[PROPOSAL] Partial reset of airdropped merits

[Csmiami]

I apologize in advance if this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find any thread using the native forum search function.

Now, regarding the proposal:

In the last month I've investigated some accounts under the premise of them being bought and/or hacked accounts, and realized that most of the accounts follow some pattern. Most of them had been inactive for some time, had a password reset in 2017 and have very little earnt merit (if any).

Considering these parameters, I believe an airdropped merit reset for accounts that have earnt a total of zero (0) merits could benefit the community as a whole, as it would render most of these sold accounts useless. These accounts are mostly used for bounties or scams, so I think this is a reasonable request.

One may argue that it's an unfair meassure, but the same way some Hero accounts were made Legendary during the merit system introduction, there could be a case by case study upon request. Still, not having earnt a single merit in the couple of years the system has been in place.... kind of says a lot about the posting quality overall. I'd even go further and do a complete reset of all airdropped merits, but that'd get me in some muddy waters which I see no reason to dive in (yet).

Having said this, I'm waiting to hear some opinnions on the matter; this is a discussion forum after all, and see if this can be taken into consideration by the forum administration

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[mocacinno]

What if I had an account in 2015 that was very active and made it to the legendary rank... But i lost intrest in bitcoin and stopped visiting bitcointalk in 2016. However, due to the recent bear market i regained intrest in the community, and logged back in today.

I would have the aidropped merits to start from, just like all other legendary members that remained active all the time. Eventough i would have earned 0 merits since the merit introduction since i was no longer an active member, would it be fair if my aidropped merits were reset?

Any inactive member should have exactly the same rules and regulations applied to them, just in case they decide to come back to the community. But that's just my personal opinion.

Things might be different when talking about accounts that have remained active but didn't succeed in earning a single merit since the introduction... Or maybe hacked accounts, or sold accounts,... but even then: who's going to decide who can keep their merits and who can't?

[Beparanf]

Partially agree to your statement. Recently wake up account for the sole purpose of joining bounty campaign should be reset merit. On the other hand, many inactive legendary and hero member gain there rank through there previous activity and contribution here in the forum and its very unfair to reset there rank just because they are inactive for a long time and didn't received any merit.

I have a friend with legendary account here that already inactive for a long time. He is the one who mentor me on Bitcoin and introduce me this forum. He contribute some knowledge and spend time here during he is active.

[eaLiTy]

We already have a decision from theymos regarding this. Inactive users would not be demoted.

Adding UI elements is very "expensive" in the sense that it's something to which every member constantly has to devote some brainspace. So I can't see adding any kind of split merit score or other UI element, since that'd be a permanent high cost as a result of a one-time thing in the past.

I also can't see decaying non-airdropped merit scores.

I could see decaying airdropped merit, though I'm not convinced of it currently. If it was done, it may be best to do something like this:
 - Your current activity score as of <whenever this change would be done> is recorded, which I'll call EPOCH_ACTIVITY.
 - Your merit score is defined as max(0, AIRDROPPED_MERIT-(CURRENT_ACTIVITY-EPOCH_ACTIVITY)/7) + EARNED_MERIT.
 
So you'd already have had a lot of time to earn merit, and you'd get an additional 7 "activity-days" per point of merit to get back even more. Inactive users wouldn't be demoted.

[Csmiami]

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I had considered that possibility, and that's why I left the door open to  a case by case analisys if there was any complaint (proving ownnership of the account). Besides, I don't think the aim of the forum is to have a Legendary account, and if I was to participate, I'd do it without considering my current rank. It sure is fun leveling up an account, but not the porpuse.

----

AH! That quote is great! It would definately solve the problem of bought accounts shitposting, and shitposters in general; while leaving the inactive users at their current rank, resolving the issue raised by moccacinno. Thanks for finding it.

[Pmalek]

Recently wake up account for the sole purpose of joining bounty campaign should be reset merit.

That doesn't seem fair. Users have the right to participate in the forum any way they want as long as they abide by the rules. If users want to spend, or even better, waste their time on bounties, it's their right to do so. And they shouldn't have to face consequences for being bounty participants other than being ignored if they are spammers or banned if they are rule breakers, ban evaders, etc. 

