Merit giveaway: is it a good idear?

[ImThour]

Another point is interesting. Looking at the history of the distribution of merits to the OP, I realized that for some reason he kept them and did not give them out earlier. And then the day came, which was called the “action of generosity.”

I would like to talk on this.

1. I received 50 Merits today itself by one of the client for whom I made a website/contract.
2. I didn't waited for days to send it.

I hope this will clear any doubt of my connections to any of the accounts.

Regards,
ImThour

[Daniel91]

In the past I've had a few merit giveaways topics in beginners section in the forum.
I wanted to help newbies to receive their first merits but eventually gave up.
Most of the reported posts from the newbies were of very poor quality, and did not deserve merits.
Not only that, but after closing such topics, I would receive private messages from newbies begging me to give them merits.
I simply gave up on such a way of sharing merit and now I try to find myself quality and good posts that deserve merits.

[ImThour]

In the past I've had a few merit giveaways topics in beginners section in the forum.
I wanted to help newbies to receive their first merits but eventually gave up.
Most of the reported posts from the newbies were of very poor quality, and did not deserve merits.
Not only that, but after closing such topics, I would receive private messages from newbies begging me to give them merits.
I simply gave up on such a way of sharing merit and now I try to find myself quality and good posts that deserve merits.

I learnt it that way aswell.

I am literally feeling like getting targeted, getting accused of having connections with these Altcoins and other negative aspects.
I just wanted to spread some help to new members. It kinda fucked my own for doing good.

Feeling so bad for doing something with a positive mind/aspect.

Regards,
ImThour

[cabalism13]

Feeling so bad for doing something with a positive mind/aspect.

That's Life. Not everyone thinks the same as you, but there are still others who understands whatever it is, as for this giveaway nothing's wrong with it, Only the transaction has something to manage and to be taken care of just like what your client did (it's not that really bad IMO, just to avoid being accused, if you know what I mean)...
So don't feel bad, just go along with it,... Just do what you think is right but don't forget to take advises. Have a Good Day.

I simply gave up on such a way of sharing merit and now I try to find myself quality and good posts that deserve merits.

In my case it consumes too much time and effort, that's why I didn't continue doing that, and as for my Local they're already doing fine I guess. Only a few of us are still on the lower end, but I think they'll manage somehow,...

[UserU]

When I reached my 100th Merit, I held a giveaway thread but some members actually posted had good feedback which I took into consideration.

Rather than holding them, reward posts that are deemed Merit-worthy. That way, those participants won't feel compelled to come out with one (often redundant) topic or thread just for a measly Merit or two.

[Rikafip]

In the past I've had a few merit giveaways topics in beginners section in the forum.
I wanted to help newbies to receive their first merits but eventually gave up.
Most of the reported posts from the newbies were of very poor quality, and did not deserve merits.

Yeah I remember your giveaway thread. Turnout was low, and average post quality bad. Beginners&Help section constantly has abundance of giveaway threads while good low rank members that apply in those are rare. Not a good thing, when you think about forum's future.

I am literally feeling like getting targeted, getting accused of having connections with these Altcoins and other negative aspects.
I just wanted to spread some help to new members. It kinda fucked my own for doing good.

This is just forum being forum. People will share suspicions, decisions will be questioned etc, and not just for you, but any member. You didn't break any forum rules, so no reason to take criticism hard.

[YOSHIE]

I am literally feeling like getting targeted, getting accused of having connections with these Altcoins and other negative aspects.
I just wanted to spread some help to new members. It kinda fucked my own for doing good.

Indeed your ideals are good, but here many members judge the behavior of other members, don't hold @mocacinno thinking badly for you.

@mocacinno just wants to give you directions and advice, it doesn't have to be like this in the future.

@mocacinno: say good things for you, for the future.

This topic is NOT pointed towards the OP in the linked thread, but merely to discuss the general stance of other members towards merit giveaways. AFAIK, the OP in above thread is trying to do some good for newbies, and others have done merit giveaways long before he started his thread.

So it makes sense, also includes me thinking negative for you, most likely your Alt, but this is an estimate, not an accusation.

What you are doing is inappropriate, with members of your quote post saying "thank you". You immediately gave Merit.

example:: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5276103.msg55205433#msg55205433

Very easy to get merit, without thinking about something meaningful.

This is where the allegations and negative things arise, it is not natural for you to do threads like that, but if their post is quality it may not be a problem for other members.

So, I take the advice, give something valuable to those who deserve it means: quality, other members will not judge you with negative things.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

I often find that the term "giveaway" creates a wrong impression in threads that are declared of that nature, and there do seem to be a fair sum of threads of the kind currently running concurrently.

Merits do not have to be announced explicitly, and you could still award them at your discretion to answers within the thread on the basis of any proposed topic. For example, you could propose the readers to read (thoroughly) through the rules, and comment on doubts and changes that could be fitting, stirring-up some debate in this manner.

Nevertheless, there’s absolutely no way that a subjective matter such as this can be delimited without falling short on other threads/posts by comparison,  whereby a single unmemorable post may harvest elsewhere more merits that those given ( 8 ) or even intended to be given on @ImThour’s thread.

