One fault with the merit system

[Jet Cash]

There is one obvious failing in the current system, and that is the decaying of unawarded smerits given to sources. There are three reasons that sources award merits, and these are - to encourage members who are beneficial to the forum, to indicate approval of a good post or thread, and to help new members and alts to rank up. When there is a paucity of good posts or good posters, then it is harder to award merits, and this can lead to fewer merits being available in the future. Alternatively, if you are awarding merits for ranking purposes, then it is far easier to find suitable posts, and this can lead to an expansion of the merits available for this section of the forum. Bearing in mind that each source smerit can generate an extra merit in the rewarded community, then this can lead to future distortions in the quality of posting and thread topics.

Does anyone else believe that this is an issue we should be considering?

[1714885535]

1714885535

[jackg]

Is smerit source merit or sendable merit in your context?

Is there a current rollover with merits? Once might be helpful or Theymos might increase merits available based on new user sign ups? If we get busier than we currently are he might have some formula to ensure qualifying newbies are still able to get the merits they need - until then the remedy would just be asking Theymos for more source merits if you run out...

[suchmoon]

The "decay" does not lead to fewer merits in the future. You're still getting your merit allocation replenished as usual. It's like a bucket being filled at a constant rate... if you don't empty it - it may overflow and that part gets lost but it doesn't reduce the fill rate.

Unless you're talking about the changes in source allocation that theymos does once in a while. This can reduce your allocation if your average merit sending is low.

Solution to both issues - send more merits per post, or lower your standards.

[Coyster]

Imo, the opposite looks the case to me as I think the "decay" of source merits is actually a good thing. If you don't spend it, it decays, it kind of encourages MS's, as long as they are active and have enough time to spend here, to try as much as possible to empty their monthly source allocation before it gets "decayed".

[Jet Cash]

lower your standards.

That is the point I am making. That leads to lower standards in the forum.

[suchmoon]

lower your standards.

That is the point I am making. That leads to lower standards in the forum.

How about "broaden your horizons"? "open your mind"?

Think of it this way: if you had a magic algorithm that sorts all posts by quality, would it be ok to merit top 10% of that list? That's a huge pool of posts, several thousand per month at least. Surely you could find something worthy there. The absence of such magic algorithm hinders the process a little bit but you don't really have to read everything. It's safe to ignore the bounty boards for example.

Or just send more merits per post.

[Smartvirus]

I'm not quite sure the burning of unused merits is a fault in itself @Jet Cash. I guess it was made that way in other that, to prevent hoarding and encourage rewarding of quality posts without hesitation once one finds one and to prevents users from being picky in terms of awarding merits, making it circulate just fine. Perhaps, merit give away saves you a few of the stress of searching, no doubt all could be trash though.
I don't know the duration for which, smerits might be held to consider it long enough to be burnt but then, from personal experience, I've held smerits for at list 3weeks and still, it wasn't burnt off. Perhaps I sent one or two within those weeks I can't really recall but, I believe the time frame before smerits are been burnt is quite enough for a user who navigates through at least every board in the forum, touching one or two of it's sub-boards and reading the comments and articles posted is most likely to see a good one, worthy of awarding. You most'nt necessarily give all you've got away, by giving a little, you save the others to give some other user when a quality post comes up.

[sheenshane]

Just my two cents!

A Merit system has a good impact on the forum, it was totally eliminated account farmers and stop ranking those bounty hunters that might also account farmers that cause massive abuse. This system was designed regarding that matter and it was totally effective per see.

Through the statistic given by @LoyceV's weekly update of merit data analysis and also merits stats given by @tranthidung threads, I dont see that there is possible "decay" in the future. Merit sources allocation was always refilled by Theymos and I think they did great on their job upon distributing on it based on the data analysis I indicated above. This merit system was doing fine and I don't see any fault. Lazy members will not get even single merit to rank up if their sole purpose is to spam the forum. If all MS were lower their standard is a good sign too that decaying merit will not happen in the future, IMO.

