Suggestion: Reduce 50 merit limit per post.

[bitmover]

I still find merits very hard to earn. Many times I make good posts, which I spend lots of minutes writing/formatting etc and receive 0, or 3, etc.

However, there are sometimes merit sources or even not-sources giving 50 merit in a single post.

I believe there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of posts here which deserve not only 50 merits, but 100, 200. However, if a post is that good, it will be merited by multiple users and not 50 by a single one.

A post which few people gave 1 - 2 merits and one guy gave 50 is very unbalanced. No post deserve all that in a single transaction. This is a flaw in the merit system imo. If you take a look carefully, you will find that most of those 50 merit transactions are for bad posts, not good ones. No need to cite them here, everyone has already saw this happens many times before.

I am a merit source, but I don't find so difficult to spend my smerits. I prefer to give 3-4 per good (or above average) post than to give 50 in a single transaction. And I certainly prefer to see 50 smerits go poof than to give an overmerited stats to someone.

[1715533791]

1715533791

[1715533791]

1715533791

[1715533791]

1715533791

[Yatsan]

I think it's okay to merit someone with 50 merits, as long as it is a good post or reply. I agree with you that there's a thousand of good-post, but as long as you are meriting good-post regardless of the amount, I think it's okay.

I am not one of those meriting someone with a large amount of merit, but we have a different preference regarding sending merit if you are a merit source that is sending a small amount of merits through hundreds of users then good for you! And there's a merit source that is sending bulk merit to a limited amount of people then good for them. It's all balanced. Because some of the merit sources are sending bulk, and some are sending through a lot of users. For me, it's all balance.

Giving a large amount of merit to someone that has a good-post is just like helping them to rank up and the same as acknowledging their work for that post. So for me, it's okay, as long as it's a good post.

[tranthidung]

As for now, there is a limit on total amount of merit one can send to another one each 30 days: 50 merits per one user per each 30 days.

For the suggestion to limit total amount of merits that one post is allowed to receive, it is unfair, and unlogical in my opinion.

The forum has more than 2 millions of users so why the forum should have a rule on "First come, first meriters". Everyone have rights to merit the others.

Do you think that these threads deserve only 50 merits?

• Welcome to the new Bitcoin forum!
• Merit & new rank requirements

[Jawhead999]

I think it's okay to merit someone with 50 merits, as long as it is a good post or reply. I agree with you that there's a thousand of good-post, but as long as you are meriting good-post regardless of the amount, I think it's okay.

Yeah also i agree with @Yatsan, giving 50 merit in single time for unuseful thread/post its not fair and prohibited. But, if the thread or post have a excellent or good value , informative and meaningful its deserved to get 50 merit. Don't worry about somebody would do abuse, selling or trading their merits. I see there are so many people have good analysis and statistic about this forum. They can knowing the suspicious account who played about the merits and then solved it.  

[bitmover]

Do you think that these threads deserve only 50 merits?

• Welcome to the new Bitcoin forum!
• Merit & new rank requirements

Those threads received way more than 50 merits.  Because they were not merited by a single user.
Good posts will receive more than 50 merits anyway, because multiple users will merit it.

50 merit per transaction generates more distortions than fairness regarding meriting good posts.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Yeah also i agree with @Yatsan, giving 50 merit in single time for unuseful thread/post its not fair and prohibited.

I'm not sure Yatsan was saying any of that, nor is it prohibited to give 50 merits to a garbage post as long as you have them to give.  Frowned upon?  Yeah, probably.  Prohibited?  No.

OP, I'm kind of indifferent about this idea of reducing the max merits one can send.  On the one hand, sometimes a member like TMAN will give out a bunch of merits in a lump sum rather than going through a member's post history and meriting individual posts.  I certainly get the reasoning behind that.  There are definitely members who thus far have gone undermerited and people like TMAN (and others) like to help them out.  It's taking a shortcut by giving a single post 50 merits, but I don't see anything wrong with that.  Nor does it happen all that often.

On the other hand, if a post actually does deserve 50 merits, there's a good chance multiple members will merit it and it'll end up with at least 50 with no single member having to hand out the maximum amount.  That does happen a lot, and I'd say it's rare that someone would feel so impressed by a post that he felt it deserved 50 merits.

But I'm pretty sure Theymos did give it some thought when he set the max at 50, and unless that max has obviously caused a lot of trouble (which it hasn't), I doubt he'd consider lowering it.

[Lucius]

I still find merits very hard to earn. Many times I make good posts, which I spend lots of minutes writing/formatting etc and receive 0, or 3, etc.

You are Hero Member with enough merits to rank up, now you only need to reach activity for Legendary rank. Realistically speaking Legendary members have no practical purpose from the merits obtained (in terms of ranking), so you shouldn't be too surprised if you don't get merits for your quality posts.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think a few months ago admin is asked merit sources to pay more attention to lower ranks, and I noticed in my example that some MS no longer merit my posts, although I do not think the quality of my posts has changed in a negative way.

Giving 50 merits may seem too much in some cases, but it is a matter of personal choice for whoever chooses to do it. I think the situation would be the same if that number was limited to 25, but the system is set up in such a way and we must adapt to it until some changes happen.

[Deathwing]

I don't support this.


There are various threads that either go unnoticed or help to radically change a part of the forum. I have sent 50 merits to one thread before. The thread had consisted of a detailed introduction of the trust system for the Turkish board a few months back. This helped the board and forum overall because you can't imagine how many people did not know this feature. And I have no problem with rewarding the author for their hard work detailing it.

As The Pharmacist has mentioned, restricting merit would be restricting overall freedom. Giving 50 merits to an absolute shitpost is definitely frowned upon. Well, demerit would combat this but definitely would have side effects if introduced.

[webtricks]

I still find merits very hard to earn. Many times I make good posts, which I spend lots of minutes writing/formatting etc and receive 0, or 3, etc.

However, there are sometimes merit sources or even not-sources giving 50 merit in a single post.

I believe there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of posts here which deserve not only 50 merits, but 100, 200. However, if a post is that good, it will be merited by multiple users and not 50 by a single one.

A post which few people gave 1 - 2 merits and one guy gave 50 is very unbalanced. No post deserve all that in a single transaction. This is a flaw in the merit system imo. If you take a look carefully, you will find that most of those 50 merit transactions are for bad posts, not good ones. No need to cite them here, everyone has already saw this happens many times before.

I am a merit source, but I don't find so difficult to spend my smerits. I prefer to give 3-4 per good (or above average) post than to give 50 in a single transaction. And I certainly prefer to see 50 smerits go poof than to give an overmerited stats to someone.

We are not running any race here, nor are we competing on the basis of merits received. Merit is just a functionality to make ranking-up more reasonable. It shouldn't be consider as metric to determine the ranking of members or posts, like who's better than whom or which post is better than other (as you are implying).