I have a friend with legendary account here that already inactive for a long time. He is the one who mentor me on Bitcoin and introduce me this forum. He contribute some knowledge and spend time here during he is active.

So if your friend one day decides to return and takes part in bounty campaigns, he should have his airdropped merits removed? Or do we let him keep his merits due to his past forum contributions? There is no way to make that work without causing controversy, and we don't need more of that. Users should be motivated to join the forum, not be sent away.

[tranthidung]

Considering these parameters, I believe an airdropped merit reset for accounts that have earnt a total of zero (0) merits could benefit the community as a whole, as it would render most of these sold accounts useless. These accounts are mostly used for bounties or scams, so I think this is a reasonable request.

Your proposal was discussed many times and I feel it won't be accepted. It is unfair if apply for all grandfather members (they are active or inactive it does not matter). theymos wrote that early bitcoiners and contributors on the forum made lots of value for the forum and bitcoin community. From his view, the case is closed.

The solutions could be:

• Managers of campaigns or bounties.
• The community contributions to report spammers.

[The Cryptovator]

Most probably I had raised a similar question previously. Although I can't recall the thread, but I have remembered that there was no response from the admin. During sensing merits you would notice that admin reserve right to decay unsend merits,

There is no point in hoarding sMerit; keeping it yourself does not benefit you, and we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future.

But we don't know when or how the admin will do that. Most probably admin has been giving them chance to spend their merits. So merit circulation would be increased. I think the admin doesn't have any intention to decay unused merits lately. Future means it would be happening even after 100 years.

[Pffrt]

There are a lot of Legendary and Hero member who made the history of bitcoin and yoh want them to be newbie again  That doesn’t make sense at all. I don't think this is a problem which forum should involved with directly, there’s no reason forum would target make the accounts useless.
You may have benefit by doing so but that will not be fair at all.

[skarais]

Partially agree to your statement. Recently wake up account for the sole purpose of joining bounty campaign should be reset merit.

I believe this will be a controversial move among forum users. I believe this forum has friendly and fair rules for all users even if they have left their account with any rating for a long time. Changing password, recently waking up, and changing email may still indicate that the account has been hacked or sold (further research need to be done). But I just don't agree that this account should be discriminated against by resetting their airdrop merit revenue to 0 and his rank dropped to newbie. It doesn't seem fair to them.

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Having said this, I'm waiting to hear some opinnions on the matter; this is a discussion forum after all, and see if this can be taken into consideration by the forum administration

Most likely not, mate. I just thought that this step would make the forum unfriendly to all user. As long as they don't break the rule, they are free to use their account in any way.

There are a lot of Legendary and Hero member who made the history of bitcoin and yoh want them to be newbie again  That doesn’t make sense at all.

Of course, I don't want to see Lauda, ​​TMAN, and many other Legendary member who previously contributed greatly to this forum become newbie after they come back to life.

[qwertyup23]

There are a lot of Legendary and Hero member who made the history of bitcoin and yoh want them to be newbie again  That doesn’t make sense at all. I don't think this is a problem which forum should involved with directly, there’s no reason forum would target make the accounts useless.
You may have benefit by doing so but that will not be fair at all.

Imagine if satoshi were to be active and use his account, only to find out that his rank was reverted to a 'newbie', that would be hilarious and ironic at the same time.

Joking aside, although I understand that there may have been a number of recently awoken accounts who participate or cheat their way in to a campaign, this would inevitably prejudice old members of the forum who contributed significantly in the past. Not all recently awoken accounts are deemed to be spammers, scammers, or cheaters (case-to-case basis).

[The Sceptical Chymist]

In the last month I've investigated some accounts under the premise of them being bought and/or hacked accounts, and realized that most of the accounts follow some pattern. Most of them had been inactive for some time, had a password reset in 2017 and have very little earnt merit (if any).

Yeah, they were likely hacked.  Wasn't there a big bitcointalk hack that year?  But either way, we're almost 3 years into the merit system and I don't think there would be much advantage overall if Theymos stripped any of those accounts of merits--plus it would probably lead to an outcry of members suddenly noticing that their airdropped merits are gone.  I doubt Theymos wants to deal with a situation like that. 