For the non-merit source members also I see that they don't usually hoard smerit (like me), they spend this to continue the merit cycle in the forum.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Imo, the opposite looks the case to me as I think the "decay" of source merits is actually a good thing. If you don't spend it, it decays, <snip>

Except that the sMerits don't decay if you don't send them.  As alluded to by suchmoon, Theymos might start decreasing a merit source's allocation if that source isn't giving out a lot of merits, but sources don't start losing what they've already got if that's what you mean.

A Merit system has a good impact on the forum, it was totally eliminated account farmers and stop ranking those bounty hunters that might also account farmers that cause massive abuse. This system was designed regarding that matter and it was totally effective per see.

I think I agree with what I think you're saying, and that's one of the reasons I'm proud to be a merit source--because I believe in the system and I believe it has indeed helped with those things you mentioned.  I have good months and bad months as far as how many merits I give out, but I do my best.

I'm not quite sure the burning of unused merits is a fault in itself @Jet Cash. I guess it was made that way in other that, to prevent hoarding and encourage rewarding of quality posts without hesitation once one finds one and to prevents users from being picky in terms of awarding merits, making it circulate just fine.

Did I miss something about unused sMerits being "burned"?  I've been around since the beginning of the merit system, and I don't think I've ever had any of my unused sMerits taken away from me.  If I haven't missed something, then perhaps Smartvirus might not know what he's talking about....?

[suchmoon]

Did I miss something about unused sMerits being "burned"?  I've been around since the beginning of the merit system, and I don't think I've ever had any of my unused sMerits taken away from me.  If I haven't missed something, then perhaps Smartvirus might not know what he's talking about....?

Regular (earned/airdropped) sMerits don't decay or burn or otherwise disappear. Source sMerits kinda sorta do, by not being replenished 30 days later, if you didn't send them out 30 days earlier.

[tranthidung]

You asked and I listened, then worked. Please check (click on quote link to see full details).  

It is not a correct comparison but you can take figures and compare them.

• 21171 smerits per 30 for all 97 merit sources
• Median of monthly merit is 21289, interquartile range is from 18592 to 23482. See details with the newest update for monthly merit
• Last month (2020m9, September)
  
  • 19821 smerits were distributed from merit sources and non-merit sources
  • 1030 members have sent merit transactions
  • 74.2% of 1030 senders sent out 1-10 merit in September *
  • Senders (less than 7%) in groups from 31+ are mainly merit sources
  • From all available data, non-merit source members actively sent out their sMerit but of course they did not empty all of their sMerits
• As per Pareto principle, top-20 merit earners earned ~88% of total earned merits on the forum (data is outdated). If you are high quality posters, you earn it, earn a lot!

*

Code:

Categorisat |
     ion of |
      total |
    monthly |
    sendout |
      merit |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
          1 |        263       25.53       25.53
        2-5 |        343       33.30       58.83
       6-10 |        158       15.34       74.17
      11-20 |        107       10.39       84.56
      21-30 |         55        5.34       89.90
      31-50 |         39        3.79       93.69
     51-100 |         25        2.43       96.12
    101-200 |         23        2.23       98.35
    201-500 |         11        1.07       99.42
       501+ |          6        0.58      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |      1,030      100.00

Chronological changes of top 200 merit receivers / senders since Jan 2018. Merit sources do their works well since beginning and they increase their sendouts (in values, and intensity) after the reallocation last year.

The first plot for 5 groups shows the fact well and you can see more detailed fact in the top 10 senders (note that not all 10 members are merit sources). I've not yet make plot for all 97 merit sources and don't see reason to make it (5-group plot is enough).

[LFC_Bitcoin]

I don’t think unused source merit is the issue. I always use mine, every single time I use whatever I have. For me the issue is top posters who are also merit sources not being able (or refusing) to use up the merit they receive from others (sMerit) which can really build up.