Also, as far as merit abuse is concerned, it is easily distinguishable when a member is giving away 50 merits with malicious/biased intent or when he's giving on the basis of quality. So the issue of long range of single merit transaction (1-50) isn't serious one, IMO.

[LoyceV]

I am against this, even though it's sometimes abused: don't change it!
Even if it's lowered, abusers can still abuse it, but legit uses will be more difficult.

I am a merit source, but I don't find so difficult to spend my smerits. I prefer to give 3-4 per good (or above average) post than to give 50 in a single transaction.

It becomes a lot more work when your source keeps growing!
I can barely keep up with emptying my source as it gets replenished, and "my own" stash of sMerit has grown >600 again. Despite this, I am currently the "Most generous recent merit sender".

There's also this:

It's best if sources try to exhaust their source allocations, even if it means giving posts higher amounts than is typical. If you have 150 source merit and you only see 3 merit-worthy posts in a month, then I'd rather you over-give each of them 50 merit than let the merit expire. That way there are more people capable of sending merit, and the "merit economy" is less top-down.

I wouldn't worry too much about posts that receive 50 Merit. If an abuser is buying them, it'll be terribly expensive to reach Legendary. And if it's a one-time thing, he won't reach a high rank from it.

[YOSHIE]

Sometimes humans are difficult to guess the true intention in doing something.
Give sMerit to others in large numbers, with decent posts, it is natural that the person giving it does not mind.

But for 50-100 sMerit given to inappropriate posts I think that is excessive, will have a negative effect on those who give and those who receive.
For example in discussions (Charges of fraud).

1. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0

which still has many sources of sMerit, but escapes it in the fraud section, logically the topic there could save thousands of bitcointalk members from fraud, that is from the positive aspect.

However, what needs to be known is that (sMerit) is not moderated, and members who want to give freely, but it is also good to see who deserves it, not based on individual selfishness.
Maybe this can be a lesson for us all, give something good to the good, do not give the good to the bad, do not backfire for ourselves.

[Blitzboy]

I support your opinion, if a post is really worth, it should get a lot of merits from many others, a post that gets 50 merit from 50 people is always better than a post that gets 50 merit from 1 person. Reducing the limit of merit in some cases is not good, but it will certainly improve the problem of abuse, the merit system will be much more transparent.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

I agree with the OP to be honest, very few posts (if any) deserve 50 Merit’s it just gives all the suspect foreign boards opportunity to abuse the system. I’ve seen it many times where for example people in the Fillipino sub are handing out ridiculous amounts of Merit to each other for bang average posts.

I certainly don’t think statistical threads in Meta deserve individual loads of 50 being sent which I’ve seen often.
50 Merit sends are for iconic threads if they have to even exist.

I think the most individual Merit transaction I’ve ever sent was 20 Merit’s which I fucking did by accident when I was on my phone trying to actually send 2

Personally as a Merit source I’d rather send 10 posters 5 Merit each than send one person 50 Merits but hey, that’s just me!

[DdmrDdmr]

I think some may have confused the context believing that we’re talking about 50 sMerits per receiving post, when were really talking about 50 sMerits per TX (it does become clear reading through the first couple of posts though).

Just to get an idea of what we are talking about here, delimiting the data from 01/01/2019 onwards (to have a more recent perspective) we’ve got:

Code:

amount              nTX                 %TX
50                  166                 0,11%
49                  5                   0,00%
48                  3                   0,00%
47                  2                   0,00%
46                  5                   0,00%
45                  6                   0,00%
44                  3                   0,00%
43                  2                   0,00%
42                  1                   0,00%
41                  2                   0,00%
40                  29                  0,02%
39                  5                   0,00%
38                  3                   0,00%
37                  3                   0,00%
36                  3                   0,00%
35                  21                  0,01%
34                  4                   0,00%
33                  3                   0,00%
32                  4                   0,00%
31                  3                   0,00%
30                  45                  0,03%
29                  10                  0,01%
28                  3                   0,00%
27                  9                   0,01%
26                  8                   0,01%
25                  74                  0,05%
24                  8                   0,01%
23                  9                   0,01%
22                  10                  0,01%
21                  13                  0,01%
20                  164                 0,11%
19                  50                  0,03%
18                  11                  0,01%
17                  19                  0,01%
16                  19                  0,01%
15                  126                 0,09%
14                  17                  0,01%
13                  30                  0,02%
12                  79                  0,05%
11                  61                  0,04%
10                  1409                0,96%
9                   272                 0,19%
8                   328                 0,22%
7                   622                 0,43%
6                   523                 0,36%
5                   4322                2,95%
4                   7372                5,04%
3                   5472                3,74%
2                   22690               15,51%
1                   102226              69,88%
-1                  1                   0,00%
-2                  3                   0,00%
-4                  1                   0,00%
-5                  2                   0,00%
-7                  1                   0,00%
-8                  1                   0,00%
-9                  2                   0,00%
-10                 5                   0,00%

Large sMerit TX (20 or above) is that timeframe represent 0,43% of the TX, which deem the problem a no problem from an overall perspective. It’s when you go on a case by case basis that you encounter cases you may not agree with.

I’m personally pretty mean, so large sMerits TXs are a stranger to me, and don’t fit my meriting pattern at all. Nevertheless, there is Merit Source diversity in criteria, and time is a factor to ponder. How one plays those elements is one’s own decision, but the overall idea should prevail to merit those posts one considers decent enough.

Note 1: Limiting TX to say 10 would not avoid someone sending 5 TXs over a period of 5 minutes. The only way to really avoid it would be to delimit the 50 sMerits/month/receiver to whatever figure is intended.

Note 2:

<…> I certainly prefer to see 50 smerits go poof than to give an overmerited stats to someone.

Never seen a 50 sMerit TX (nor even half of that) on any of my stats ..

[dzungmobile]

I have plots for it, here, but the thread was locked so I can not quote it.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215183.msg53532445#msg53532445

I am going to make plots for nmerit transactions and values of merit transactions, over groups (of amount of giveaway merits) and over last 2 years.

Excludes the most common amount, 1 and 2, there are some high figures that are favorite of meriters: 10, 20, 25, 30, and 50.

[bitmover]

You are Hero Member with enough merits to rank up, now you only need to reach activity for Legendary rank. Realistically speaking Legendary members have no practical purpose from the merits obtained (in terms of ranking), so you shouldn't be too surprised if you don't get merits for your quality posts.

I don't think that happens a lot. Merit is hard to earn, I don't think it got harder when I ranked up. This may happen, but not that often.

Note 1: Limiting TX to say 10 would not avoid someone sending 5 TXs over a period of 5 minutes. The only way to really avoid it would be to delimit the 50 sMerits/month/receiver to whatever figure is intended.

I think that is not a problem. Reducing max merit per tx to 20 for example and honest people (which all the sources are) would not abuse. If necessary reduce the max 50 per user per month to 30 or whatever.