[Assface16678]

I already visited the thread recently and the OP of the main thread has a good intention but in the other way, there is some lower ranks abuse that kind of merit giveaway because they can earn easily a merit without hassle.

Also, I would like to appeal that earlier because they can get merit just doing a copy-paste what rules they want and boom easy merit.

I think it's better to hold sMerit and give it to someone who deserves it than giving to members who just absolutely doing a spam.

[ImThour]

I am literally feeling like getting targeted, getting accused of having connections with these Altcoins and other negative aspects.
I just wanted to spread some help to new members. It kinda fucked my own for doing good.

Indeed your ideals are good, but here many members judge the behavior of other members, don't hold @mocacinno thinking badly for you.

@mocacinno just wants to give you directions and advice, it doesn't have to be like this in the future.

@mocacinno: say good things for you, for the future.

This topic is NOT pointed towards the OP in the linked thread, but merely to discuss the general stance of other members towards merit giveaways. AFAIK, the OP in above thread is trying to do some good for newbies, and others have done merit giveaways long before he started his thread.

So it makes sense, also includes me thinking negative for you, most likely your Alt, but this is an estimate, not an accusation.

What you are doing is inappropriate, with members of your quote post saying "thank you". You immediately gave Merit.

example:: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5276103.msg55205433#msg55205433

Very easy to get merit, without thinking about something meaningful.

This is where the allegations and negative things arise, it is not natural for you to do threads like that, but if their post is quality it may not be a problem for other members.

So, I take the advice, give something valuable to those who deserve it means: quality, other members will not judge you with negative things.

To be honest, I have nothing against anyone and especially @mocacinno, He helped me and guided me a good path.
I can see there are other users who think I did it to earn merit or to feed my Alt accounts with merit.
Those allegations are really negative and kinda impact.

Overall, I am happy that I learnt it quickly and you all helped me in this process.
Thank you so much for this.

Regards,
ImThour

[YOSHIE]

Overall, I am happy that I learnt it quickly and you all helped me in this process.
Thank you so much for this.

That's Forum, here has 1000 different positive & negative thoughts.

someone never learn & succeed, if that person never make mistakes, the thread OP, will be a valuable lesson and experience for you, it will be better in this forum for the future.

I hope in your future, become the best member here, with what is happening today.

[Furious 7]

In the past I've had a few merit giveaways topics in beginners section in the forum.
I wanted to help newbies to receive their first merits but eventually gave up.
Most of the reported posts from the newbies were of very poor quality, and did not deserve merits.
Not only that, but after closing such topics, I would receive private messages from newbies begging me to give them merits.
I simply gave up on such a way of sharing merit and now I try to find myself quality and good posts that deserve merits.

If there is a giveaway merit like this then newbies will look for topics that they are good at, well of course they don't have good knowledge about the topics that are sent in your thread so that it is not feasible and bad, yes, the average newbie just wants to merit with the report quality posts and can't judge which one is better. still understandable.

But it is also true that the future of this forum is if we continue to do this without finding extraordinary topics then it will be bad if you force it but it would be better if you find good topics then it deserves merit because of that you have found it.

[Daniel91]

In the past I've had a few merit giveaways topics in beginners section in the forum.
I wanted to help newbies to receive their first merits but eventually gave up.
Most of the reported posts from the newbies were of very poor quality, and did not deserve merits.
Not only that, but after closing such topics, I would receive private messages from newbies begging me to give them merits.
I simply gave up on such a way of sharing merit and now I try to find myself quality and good posts that deserve merits.

If there is a giveaway merit like this then newbies will look for topics that they are good at, well of course they don't have good knowledge about the topics that are sent in your thread so that it is not feasible and bad, yes, the average newbie just wants to merit with the report quality posts and can't judge which one is better. still understandable.

But it is also true that the future of this forum is if we continue to do this without finding extraordinary topics then it will be bad if you force it but it would be better if you find good topics then it deserves merit because of that you have found it.

I started merit giveaway in the beginners section of the forum and I did not seek any specific area, topic or knowledge from newbies.
I just asked them to report their quality posts for merits that they wrote anywhere on the forum, provided that they are in English so I can understand them.
I did not want to give merit just for any application and I asked for at least some minimum quality standard or concrete contribution to the forum.

[Coyster]

To be honest, I have nothing against anyone and especially @mocacinno, He helped me and guided me a good path.

And tbh mocacinno has nothing against you as well, it just happens that your thread was used as a reference to discuss the bigger issue on merit giveaways (everyone of them and the ones to be done in the future). It could prolly have been another giveaway thread used, but it doesn't change anything, the discussion is on what the community thinks about giveaways and not what it thinks about your giveaway.

To give my own two cents on the matter, we know it's impossible for merit giveaways to be stopped, it's not technically against the rules, but if it's necessary, is something to be debated on, I don't have to request a newbie to submit links to their post history before giving merits to them, if a user with smerits spots a newbie making good posts, you can simply just go through their post history and merit their good posts without starting any giveaway thread. Imo, it's pretty much better that way, and that being said, I think a newbie will appreciate a merit earned outside a giveaway thread, 'giveaway' sounds like you're getting it for free, with no work.

