Another useless (?) topic about merit, 2019 Version.

[coinlocket$]

CONSIDERATIONS

• Using the DdmrDdmr dashboard I've updated the graph that I was using for merits.
• The ranged used is 00.00 01/01/2019 to 00.00 01/01/2020
• This is the result of 2019 where you can read the rank from where the merit has been sent to the rank and you can understand where the merit is gone.
• I've skipped the special ranks such as Donator Vip Admin Staff copper members etc, the % of these users is very low and is statistically not influent IMHO
• The majority of merit sources have Legendary rank so the rank Legendary is influenced by a large value in that.
  
• As you can see at the decreasing of the rank the merit earned increases from users at the similar rank
• For whatever reason, maybe cause they are maybe "friends" Jr Members tends to merit Jr Members and Members uses their merit on Members, and hero merits others hero this is very interesting to me

Also, this is the usual "old" graph








Where the spike is due to the contest created by Theymos.

[eddie13]

For whatever reason, maybe cause they are maybe "friends" Jr Members tends to merit Jr Members and Members uses their merit on Members, and hero merits others hero this is very interesting to me

I'd think that possibly lower ranks have a greater perception of merit scarcity and avoid meriting higher ranked users...
Sources may not take this into consideration nearly as much as someone who themselves need merits to achieve rank..

[tranthidung]

From your descriptions, I guess what you meant are the cross-correlations between Merits sent from each rank to the all kind of ranks on the forum.

From your results, in my opinion, the possible causal interpretation is vaguely we can imagine the situation when users at one rank (Hero member, for example) tend to spend more of their sMerits to the others by some kinda of reasons:

• They likely pay more attention on posts / threads of users who have same ranks as theirs or a little bit higher.
• They likely pay more time to read and learn from posts / threads of users who have same ranks as theirs or higher.
• They likely feel more impressed with posts / threads of users who have same ranks as theirs or higher.
• They likely know each others by reading posts/ threads and replies back and forth.

All of them are likely reasons.

Advice:

• There are two same detailed tables, so they are unncessary, you only need to display one of them.
• Plot will look better if you use stack to display. I might give you later today (I have to log-out now).

I released my thread: Which ranks receivers received merits from, and meriters sents merits to (because I don't want to spoil yours).

[DireWolfM14]

That's a great chart, very informative.  Can you please add a row at the bottom with the averages for each rank?

By my calculations Legendary members receive 24.39% of all merit.  That's quite a lot if you consider there are 7 ranks, and Legendary is the minority.  Of course there are a lot of factors that feed into this statistic.

Other interesting notables;
Sr. and Full members tend to merit Hero members more than any other group, including their own.
Newbies tend to merit Legendary members more than any other group. 

[hacker1001101001]

Nice statistics and graphs.

This would atleast help some merit Sources and legendary users to know, they should probably try to merit more lower ranked members than there already highly ranked colleague.

Even newbies and jr.members tend to merit legendary or higher ranked user's more, it could surely be because there are higher chances of getting quality content from an legendary than a newbie. But above statics could open the eyes of some users to use there sMerits on a better and needy user base next time.

[Sanitough]

That's definitely not useless but helpful.

And yes, I can agree with the chart that big merits were distributed during the 10th year anniversary contest in bitcointalk.
I have known a lot in our local who benefited to that.

Anyway, thanks for the effort, great stuff.

[theskillzdatklls]

That's a great chart, very informative.  Can you please add a row at the bottom with the averages for each rank?

By my calculations Legendary members receive 24.39% of all merit.  That's quite a lot if you consider there are 7 ranks, and Legendary is the minority.  Of course there are a lot of factors that feed into this statistic.

Other interesting notables;
Sr. and Full members tend to merit Hero members more than any other group, including their own.
Newbies tend to merit Legendary members more than any other group. 