Never seen a 50 sMerit TX (nor even half of that) on any of my stats ..

They do happen a lot, although they may not be in your stats. I don't want to mention them here because there is no reason to "point fingers" at anyone. I don't agree with this merit policy,  but it is not against the rules so there is no reason to mention and expose people who do it.

I agree with the OP to be honest, very few posts (if any) deserve 50 Merit’s it just gives all the suspect foreign boards opportunity to abuse the system. I’ve seen it many times where for example people in the Fillipino sub are handing out ridiculous amounts of Merit to each other for bang average posts.

I agree 100% to this. Even though, as @Lucius mentioned I do not need more merit to rank up, I would like more to be more recognized (in BPIP). There are benefits in having more merits and more recognition, like to enter better signature campaigns (for example). That´s not just me, and those Filipino indonesia russia etc merit abusers are doing that. Certainly there are way more merit sources there than necessary.

I certainly don’t think statistical threads in Meta deserve individual loads of 50 being sent which I’ve seen often.
50 Merit sends are for iconic threads if they have to even exist.

I agree with this as well, but although I think stats are not my favorite kind of posts, I like those posts and they certainly deserve many merits, but they are way overmerited imo.
Meta board is overmerited, maybe for a reason. Theymos want to incentive posting here, as we saw on the art contest for example.

[The-One-Above-All]

I still find merits very hard to earn. Many times I make good posts, which I spend lots of minutes writing/formatting etc and receive 0, or 3, etc.

However, there are sometimes merit sources or even not-sources giving 50 merit in a single post.

I believe there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of posts here which deserve not only 50 merits, but 100, 200. However, if a post is that good, it will be merited by multiple users and not 50 by a single one.

A post which few people gave 1 - 2 merits and one guy gave 50 is very unbalanced. No post deserve all that in a single transaction. This is a flaw in the merit system imo. If you take a look carefully, you will find that most of those 50 merit transactions are for bad posts, not good ones. No need to cite them here, everyone has already saw this happens many times before.

I am a merit source, but I don't find so difficult to spend my smerits. I prefer to give 3-4 per good (or above average) post than to give 50 in a single transaction. And I certainly prefer to see 50 smerits go poof than to give an overmerited stats to someone.

ALL of these improvements may help but not cure,  sure reduce from 50  to 3 MAX and run a bot to make the adjustments back to day one of the merit cancer intro. 1-2% of your given merits to 1 other member in a 365 day period after it is given obviously. If you can not find any other good posts from a board of millions then tough shit.

I think 3 max is more sensible.

However, after talking to some devs about this particular issue (who actually understand these types of challenges) there is NO POSSIBLE way to make merit = good post. Or rather there is NO WAY to even make the motivation for giving merit = what you think is a valuable post. Without fully removing ALL POSSIBLE implications of merit economically. 2 highly regarded developers told me the same thing. IMPOSSIBLE make that sink in.

While there is ANY other economic or any other benefit to merit other than to raise a merit score, then it will be gamed and distorted in a dangerous way that makes it net negative. No rank, no sig, no trust, no other implication other than a score that "should" give indication of prior number of great and valuable posts.

It is possible to tighten it up and remove subjectivity improving it a huge % but no making it 100% solid even from an intentional perspective. I mean peoples own evaluation will never be consistent even day to day 100% THEMSELVES. However their intent should be for good post or valuable post with NO OTHER considerations

Merit should have zero implications here, the more VALUE and benefits you allocate merit the MORE dangerous and gamed it will become. That is their own words, already this was what we suspected anyway.

Reducing from 50  to 3 max and put a % max to other member in x time, some criteria, some immediate punishment etc will all help a lot but will never fix it or even push it net positive in the full context is the opinion of those that understand these problems. Everyone else here just shouts what they think will benefit THEM the most. lol

There should be RULES for using merit scores for ANY decisions or benefits here with regards, sigs, trust etc. That is the only way to ensure people have no OTHER consideration for giving merit for a post they are evaluating.

Feel free to debunk these points.

But of course 1-50 leaves EVEN MORE room for HUGE gaming and abuse of this system and this entire board. Reduce to max 3 I would suggest 1 is even better. But MUST be retroactively adjusted else makes it even worse for those starting out now.

This post is the most valuable on this thread but will receive ZERO merit. That is a good thing because the smart reader will notice merit is gamed, political and economic weaponry that is dangerous and must be deleted or DRASTICALLY overhauled.

LFC bitchcon actually said something of value, more merit on that post please. Max 3 at a go though. Lauda must be sleeping off those last batch of vitamins hope he does not notice that or he is going to be guzzling gallons later today nom nom nom hahaha. LOL

Read, understand, accept.

[Lauda]

I still find merits very hard to earn. Many times I make good posts, which I spend lots of minutes writing/formatting etc and receive 0, or 3, etc.

Fully agreed, especially if your statement is either very controversial or on the opposite political spectrum of the people who have merits. The merit system seems to be going in a direction, but only for certain users/cases/use-cases, of support rather than assessing contribution.

[Harkorede]

I think it's okay to merit someone with 50 merits, as long as it is a good post or reply. I agree with you that there's a thousand of good-post, but as long as you are meriting good-post regardless of the amount, I think it's okay.

Yeah also i agree with @Yatsan, giving 50 merit in single time for unuseful thread/post its not fair and prohibited. But, if the thread or post have a excellent or good value , informative and meaningful its deserved to get 50 merit. Don't worry about somebody would do abuse, selling or trading their merits. I see there are so many people have good analysis and statistic about this forum. They can knowing the suspicious account who played about the merits and then solved it.  

Stop looking for non-existing abuse, when you pay more attention to the user rather than the single post that got merited, It becomes more understandable the probable reason behind the stack of merits (most times).

Most times it seems rather absurd to see a post get 50 merits when obviously the post doesn't deserve it. It is glaringly a case of merit abuse most times but then that isn't often difficult too detect. However, I've seen cases where a merit source or someone gives 50 merits at a go, not because the post is as such worthy (almost no post is worth that) but rather because the users contribution overtime is under merited. I'd rather give 50 merits to a single post of user that has contributed a lot (IMO) than spread it over 50 posts of the same user all in the name of justification.

[TMAN]

The issue is that if it’s reduced to 25 then we will have the same threads popping up moaning about 25 merit handouts as lazy fucks like me prefer to hand out all my sauce than have it disappear. Remember we will always have the moaning forks like TOAA and the pajeet bounty hunters who can’t earn 19 merits in 5 years #meritbrokemylife

[The-One-Above-All]

I think it's okay to merit someone with 50 merits, as long as it is a good post or reply. I agree with you that there's a thousand of good-post, but as long as you are meriting good-post regardless of the amount, I think it's okay.