The issue is probably more prevalent with high merit earning posters who ALSO receive a high amount of source merit from theymos, they earn merit so quickly they can’t get through all their source merit to get it to 0 so they can start handing out merit from their sMerit balance. Essentially their sMerit balance builds uncontrollably as they’re not getting through enough of the source merit to get started on it.

In my opinion, in the scenarios above it’s THAT merit, unused from their sMerit balance that should be decayed/removed, not their source merit.

[Charles-Tim]

All I can Comment for now is that merit system is really helping the forum, it helps the posts quality. And, there is nothing yet wrong with the merit system for now, let us leave this to the future if the merit system will continue working good, but as to what will happen, the merit system will always be working good as merit sources are giving only high quality posts merits.

About the issue of smerit being decaying, this is very good in my opinion, there are lots of posts that are worthy of merits that the smerits can be used for instead of letting it decaying.

Merit sources need to check their standard, it should not be too high in a way 10 or less out of 100 quality posts will be merited, and the standard should not be low in a way that low quality posts sould be given merit at all, but out of 100 quality posts, nearly all should be awarded merits in order to strengthen the good posters to post more quality contents, and I believe this will neither harm the merit system nor the forum.

[Welsh]

The merit system might not be perfect, and in many peoples eyes it isn't, but I think the vast majority of users here will agree that its had a largely positive effect on the community, and the forum as a result. However, you bring up valid concerns, but I would argue that allowing merit sources to stockpile merit would mean they aren't spending it in the first place, and might not justify being a merit source. Ignoring the last few months, as I would assume during the pandemic, that merit source spend has been greatly reduced (although, I haven't looked at the statistics to back that up) I know from a personal stand point, my merit spend has been much, much lower due to my time being sapped up by work. If a merit source isn't spending a great deal of their merit source allocation, there might be an opportunity for someone else to replace them that would without creating endless amounts of merit within the system.

With any system, balance is important. We want it to be achievable to rank up, but we don't want it to be so easy that any old dribble gets through the cracks. We want some sort of standard, and merit to mean something. My question would be, do you think earned merit is of substantial value right now? Are there many users, who aren't ranking up? I think, there's a few individuals that probably deserve more merit in comparison with the rest of the community, but either already are top ranks, or are slowly making their way up the ranks. They aren't going to be subjected to lower ranks, as long as they continue posting the quality content they already are.

[Findingnemo]

lower your standards.

That is the point I am making. That leads to lower standards in the forum.

IMO, the standard has been already lowered because we can see more distribution of merits in the recent months compared to previous years when people hardly ranked up and got more technical knowledge to be honest.Theymos himself stated that merit sources try to reach their full quote of distribution if possible even if you can't find the good worthy posts just spend them on the fewer posts you see.So don't lower your standard guys, just be more generous when you see good posts.

[iamsheikhadil]

I don't think this is an issue because we really don't know the time when paucity of good posts are being posted and when there is huge number of good posts being posted.

Decaying of smerits which are unawarded is a good thing because, it serves really no purpose to have smerits in account when they are simply inactive or don't wanna give it away for so long of time.

Merit sources however are really generous and take their time to observe the whole forum and giveaway merits to good posts regularly, so I believe there is always good posts in the forum without any scarcity. However, if smerits were not decayed when they were not sent for a long time, that will lead to overflow of smerits and merits as this forum is continuously growing!

[Jet Cash]

Regular (earned/airdropped) sMerits don't decay or burn or otherwise disappear. Source sMerits kinda sorta do, by not being replenished 30 days later, if you didn't send them out 30 days earlier.

Exactly - and I believe that that encourages the awarding of source merits to lower quality posts if there is a bit of a drought in quality posting. A merit source is not a paid position, and they shouldn't be pushed into lowering their standards, or forced to spend time om boards that may not be of interest to them. I guess it depends on the priorities of the forum, do you want more new members to rank up as long as they can produce adequate posts, or do you want to use the merit system to improve the quality of posting to attract more serious members.

