Trivia: 100000th merited post

[hosseinimr93]

Merit sender: bones261
Merit receiver: mprep

For this post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5095556.msg49160405#msg49160405

[1715445015]

1715445015

[1715445015]

1715445015

[suchmoon]

We have a winner, congratulations hosseinimr93!

Here is the 100000th post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5095556.msg49160405#msg49160405

Thank you all for participating!

Below is the logic behind my hints, let me know if you consider any of them misleading - I'm open to sending additional merits if I screwed something up.

Author of the post is a well-known forum member, particularly in the altcoin boards.

I think one of the global moderators qualifies as "well-known". With the additional hint this was supposed to be easy:

The first hint is a bit of a trick. I didn't say the author of the post is an active poster in the altcoin boards. You probably know this user well even if you don't visit altcoin boards.

I mean who is known in altcoin boards without posting much there, if not the moderator? Who is known even to those who don't visit the altcoin boards - I mean he even authored the rules thread pinned here in Meta!

hugeblack - intentionally or not - had the right idea and got another hint:

you're on to something here.

o_e_l_e_o got it right but I disqualified him for making two attempts and for editing the post, which produced another hint that was probably too vague to be of any use. Or perhaps it confused matters even more because o_e_l_e_o asked about cheating for another reason and then I said "I'll let it slide" so some of you may have thought he couldn't be the cheater.

The post itself was in one of the most popular boards but not in the altcoin section. There are a few keywords, any of which I would consider as a correct answer to "what it was about".

Meta is quite popular and merit is a popular topic here so eddie13 got this with a scattershot, which is what I expected with that hint. Another keyword that would have worked is "video", possibly some others, but "merit" was the most likely one by a mile, even if not the most accurate.

The sender of the merit is an occasional WO participant, not active recently.

Not sure how morvillz7z figured this out, perhaps the second hint helped:

as of now the sender of the merit has been inactive for more than a month.

Here is how I determined the 100000th post:

Took all merited posts and the timestamps of when those posts received their first merit. Sorted by the timestamp and took #100000 in that list.

DdmrDdmr and LoyceV got the same result, with DdmrDdmr being quicker therefore winning the unofficial contest of forum bots because of a clear technological advantage (hint: SQL).

[o_e_l_e_o]

I'll have you know I didn't edit my post, I was just borrowing Foxpup's time machine.

[eddie13]

This was fun!!

Good job hosseinimr93 however you found it exactly..

[hosseinimr93]

Thank you suchmoon for this enjoyable contest.
You are really creative.

Honestly, I couldn't find the answer if I didn't know the merit sender is bones261. Thank you morvillz7z or I didn't know 180,000 posts have been merited.

It's about 1 year and 11 months the merit system has been implemented. So, I expected that post to be made on January 2019.

I checked merits sent by bones261 in that month considering 2 facts:
1. bones261 should be the only user that have merited that post. (Read this post.)
2. The merit receiver should be well-known.

I checked many posts. If there were no other user that had merited the post, I visited the profile of merit receiver to check whether he has made many posts in Altcoin sections or not.
I didn't found any qualified post until I saw the merit sent to mprep.
I was sure mprep is the well-known user suchmoon was talking about.

[suchmoon]

It's about 1 year and 11 months the merit system has been implemented. So, I expected that post to be made on January 2019.

That's right, that was the other potential piece of information I was referring to.

Well done and well deserved.

Let's all wish o_e_l_e_o a speedy recovery after the lightning strike and the beating he's gonna get from Foxpup.

[morvillz7z]

Not sure how morvillz7z figured this out, perhaps the second hint helped:

as of now the sender of the merit has been inactive for more than a month.

No, i got it straight from the initial clue, WO participant + not active recently , bones was literally the first name that came to my mind.

Was bones a merit source at that time? I thought one would have a better chance to send the 100kth merit.

I've sent two merits in this thread so there is clearly only one of the three items still unknown but even if you guess all three it still wouldn't be enough to identify the post.

This got me puzzled though...if we knew the sender and recipient, and the board, why wouldn't be able to identify the post?

Anyway, good project sir!!! When bounty 2?  

[suchmoon]

This got me puzzled though...if we knew the sender and recipient, and the board, why wouldn't be able to identify the post?

Technically the same person could have merited multiple posts of the same author on the same board, right? It narrows it down a lot but it's not a direct pointer to a specific post.

I have to say though that I made that statement without looking at how many other posts would match that, and it turns out - not many, particularly if you consider the date range:

https://bpip.org/smerit.aspx?to=mprep&from=bones261

On the other hand, even without knowing the recipient hosseinimr93 was able to figure out the exact post.