Yeah also i agree with @Yatsan, giving 50 merit in single time for unuseful thread/post its not fair and prohibited. But, if the thread or post have a excellent or good value , informative and meaningful its deserved to get 50 merit. Don't worry about somebody would do abuse, selling or trading their merits. I see there are so many people have good analysis and statistic about this forum. They can knowing the suspicious account who played about the merits and then solved it.  

Stop looking for non-existing abuse, when you pay more attention to the user rather than the single post that got merited, It becomes more understandable the probable reason behind the stack of merits (most times).

Most times it seems rather absurd to see a post get 50 merits when obviously the post doesn't deserve it. It is glaringly a case of merit abuse most times but then that isn't often difficult too detect. However, I've seen cases where a merit source or someone gives 50 merits at a go, not because the post is as such worthy (almost no post is worth that) but rather because the users contribution overtime is under merited. I'd rather give 50 merits to a single post of user that has contributed a lot (IMO) than spread it over 50 posts of the same user all in the name of justification.

Well that's the point. Reduce the ABUSE.  Well that is lazy isn't it. Each POST should be evaluated and merited not just rely on your memory of contributions here and there and some random 50 slapped down. Reduces the value and accuracy. Of course there is no value nor accuracy but that's not to say we should deliberately make it worse.

Try reading our above post and understanding that until you can debunk those points that your opposing points are net negative. Pick the points in our post that you disagree with and pull them apart.

Reduce it to 3 at a max, good, excellent , truly outstanding and original.

I mean look what tman is claiming, it is truly funny, although he obviously does not even have the capacity to understand or evaluate and attempt to debunk the undeniable points we have made. It is quite funny how we use him as an illustration of the pure stupidity of the merit system. He is the most useful idiot here except xtraelv.

25 is no good, still huge subjectivity and gaming available, 1 -3 with some sensible identifiable criteria. max 1% of your merits to a single member in 365 days if source.

[tranthidung]

From stats, I don't see serious thing with 50-merit transactions!
On the one hand, they (in number of transactions) account for about 0.11% (includes theymos' transactions) or 0.08% (excludes theymos' transactions) of all merit transactions.

On the other hand, in values of transactions, they account for about 3% (includes theymos' transaction values) and 2% (excludes theymos' transaction values).

Why are we so serious about it?

Over the period from 2018 to 2020 (a few days of this year), we have 284993 merit transactions, in total. It seems there is a half-split between 2018 and 2019, it is good.

Code:

       year |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
       2018 |    138,703       48.67       48.67
       2019 |    145,301       50.98       99.65
       2020 |        989        0.35      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |    284,993      100.00

Now, drop the year 2018, and let's how merit transactions distributed.
Period: 01/01/2019 to 03/01/2020.

In terms of number of transactions, theymos' transactions (received and gave away) account for 1.6%.

Code:

    theymos |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
         no |    143,993       98.43       98.43
        yes |      2,297        1.57      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |    146,290      100.00

However, theymos' merit transactions dominate in the value of 50, his transactions account for 31.9% (53 transactions per 166 transactions with 50 merits for each in that period).

Categorisation merit transactions into groups:
With theymos' transactions included:

Code:

  merit_cat |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
         <0 |         16        0.01        0.01
          1 |    102,226       69.88       69.89
          2 |     22,690       15.51       85.40
      3 - 9 |     18,911       12.93       98.33
         10 |      1,409        0.96       99.29
    11 - 19 |        412        0.28       99.57
         20 |        164        0.11       99.68
    21 - 24 |         40        0.03       99.71
         25 |         74        0.05       99.76
    26 - 29 |         30        0.02       99.78
         30 |         45        0.03       99.81
    31 - 49 |        107        0.07       99.89
         50 |        166        0.11      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |    146,290      100.00

With theymos' transactions excluded

Code:

  merit_cat |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
         <0 |         16        0.01        0.01
          1 |    101,257       70.32       70.33
          2 |     22,341       15.52       85.85
      3 - 9 |     18,382       12.77       98.61
         10 |      1,274        0.88       99.50
    11 - 19 |        297        0.21       99.70
         20 |        133        0.09       99.80
    21 - 24 |         31        0.02       99.82
         25 |         44        0.03       99.85
    26 - 29 |         25        0.02       99.87
         30 |         28        0.02       99.89
    31 - 49 |         52        0.04       99.92
         50 |        113        0.08      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |    143,993      100.00

All of above are for number of transactions, now let's move on with values of transactions, over categories. In total of values, we have 268283 merits distributed in that period (from 17/10/2019 to 2/12/2019, with somewhat delayed effects too).

Code:

    +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
     | merit_cat    total   total_cat   p_meritcat   total_count   meritcat_count   p_count |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  1. |        <0   268283        -104            0        146290               16         0 |
  2. |         1   268283      102226         38.1        146290           102226      69.9 |
  3. |         2   268283       45380         16.9        146290            22690      15.5 |
  4. |     3 - 9   268283       80078         29.8        146290            18911      12.9 |
  5. |        10   268283       14090          5.3        146290             1409         1 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  6. |   11 - 19   268283        5912          2.2        146290              412        .3 |
  7. |        20   268283        3280          1.2        146290              164        .1 |
  8. |   21 - 24   268283         892           .3        146290               40         0 |
  9. |        25   268283        1850           .7        146290               74        .1 |
 10. |   26 - 29   268283         825           .3        146290               30         0 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 11. |        30   268283        1350           .5        146290               45         0 |
 12. |   31 - 49   268283        4204          1.6        146290              107        .1 |
 13. |        50   268283        8300          3.1        146290              166        .1 |
     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Sorting them out, descendingly based on p_meritcat. The group for 50-merit-per-transaction is ranked at the 5^th position, with only 3.1%.

Code:

     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
     | merit_cat    total   total_cat   p_meritcat   total_count   meritcat_count   p_count |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  1. |         1   268283      102226         38.1        146290           102226      69.9 |
  2. |     3 - 9   268283       80078         29.8        146290            18911      12.9 |
  3. |         2   268283       45380         16.9        146290            22690      15.5 |
  4. |        10   268283       14090          5.3        146290             1409         1 |
  5. |        50   268283        8300          3.1        146290              166        .1 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  6. |   11 - 19   268283        5912          2.2        146290              412        .3 |
  7. |   31 - 49   268283        4204          1.6        146290              107        .1 |
  8. |        20   268283        3280          1.2        146290              164        .1 |
  9. |        25   268283        1850           .7        146290               74        .1 |
 10. |        30   268283        1350           .5        146290               45         0 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 11. |   26 - 29   268283         825           .3        146290               30         0 |
 12. |   21 - 24   268283         892           .3        146290               40         0 |
 13. |        <0   268283        -104            0        146290               16         0 |
     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Lastly, let's take a look at 50-merit transactions over months. Looking at them (by months), we clearly see the domination of months when Art Contest for the 10th anniversary happened.

