POLL: Initial merit provided to older established accounts

[madnessteat]

I remain neutral on this issue as a number of users did fill the forum with usable content before the merit system was introduced, for which they were rewarded. But in many systems there are errors. In this case, they are shitposters, trolls, etc. Many of these people have sold their accounts or lost them due to abuse.

[Jet Cash]

You can add Legendaries to your ignore list. If you don't feel that their posts are worth reading, then just ignore them - no need to change the system for some subjective opinions.

[Lauda]

You can add Legendaries to your ignore list. If you don't feel that their posts are worth reading, then just ignore them - no need to change the system for some subjective opinions.

The whole system is based on subjective opinions, and according to the above way of thinking then we might as well drop it completely. This is a well needed iteration of the system. Why should we not patch something that is partially broken?

[bonesjonesreturns]

You can add Legendaries to your ignore list. If you don't feel that their posts are worth reading, then just ignore them - no need to change the system for some subjective opinions.

The whole system is based on subjective opinions, and according to the above way of thinking then we might as well drop it completely. This is a well needed iteration of the system. Why should we not patch something that is partially broken?

Anything a scammer wants patching needs careful examination.

Why does it " need" patching mr atriz 50 merit trader and abuser? Where 80% or more of your merit comes from 20 ppl Lol or is it 10 ppl?

I see no "need"  

What would it achieve? How would it solve the insoluble problems merit has created?

I would say many legends deserved 1 million merits in the fair context of the likes of pharmacist loycev nutildah

I would argue that Cryptohunter deserves 2 billion merits for months of battling lauda the scammer  who was lying there was no premine for months until he was crushed and cryptohunter forced a 2 billion dollar compensation offer you tried to prevent.

What have any of these high earned merit cycling dregs ever done here but drain and milk this forum for every sig dollar they get for themselves. ? Nothing that is what. That's when they are not busy scamming, extorting, auction scamming , crushing free speech??


Go ahead prove me wrong? Bring their achievements here. What are all these 1000s of merits for? Bring me their 10 original thought inspiring posts that made any difference here.

Tell me more about this vital patching that those giving merit to each other think must take place and why?
Sounds like an attempt to centralize control further.

You go through each member 1 by 1 lauda and we will compare their posts using lfc bitcoin and pharmacist/ hugeblackwoman and tman as benchmarks of earned merit.

Measuring against these brilliant posters ( with 1000s of earned merits) of regurgitated crap,  scammer  supporting and memes we will mark down and delete inferior airdropped merits?

Get on it.

Deleting airdropped merits is laughable unless done  case by case. For some 1000 is an insult for what they have contributed in the context of tman lfc pharmacist micgoosens loyce ( imagine no merits to analyse )

To actually delete cycled new merits would be far more sensible.

Allow only 0.5% of merits to come from any other single member that may help for those over 1000 earned. Or work out something that prevents them being chipmixer collusion credits or political points.

[Upgrade00]

I'm voting undecided, and I'm choosing not to make a decision.

Merit spending is said to be subjective and one can give it to any post they think deserved it. If we are going to question whether or not the early posters (individually) deserved the airdropped merit then we can also argue on individual merit transaction done after the launch of the merit system.
Some users contributed immensely to the growth of the forum and some chunked out shit posts and raised their activity. Even though it's more difficult to rank up now, some would argue that merits still gets given to undeserving posts.

Someone may have done it differently if given the opportunity, theymos chose the algorithm that most suited the system at that time. It was/is subjective.

[gentlemand]

Airdropped merit should totally be erased. It serves no purpose other than giving false authority to farmed accounts over those not in the know.

If someone had a good account that hasn't been back in two years it's still a good account. The ranks can stay if need be. The merit should go.

[philipma1957]

This forum has been around since November of 2009, the merit system was implemented in January of 2018.

Initial merit was provided to accounts which existed before the merit system, and merit was provided based on the rank of their account (Legendary, Hero, etc) -- Full information here.

I'm curious what everyone thinks. Should older accounts have received initial merit? Did most of them deserve it?

Note: When answering, we should hypothetically assume their ranks would have remained (Legendary, Hero, etc) even if they had 0 merit and were never provided initial merit, and that the entire forum would not have been demoted to a newbie status because of the alterations to ranking that the merit system introduced. (i.e. you need merit to get to the next rank)

I'm trying to establish whether you believe the majority of users (not *all*) before 2018 actually deserved merit or if the majority of users did not deserve it.

