Trust: +16 / =1 / -0
Legendary	The Pharmacist	The Pharmacist	2079	Trust: +23 / =0 / -0

Notes:
- Hero: Hero Member

[bitmover]

I don't agree that merits are nothing. Maybe for veterans like Stedsm, that already had a reputation before the introduction of the merit system.

Merits  are a good (although not perfect, far from it) way to evaluate how much effort a user put in his posts.

There are many users here which don't care much about what they write, and barely read. Those users have earned few or zero merits, and most of the times it is not even worth reading their posts.

By experience, I somehow learned to ignore users which have like 1001 or 253 merits. It is not worth reading what they are writing, most of the time.

Of course there are exceptions, and sometimes they are users which are not using the forum very much, or they suddenly decided to read before write, or they are talking about something they know. I always try to merit those posts.

Earning merits is not something easy, but it they are coming if you are patient and you are posting things that makes sense. It requires patience, time (to read and to write), and some effort.

Users which earned lots of merits write good posts most of the time, and those posts worth my time to read. If someone makes good posts, he will earn merits, soon or later.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

To me, merit is a reward for my quality contributions on the forum. Personally I used my merit earned to some extent to rate my performance on the forum. I said some because few of my quality contributions could have been missed while I might have recieved other few merits due to the generosity of the sender but on a much larger note the merit I have recieved represent my quality contributions.

Here's my story, well I'm not the F word type of poster or the insulting type that trolls just to favor a certain user to get compensated with merits, Nope I'm not and my post history can backed that. After the introduction of the merit system I didn't get merited like close to 3-4 months mostly because I wasn't that active and also when I was active, I didn't put much thought into my post before writing.

It took the intervention of LoyceV giving me the assurance if i was to improve on my post quality I would get merited, which i did and have recieved 757merits since that encounter. I doubt I have been merited on a post which isn't merit worthy deserving and that's why I see merit as a reward for quality contributions also that's why I try my best to do the same via the smerits recieved.

[wwzsocki]

I wasn't a fan of merits when the system started and I couldn't get any for a very long time.

The merit system was introduced a few days before my promotion to Hero, so my initial reluctance should be understandable considering that I needed an additional two years to finally rank up. Users who created an account at that time and had no problem getting merits are also currently Hero with the difference that I have been here for 7 years  .

After some time I realized that it was not the fault of the merit system, that nobody rewarded me, but my own and that I was a poor quality user (shitposter) who only wanted to take and give nothing in return. When I realized this, merits ceased to be a problem for me, as for many others who understood it much earlier.

Of course, the basic and immediately obvious advantage of the merit system is less spam but this is only a tiny part of the forum on which merit has a positive impact.

Currently, merits are for me a great indicator of activity and a quality measure of content published by individual users.

[scambust]

Well, merits to me are something to give to a post with an information that helped me - sort of a limited Medium clap, Reddit upvote or Facebook like. Since it's limited, I don't usually give. Maybe during the first few weeks of implementation, it was easier to give on the expectation that merits would not be so hard to get.

Lately, I just ignore it completely.

[LTU_btc]

Personally, I can't say that Merits is meaningless thing for me. I'm high ranked member already, so getting merits don't have any influence to my account. But I can't say that I don't care about. It's always fun to see that I got merits. It shows that someone liked my  post and it was interesting for him. But I kinda agree with you OP that merits isn't always indicator of quality posts. Often it's just about popularity of user.

[OgNasty]

Something I spend a great deal of time distributing.

[UserU]

TFW the majority of the commenters have more than 500 Merits

[AB de Royse777]

Mertis - A tool to inspire others to create good contents for the community. It's a recognition for the contribution to the community. It does the same for me when I get it. Other than this inspiration/recognition, merits are nothing but some digits.

[amishmanish]

It was fun to begin with but hard to come by without investing a lot of time and energy into Bitcoin and the community.

To me, merits have been a quiet reckoning about the limitations I have in terms of involvement with bitcoin and crypto. Some due to my procrastination on reading all those whitepapers and some because of where I live. It has also acted as a positive reinforcement when I get them. Yet, during periods of inactivity, months pass and you don't get any and it did get discouraging.

There was a phase when most active users could get enough merit to rank up to Hero or Sr. Member simply by being around and reading/ commenting on topics. Even now, the key i think is to be around the discussed topics, find something interesting and work your way to add something relevant. This just gets a bit difficult when all of the most merited discussions are about merits, reputation, trust etc etc. A snake eating its own tail.