Code:

        +---------------------------------------+
        |          forumtime     month   amount |
        |---------------------------------------|
  3159. | 27dec2019 21:48:43   2019m12       50 |
  3160. | 27dec2019 21:46:42   2019m12       50 |
  6962. | 20dec2019 13:42:16   2019m12       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
 18505. | 25nov2019 17:17:03   2019m11       50 |
 19604. | 23nov2019 19:54:30   2019m11       50 |
 19939. | 23nov2019 12:09:31   2019m11       50 |
 20447. | 22nov2019 21:44:37   2019m11       50 |
 20493. | 22nov2019 20:38:25   2019m11       50 |
 20594. | 22nov2019 19:55:44   2019m11       50 |
 20882. | 22nov2019 17:38:02   2019m11       50 |
 21566. | 22nov2019 09:14:01   2019m11       50 |
 21776. | 22nov2019 05:39:11   2019m11       50 |
 21792. | 22nov2019 05:29:16   2019m11       50 |
 21810. | 22nov2019 05:13:57   2019m11       50 |
 21826. | 22nov2019 05:05:19   2019m11       50 |
 22852. | 21nov2019 06:17:52   2019m11       50 |
 22921. | 21nov2019 05:32:00   2019m11       50 |
 22997. | 21nov2019 04:33:25   2019m11       50 |
 22999. | 21nov2019 04:31:49   2019m11       50 |
 23005. | 21nov2019 04:27:30   2019m11       50 |
 23028. | 21nov2019 04:17:14   2019m11       50 |
 23051. | 21nov2019 04:03:02   2019m11       50 |
 23080. | 21nov2019 03:23:40   2019m11       50 |
 23083. | 21nov2019 03:21:47   2019m11       50 |
 23122. | 21nov2019 02:21:40   2019m11       50 |
 23124. | 21nov2019 02:17:13   2019m11       50 |
 23161. | 21nov2019 01:36:14   2019m11       50 |
 23188. | 21nov2019 01:13:42   2019m11       50 |
 23191. | 21nov2019 01:11:23   2019m11       50 |
 23218. | 21nov2019 00:37:42   2019m11       50 |
 23222. | 21nov2019 00:31:38   2019m11       50 |
 23268. | 20nov2019 22:48:14   2019m11       50 |
 23292. | 20nov2019 22:20:02   2019m11       50 |
 23305. | 20nov2019 22:07:20   2019m11       50 |
 23368. | 20nov2019 21:02:17   2019m11       50 |
 24776. | 19nov2019 04:31:24   2019m11       50 |
 24781. | 19nov2019 04:27:32   2019m11       50 |
 24804. | 19nov2019 04:02:52   2019m11       50 |
 24867. | 19nov2019 03:20:33   2019m11       50 |
 24950. | 19nov2019 02:20:35   2019m11       50 |
 24966. | 19nov2019 02:06:04   2019m11       50 |
 24977. | 19nov2019 01:53:41   2019m11       50 |
 25019. | 19nov2019 01:23:58   2019m11       50 |
 25049. | 19nov2019 00:56:05   2019m11       50 |
 25247. | 18nov2019 20:28:09   2019m11       50 |
 25291. | 18nov2019 19:53:04   2019m11       50 |
 25314. | 18nov2019 19:33:10   2019m11       50 |
 25326. | 18nov2019 19:26:16   2019m11       50 |
 26332. | 17nov2019 14:12:21   2019m11       50 |
 26479. | 17nov2019 07:36:47   2019m11       50 |
 27604. | 15nov2019 18:52:16   2019m11       50 |
 28071. | 15nov2019 11:51:14   2019m11       50 |
 29280. | 14nov2019 00:31:46   2019m11       50 |
 30494. | 10nov2019 21:07:57   2019m11       50 |
 32119. | 06nov2019 21:20:09   2019m11       50 |
 32124. | 06nov2019 21:17:03   2019m11       50 |
 33568. | 02nov2019 18:50:30   2019m11       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
 34503. | 31oct2019 13:33:42   2019m10       50 |
 35094. | 30oct2019 01:00:31   2019m10       50 |
 35277. | 29oct2019 14:40:43   2019m10       50 |
 36074. | 27oct2019 14:50:15   2019m10       50 |
 37511. | 23oct2019 23:06:06   2019m10       50 |
 37990. | 22oct2019 21:14:32   2019m10       50 |
 38013. | 22oct2019 20:44:16   2019m10       50 |
 38015. | 22oct2019 20:42:13   2019m10       50 |
 39240. | 20oct2019 07:32:46   2019m10       50 |
 39341. | 19oct2019 22:48:31   2019m10       50 |
 40233. | 18oct2019 02:27:50   2019m10       50 |
 41057. | 15oct2019 17:39:38   2019m10       50 |
 42329. | 12oct2019 00:08:40   2019m10       50 |
 42875. | 10oct2019 12:45:12   2019m10       50 |
 42878. | 10oct2019 12:42:06   2019m10       50 |
 42879. | 10oct2019 12:38:53   2019m10       50 |
 43356. | 09oct2019 01:38:25   2019m10       50 |
 43599. | 08oct2019 13:54:46   2019m10       50 |
 46166. | 01oct2019 02:10:14   2019m10       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
 48027. | 25sep2019 23:29:15    2019m9       50 |
 48277. | 25sep2019 09:32:03    2019m9       50 |
 49874. | 21sep2019 01:02:04    2019m9       50 |
 50398. | 19sep2019 16:10:22    2019m9       50 |
 52452. | 13sep2019 12:29:47    2019m9       50 |
 52649. | 12sep2019 21:15:34    2019m9       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
 57764. | 28aug2019 08:27:47    2019m8       50 |
 57791. | 28aug2019 06:53:20    2019m8       50 |
 59213. | 23aug2019 13:42:35    2019m8       50 |
 64563. | 06aug2019 13:08:33    2019m8       50 |
 65531. | 02aug2019 19:55:02    2019m8       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
 66458. | 31jul2019 03:33:16    2019m7       50 |
 67163. | 29jul2019 05:48:54    2019m7       50 |
 67819. | 27jul2019 08:39:54    2019m7       50 |
 69149. | 23jul2019 14:14:28    2019m7       50 |
 70898. | 18jul2019 20:53:05    2019m7       50 |
 73451. | 11jul2019 14:46:52    2019m7       50 |
 74257. | 09jul2019 13:55:01    2019m7       50 |
 74346. | 09jul2019 07:58:37    2019m7       50 |
 75955. | 04jul2019 06:36:47    2019m7       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
 78687. | 26jun2019 17:07:02    2019m6       50 |
 78744. | 26jun2019 13:30:53    2019m6       50 |
 79523. | 24jun2019 22:09:01    2019m6       50 |
 79778. | 24jun2019 00:32:08    2019m6       50 |
 82529. | 16jun2019 22:16:27    2019m6       50 |
 82636. | 16jun2019 17:58:44    2019m6       50 |
 84216. | 12jun2019 20:32:22    2019m6       50 |
 84217. | 12jun2019 20:30:56    2019m6       50 |
 84941. | 11jun2019 12:40:21    2019m6       50 |
 87169. | 05jun2019 02:41:20    2019m6       50 |
 88080. | 02jun2019 13:44:31    2019m6       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
 95755. | 14may2019 20:12:19    2019m5       50 |
 95767. | 14may2019 19:52:46    2019m5       50 |
 95768. | 14may2019 19:50:36    2019m5       50 |
 95778. | 14may2019 19:37:20    2019m5       50 |
 95783. | 14may2019 19:14:10    2019m5       50 |
 96975. | 11may2019 20:25:42    2019m5       50 |
 98401. | 08may2019 18:50:06    2019m5       50 |
 99444. | 06may2019 06:13:25    2019m5       50 |
 99693. | 05may2019 14:39:17    2019m5       50 |
 99833. | 05may2019 00:28:06    2019m5       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
101814. | 29apr2019 16:04:58    2019m4       50 |
102484. | 27apr2019 13:07:10    2019m4       50 |
102999. | 26apr2019 04:00:06    2019m4       50 |
105012. | 20apr2019 08:40:42    2019m4       50 |
105476. | 19apr2019 03:18:43    2019m4       50 |
109931. | 08apr2019 07:00:24    2019m4       50 |
110004. | 07apr2019 23:58:43    2019m4       50 |
110138. | 07apr2019 15:25:42    2019m4       50 |
110148. | 07apr2019 15:09:39    2019m4       50 |
110974. | 04apr2019 16:59:11    2019m4       50 |
112084. | 02apr2019 01:03:58    2019m4       50 |
112153. | 01apr2019 21:24:24    2019m4       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
113500. | 29mar2019 17:56:37    2019m3       50 |
113546. | 29mar2019 15:55:03    2019m3       50 |
114049. | 28mar2019 15:49:12    2019m3       50 |
114417. | 28mar2019 00:10:27    2019m3       50 |
114419. | 28mar2019 00:08:16    2019m3       50 |
114619. | 27mar2019 12:54:35    2019m3       50 |
114622. | 27mar2019 12:32:26    2019m3       50 |
115910. | 23mar2019 18:11:58    2019m3       50 |
118920. | 15mar2019 08:14:56    2019m3       50 |
119627. | 13mar2019 14:28:10    2019m3       50 |
120255. | 11mar2019 19:40:31    2019m3       50 |
120705. | 10mar2019 17:27:16    2019m3       50 |
120991. | 09mar2019 19:31:36    2019m3       50 |
121604. | 08mar2019 06:32:55    2019m3       50 |
122335. | 06mar2019 11:26:49    2019m3       50 |
123198. | 04mar2019 09:16:06    2019m3       50 |
123611. | 02mar2019 16:10:40    2019m3       50 |
123963. | 01mar2019 10:31:21    2019m3       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
124648. | 27feb2019 10:34:27    2019m2       50 |
125194. | 26feb2019 00:07:48    2019m2       50 |
125213. | 25feb2019 23:11:27    2019m2       50 |
126556. | 21feb2019 21:22:20    2019m2       50 |
132335. | 05feb2019 21:12:33    2019m2       50 |
132336. | 05feb2019 21:11:52    2019m2       50 |
        |---------------------------------------|
135055. | 29jan2019 21:21:03    2019m1       50 |
140655. | 15jan2019 14:53:57    2019m1       50 |
141011. | 14jan2019 20:49:19    2019m1       50 |
141765. | 13jan2019 02:26:28    2019m1       50 |
141830. | 12jan2019 20:18:58    2019m1       50 |
142185. | 11jan2019 22:45:06    2019m1       50 |
143105. | 10jan2019 03:41:10    2019m1       50 |
143447. | 09jan2019 08:01:42    2019m1       50 |
144788. | 05jan2019 21:39:49    2019m1       50 |
144789. | 05jan2019 21:37:17    2019m1       50 |
144944. | 05jan2019 15:19:23    2019m1       50 |
145903. | 02jan2019 17:53:20    2019m1       50 |
        +---------------------------------------+