There is a good argument that many members who received initial merit deserved it (and maybe even deserved more initial merit), and that these initial merits are meaningful, overall.

There is also a good argument that many members who received initial merit did not deserve what they received, or that they didn't deserve any merit at all, and it makes these merits not meaningful, overall.

What is your opinion?  Try to answer objectively and please explain below.

Thank you!

I voted other.  

some People like me should have been give 2x the norm maybe 3x.

All idle members should have been given ½  maybe ⅓ the norm.

I figure my 9 threads in alt coins were worth 500 to 1000 merits The first 6 had zero as they were before the merit concept started.
Many people posted really good info from 2012 to 2018

people that post "Airdropped merit should totally be erased. It serves no purpose other than giving false authority to farmed accounts over those not in the know.

If someone had a good account that hasn't been back in two years it's still a good account. The ranks can stay if need be. The merit should go."

[Note: gentlemand just posted that]

 are just as guilty as the original problem of giving the merits in the first place.

an "all or nothing mentally"

BTW Theymos was guilty back in 2018 of giving them away
just as gentlemand is guilty of saying drop them all now.

The proper way would have been appoint a few people to judge and decide who sucked and who did not.

I figure it was about 1,000,000 plus posts that needed to be looked at and then decided on how much effort is that>  I could do 1000 posts a week so  in 20 years I would be done grading  them.  So hire 20 people at $20,000.00 each and maybe they would be done in six months.

@ Theymos
@ gentlemand     since you would be yin and yang on the subject I used the two of you in my example.


Please read fine print below:

To anyone that recognizes I am kidding and it is my attempt to make you smile kudos to you.

[suchmoon]

Ironically some posters here don't seem to have read the OP

ibminer doesn't have the authority to change the merit system nor is he trying to do so as far as I know. He also posted a clear disclaimer that this has nothing to do with ranks. It's a question about an event that already happened two years ago and I think enough time has passed to take a good retrospective view at it.

If it helps, split it into two questions: (1) does someone with 100 (or 500 or 1000) airdropped merits and 5 earned ones really deserve 105 (or 505 or 1005) merits; and (2) was that a majority of members in Jan 2018.

Please read fine print below:

Damn, I though you were honestly trying to solve to unemployment problem.

[gentlemand]

Ironically some posters here don't seem to have read the OP

Hmm. I did not digest the retrospective aspect. Poor show.

I would've preferred a totally blank merit slate for everyone with existing ranks intact. Whatever 'work' you put in for you rank would still exist. To get further you would've needed to embark on a different type of it just like everyone else.

Where it's can get confusing is that there's no delineation between merit shoved up you in the first place and that that you've earned. That should've been dealt with from the off.

I guess everyone still needed a pool of merit to get rid of in the first place but that didn't need to show up as awarded merit too.

I think ranking up for the lower levels should've been harder, easier for the mids and the golden heights are about right.

[JaredKaragen]

Who is the most "merit-able"?

A)  a person with ten thousand comments/tips&tricks/how-to's/etc on common and basic subject(s) that are commonplace

B)  a person with a few good comments/tips&tricks/how-to's/etc on a single complex and important subject that effects most in one way or another

[suchmoon]

Who is the most "merit-able"?

Are you aiming for some sort of merit-per-post or merit-per-activity-period metric? It might be more useful than an absolute number of merits however there are exceptions to that as well. I don't want to trigger some known trolls with examples but let's just say that merit farming does exist.

[malevolent]

I'd say that most of the Hero and Legendary members in January 2018 were the best posters--and that's obviously comparing them to the lower-ranked ones, which is where the problem of shitposting was all along.  If I agreed that your question is one I could answer, then I would have to say yes.  There were--and are--certainly garbage posters among the higher ranks, but in general I think they "deserved" that airdropped merit.

You may be talking about the state of the forum members in January 2013, definitely not 2018. In 2018, the overwhelming majority of all ranks were shitposters (and are to this day).

January 2013 was a bit before the introduction of Activity, back then some were Hero Members just because they spent a week spamming 500 posts. Giveaway threads also weren't banned. Signature campaigns were nowhere near as common, though.