[NeuroticFish]

A merit source is not a paid position, and they shouldn't be pushed into lowering their standards, or forced to spend time om boards that may not be of interest to them.

Imho nobody forces merit sources do anything special. Neither be more active, nor visiting other areas or lower standards.

I'll go by @suchmoon example with the bucket. Imho the merit source system tries to make sure a merit source has "a bucket" of sMerit to send every month. If it "overflew" and some sMerit was lost, no biggie, he still has one full bucket to use.
Theymos did write that sMerit is not for hoarding, right? And if merit sources would get to "infinite buckets" then it can lead to (probably not intentional, but still) sMerit hoarding.

[Jet Cash]

Well the bucket analogy is not completely true, as the bucket starts off full, and as it is emptied, it is refilled. Extra sMerits are not added unless Theymos run a recalculation, and I understand he does this at regular intervals. The bucket can never overflow. but shrinks as 30 day old sMerits evaporate.

Somebody suggested that I should expand my interests, and part of my difficulty is that the Kung 'flu mismanagement, and changed in macro-economics have expanded my interests. If you couple this with the rise of serious virtual assets alongside Bitcoin, and the implementation of DeFi projects, then there is a lot that we should be researching and discussing at the moment. It is not wasy to do this in the Bitcoin Talk forum, and you only need to look at the blinkered attitudes of the vaccinators and monkey mask wearers to see this.

Another poster stated that the forum membership is expanding, and this may well be true, and could be contributing to the problem as I see it. We have lost some quality long term members, and some have left in a flurry of frustration, but many others have just drifted away, presumably as they find fewer topics of interest.

Over the last few months I have joined several other forums to discuss issues of interest to me. These include hardware and operating system discussions, and forums with political and macro-economic boards. I am grateful to members such as Carlton Banks and LoyceV for their comments in my EXT4 thread, but wouldn't it be better to have a board for these discussions to provide a reference point.

I love Bitcoin and the Bitcoin Talk forum, but I feel that it is still drifting away from being a forum for help and discussion, and it is still encouraging volume posting to display paid signatures.

[NeuroticFish]

I love Bitcoin and the Bitcoin Talk forum, but I feel that it is still drifting away from being a forum for help and discussion, and it is still encouraging volume posting to display paid signatures.

This is not that far from truth, especially in the case of Bitcoin, and it's quite normal. Many possible problems users can have were already answered and I expect search engines point them directly to the answer to their problem. This leads to smaller number of legitimate questions, smaller number of users really needing help.

[FIFA worldcup]

There is one obvious failing in the current system, and that is the decaying of unawarded smerits given to sources. There are three reasons that sources award merits, and these are - to encourage members who are beneficial to the forum, to indicate approval of a good post or thread, and to help new members and alts to rank up. When there is a paucity of good posts or good posters, then it is harder to award merits, and this can lead to fewer merits being available in the future. Alternatively, if you are awarding merits for ranking purposes, then it is far easier to find suitable posts, and this can lead to an expansion of the merits available for this section of the forum. Bearing in mind that each source smerit can generate an extra merit in the rewarded community, then this can lead to future distortions in the quality of posting and thread topics.

Does anyone else believe that this is an issue we should be considering?

As i think you are saying that the fault in the system is because the Sources will not find quality posts to award merits and hence their smerit will decay ?
First of all there are many posts which diverse merit but are not awarded, secondly even if your statement is true, they can give more merits to the posts which are good ones. Instead of giving 1-5 merits per post 5 -10 merits can be given.

[erikoy]

As i think you are saying that the fault in the system is because the Sources will not find quality posts to award merits and hence their smerit will decay ?
First of all there are many posts which diverse merit but are not awarded, secondly even if your statement is true, they can give more merits to the posts which are good ones. Instead of giving 1-5 merits per post 5 -10 merits can be given.