With the same formula above, but dropping theymos from the dataset, we have the 50-merit transaction group is ranked at 5^th position, with 2.2% of total merit values (significantly decreased from 3.1% with full dataset).

Code:

     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
     | merit_cat    total   total_cat   p_meritcat   total_count   meritcat_count   p_count |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  1. |         1   254141      101257         39.8        143993           101257      70.3 |
  2. |     3 - 9   254141       77630         30.5        143993            18382      12.8 |
  3. |         2   254141       44682         17.6        143993            22341      15.5 |
  4. |        10   254141       12740            5        143993             1274        .9 |
  5. |        50   254141        5650          2.2        143993              113        .1 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  6. |   11 - 19   254141        4262          1.7        143993              297        .2 |
  7. |        20   254141        2660            1        143993              133        .1 |
  8. |   31 - 49   254141        2047           .8        143993               52         0 |
  9. |        25   254141        1100           .4        143993               44         0 |
 10. |        30   254141         840           .3        143993               28         0 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 11. |   21 - 24   254141         688           .3        143993               31         0 |
 12. |   26 - 29   254141         689           .3        143993               25         0 |
 13. |        <0   254141        -104            0        143993               16         0 |
     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Additional details, see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215884.msg53557181#msg53557181

[OgNasty]

Should put a lifetime limit on how many merit any user can receive from another also. 50 is probably a good number for that.

[LoyceV]

Should put a lifetime limit on how many merit any user can receive from another also. 50 is probably a good number for that.

That would mean I can no longer send Merit to some of the best posts I read, including theymos' posts.

[The-One-Above-All]

Should put a lifetime limit on how many merit any user can receive from another also. 50 is probably a good number for that.

That would mean I can no longer send Merit to some of the best posts I read, including theymos' posts.

What difference would that make to how the forum benefits (really) from merit.

Theymos? is that a special case? does he not have quite a few merits and is a legend? He probably cares not for your evaluation of his posts or the merit. What good does merit do him? save for others. He wants it to be widely used so his systems have some chance to start operating a little more sensibly.

Start looking around the forum more for posts that merit should and needs to be applied to so to ensure fair and equal treatment and opportunities for all members here, or don't your call.

50 a lifetime is perhaps a bit restrictive, but then you only need 20 ppl from the ENTIRE FORUM to start thinking you are a good poster to make you hit legendary. Does not seem impossible.

Better to still slow it down with 1% per year per member and max 15 per year.

There are FAR more benefits than negatives if you understand how the implications of this system. That is asking a lot in your case robovac. PLUS you are one of the key beneficiaries from leaving the status quo as it is.... I mean the fact you have so many merits is evidence alone the merit system is not a meritocracy when you note how little merit some super smart legends have earned.

