Re-meriting the same post: bug or feature?

[GazetaBitcoin]

I observed that currently it is possible to "re-merit" a post / topic you already merited before. I was wondering if it is a bug or a feature of the merit system.

In part, I see it as a feature - for example, you wanted to give a specific amount of merits to a post but, by mistake, you give a lower number. In this case, you have the possibility of offering other merits to the respective post.

However, in the original post regarding the merits system I don't remember to see this specification. And from here, the question: bug or working as intended?

I remember there was a post for double spending the same amount of merits within 60 seconds, which was fixed by theymos, but I don't remember anything about what I highlighted here.

Any idea?

[Rikafip]

I honestly doubt that's a bug, as I don't see a reason why you  shouldn't  be able to re-merit the same post. Sometimes you give less than intended, or you don't have as much as you wanted to give in the first place, so you may come back and re-merit the post.
Happened to me few times as well, coming back later to some good post and giving more when I could afford.

[LoyceV]

I remember there was a post for double spending the same amount of merits within 60 seconds, which was fixed by theymos, but I don't remember anything about what I highlighted here.

The 60 seconds delay is only to prevent accidental double clicks. Other than that, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to Merit the same post more than once. Re-meriting many posts is for instance a good way to easily get rid of sMerit, for instance when I see a good post that I gave only 1 Merit a long time ago (when I was still poor in sMerits).

[Harkorede]

Sometimes, people decide to send merits in fractions so that they merit a wide range of post before they run out of smerits, I've seen some users fractionally merit some posts repeatedly over period time, at least I'm very sure DdmrDdmr does, I got 3 merits from him on this post, all of which comes at 3 months or more interval.

[GazetaBitcoin]

I understand. That's what I also felt prior writing the topic, but I wanted to ask though. Maybe I was wrong. Listening to more opinions can make things more clear sometimes. Thank you all for confirmations.

[TheBeardedBaby]

If you don't want to merit a post/topic you have already merited (but you cant find your name there) there can be an easy solution : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5176834.msg52202913#msg52202913

It just need to be implemented.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Sometimes, people decide to send merits in fractions so that they merit a wide range of post before they run out of smerits, I've seen some users fractionally merit some posts repeatedly over period time, at least I'm very sure DdmrDdmr does, I got 3 merits from him on this post, all of which comes at 3 months or more interval.

This is true, there are some users who are doing this, lately Ive noticed two or three guy, send me merits on the same post but when I check that on my merit page, its the one theyve merited before. Double spending of merits or prolonging could be both okay for me. It's also good to spread the merits. But It also happened to me that I send merits twice without not knowing I double click it. Fickle isnt it OP but its okay. Generousity is tolerated here in a good unintentional way. 

[UserU]

Unlike upvotes which are unique per user, Merits are basically social credits.

So yeah, nothing wrong re-meriting

[mediaBuzz]

Also, I'm not sure if it's a bug or not but refreshing the Merit page after meriting a post resends the same amount of merits

[GazetaBitcoin]

As far as I know, this bug has been fixed by theymos a long time ago, the time being set to more than 60 seconds (for sending the exact merits number as before - meaning the bug you described). Did it reappear? Or did you try the bug at time intervals bigger than 60 seconds?

[mediaBuzz]

As far as I know, this bug has been fixed by theymos a long time ago, the time being set to more than 60 seconds (for sending the exact merits number as before - meaning the bug you described). Did it reappear? Or did you try the bug at time intervals bigger than 60 seconds?

I was sending a merit for the first time. I clicked on the send button and was not redirected to the thread (I thought the merit page will be closed and I'll be redirected to the post) then I refreshed the page. Nothing happened and refreshed another time and got a popup saying I have already merited the post. Then found out that I merited that post twice.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Looking at your merits history in a rush, the only case I saw is the one when you merited ChuckBuck. Is this the case? If so, as far as I see, there is no bug, as the time interval between the merits is ~5 minutes (you sent 1 merit at 8.32 and the second one at 8.37). The limit is of 60 seconds or less between same amount of merits sent to the same post. But you sent the second merit after 5 minutes, thus there is no bug, in my opinion.

[DdmrDdmr]

Remeriting a post by the same person, occurs a little bit more than I would have though:

-   There are a total of 320.970 sMerit TX as of last Friday (204.897 merited posts).
-   5.356 posts have been remerited at some point (be it by accident or deliberately).
-   11.292 TXs are involved in a remerited post by the same person (original + remerit TXs).
-   1.538 people have remerited at least one post.