There is nothing in the Discussion and Economics section which is stimulating enough to not sound like you are repeating yourself for the 100th time or watching someone else say the same thing that you were gonna say, the 100th time.!! That is why, i call this a quiet reckoning that when everybody else knows what I know, then maybe I don't know nothing..LOL..
It has become a worthy enough goal though, to do something that would be merit-worthy. It has also made me realize how upheavals in personal life can hinder your professional/ work-life. Hopefully, It has also taught me that it is important to learn how to avoid this spillover effect. Any tips on this are welcome..LOL..

One last thing is that too much foucs on merit has made the forum a bit impersonal. People sound more judgemental as everyone is judging your "quality". Its a shame that lot of newbies have to focus on "proving themselves" rather than just basking in the aura of the brilliant discussions that used to happen here, which of course is no longer the case.

The overall ecosystem too has become much more mechanical and has lost the feeling of wonder and awe that initially pulled people towards this. Though I guess it is mostly because of too much money being involved and hence the professionalism.

Like earlier, we had these crazy ideas of Sea-steads and unbridled worldwide innovation that bitcoin and crypto were supposed to make real. Now, that amazement seem to have vanished behind the cold veil of professionalism.

Well, Whiny rant over. Thanks for the opportunity.

[Jet Cash]

If you spell "merits" backwards you get " Stir 'em", and the merits system appeared to turn into a system to stir up posters. However, recently it seems to have been replaced by the trust system.

[hd49728]

If you spell "merits" backwards you get " Stir 'em", and the merits system appeared to turn into a system to stir up posters. However, recently it seems to have been replaced by the trust system.

Now it (trust system) has been replaced by Bump system.
Bumping changes on some boards

[akram143]

For me its nothing,but this could be considered as honored if someone holds it under their profile.

[Julian ogan]

For me Merits are the "Token of appreciation" for the knowledge or information that we share. I agree that Merits should be given to the quality posts. Please share your merits to some useful posts. Don't just randomly give merits to some posts which are not good. Also, don't expect for a merit and post the threads or comments. You will receive the merits, if your post deserve a merit.

* My advice to the community members is do not hold your sMerits, please share it to the members who deserve it.

[TheUltraElite]

I really dont give a thing about merits. If someone is getting merited heavily, it can be because they are popularizing popular opinions while a person of the opposite opinion gets lost in the crowd. This may not be the problem faced by this forum but other places too. Even then merit became a source of physically showing that one opinion is over another one. I tend to not like this, though I guess we all are biased because we are all humans.

Unequal distribution of merit is different sections of the forum make people forcibly post in less spammed section - it does ruin the quality of posts, even though it is supposed to improve it.

The main importance of merits went to stopping the account farming and ranking up spammer accounts which got controlled properly.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Hehe nice thread. I thought that we moved on from the merit subject months ago. /jk

Merit gave me what I wanted the most, my Avatar (I still get personal messages from time to time to take in away but that's another story).
When it was introduced I had no idea what impact will have on the forum. I was just sure that I probably won't get enough merit to reach Full Member in a year (I was Member when the merit system was implemented), but I didn't focus on that. When you see someone like Nullius you know that you cannot compare to his knowledge, humor, charisma so merit is not something for you. So I kept posting like I did before and kept exploring the more and more about the forum,bitcoin and blockchain. I always try to be helpful no matter if it is appreciated or not, it's just the way some people are. So thanks to this I got some merit and manage to rank up to Full member. Since then, the merit is just something I can distribute to the others. I like when I get some, (sure everyone is feeling the same) but after I got the needed for Legendary, I see no point in getting more, maybe only to distribute it to the others (it's good to be a merit source, tho).
What I prefer is to make this forum a better(safer) place for the newbies and help the mass adoption. This is something you should focus on.
I'm not a full-time programmer, I can't really be helpful on the technical battlefield, but what i can do and like is to fight those who try to go around the rules. That's what I hate and dedicated quite of my time to catch those.
So the merit is just a side effect of what you do for the forum.

[gentlemand]

Merits bring responsibility with that reward to circulate and spread them amongst the best.

This bit bothers me sometimes. I definitely don't give as much merit as I should but it's pretty hard to find posts by non established posters that move me. I'd much be handing it over to people to help them rank up but they don't half make it difficult.

TFW the majority of the commenters have more than 500 Merits

Don't forget that when the merit system was introduced ranked up members got a large amount of merit automatically - 500 for heroes and 1000 for legendaries. It's rather telling that there are still hero and legendary accounts stuck at that level.