OP state about the fault of merits sytem with the way admin design that merit source will have their allocated merits will get decayed. As what it has beem implied by OP that with this design it will encourage merit source to send more merits so that it will not get decayed as a result it will going to reward on low quality posts and this will able to rank up the low rank members and their alt accounts.

In my opinion, I do not object of decaying given merits to the merit source because merits are design and allocated for the use in accordance to the ideal number of merits being provided by the admin. Aside from that the way of rewarding was to motivate the users to contribute helpful posts in the forum to share. If not for merits probably other users will going leave the forum due to the fact in learning that they could not grow in the forum without getting merit or limiting the merit to be awarded that would be more difficult to get.

For now, I am thinking of merit utilized well by the merit source if not then low rank could not rank up.

[Welsh]

This is not that far from truth, especially in the case of Bitcoin, and it's quite normal. Many possible problems users can have were already answered and I expect search engines point them directly to the answer to their problem. This leads to smaller number of legitimate questions, smaller number of users really needing help.

This is also something the community advocates for; Search up your issue before asking another question. I don't tend to have an issue with repeated questions, as I think I've explained before, but I know that some users tend to get irritated by the same questions over, and over. I think its natural for less technical questions to be asked, because of your reasons above, and the fact that Bitcoin may get simpler over time. Cryptocurrencies might not be as alien as they once before, and there's either better documentation right off the bat now, or technical issues have been ironed out, and simplified.

[Lucius]

The Merit system is not bad, there is no doubt that it helped make the forum a better place with less spam and fewer opportunities for those who had alt account farms. We recently had a discussion where we mostly agreed that maybe some changes should be made in terms of requirements for promotion in the ranks when it comes to the number of merits.

I think that some people are completely unjustifiably complaining that there are not enough quality posts on which they can spend their merits, and at the same time they put half of the forum on ignore. How a merit source can be effective (for the forum in total) if it is focused on just one or two boards, or if his primary criteria are not quality posts, but looks at some other things (which is again the right of every member of the forum).

Merit system is not perfect, but far more imperfect are the people who use it.

[Jet Cash]

How a merit source can be effective (for the forum in total) if it is focused on just one or two boards,

Merit sources are not paid staff. They were appointed to help to improve the quality of the threads, and thery can only do this responsibly if they are interested and understand their chosen boards. We have merit sources for local boards, and I suspect that some spend their time on just one board. There is nothing wrong with that, this is an international forum.

Once again, my point is that if you constantly reduce the size of the "bucket" of a merit source, then he is likely to reward fewer posts that he considers to be quality, and may reduce the time he spends on some boards. In fact, this doesn't really affect me, as I have a few hundred earned smerits that I can award. I started the topic because I would like to see more high quality discussions, rather than threads supporting the mass media agenda. Often starting such topics get you trolled by members like "Very Well Endowed" and Frankly, and I have them on ignore, and don't bother to open a thread if I see one of them is the last poster.

[LoyceV]

@Jet Cash: have you seen this posts?

~snip~ 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.
~snip~

Well the bucket analogy is not completely true, as the bucket starts off full, and as it is emptied, it is refilled. Extra sMerits are not added unless Theymos run a recalculation, and I understand he does this at regular intervals. The bucket can never overflow. but shrinks as 30 day old sMerits evaporate.

Let me correct you here: the bucket gets empty when you spend sMerit, and exactly 30 days later it gets replenished. If you don't spend it, it never leaves the bucket and can't be replenished.

This is what I do: If my source sMerit goes up, I send more per post. If it's low, I send less per post. If it's zero, I have my own earned sMerit as a backup. I've never been out of sMerit since the introduction of the Merit system, and I try to keep my source as close to zero as possible.

[Jet Cash]

Let me correct you here: the bucket gets empty when you spend sMerit, and exactly 30 days later it gets replenished. If you don't spend it, it never leaves the bucket and can't be replenished.