[notblox1]

Merit giveaway thread can often be like double edged sword.
I created one some time ago only for Junior members, but I inspect their accounts and all previous posts, and I also gave some simple task for people to complete, but I still found people don't read rules I posted and they try to cheat and post crap.
My intention was to share extra merit I got and to experiment and see if people even read the rules before they apply to something like this.

[GeorgeJohn]

In general, I think users who aren't Merit sources shouldn't have a hard time finding good enough posts on their own. Merit giveaway threads often receive Merit, so that might be a reason to start one.

See theymos' post on the subject

I agreed with you because those users who give out merits to newbie in order for them to rank up deserved merit from merit source.
I believe that majority of merit source don't misused their merit.

[saniat7234]

I'm translate it and reading my Own language.and i like it.good talk about newbies.

[OgNasty]

I've seen OgNasty give away merit to people that have mastered the technical details of signing a message...(snip)... I think these forms of merit-giveaway are fine, since they at least require a minimum amount of effort of the participant.
But on the other hand, any giveaway that can be claimed with less than 15 minutes of work might do more harm than good (IMHO).

I figured encouraging users to use Bitcoin software as opposed to spam until they make it into a signature program would be a great step in the right direction for this forum.  It is my opinion that more users should value those who do things that involve Bitcoin software and the blockchain. 

My Merit giveaway thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5275043.0

[-CryptoViking-]

I was also surprised by such a generous distribution of merit. And, of course, I was wondering who got them. In my observation, someone who had alternative accounts was able to take advantage of this. I don't really believe in coincidence, but two alternative accounts took advantage of this.
Another point is interesting. Looking at the history of the distribution of merits to the OP, I realized that for some reason he kept them and did not give them out earlier. And then the day came, which was called the “action of generosity.”
I can't believe the Merit Holder hasn't found a single worthy post before. Therefore, I would like to wish everyone who keeps their merits,  that in the future there will be no such incidents, and the merits were distributed really for their intended purpose to those who are trying to create useful content for the forum.

I will answer shortly to this, they do that because they see that giveaway topics get merited, simple as that. Not saying that this was only factor that lead to this, but it is one of the factors for sure and it is becoming a trend it seems.There are not many people that start a giveaway while they are only member rank. I certainly was not one of them and will never be, unless I become a merit source one day or if someone dumps 250 merits on me suddenly so I don't have a way to spend them naturally as I go, which is not likely.

As long as it's for an actual post (and not e.g. "you get a merit if your username starts with an 'm'") and the post isn't blatantly useless (not like e.g. "good project") then I think it's a waste of time to police it. I mean you can point it out to the person doing it, and in this case it worked, but generally speaking merits are not moderated and I've seen too many cases where this kind of thing resulted in red trust when it shouldn't. A certain number of merits will always be sent to users who seemingly don't deserve it. It just doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes plagiarizers get one. Or scammers. Or people who spell "idea" with an "r". Shit happens.

That's not to say we should knowingly send merits to people who are perhaps attempting to farm accounts etc. But I also don't think we have to come to some sort of universal consensus as what's acceptable as a criteria for "good post" or what kind of rules giveaways should have etc. Sounds like an unenforceable drama-inducing setup.

I agree with you, there are already rules for merits and there is no need to start making more additional rules especially if ti will be hard to enforce it and if people would have to police it even more. It would create more problems then few giveaways over few merits.

I don't say I consider those giveaways as something productive, especially if the person that is giving the merits away, gives them almost randomly for low effort posts, to alts or something similar, but sometimes there are  some giveaways that turn out just fine.

Also if people stop giving merits to that kind of low effort giveaway treads, I'm pretty sure we would see much less of those popping up.

I figured encouraging users to use Bitcoin software as opposed to spam until they make it into a signature program would be a great step in the right direction for this forum.  It is my opinion that more users should value those who do things that involve Bitcoin software and the blockchain. 

My Merit giveaway thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5275043.0

I saw your thread and I agree with you, your giveaway is a good example of a good merit giveaway. Makes people learn something that is useful and could push them to learn on from there.

What I wanted to add too is that some threads that reward good posts with merits are very useful like one @LoyceV has made and some others. Some posts do get neglected or overlooked, some boards have few merit sources with low merit allocations and can't give enough merits to certain posts or can't give merit at all sometimes as they simply don't have enough. In those type of situations merit threads like the one I mention can be used to help other members. I regularly use those threads to direct merit to posts that were overlooked or merit sources were out of merit on those boards.

[Yogee]

...... Merit giveaway threads often receive Merit, so that might be a reason to start one.

This is an interesting point. If we stop giving merits to giveaway threads, will we see less members below Legendary creating them?

Beginners & Help is one of my favorite boards to visit but I'm a bit disappointed seeing more of these merit giveaways and even redundant forum guides how to rank up. There is already a pinned topic for that.