Yeah, does seem like a rich get richer thing. On the one hand, they probably post a lot more, post more on-topic and knowledgeable things. They are also more likely to receive from their friends. Is that entirely wrong though? Probably not. To some extent, wealth disparity is mildly good, it rewards those who have participated longer, worked harder and proven themselves over time. But too much wealth disparity is also quite bad for economies, or even the micro merit economy. It would take definitely more precise analysis and subjective guessing to decide what is what though at the end of the day.

[hosseinimr93]

These statistics are 100% helpful. Thanks for providing them.

I have some questions.

1. Did you use the current rank of users or the rank of them at the time the merit transaction was done?

2. Look at the first row of your table. The percentage below Sr. member. That's 11.11%. What does it mean? Is 11.11% the percentage of merits Sr. members have sent to Legendary members or that's the percentage of merits Legendary members have sent to Sr. members?
You should have specified this in your table.

3. 11.11% of what? 11.11% of all merits sent by Sr. members (or received by them)? Or 11.11% of all merits sent by legendary members (or received by them)? Or anything else?

4. Shouldn't total percentage of one column or one row be 100%?
I think at least one of them should be.

[Kunnu]

Very informative data. There is no doubt that experienced members of the forum got huge amount of merits with their positive and knowledgeable posts which they really deserves and I think somewhere this data will be motivational for newbies and jr. members to improve their quality of posts so they could gain a decent amount of merits like many experienced members.

[fillippone]

I wish all the useless posts were of this quality @coinlocket$!
Anyway, to confirm this strange correlation, you are an hero, I am an hero and I gave you merits.
This is actually an interesting point. I will go and look in my statistics  to discover if I have the same bias.

[DdmrDdmr]

Since some of the data is derived from the Merit Dashboard, I guess I can provide the answer here to some of your questions:

<…>1. Did you use the current rank of users or the rank of them at the time the merit transaction was done?

The data displays the current rank (as of last Friday) of both sender and receiver. That does mean that, when one ranks-up, he drags along the awarded or received merits to his next rank in a block (so as to say).

2. Look at the first row of your table. The percentage below Sr. member. That's 11.11%. What does it mean? Is 11.11% the percentage of merits Sr. members have sent to Legendary members or that's the percentage of merits Legendary members have sent to Sr. members?

The numbers represent what % rows have sent to columns. In the case you mention, Legendries have sent 11,11% of their sent sMerits over to Sr. Members (note: rows do not add up to 100% due to some other ranks not accounted for here – i.e. Administrators, Mods, VIP, etc.)

3. 11.11% of what? 11.11% of all merits sent by Sr. members (or received by them)? Or 11.11% of all merits sent by legendary members (or received by them)? Or anything else?

Sent from Legendary to Sr. Members, as mentioned above.

4. Shouldn't total percentage of one column or one row be 100%?

Yes, but I figure that, in order to simplify, the percentages of the non-regular ranks are ommited.

[Cnut237]

For whatever reason, maybe cause they are maybe "friends" Jr Members tends to merit Jr Members and Members uses their merit on Members, and hero merits others hero this is very interesting to me

I think (guess) this is because they feel a degree of affinity, being in the same situation of trying to accrue a few points in order to rank up, almost as if they are team-mates in the same struggle. This might influence behaviour on a subconscious level.

I recently ranked up from Full to Senior, and I have to say I really notice now the accounts who have done the same thing. I feel to an extent 'closer' to those people who have worked their way up and passed through the same transition, it's like a rite of passage and a shared experience. Whereas Heroes I see (whether deservedly or not) as wise old veterans to whom 10 or 20 merits here or there is no big deal. Legendaries I see as being farther above that and beyond the concerns of merit altogether. As for people who are known merit sources - I would suggest that they maybe receive at least some merit purely in the hope of merit-reciprocity, although this is likely quite a small effect as obviously merit sources are people with a proven track record of high-quality, merit-worthy posts.

I know it's a bit stupid, but it's hard not to see rank everywhere, when it's literally beside every post that's ever made.

[coinlocket$]

@hosseinimr93 nothing to add, Ddmrddmr already explained it all.