Merit source unapplication - Vlad2Vlad

[suchmoon]

Just leaving this here for the next merit sorcery realignment.

IXCoin - a horrible shitcoin by any measure, dead website, no volume, etc - has the most merited (in 2020) ANN thread on Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5284439.msg55453820#msg55453820

The reason is Vlad2Vlad who claims to be "Lead dev and CTO and CEO of IXcoin" and happens to be a merit source sending large amounts of merit in that thread. He's also doing the same thing in own thread shilling IXC: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=317658

I know the post quality is quite subjective but this looks like a massive conflict of interest and not the best use of source merits. Perhaps a different merit source can be selected for the altcoin boards who would prop up more than one shitcoin thread.

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[dkbit98]

Did he also supported CSW Faketoshi?
That is a sin
And bunch of merits sent to BSV?

I never liked following the herd.  BTC gonna get rekt this year so you better dump on the next big run this summer.  CSW will turn up on top so maybe take off the haters glasses and look at his factual work.

Bad prophecy

[DooMAD]

Yeah, that looks like some pretty egregious abuse.  I can see the benefit in meriting unconventional wisdom, but not outright bias like this.  Would love to hear their attempt at a justification for all that (not that I imagine it would sway my support of this proposal).

[Pffrt]

I just have checked his recent sent merit history and it more looks like kind of nepotism and I agree that your application should be accepted.

And bunch of merits sent to BSV?

I think there's no problem if a post deserves merit. I would send merits anyone who deserve them regardless of the username. But this case is a little different though.

[dkbit98]

application should be accepted.

Are you on some heavy drugs?   
Did you even read what OP posted?

[Poker Player]

application should be accepted.

Are you on some heavy drugs?  
Did you even read what OP posted?

It is pretty clear to me that he is talking to suchmoon.

He means that suchmoon's (un)application should be accepted.

If you had quoted the word "your", you would have seen it more clearly:

I agree that your application should be accepted.

[suchmoon]

He means that suchmoon's (un)application should be accepted.

That's how I interpret it too. But just to make it clear - I'm not applying for anything myself. Just trying to point out that one merit source probably should be replaced with one or more new merit sources, and there are quite a few applications on this board to choose from.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

I’m sure he sent multiple 50 Merit loads to shit posters in the past too. When questioned about it he was just laughing, as if he is immune to being pulled up on his Merit abuse. I mean look at his sent Merit, it’s littered with large merit dumps on utter shit posts.

I definitely support suchmoon’s idea of removing his merit source status. There must be more deserving potential sources in the altcoin sub.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

I don't know how often Merit source rights are revoked from abusers, but I am in support of immediate revocation of the Merit source rights from the person in question. Hording merits and the making it rain specifically to shitposters and scammers isn't what the merit system was created to do.
We have so many good members applying to be merit source and would do much better. I wonder why it takes so long to make such decisions.

[KaneVWE]

1. There have been proven scammers as merit sources before suchmoon didnt complain about them
2. Vlad2vlad is 100x a better poster and far more knowledgeable than eg tman, lfc, etc
3. Merit is impossible to abuse on the basis of post value or quality
4. Most DT and merit sources top 20 fans and recipients are stacked with each other.
5. Suchmoon already admitted merit is meaningless so who cares where it goes

The only gripe here really is he is giving out to others suchmoon doesn't agree with.

Tough.

Start imposing the same strict guidelines on all merit sources.

Tighten up the entire thing, restart it or just let it run as is. No point imposing certain requirements on some not others.

Suchmoon has already cried to theymos before and had a source who was giving merit to undeniably good posts kicked off

I don't support the removal of any merit source unless the specific reason is given and all other merit sources that are guilty are also removed on the same basis.

[suchmoon]

If you happen to see a troll around here - don't try to approach, might be rabid. Report to moderators immediately. Thank you.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Are you sure that Vlad is a merit source? I asked him once, out of curiosity, and he seemed that he didn't even know what a merit source is. I had to explain him. He told me that when the merit system was implemented he woke up with a considerable amount of sMerits and that was it. Although he didn't explain very clear (as he seemed somehow unfamiliar with the subject), I understood that he is still using the sMerits from his initial airdrop from 2018 Maybe he meant something else but this is what I understood.