Posting is not discouraged, it's just not rewarded. Don't tell me you are here only to get that hero member tag.

Actually, now Hero Member finally means something and not only that I was able to make 500 posts in the "first word that pops into your head" thread.

 

[Lauda]

I'd say that most of the Hero and Legendary members in January 2018 were the best posters--and that's obviously comparing them to the lower-ranked ones, which is where the problem of shitposting was all along.  If I agreed that your question is one I could answer, then I would have to say yes.  There were--and are--certainly garbage posters among the higher ranks, but in general I think they "deserved" that airdropped merit.

You may be talking about the state of the forum members in January 2013, definitely not 2018. In 2018, the overwhelming majority of all ranks were shitposters (and are to this day).

January 2013 was a bit before the introduction of Activity, back then some were Hero Members just because they spent a week spamming 500 posts. Giveaway threads also weren't banned. Signature campaigns were nowhere near as common, though.

Posting is not discouraged, it's just not rewarded. Don't tell me you are here only to get that hero member tag.

Actually, now Hero Member finally means something and not only that I was able to make 500 posts in the "first word that pops into your head" thread.

Correct, but it was applicable as soon as it was introduced. There is no way that the forum was better off in January 2018 than 2013 in regards to shitposters. Even to this day, it remains a huge issue. You are right about the giveaway threads, I had forgotten about that one. It was quite the issue.

[Bodykeepers]

Will i am also new in this forum, i created my account last december 2019. So i didn't actually know that old members deserved to have a merit, but user's are very lucky those year 2017 below because there is no merit system. Unlike this days if i didn't read this THREAD BY THEYMOS. I didn't know that there is a merit system are used to be able to rank up. My understanding in this situation as i read some of the threads here in bitcointalk merit system are used so that everbody will post constructive posts. Because due to the fact that bitcointalk are being abuse by other user to rank up easy. That's why merit system is a very good idea.

[dkbit98]

I was thinking airdrops are not allowed in this forum  

It is ok that first members received merits, but it resulted with merit abuse and selling.
I guess that any other system would also be abused.
I would be more interested in removing merits - because of abuse, banned users or inactivity for example.

[JaredKaragen]

Who is the most "merit-able"?

Are you aiming for some sort of merit-per-post or merit-per-activity-period metric? It might be more useful than an absolute number of merits however there are exceptions to that as well. I don't want to trigger some known trolls with examples but let's just say that merit farming does exist.

not at all....

just pointing out that the numbers can be highly suggestive and unbalanced based on the nature of perception of worth. (when speaking of the merit airdrop)

[Chlotide]

The issue boils down to one thing: they were here when it mattered!

And let's face it, editing a. csv file with 2 million lines if a bit nerve wreking for an old and reputable project like bitcointalk.
It's high time we get confortable with the idea that things will not be undone.

Also I ask you this: if you had a platform with aprox 2kk users what decisions would you have made? Of course, without knowing the future. What would you 2 years ago have done better?

[Lauda]

The issue boils down to one thing: they were here when it mattered!

Irrelevant.

And let's face it, editing a. csv file with 2 million lines if a bit nerve wreking for an old and reputable project like bitcointalk.
It's high time we get confortable with the idea that things will not be undone.

About 5 minutes to write a script, about 10 seconds of execution time depending on hardware. What exactly would be the issue?

[OgNasty]

Most of the contributions to this forum prior to 2013 are immeasurably more valuable than what passes as a contribution today.

[Lauda]

Most of the contributions to this forum prior to 2013 are immeasurably more valuable than what passes as a contribution today.

Correct, but those contribution authors usually actually earned merit! See my proposal:

What theymos should have done is that the starting merit for all older ranking members who earned next to no merit in the following 12 months since introduction (next to no being a proportionate % limit of what they had, e.g. if they had not earned at least 10% of what they had) would have been wiped out (0, including smerits). This would have helped the forum considerably and caused next to zero damage to innocent users.

This was my thinking, and I have yet to find some use cases where this would cause more trouble than benefit. Satoshi and similar very contributing posters would be unaffected. Occasional contributing poster that is inactive for half a decade would be affected, but who cares? There is no actual damage done there (and we can resupply the cases which we find with merit afterwards anyway).