Merit spree is underway.

[mk4]

This merit abuse is unacceptable The art contest was obviously a ploy so that theymos could rank his alternate accounts up.

Goddamnit. Theymos back at it again with his army of alt accounts to spam the forum with the CryptoTalk signature campaign. *sigh*

[1714043830]

1714043830

[Pmalek]

*Click* A great idea just popped up!
19 November Resolution:

1. Learn how to draw and use Photoshop.
2. Submit the coolest artwork ever in the Bitcointalk art thread.
3. Profit from the awarded Bitcoins.
4. Party hard with champagne and strippers. 

[hd49728]

1. Learn how to draw and use Photoshop.

What I saw gives me a feeling that theymos tends to send more sMerits to hand-made arts (pictures, wood-sculptured arts, ie. So Photoshop does not actually help applicants.

Is theymos a merit source? He looks like a giant merit source I have ever seen but it is likely that he has drained out of sMerits for today and he has to wait for tomorrow to see his sMerits pool refilled.

[Foxpup]

What I saw gives me a feeling that theymos tends to send more sMerits to hand-made arts (pictures, wood-sculptured arts, ie. So Photoshop does not actually help applicants.

Huh? You can hand-make things in Photoshop. Those pixels aren't going to push themselves.

Is theymos a merit source? He looks like a giant merit source I have ever seen but it is likely that he has drained out of sMerits for today and he has to wait for tomorrow to see his sMerits pool refilled.

He's an admin. He can do literally anything on the forum. (For one thing, who do you think assigns sMerits to sources in the first place?)

[Welsh]

Is theymos a merit source? He looks like a giant merit source I have ever seen but it is likely that he has drained out of sMerits for today and he has to wait for tomorrow to see his sMerits pool refilled.

I think its far more likely that he's exhausted his brain. I'm only about 20 or so pages into that thread, and its been every couple of days I've been going through them. He's been doing it for hours at a time, and some of them are from newbies which can't embed images so he has to go through the extra effort of navigating to the image.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Goddamn that's a lot of merits though.

Yeah, but good for Theymos for spending that many merits.  I've often thought that people who merit his posts are kind of wasting their own merits, since Theymos doesn't normally distribute that many of his own--and I say that because I don't see a lot of posts getting merited by him but haven't ever checked his merit-sending history.  This is a good move on his part, and he obviously thinks that the members making contributions to a thread that's basically celebrating the forum are doing a good job.  I'm all for his merit spree.

If it helps some members to rank up, I'm even more all for it.  I think it's gotten too hard for the lower ranks since the introduction of the merit system, and I think Theymos probably knows this as well.  I haven't looked at the ranks of the members he's meriting, but I will after this post and I hope a lot of them are lower ranked.

Edit:

Holy crap, I haven't really been following that thread but there are a ton of pages to it.  I checked the first couple ones and it does look like Theymos distributed a lot of merits to Jr. Member-Member ranks, which is great.  He certainly earned enough of his own merits for that OP, so it's good he's giving it back.

[josephrioveros123]

That is awesome does it happens every anniversary? I created my account long time ago but I have been here only a few months that is why I don't know this to happen but that merit spree is so cool Theymos is so generous that he gives a lot of merit to the users of this forum. And that will help people to rank up and be productive in this forum. I hope that a lot of high ranking members would be like Theymos and also go to a merit spree. It is just like raining merit. He give so many merit to the users of this forum so cool.

[Welsh]

That is awesome does it happens every anniversary? I created my account long time ago but I have been here only a few months that is why I don't know this to happen but that merit spree is so cool Theymos is so generous that he gives a lot of merit to the users of this forum. And that will help people to rank up and be productive in this forum. I hope that a lot of high ranking members would be like Theymos and also go to a merit spree. It is just like raining merit. He give so many merit to the users of this forum so cool.

No, this is the first time in our entire history that there has been a art contest. It was made to sort of celebrate the 10th anniversary, but also probably in attempt to get some image based content relating to the forum because I know theymos has stated he's  been a little disappointed that there hasn't been too many image based creations for the forum.

Theymos does merit the odd occasional post, but we've never seen this amount of merit get dropped in such a short period of time.

[taufik123]

Theymos did something extraordinary this time. Many merits were given to the Bitcointalk 10th anniversary contest participants. To this day there are around 222 Members who received merit from theymos. As long as I join the forum, this is the first time I see theymos having fun. Theymos highly appreciates the work of each member and theymos know which works are worthy of merit. it is extraordinary 

[Stack23]

Goddamn that's a lot of merits though.

Yeah, but good for Theymos for spending that many merits.  I've often thought that people who merit his posts are kind of wasting their own merits, since Theymos doesn't normally distribute that many of his own--and I say that because I don't see a lot of posts getting merited by him but haven't ever checked his merit-sending history.  This is a good move on his part, and he obviously thinks that the members making contributions to a thread that's basically celebrating the forum are doing a good job.  I'm all for his merit spree.

If it helps some members to rank up, I'm even more all for it.  I think it's gotten too hard for the lower ranks since the introduction of the merit system, and I think Theymos probably knows this as well.  I haven't looked at the ranks of the members he's meriting, but I will after this post and I hope a lot of them are lower ranked.

Edit:

Holy crap, I haven't really been following that thread but there are a ton of pages to it.  I checked the first couple ones and it does look like Theymos distributed a lot of merits to Jr. Member-Member ranks, which is great.  He certainly earned enough of his own merits for that OP, so it's good he's giving it back.

I do not think he is taking into consideration the ranks while giving the merits. Theymos has started giving merits to all the posts where he see's someone has done a little or more contribution in bitcointalk.org art contest.
This is the last merited post by theymos till now ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5193860.msg52918457#msg52918457) and it is on page 36.