And I asked him after seeing this topic: Merit abuse by a Legendary. But even there, nutildah stated at some point that he isn't a merit source, that's why I asked about that.

[KaneVWE]

Are you sure that Vlad is a merit source? I asked him once, out of curiosity, and he seemed that he didn't even know what a merit source is. I had to explain him. He told me that when the merit system was implemented he woke up with a considerable amount of sMerits and that was it. Although he didn't explain very clear (as he seemed somehiw unfamiliar with the subject), I understood that he is still using the sMerits from his initial airdrop from 2018 Maybe he meant something else but this is what I understood.

And I asked him after seeing this topic: Merit abuse by a Legendary. But even there, nutildah stated at some point that he isn't a merit source, that's why I asked about that.

From observing carefully the merit system since inception it appears you can do what you want as a merit source other than merit your own alts or accounts where there is strong compelling evidence they are your alts

Or

If you apparently say you will award them to those who share your board politics even if you award them to objectively valuable and insightful posts.

If they are your earned merits you can do with them anything you want no restrictions?

If they are airdropped merits aka pre merit system based on rank then what rules are there?

Really all legends should have been made merit source and removed for abusing it. Rather than make is super centralized from the outset.

[hosseinimr93]

Are you sure that Vlad is a merit source?

Vlad2Vlad has earned 334 merit so far. So he has earned 167 smerit.
According to BPIP, Vlad2Vlad has sent 3462 smerit.
The maximum number of airdropped smerit a user could get was 400. (See the following post made by theymos.)

So the most you could get is if you were a Legendary who maxed out your activity points in the last year, in which case you would get 1 * 0.4 * 1000 = 400 sMerit.

So, Vlad2Vlad is definitely a merit source.

[meanwords]

I mean, if he merits his own project, wouldn't the meaning behind that merit be obsolete? that is just straight up wasting merit that should be given to those who really deserves it. He is even bias to those who shills his coin. Like come on look at this, does this really deserves 21 merits?

Lambo tickets are still available! For free!

Even some useful guides I know doesn't get that much.

[Raytheon]

Nice catch, Suchmoon. Starting from your Most popular altcoins on Bitcointalk. Kind of. Probably not really topic, I also found out something irregular about Vlad2Vlad. However, I couldn't find out he's a merit source. Clearly this is a serious merit abuse at massive scale. I can't even find any quality from that topic.

I don't support the removal of any merit source unless the specific reason is given and all other merit sources that are guilty are also removed on the same basis.

Please, this is a clear abuse case. Don't deny it just because of you have some arguments against the topic starter.

[Pffrt]

Are you on some heavy drugs?   
Did you even read what OP posted?

I don't want to say who is on heavy drug, I have written my opinion regarding the application of suchmoon.

He means that suchmoon's (un)application should be accepted.

That's how I interpret it too. But just to make it clear - I'm not applying for anything myself. Just trying to point out that one merit source probably should be replaced with one or more new merit sources, and there are quite a few applications on this board to choose from.

That's how I have observed the post and added my opinion that this merit source should either removed or replaced by someone else but sadly people are too fast to make stupid comment when they find (they think) someone wrong.

[NeuroticFish]

Perhaps a different merit source can be selected for the altcoin boards who would prop up more than one shitcoin thread.

I somehow believe that he was made merit source also in order to help Romanian board with merits. And from what I know this doesn't happen.

And there was a thread this April tool (Merit abuse by a Legendary) where this same user was accused to abuse merit system and possibly even sell merits.
I guess that nothing has been solved although even a flag was proposed.


I don't know the exact situation, but I think that mods or even theymos may have to come in and make it straight; all the data is there, but it needs time to be checked.
At the end the other thread was taken over by Vlad2Vlad with a huge lot childish answers (of which at least many were deleted) and I fear that this may happen here too.

[nutildah]

Regardless of issues that are potentially subjective, Vlad is extremely odd objectively (statistically) as a merit source.

His actions are far different from every other source that is allotted close to as many source merits per month as he is.

