I don't look in this area often, or at all. But somehow I got mentioned and it popped up. I don't really have anything to say. sMerits can decay (or so it says)
You have received a total of 1 million merit. This is what determines your forum rank. You typically cannot lose this merit. You have 5 billion sendable merit (sMerit) which you can send to other people. There is no point in hoarding sMerit; keeping it yourself does not benefit you, and we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future.
You are a merit source. The next 4 billion merit you spend will come from your source rather than your sMerit balance. Merit spent from your source will come back in 5 seconds. Unused source merit is wasted. It is not allowed for merit sources to sell their merit.
I joined this forum long before there were Legendary members, before Activity was a thing, and before Merits or sMerits existed.
Let me tell you a parable:
There was a son. He said "Father, give me merits"... then he goes away to a distant forum and spends it all. Then there is famine.
He thinks "Oh my, I am posting crap and not getting paid for it, I will go back to my father and he will treat me like one of his hired spammers and I can eat."
So, the prodigal son returns, and even before anyone else can see him, gets awarded 18 merits from an otherwise infinite supply.
... if that doesn't make you think, let me tell you another story:
I hire 3 people to work in my vineyard:
Person one comes in the morning, works all day, I pay him 10 merits.
Person two come noon time, works the rest of the day, I pay him 10 merits too.
Person three comes late in the afternoon, works until evening, I pay him 10 merits too.
Person one comes to me complaining "Why did you pay person 3 the same as me, I have worked 8 more hours than him?"
I answer "Would you rather you not get paid at all? Don't come to work for me then."
I am not God, I never claimed to be. Whatever act of injustice you perceive, why not think of it as mercy. Merit being given to you does not depend on your desire or effort but on the will of whoever gives it.
Would you despise someone for offering the kingdom to poor, oppressed, weak sinners because they were made equal to you?
Again, I am not God, so don't nail me to any cross. If you do, please, let me be the good thief. At least today, I will be in paradise.
The dude probably doesn't even know what merit is. Or could care less.
In this thread alone, 20 of the posts have signatures (from campaigns). I don't care about that either. But maybe someone who only got 17 merits is complaining because someone else got 18 merits. I'm not sure.
But I'll err on the side of caution and give the OP a merit to make him equal to the one he's complaining about. The post is otherwise "high-quality" even if I disagree with it.
This is quite an insightful post.
Via these nice parables you describe merit as it is now: meaningless, unfair and totally unrelated to the value/effort of the contribution. Also if you dare to complain how unfair and crazy merit allocation is in meta board... you are off the vineyard immediately.
The strange thing is since most here are totally advocating it is fine to just give merit to any post you like, even perhaps 50 for a 5 year old one word post and nobody disputes that mods and dt's often merit one liner off topic derailing garbage or even posts that have been debunked clearly right there in the next post ... THEN IT IS VERY STRANGE that we should have a meta board stocked full of people that also believe this merit score SHOULD be the basis for TRUST, ability to be paid2post, your rates of paid2post, your ability to trade, and now your volume.
It is like admitting the merit score is meaningless and then demanding it should have meaning LOL
The very notion you can build on top of such a meaningless score AT ALL is laughable. Where is theymos to detail the reasoning behind giving MERIT such meaning and influence when clearly everyone knows IT HAS NO SOLID MEANING AT ALL, it is practically impossible to demonstrate abuse because it is so wide open to abuse??
I mean imagine providing SUCH POWER and INCENTIVE to game and abuse a metric and then leave it so wide open to ABUSE AND GAMING .... hehe
This thread and the replies given demonstrate clearly that which is UNDENIABLE from the start. MERIT is totally meaningless and unreliable dirt. It is a cancer that turns an otherwise level playing field into a guaranteed 2 tier system where control of nearly every aspect is handed to the most successful manipulators and ruthless gamers for selfish reward.
The results demonstrate this quite clearly. You just need to think about it. Well if you are stupid you do. I mean anyone else can just look at how it works and immediately observe it is broken.
Dabs answer is clearly... You can fuck off and if I want to give merits to someone for simply saying they collected their shit tokens he will. WHY because that is what merit is for. You just give it to any post you like and nobody can say anything about it. You just say well I think it is a GOOD post and deserves some merit. That's the end of it. Or if that does not work you can say, well he made some other post I thought was good and I think he needs to power up so I sprinkle some over this other posts when I feel like it. So what?
I mean why is someone saying they collected their shit tokens ANY WORSE than DT members screaming trolling at posts that when challenged they can not debunk or even deny because observable instances can not be denied. Or how is it worse than offering a faux specious rebuttal to an undeniable description of how things observably function? well go ask theymos himself. He gives merit to faux rebuttals and specious arguments and he designed merit right? this is leading by example.
If dabs has abused merit for giving it to a seemingly low value statement ( i mean one could view it as valuable if others were asking, hey has anyone got their shit tokens yet? or their incent bonus yet perhaps all worrying they were going to be scammed or worrying where their next bowl of rice was coming from then that post could have presented them with a lot of value) then you can pretty much say nearly EVERYONE of DT1 have abused merit here in meta (a couple of exceptions).
The OP is totally within his right to bring up what he believes are abuses or inconsistencies. If only he had read meta board before posting he would have know it is futile to present even undeniable evidence that merit is garbage and abused. Theymos does not care at all. The more you demonstrate his merit baby is destroying free speech and creating a 2 tier system for members , the more he digs his heels in and gives MORE incentive to game and manipulate it harder.
Merit can not be abused until there is strict criteria set in place to set a minimum value threshold to each post. Giving merit to misleading and specious well written arguments, or meriting 1 liner off topic derailing insults and allegations that have been debunked many times, is worse than giving it to those that are telling others they got their shit tokens paid out so don't worry.
Well done to dabs, well done to everyone who is saying you can give merit for any shit you want. Let's be honest about merit. You can give it to any crap you want if you feel like it. If people demonstrate you gave it to debunked garbage, one liner off topic derailing debunked allegations, specious misleading arguments, or just for posting I want some merits......tell them fuck off I can give it for any reason I want. Nothing will be done.
Well done to the OP. It has helped serve as a thread we will reference to demonstrate clearly most peoples reasoning and understanding of merit allocation. You have every right to highlight issues if you think it will help this movement.