As we have said though whilst merit has ANY other benefit other than merit score (that has no implications) merit will always be about OTHER things rather than just post value.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

I think a few months ago admin is asked merit sources to pay more attention to lower ranks, and I noticed in my example that some MS no longer merit my posts, although I do not think the quality of my posts has changed in a negative way.

If lower ranks tend to make good posts which are worth reading they would be merited even how less the source merits are allocated but on the other side if the lower ranks tend to shitpost here for the purpose of their signature post count or ranking up, they would remain as the lower ranks even if higher the merits are allocated to the merit sources. If the latter tends to happen, merits would most probably be dumped upon some of the higher rank merit worthy posters to empty up the source merits. If you learn something about bitcoin and try to contribute for the betterment of this forum, I don't think someone would face the difficulty in ranking up.

Merits are meant to be awarded for quality posts and we really don't need a rank or a popular forum username to receive that. If the lower rank tend to post something meaningful even if that falls in the repeated answer criteria, I would merit the post. Those users might become some of the promising posters in a longer run if they really got to know more about the forum workings. If it happens to be the other way like begging for merits without posting anything meaningful I wouldn't merit them.

[YOSHIE]

From stats, I don't see serious thing with 50-merit transactions!
They account for about 3% (includes theymos' transactions) or 2% (excludes theymos' transactions) of all merit transactions. Why are we so serious about it?

Yes, that doesn't matter.
What is currently troubled by many members here is a decent post or topic that really deserves 50 Merit, not a 3% percentage.

Example: You waste time and thought, energy to make statistics on the Bitcointalk community almost every day.
Why you don't deserve 50-100 Merit, that's the question right now.

For example again, the account mentioned by @ETFbitcoin, johank, after spending 125 Merit, the account is no longer used, this also happens to this account, madu

However, in this situation there are pros and cons to the situation and the giving of sMerit happens ... "no one forbids" is permitted, ... but all of that is really feasible and makes sense given [sMerit].

Cases like this that are currently being hotly discussed in the forum the past few days...

[bitmover]

From stats, I don't see serious thing with 50-merit transactions!
They account for about 3% (includes theymos' transactions) or 2% (excludes theymos' transactions) of all merit transactions. Why are we so serious about it?

It is curious how people make different analysis in the same data.
I thought 50 merit transactions were almost insignificant.  However 3% of all merit transactions is way a lot more than I expected

Your stats makes the limitation more urgent.  3% is a lot.

Just calculate how much merit are we talking about. Thousands and thousands of merits to post which didnt deserve  not even 1/20 of it. Mostly abuses, laziness, selling, etc...

[hosseinimr93]

It is curious how people make different analysis in the same data.
I thought 50 merit transactions were almost insignificant.  However 3% of all merit transactions is way a lot more than I expected

That's not 3% of all merit transactions. I guess tranthidung meant 3% of all merits.

According to tranthidung's data there have been totally 146290 merit transactions. The number of 50 merit transactions is 166 which is only 0.11% of all transactions.
Also note that many of these transactions were done in the art contest.

[LTU_btc]

@bitmover, what number of merits would be optimal in your opinion? I think you have good arguments with this suggestion, but I'm not sure that this limit should be reduced. 50 merit transactions is rare things and there is only few users who send 50 merits sometimes. As TMAN said, he is lazy source, so maybe it's better that one user would get these 50 merits, than nobody would get it. But probably situation isn't fair. And about earning merits, I agree, I've see many times great posts, which required lot of effort getting just 2-3 merit. Obviously, it's not e.nough.

[tranthidung]

It is curious how people make different analysis in the same data.

It's easy. There are two ways to do that:

• Replacing all transactions relate to theymos as missing values, that treated as zero or not-counted when making sum of transaction values as well as count of number of transactions.
• Dropping all transactions relate to theymos from the initial dataset.

That's not 3% of all merit transactions. I guess tranthidung meant 3% of all merits.

You are right. In my initial post, 3% and 2% are for frequency or number of 50-merit transactions per total number of transactions made in the same period.

I forgot to make a note on that, to differentiate between percent for number of transactions and values of transactions. Edited that post today, please check.

According to tranthidung's data there have been totally 146290 merit transactions. The number of 50 merit transactions is 166 which is only 0.11% of all transactions.

Excluding all of theymos' transactions (excludes his 50-merit transactions - of course), the percent of such transactions falls to 0.08%.

Also note that many of these transactions were done in the art contest.

The Art Contest initially opened on 17^th October 2019 and ended on 2^nd December 2019. Let's assume all 50-merit transactions in that period are all from the Art Contest (they actually came from threads beyond the Art contest), then dropped all of those 50-merit ones in that period.

Results (Without the assumed-Art-contest-related transactions)

50-merit transactions account for 1.9% (in values - p_meritcat) or 0.1% (in number of transactions - p_count). Not all transactions within the Art contest excluded, I only did it for 50-merit transactions in that period.

Code:

     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
     | merit_cat    total   total_cat   p_meritcat   total_count   meritcat_count   p_count |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  1. |         1   253341      101257           40        143977           101257      70.3 |
  2. |     3 - 9   253341       77630         30.6        143977            18382      12.8 |
  3. |         2   253341       44682         17.6        143977            22341      15.5 |
  4. |        10   253341       12740            5        143977             1274        .9 |
  5. |        50   253341        4850          1.9        143977               97        .1 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  6. |   11 - 19   253341        4262          1.7        143977              297        .2 |
  7. |        20   253341        2660            1        143977              133        .1 |
  8. |   31 - 49   253341        2047           .8        143977               52         0 |
  9. |        25   253341        1100           .4        143977               44         0 |
 10. |   21 - 24   253341         688           .3        143977               31         0 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 11. |        30   253341         840           .3        143977               28         0 |
 12. |   26 - 29   253341         689           .3        143977               25         0 |
 13. |        <0   253341        -104            0        143977               16         0 |
     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Example: You waste time and thought, energy to make statistics on the Bitcointalk community almost every day.
Why you don't deserve 50-100 Merit, that's the question right now.

It does not matter with me, honestly. I am sad a little but truly said, it does not a big issue. I do this because I love stats. Merits come, good. Merits don't come, not too bad.

There are some potential explanations for this (about my threads):

• Boring, with figures and charts.
• Contains some difficult statistical words (for someone who don't know such terms, and who use English as a second language. They don't know what are median and interquartile range, ie.)
• Repeat what the others do without any additional interesting points (fortunately, I always tried to put additional things, that I though helpful).
• My current merit record: Maybe. I received lots of merits for my threads weeks ago but it has been slow down when my total merit point crossed 1000. Who knows?

For example again, the account mentioned by @ETFbitcoin, johank, after spending 125 Merit, the account is no longer used, this also happens to this account, madu

I don't go in-depth with these cases, but basically meriters can not control the future activities of receivers.

If you keep your mind as freshy as possible and look at the page: Top senders to permanbanned users, last 180 days. Who is on the top? theymos.
So, what's wrong with theymos? Has he abused the merit system by sending merits to 105 users who were permanbanned later?

