Ranking Before/After Merit System - Wrong Perception.

[Lucius]

We are witnessing a very common question of beginners about how users of this forum are progressing in ranking and in relation to this already very common question : "How to get/earn merits". This is not a topic on how to get merits (a lot has been written about it), but about the very wrong perception that beginners have towards higher ranks, in the sense that it was much easier to get those ranks before. Therefore, some believe that the new system is unfair to them and those old users who got their ranks in a fairly inexpensive way.

That this is not exactly how it seems, knows every member who has reached the Senior, Hero, or Legendary rank before the new system. In my personal example, it took about 2.5 years to reach the Legendary rank (without merits), and as you can see I earn close to 500 merits in last 2 year. I can't say for certain that today I would be Legendary if I started from scratch (back in 2015), but I would definitely be very close to reaching that.

The point is that everyone needs more than two years to reach the required activity for Legendary rank, and in that period it is easy to become Hero member with less than 1 merit per day on average. So don't be jealous on the members who got airdropped merits, some of them definitely deserved it as their earned merits show. It is true that there are those who may not have deserved it, but their rankings represent nothing more than empty titles.

Local rule: All users with yobit signature are not allowed to post here.

[hatshepsut93]

People who are too preoccupied with merit are generally those who view posting on this forum as some sort of career where the grand goal is to get into well-paying signature campaigns. And this is a really wrong mindset, because first it's unproductive - you can't game this system to your advantage, and second it's incredibly risky - maybe by the time a person reaches their goal sig campaigns will disappear or cut their payments - as the result hundreds of hours will be wasted.

[Jet Cash]

Well paying signature campaigns should recruit members who make informative and useful posts  This will enhance the image of their product. In view of this, members who hope to achieve high earnings should focus on imtpving their knowledge and communication skills, so that they are accepted by the high reward campaigns. If they do this, then they will find that their posting will attract merits without them having to chase them.

[Jawhead999]

In this forum, merit is the one goal and a very hot topic. Because most of account come here for participating in a campaign to get more money. And to participating in the campaign must have "Merit". That's why brand new user usually asks about merit and how to get merit or begging for merit.
In my point of view, this is the reason why merit is the main topic for new user:

1. Almost signature campaign only accepts Full member and above, so for brand new, newbie, member cannot participate it. This is why every newbie want to rank up faster to get rank at least Full member to join it.
2. Account with many merits is very cool. Its make that account look so senior and have much knowledge about bitcoin. As you can see account with many merits the post is very good and have solved many problems.

I think making the merit system is good for this forum. I saw many new users always spam and do bad topic/post here. If bitcointalk not making merit system, we will see many people joining the campaign and do spam for earning money. I know to earn merit for a newbie is so hard if we don't have any knowledge and insight about bitcoin. But we should know, There is nothing as an instant success. Success takes time. That is why you must not give up.
So, nothing is impossible, study and learn harder about bitcoin,, i believe everybody can do it 

Don't forget about trust system, if the account has many merits like 1000+ but have many negative trust and many problems about scamming people. That's account is only a trash and not useful again. Keep in mind trust is everything about your account, don't ever break the rules.

And also, don't mind this forum is only for earning money, there are many reasons you must stay here. Many people are so kind in helping us for our problem not only bitcoin.

[Coyster]

It doesn't even matter if the merit system was good or bad news to some users, that's their personal problem, the question should be if the merit system is and has been good for the forum, and any user answering honestly would surely choose in the affirmative.
If any user admires the high ranked members and wishes to rank up someday, there is nothing wrong in working towards that, you do not need to worry if was easier or harder for others who got there, what's more important is what it is now, and to rank up, the reality remains that a user must earn merits.

The issue of air dropped merits has been discussed a lot, for me it shouldn't be an issue, some users have actually doubled up their air dropped merits on the forum, any user who cares about the forum being spam free and a form of encouragement to good posters would applaud the merit system no matter what.

[Findingnemo]

Legendary members clearly deserve those ranks for their contribution to the forum towards making it more active when not much of signature campaigns paid for people to post here. But rank doesn't prove anything related to knowledge of crypto,I can see lot of knowledgeable newbies and low ranked members on different sections so its all about how much effort they are giving towards making them as a better person.

[kawetsriyanto]

~snp~ It is true that there are those who may not have deserved it, but their rankings represent nothing more than empty titles.

Talking about "deserve" sometimes a bit complicated since there are no standard criteria. Determine the quality, value, and usefulness of a post can be probably seen in a subjective view. But, as long as they got the merits in a fair way, it is no problem. For example, those who got merits from the forum art contest. At least, they did efforts to earn merits and all members can appreciate (send merits) the works if they like them.

You are right. The rank doesn't always represent a legit user. We know the quality of a user from his/her contribution & dedication such as:
- Making good posts (thread/reply/quote)
- Obey forum rules
- Have the intention to help others
- Report spam posts, malware/virus cases, or merit abusers
- Distribute sMerit
- Etc

>So, for the lower ranks, you are no need to worry about your quality. As long as you have the intention to improve it, you may be better than the high ranks. Merits will come once you have something deserve for them. 

[hugeblack]

Many campaigns pay users from Full members to the legendary, and these ranks need about 120 days to 2.5 years in order to obtain them.
If, during that period, you cannot collect 100 Merits, then there is no reason to get paid signature advertisements.
The differences between each rank and the other do not change much, so the more you work hard, the more your profits and vice versa.

The positive thing is that you can rank up, it's not that difficult, just try hard.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

I’d say that one of the key differences is the necessary time that people need to put in now vs before in order to rank-up. I’m not talking about the time related to Activity (which relates to days), but rather the personal time needed to create a certain (but multifaceted) type of content, that surpasses the bare minimum amount of time required before to write a post (in general terms), where the delivered content just needed to be above the spam threshold to count towards ranking-up (*).

The Merit System breaks the true "self-made" origin to ranks (before it really was self-made, as you only depended on yourself), and moves on to a "community approved" approach (that’s why I don’t particularly take a shine to the “self-made” term used these days to post-Merit System rank-ups.

(*) I’m talking here in very broad terms. Obviously, those that were good posters invested bags of time into their posts before the Merit System, as they do now. What I’m aiming to point out here, is that before you needed to be a great/good/average/not to bad/badish but not banable type poster, whilst now you need to be great/good/average at least (+ noticed), investing more time than before, for all but those that are in the top segments already (who did it anyway).