I identified 12 other merit sources that receive roughly within 30 merits +/- of what Vlad gets per month, based on publicly available data. I don't really feel bad about sharing these names as they are all identifiable using DdmrDdmr's Bitcointalk Merit Dashboard (its pretty much considered public knowledge who the sauces are now, right?).*

The Merit/Profile and Circle (total # of profiles merited) stats are taken from BPIP.

Merit Source	Merit/Profile	Circle
bitmover	4.8	656
BobLawblaw	15.5	279
cabalism13	6.0	512
CryptopreneurBrainboss	4.3	709
EFS	8.7	507
Jet Cash	5.4	741
joniboini	7.6	458
mindrust	4.8	599
nutildah	4.7	876
paxmao	4.7	811
philipma1957	4.4	637
Royse777	6.2	436
Average	6.4	602
St.Dev.	3.2	171
High +1 St.Dev.	9.6	773
Low -1 St.Dev.	3.3	430
Vlad2Vlad	34.3	109

Basically what the data says is he's not really trying to find new profiles to send merit to (compared to his peers), instead sending a lot of merits to the same profiles over and over, or else all at once.

Of the 12 peer profiles used to generate the average, only 1 sticks out significantly, and Vlad is more than twice as "bad" as them (as far as "Merit Source Duties" are concerned).

At the end the other thread was taken over by Vlad2Vlad with a huge lot childish answers (of which at least many were deleted) and I fear that this may happen here too.

Yep I was about to mention that thread as well. At the time, I didn't realize he was a merit source and just thought, well he can do what he wants. But to see him using source merits to rank up well-known trolls and potential alt accounts, well now I'm of the opinion that he shouldn't be able to do what he wants. More specifically, he shouldn't be a merit source.


*if you are a source and want your name removed, PM me and I'll remove it

[KaneVWE]

Nutildahs stats look compelling but again

If you gave all of your merits to 1 poster who made excellent posts would that be grounds for removal if that person was giving them out to excellent posts only? What if that 1 person then gave them out to a wide range of excellent posts.

We have previously established that most of the top 200 merit earners lose like 80% if you take away the merits that come directly from each other. If you take any high merit earner you will see that their merit fans and recipients are stacked with each other.

Is the goal of the merit system to

1. See it spread over the max amount of accounts regardless of post quality
2. See it speed over the max amount of accounts via posts that meet a certain level of quality
3.  See it given to the very best posts you locate

Also if someone gave all their merit to 100 ppl who in turn pushed those on to a much wider circle eventually is that worse than someone who gives all their merit to 200 people who then pass it between them and to a far narrower and smaller group that the first guy did who had and initially smaller circle.

Or does that Bpip circle stat go down multiple levels already.

To me I would like to see merits spread as widely as possible but many have previously claimed there is no such requirement if the merit source or anyone merit feels they want to give it to a post they feel is good. I know many DT have said before the simply pull up certain members post histories and look through them specifically for good posts.

I wonder what % of vlad2vlads merits go back to the top 200 merit earners compared to other sources. Which in turn are cycled around the other top 200 earners or top 100.

There are multiple wider considerations depending on the the purpose of the merit system.

Set out specific rules and goals for merit or just leave people to give it to posts they claim are good.

I think it should he spread out to the max as long as the post is objectively valuable . I mean once a person is a legend then giving them more and more merit? The prime consideration for most merit sources who also happen to be on DT surprisingly how their merit given will influence DT eligibility among other non post value considerations.

Also now we've made a merit volume button for thread bumping you can expect smart projects to take that into consideration for their community.

While there's any advantage to merit other than denoting a good post and merit is not nailed down to only being given to an objectively good post it will clearly not be given only on that basis.

TLDR. I don't put much faith those stats from nutildah are proof of person damaging the merit system any more than any other member there, if you consider the much bigger picture.

A better merit source is a hard thing to determine when people admit they give merit for entirely different reasons which is apparently totally acceptable.  There seems no requirement to spread it out as widely as possible.
People before have noted the tight concentration of merit cycling, but it's clear if they think they are the best posts or even just posts they think are good that isn't a problem so no point focusing on that angle.
As stated I expect V2V is a lot more capable of discerning an objectively good post that many other merit sources.
His obsession with IX is kind of strange although he does have staying power I'll give him that.
Holding big bags can do that to a person. or maybe its loyalty who can say.