That is therefore:
-   2,61% of merited posts have been remerited.
-     Av. TXs per remerited post: 2,11.
-   % TX Involved in Remeriting: 3,52% (original + remerit TXs).
-   % TX are of a Remeriting nature: 1,85% (remerit TXs: (11.292 – 5.356) /320.970).

So 1,85% TXs are of a remeriting nature, although there are some specific cases that lead:

Top 10 Remeriters:

Code:

user_from      UserFromName                                 nRemeritedPosts     nTXs           AVG TX/Remerited post
1582324        DdmrDdmr                                     739                 1556           02,11
24140          qwk                                          441                 899            02,04
459836         LoyceV                                       176                 371            02,11
359716         ETFbitcoin                                   165                 353            02,14
153634         dbshck                                       124                 256            02,06
1000199        krogothmanhattan                             120                 314            02,62
1053119        Halab                                        116                 239            02,06
1059082        hugeblack                                    61                  124            02,03
60820          DannyHamilton                                56                  112            02,00
1852120        fillippone                                   50                  112            02,24

Top 10 Remerited Posts (scroll to the right to see all columns):

Code:

user_from      UserFromName                                 user_to        UserToName                                   page_title                                                                                     URL                                                                        nReg           nMeritsTotal
112208         Vlad2Vlad                                    389271         Limx Dev                                     [ANN][Main] Bitcore- BTX - Partnership with JAXX and Magnum Wallet!                            https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1883902.msg18714400#msg18714400    9              100
925926         gawlea                                       188198         Piggy                                        The Movement DAO | Fully Decentralized Organization | Borderless Collaboration                 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2068554.msg29359715#msg29359715    9              18
152486         by rallier                                   790823         alpsea                                       Merit Bağış Alanı - Unofficial                                                                 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2820637.msg28883467#msg28883467    8              12
1000199        krogothmanhattan                             1026500        rusbitcoinuser                               [INFO] New Casascius Tracker (in development)                                                  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4878711.msg43934785#msg43934785    8              26
1852120        fillippone                                   1164368        GreatArkansas                                10th anniversary art contest                                                                   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5193860.msg52805482#msg52805482    8              37
112208         Vlad2Vlad                                    2436           Hal                                          Bitcoin and me (Hal Finney)                                                                    https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.msg1643833#msg1643833       7              100
359716         ETFbitcoin                                   1221633        jnano                                        Pruned mode syncing doesn't cache file writes?                                                 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2291857.msg52103058#msg52103058    7              7
112208         Vlad2Vlad                                    1027143        bible_pay                                    BiblePay | 10% Charity | POBH CPU | Sanctuaries (Masternodes) | Orphans                        https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2388064.msg24403715#msg24403715    6              100
1000199        krogothmanhattan                             1852974        grbox2002                                    Free 1oz Bitcoin Coin -Limited to first 10 people- USA address only                            https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5088114.msg48808919#msg48808919    6              10
1000199        krogothmanhattan                             904524         ChiBitCTy                                    [Charity Auctions] Random Lots/ Charity Auctions -Haven Project-Save The Bees!                 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3248727.msg33830334#msg33830334    6              20

Complete list : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IY99lLrkEMg3PAPJ5Z1r0r-Yg2PnR6VH9TM59FetbKk/edit?usp=sharing

[hd49728]

The 60 seconds delay is only to prevent accidental double clicks. Other than that, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to Merit the same post more than once. Re-meriting many posts is for instance a good way to easily get rid of sMerit, for instance when I see a good post that I gave only 1 Merit a long time ago (when I was still poor in sMerits).

Meriting one post and re-merit it later is good, and I know DdmrDdmr does it (maybe monthly). It is good to use one merit to mark a good post when you don't have too many sMerits left. After that, when you have more sMerits, you can easily come back to re-merit those good posts that already been marked in your meriting history. It is a type of approach to avoid the need to mark good posts with spreadsheet or browser bookmark.

[Upgrade00]

If you consider merits as a form of appreciation for a quality post. Then should one be allowed to recognize or reenforce the approval they gave to something they considered quality, or should they be limited from doing so?
If you put it in this perspective then you see that it actually is a feature rather than a bug. The accidental double merit issue has been fixed already by the slow down time. Now anyone doing so does it deliberately.