I understood that the replenishment date was based on the awarding of the merit, and not on the bucket creation. Also, I believe that the merit in the bucket has an award by date, and it is discarded if it is not used before that date. My merit refreshment flows in, it doesn't arrive in one monthly bang.

[Pmalek]

There are three reasons that sources award merits, and these are - ...and to help new members and alts to rank up.

Nice, good one. I hope this was a joke.
If you are having trouble finding new posts to merit, just go and check your merit history and award some additional merits to already merited posts. Many sources do this. I sometimes get surprised when I see I was merited for a post that was written +5, 6 months ago. When I connect the dots, I realize it is usually a merit source trying to empty his bags.

Another thing you can do is pop by the Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source thread and find something there worthy of your merits.

 

[suchmoon]

I understood that the replenishment date was based on the awarding of the merit, and not on the bucket creation. Also, I believe that the merit in the bucket has an award by date, and it is discarded if it is not used before that date. My merit refreshment flows in, it doesn't arrive in one monthly bang.

There is no "award by" date. If your source allocation ("bucket" capacity) is e.g. 100 sMerits per month and you don't spend any then your "bucket" will stay full with 100 sMerits in it forever (or at least until theymos recalculates allocations). sMerits that you already have are not discarded and your "bucket" doesn't really shrink, it just can't be filled beyond its capacity if you don't spend those sMerits to make room for a refill 30 days later.

[Lucius]

We have merit sources for local boards, and I suspect that some spend their time on just one board. There is nothing wrong with that, this is an international forum.

To be fair, some merit sources have specific boards to be targeted when they apply to be merit source and theymos approve it, so i don't see anything wrong.

This is quite clear to me, and it definitely makes sense for local boards to have their own merit sources and I don’t think there’s a problem with that. The problem is at least according to what I see less and less active merit sources in other parts of the forum, which is again related to the recently mentioned reduced activity of the forum.

The philosophy of some merit sources is that it's better for merit to expire than to give it to someone, which is actually one of the downsides of the merit system - but if we can call it a problem, it's something it's up to the admin to solve it by removing some old, and/or add new sources.

[mindrust]

The current merit system can't be a permanent fix.

It was just a spam delayer for a year maybe and it is already losing its effectiveness because many spammers have either become merit sources or they are trading their merits back and forth with their friends.

I see that people are back in the account farming business already.

[Jet Cash]

The philosophy of some merit sources is that it's better for merit to expire than to give it to someone, which is actually one of the downsides of the merit system

That is not completely true. It may be better to allow merits to expire rather than award them for posts that you feel are undeserving. Showering merits just because buckets are full is the equivalent of creating storms because clouds are full of water. Then end result is the drowning of the land.

[LoyceV]

It may be better to allow merits to expire rather than award them for posts that you feel are undeserving.

Based on theymos' last reorganisation of the Merit source amounts, where inactive sources got less and active sources got more, I think the total source amount is based on what theymos thinks the forum needs per month in total. If some Merit sources don't distribute all of their sMerit, the forum as a whole has less sMerit to spend. Eventually that Merit source will get less, and others will get more.

I don't give sMerit to posts that I feel are undeserving, but if they deserve it, I often base the amount on how much I need to get rid of, and not on how much I think the post really deserves.

[Jet Cash]

There seems to be a focus on quantity and volume, and not on quality. This seems to be true of many things at the moment. It is quite hard to find food thart is of the same quality as a few years ago. In part this is due to the lower food standards of the EU being forced onto the UK, but maybe the shift to online purchases is the major reason. As membership of this forum increases, and the more intersting and insightful topics are drowned by the newer members social posting, some members are resorting to making large statistical posts, and these seem to be gaining in popularity and reward, but contribute n, and not used to bloat discussions. I dkip over the posts if I am on the computer, but if I am on mobile, I have to avoid opening a thread that may contain such posts, especially if they are quoted.

In the end, the remedy is in our hands. We can increase the number of quality posts that we make, and this could be more beneficial than spending time on merit showers.