[Thekool1s]

Oh boy! this is a tricky one... There is no one right answer to this one I believe but what I can say for certain is there is a right way to do things and then there are not so right ways... E.g would a moderator be considered a good moderator if they "CTRL + A" + "Del" all the reports? Sure they are doing their job but is it fair to all the other moderators who go through each and every report individually?... Logic would dictate the answer is No! It will only ruin the moderation in the long run, more moderators will feel like doing the same as apparently it isn't the "wrong" way to do things... The posts which didn't deserve deletion will get deleted... In merit's case, people will get way more merit than they originally deserved... Making the system fail in the long run... But then again we should have a "CTRL + A" + "Del" feature in place because some times shit hits the fan and it is just required... Some posts do deserve dumps but this behaviour, in my opinion, shouldn't be promoted and should be frowned upon... If TMAN is lazy or can't find the time to spend his allocated sMerits then maybe they can ask theymos to reduce their allocated amount per month. Simply put don't bite off more than you can chew... It will hurt the system in the long run that's all...

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I see some reasoning in what you have just said and if theymos after investigating sees that, this (50 smerit sending stuff) is getting abused then he should do what's best for the system. If I'm not mistaking, I have only received 50 merit ones per transaction and obviously it has to be from TMAN's generosity. Reducing the maximum smerit sending amount won't stop the abuse of the system. I see more advantage than disadvantage. We have users that spend countless minutes constructively informative threads and quality replies yet they go unnoticed and ones in a blue moon them getting a boost of 50 merit isn't that bad especially when they do deserve it.

The way this merit of a thing works, if your works (posts) aren't visible to a large audience with smerits and they're willing to spend, your chances of getting merited is reduced especially from more individuals therefore if someone with abundant smerit comes across your work and he/she is willing to merit you in large amount then they should be free to do so provided your post is worthy of been merited or you deserve a boost due to your previous works that must have gone unnoticed.

Merit wasn't introduced to denial quality users an opportunity to rank up, especially those who aren't as visible as the reputed users. Understandable the 50smerit per transaction isn't much of a regular occurrences for users receiving it genuinely. Therefore I won't mind meriting someone that amount if I see a user that obviously have be neglected due to his/her works not getting the visibility needed to receive merit from meriters.

[bitmover]

That's not 3% of all merit transactions. I guess tranthidung meant 3% of all merits.

I know, I understand that. And it is still A LOT.

3% of my total merit is about 36 merits.  Imo this is a lot, and not easy to get.
3% of 10000 is 300 and so on. This is a lot.

Excluding theymos' 50-merit transactions, the percent of such transactions falls to 0.08%.

so 0.08% transactions are consuming 2% of the total merit. 2% is a lot. Post the stats os the total merited sent in 50 merit transactions. I don't how much it will be, but it is certainly a lot. 5k merit? 10k merit? Is it still not relevant now?

Now look at the stats of the 50 merits transaction on each user total merit balance. If a guy who received a transaction of 50 merit, and that represents 70% of his total earned merit, do you still think that is not relevant?

The issue is that if it’s reduced to 25 then we will have the same threads popping up moaning about 25 merit handouts as lazy fucks like me prefer to hand out all my sauce than have it disappear. Remember we will always have the moaning forks like TOAA and the pajeet bounty hunters who can’t earn 19 merits in 5 years #meritbrokemylife

But the distortion of handing over 25 merits is a lot smaller. 25 merit for a post from the same user makes much more sense.

I understand you want to overmerit one post because you feel lazy, when you believe that user is a good poster and deserve to earn more merits. But you can just find 3 or 4 good posts and merit 10 each, makes much more sense. While doing so, you may even find that those posts are not that good.

I believe most people who replied this thread are good posters. Lets just go handing over 50 merit to everyone? I believe this is not the correct usage of the merit system.

I just think that 50 merit transactions are doing more distortion than good.

[tranthidung]

so 0.08% transactions are consuming 2% of the total merit. 2% is a lot. Post the stats os the total merited sent in 50 merit transactions. I don't how much it will be, but it is certainly a lot. 5k merit? 10k merit? Is it still not relevant now?

Now look at the stats of the 50 merits transaction on each user total merit balance. If a guy who received a transaction of 50 merit, and that represents 70% of his total earned merit, do you still think that is not relevant?

Excludes all of theymos' transactions (excludes his 50-merit transactions, of course) + excludes 50 merit transactions of the others within the active period of the Art contest, we have 97 ones, that have sum of total merit values up to 4850 merits (see total_cat). The tptal amount of merits account for 1.9% (see p_meritcat) of total values of all merits (at 253341 - see total). In frequency (or also called as number of transactions), there are 97 transactions left (see meritcat_count), which account for 0.1 % (see at p_count) of 143977 number of transactions in total (see total_count). For data interpretation, I have no additional comment.  

Code:

     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
     | merit_cat    total   total_cat   p_meritcat   total_count   meritcat_count   p_count |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  1. |         1   253341      101257           40        143977           101257      70.3 |
  2. |     3 - 9   253341       77630         30.6        143977            18382      12.8 |
  3. |         2   253341       44682         17.6        143977            22341      15.5 |
  4. |        10   253341       12740            5        143977             1274        .9 |
  5. |        50   253341        4850          1.9        143977               97        .1 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  6. |   11 - 19   253341        4262          1.7        143977              297        .2 |
  7. |        20   253341        2660            1        143977              133        .1 |
  8. |   31 - 49   253341        2047           .8        143977               52         0 |
  9. |        25   253341        1100           .4        143977               44         0 |
 10. |   21 - 24   253341         688           .3        143977               31         0 |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
 11. |        30   253341         840           .3        143977               28         0 |
 12. |   26 - 29   253341         689           .3        143977               25         0 |
 13. |        <0   253341        -104            0        143977               16         0 |
     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[El duderino_]

I don’t give out 50 or didn’t do that yet, though it’s a reasonable Nr under right circumstances...

For example I think Lambie slayer is a decent/good poster, not yet hero member, and a person spending merit properly when earned.

So let’s say he has a few posts good ones and he gets rewarded 50 from a source what’s wrong? That person can get ranked up (or have some help), he re sent to a wider range of other users ...

Maybe a source has some days he can’t really be online and chose to give such members a boost for same reasons and not letting merit go to waste....

Most important is also its not happening frequently to same user etc ....
As long there is no abuse then there are not to many problems I would think, I don’t hand out 50’s but most sources used different approaches of using there sources and that’s actually a good thing.

[tranthidung]

Mmmm 97 transactions now who received them 

For the past receivers, I don't comment, but for the next one, I believe that nullius will be the next one. He came back after 2 years.

Forking hell that is impressive dude - 1K merits with under 200 posts!

i'm out of merits otherwise I would give you 50 just to piss some people off