Also after the page 61, he will merit only very high quality contributions and again all this is done regardless of the rank.

Past page 61, I might not merit the really-low-effort photoshops/template-fills anymore.

[skiorf]

Theymos did something extraordinary this time. Many merits were given to the Bitcointalk 10th anniversary contest participants. To this day there are around 222 Members who received merit from theymos. As long as I join the forum, this is the first time I see theymos having fun. Theymos highly appreciates the work of each member and theymos know which works are worthy of merit. it is extraordinary 

as the highest rank in Bitcointalk It is appropriate that Theymos give a merits in the 10th anniversary, this way all members of Bitcointalk will compete to hone their best ideas.  so as to build a brilliant mind, by building a brilliant mind will make this forum even better and more advanced.

[actmyname]

Code:

if($smerit+$source < $merits && $ID_MEMBER!=35)
    fatal_error("You do not have enough sendable merit.", false);

I guess the merit economy needed some emergency repo operations.

yet again thermos proves that he is the most corrupt admin to ever exist

thanks sir

[El duderino_]

My head is going to explode, but I have to get through these... I thought an art contest would be nice and simple...

I didn't thought the pages would still be counting, but I think you gave to much time for the Art-thread

I woumd have gone for 10 days or something, 10 days to celebrate 10 amazing forum years 

Maybe i'm wrong, but this was a long period.

Longer periods allows for best art.
Art requires time.
Photoshop theme filling or low effort requires no time.
So in the end the choice to give more time was correct.

I guess the final BTC prize and the reference

to a ton of merit, probably at least 500 in total

drew a lot of attention.

I just respect every give away of any-kind and giving away 1 BTC = very very generous....

I just would have gone for a smaller period, exclude some newbie accounts, multiple entries just trying to catch those coins and merits

When there is free sh*t we get to see the worst of some and thats just pity for some others

[Vispilio]

I just respect every give away of any-kind and giving away 1 BTC = very very generous....

I just would have gone for a smaller period, exclude some newbie accounts, multiple entries just trying to catch those coins and merits

When there is free sh*t we get to see the worst of some and thats just pity for some others

I think the timing was great. I've seen some really impressive efforts that took several days to 1-2 weeks to complete. The artist obviously needs to have

spent some more time conceptualizing the project, and 1 month gives just about the right time to accomplish all that without feeling rushed / pressured...

[akamit]

My head is going to explode, but I have to get through these... I thought an art contest would be nice and simple...

Once I wrote in the contest thread that it is going to be a very hard job, to pick winners for BTC prize and also to merit the nice artworks. Double prize, Double work.
I hope you have already marked which artworks you'll be going to pick as winners during merit giveaway, otherwise your head will really explode in next run.

I thought an art contest would be nice and simple...

Not at least when Merit and Bitcoin is the prize because these are the two things most in demand in Bitcointalk.org currently.

This is an easy way for those low-quality posters to grab some merits with some awesome artworks, they can't earn with quality posts but they may have earned with quality artworks.
I'm not discrediting anyone, but if there is someone as I mentioned then its a plus for him/her because it will encourage the user to make quality posts.

I have noticed many entries from newbies, possibly many users grabbed this opportunity to build new alt accounts because of its one in a lifetime opportunity.

[Welsh]

Once I wrote in the contest thread that it is going to be a very hard job, to pick winners for BTC prize and also to merit the nice artworks. Double prize, Double work.
I hope you have already marked which artworks you'll be going to pick as winners during merit giveaway, otherwise your head will really explode in next run.

Unfortunately, for theymos that wouldn't be fair to the other submissions. I'm guessing he'll review every single piece of art submitted until the cut off date, and time. Fortunately, for theymos we are approaching that. Honestly, I had no idea that this would generate such a buzz, and there's been multiple users crawling out of the woodwork who have been inactive for a while or completely new users.

[Coyster]

or completely new users.

This new users I'm thinking would be alt accounts of users on the forum, probably accounts were created just to try and earn some of the BTC price giveaway.

The good thing about the art contest is that as long as a user does a good artwork, then they're going to be rewarded, either in BTC or merits, not minding if they are shitposters, going through their post history, red tagged or any of those. It's wonderful and it brings the community together, and that's what birthdays celebrations do.

[fillippone]

Sincerely worried for Theymos.
Contest is ending on Nov 22nd, a little bit thant 48 more hours from now.
He pledged to announce the winner a few hours later.
He hasn't done anything after his merit spree with 25 pages left to check.

My head is going to explode <...>

Burnout syndrome for an art contest?
Hopefully not!

[taufik123]

Sincerely worried for Theymos.
Contest is ending on Nov 22nd, a little bit thant 48 more hours from now.
He pledged to announce the winner a few hours later.
He hasn't done anything after his merit spree with 25 pages left to check.

if theymos doesn't have another team to help him handle this contest?he works hard for this contest.  if there is a delay in announcement it is natural and very understandable.  48 hours left and the work will continue to grow and there will be more than 25 pages left, theymos have half the work again.

[mikeywith]

Code:

if($smerit+$source < $merits && $ID_MEMBER!=35)
    fatal_error("You do not have enough sendable merit.", false);

Won't this be much more efficient until you are finished with the merit spree? 

Code:

if( $ID_MEMBER!=35 && $smerit+$source < $merits )
    fatal_error("You do not have enough sendable merit.", false);

Don't do that tho, it will be less efficient for the rest of us, the fact that your if statement is well put means you are a decent programmer, which means you could really be Satoshi after all.