Any damage that could have been done with airdropped merits to suspicious accounts has likely already been done by now.

What if I had an account in 2015 that was very active and made it to the legendary rank... But i lost intrest in bitcoin and stopped visiting bitcointalk in 2016. However, due to the recent bear market i regained intrest in the community, and logged back in today.

Then there's that aspect of the issue.  Ultimately there's no way Theymos is going to decide to revoke any airdropped merits selectively, and I don't think he's inclined to revoke them across the board.  I hear what you're saying, OP, but this is one of those ideas that's dead on arrival (IMO).

[jademaxsuy]

There are a lot of Legendary and Hero member who made the history of bitcoin and yoh want them to be newbie again  That doesn’t make sense at all. I don't think this is a problem which forum should involved with directly, there’s no reason forum would target make the accounts useless.
You may have benefit by doing so but that will not be fair at all.

Imagine if satoshi were to be active and use his account, only to find out that his rank was reverted to a 'newbie', that would be hilarious and ironic at the same time.

Joking aside, although I understand that there may have been a number of recently awoken accounts who participate or cheat their way in to a campaign, this would inevitably prejudice old members of the forum who contributed significantly in the past. Not all recently awoken accounts are deemed to be spammers, scammers, or cheaters (case-to-case basis).

I like your reply foe giving on a solid example by using satoshi as an example. Surely that satoshi will be demoted so this must be not a good idea right? Who want to demote the founder of bitcoin or creator of bitcoin? I think we don't so the OP suggestion will be low chance on getting accepted and implemented. Anyway we still be thankful to OP for sharing ideas that could somehow done good for the forum. Suggestions and proposal are highly appreciated in this forum.

[Beparanf]

I have a friend with legendary account here that already inactive for a long time. He is the one who mentor me on Bitcoin and introduce me this forum. He contribute some knowledge and spend time here during he is active.

So if your friend one day decides to return and takes part in bounty campaigns, he should have his airdropped merits removed? Or do we let him keep his merits due to his past forum contributions? There is no way to make that work without causing controversy, and we don't need more of that. Users should be motivated to join the forum, not be sent away.

He will definitely don't do that, He was a multi millionaire businessman before he introduced me this forum and he didn't participate in any campaigns here before. He loves mining different cryptocurrency and that is the only thing he do here. He loss his interest on visiting the forum since the mining community here is not that active compared before, He is just using discord to join in crypto mining group and he is already busy to his company.

Sorry if I don't elaborate furthermore my statement. What I really want to emphasize are those newly woke up account which is a product of account selling that joining bounty campaign just like what OP describing.

[Csmiami]

I like your reply foe giving on a solid example by using satoshi as an example. Surely that satoshi will be demoted so this must be not a good idea right?

It probably was the worst example that could be set in the whole forum. Satoshi isn't a Legendary member, and by heart, I'd said he wouldn't even be a Hero member. His rank is only his; "Founder" which can be easily found  if anyone had cared enough to read some old guides. Besides, he has earnt merit; people have merited his old posts, even if he was "only" a Legendary member, he wouldn't be included in the reset proposed at OP.

To the rest; I've been reading your replies, but hadn't had enough time to sit and elaborate a propper answer; I hope I'll get tomorrow to do so

[Husires]

I see no objection to that, as long as the merit points are allowed to be sold, there is no problem in trying to use the old accounts.
There is an advantage in such accounts that it is easy to detect violations, and at that time it is possible to track all accounts and place a negative trust on them.
Unless there is a merit source selling Merit, there is no need to update the current system.

[GazetaBitcoin]

I apologize in advance if this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find any thread using the native forum search function.

I created a topic in the past for this matter: Reducing (removing) airdropped merits for those who didn't earn 1 single merit.

However, those who used to rank-up through farming the accounts earned just a few merits, or didn't earn even a single merit in almost 2 years.

I was curious to see how many users are there who received a merit airdrop but who earned 0 merits since January 25th, 2018 [...] However, thank to DdmrDdmr, who performed (I think) a huge effort, I found out that about 800 Legendaries and 3500 2500 [edited after Ddmr notified me about the typo] Heroes didn't earn even 1 merit after the airdrop. [...] I didn't dare to ask him to check also how many Seniors, Full Members or Members are out there without 1 merit earned, but I imagine there are thousands or hundreds of thousands. Indeed, some members were and still are inactive, thus they couldn't earn merits through their posts. However, they could have received some merits for their past posts, if they had quality ones. But even without taking this aspect into consideration, even without counting the inactive members, there are still thousands who are still active and who didn't earn any merit.

[...]

- it doesn't seem right for so many ranks to just "wear" the airdropped merits, without earning any single merit by their efforts, while others work so hard for earning them
- furthermore, the number of merits is one of the first things seen by a new member, who doesn't know about the airdrop, nor about what to look at when he creates his first impression about someone (trust, references, flags etc). Seeing a big number of merits gives the idea of a reputable person. However, those who received the airdrop and didn't earn any single merit since then might trick newbies with different schemes, as the newbies would tend to trust a person with so many merits.

[...]

- it looks weird for a Member or for a Full Member to not earn even a single merit, but it looks very bad to see a Senior, a Hero or a Legendary without earning 1 merit. If at lower ranks is not expected to have so many quality posts, at higher ranks the expectations are higher. Nobody is forced, per se, to write quality content, nor to earn merits, but it raises heavy questions to see a Legendary who didn't earn 1 merit by his skills.

[...]

I understand perfectly the fact that there are members who wrote quality topics prior the merit system, who became inactive and who didn't receive any merit for their past posts (this is pure bad luck, as past posts tend to get merits though - for example, look at Satoshi's posts). None of the above refer to such reputable members. The problem is just about those who take advantage of what they received and who don't offer anything back to the forum (and all they could offer back is just quality writing).

Unfortunately though, theymos considered that the problem is not a top priority one, as you already saw in his answer quoted by eaLiTy...

[sujonali1819]

I think what we have is ok now. If the proposal by the OP would be accepted, there is a big issue will be raised. Because suppose an Old member is a Hero Member with the help of airdropped merits. If the airdropped merits gone to 0 then the account will go to a newbie? It this very tough to accept reality. (but if admin do that users have nothing to do except agree with the new change)

Actually what advantages we are looking for by this change? To reduce spam or scam?

[Pmalek]

Because suppose an Old member is a Hero Member with the help of airdropped merits. If the airdropped merits gone to 0 then the account will go to a newbie?

It would depend on the merits the user earned. Not the airdropped merits he received with the introduction of the system. Let's say you were airdropped 500 merits and earned 294 from other members up until now. OP is suggesting that the airdropped merits be removed, but only for accounts that didn't earn any merits ever. So in your case, nothing would happen to you since you earned 294 merits. Btw, these numbers are just an example. I don't know how much was airdropped to you and how much you earned.

In case theymos decided to get rid of all airdropped merits, (which I doubt he would since it doesn't make sense airdropping merits only to remove them later) you would be left with your 294 earned merits and be demoted to Sr. member.  

Actually what advantages we are looking for by this change? To reduce spam or scam?

There wouldn't be an advantage per se. But users who bought or hacked certain accounts, and didn't earn a single merit ever, would not be able to participate in signature/bounty campaigns since they would become newbies. It would serve as a punishment for account buyers and hackers. But legit users would also be affected. Old users who weren't much active since the introduction of the merit system but didn't do anything wrong to deserve a demotion.     

[Laudanum]

The problem is merits full stop

People know that there is slim chance for new members to get their fair recognition compared to the merit cycling gang and their hordes of alts sucking the forum dry.

Be grateful anyone will still join here the traffic is nothing now and we have ATH  returning
Soon chipmixer and the others will notice it's a waste of funds and all you bums will be back flipping burgers.

Airdropped merit should be x100. The new group of spaztard non achievers will never fill the footsteps of those before them.

So no. Merit has already killed the forum. I dont think using to to cause more damage is a good plan.

Every legend should have been a merit source with 100pm and some sensible restrictions and instant removal for abuse.
This abused mess of a system cant be fixed short of full reset and some objective stipulations set.