Good enough of a system? theorycrafting

[HOT_HEAD]

 

! THIS POST IS NOT MADE TO SHIT ON THE CURRENT MERIT SYSTEM, IT'S JUST A DISCUSSION THREAD !

So i was going through that "This shitty Merit System has ruined Bitcointalk and made it like Facebook" thread and it actually made me think  about this whole merit thing.

Ok, so the whole point of the merit system is to stop spammers and shitposters from flooding the forum and bring forth the more sensible   people, yeah?

Well since most of the people either don't have merit or simply never think about it (I completely forget about the whole merit thing even  when I come across a good post) and then you get dedicated people as merit sources and threads that ask for good posts to merit them,  doesn't really sound like a master plan. Easy and reliable? Sure, but it's not intuitive tbf.

There's nothing more that I hate than upvotes and downvotes, why? Well because the whole place becomes an echochamber (reddit) and no discussion can be had whatsoever. You disagree with someone popular or say something controversial you'll just get bombed with downvotes and that's it.

Tho I think that the combination of those two can make something good, something that most people are used to already by now.
 
 

Something like this:
 
 

1. You have " + " and " - " on every post. If you're in the " + " zone it shows the green number of upvotes next to it, if you're in the " - " zone you have a red number next to it.
 

2. Every upvote gives you a small amount in the background depending on that users rank. So if a user that's member upvotes you, you get like 0.01 merit or something, but if a hero member upvotes you, you get like 0.15merit or something like that.
 

3. Downvoting would be a little different. Since there are probably a lot of people that are higher ranks from before the merit system, it wouldn't be that great to give them that much power to shut someone down, so let's say that there would be a threshold where when you get enough of the downvotes you lose merit (maybe something like 0.5) but if you get downvoted by a legendary or some other higher rank, you'd lose merit when you get downvoted regardless of the amount of downvotes you have or do not have.

So if someone posts something really useless or copy/pasta reply, he can get downvoted enough not to lose merit but to think about what's he posting next time. Like a small slap on the wrist.
 


4. That would essentially eliminate merit trading because they'd have to upvote every post of the person they want to send merit to and when someone's constantly upvoting someone even if the posts are useless, it might raise some red flags.
 

5. It's easier to look for answers if you need any, among the sea of basic replies, when there's a big green number sticking out to point it out to you.
 

6. Merit would still have it's purpose since you still couldn't rank up without enough merit and you'll still have to write sensible posts if you plan on ranking up maybe and those who are shitposting would either stop it or lose merit and rank if possible.



CONCLUSION:
 
IMO this would benefit more to the weeding out spammers and copy/pasters and reward good posts regardless of rank. Everyone loves when they're rewarded for doing something good, even if that's just a bunch of green plus signs and numbers, it's still confidence boosting and a pointer.

As I've already said merit would still serve it's purpose, those on the top could still reward each other with merit like right now (it's a joke lol), of pointing out who's posts are good and who's advises or opinions are more than educated guesses or hearsay.

I'm still seeing same old copy/paste posts everywhere, especially in economy and bitcoin general rooms, and something like that would gradually kick out spammers and reward good posts.


This is just something that I thought about just because I love thinking about how we could improve on every day basic life things that we rarely ever think about, if it's possible, and thinking how I could solve something or make it better.

Would you add something or maybe have a whole different idea? I'd love to hear thoughts on this and other "solutions" just for the sake of looking at a problem from different angles and getting a different approach on problems overall.

[AB de Royse777]

Well since most of the people either don't have merit or simply never think about it (I completely forget about the whole merit thing even  when I come across a good post) and then you get dedicated people as merit sources and threads that ask for good posts to merit them,  doesn't really sound like a master plan. Easy and reliable? Sure, but it's not intuitive tbf.

This used to happen to me but after over 2 years if this is the same heppens to users then I would say they are not regular on the forum. I have not checked your history and stuffs but for a reguler forum user it's a habit. Merit is there in your mind always, you can ignore it in public or can do whatever you want to do but it's in your mind.

If this was not in your mind then why would you wirte a long post about it? My wild guess is that somehow you are not feeling okay to become comfortable with the culture hence the alternatives in yoru mind. Maybe merit is not a perfect system but it's working just fine to guard the spammers.

[HOT_HEAD]

Well since most of the people either don't have merit or simply never think about it (I completely forget about the whole merit thing even  when I come across a good post) and then you get dedicated people as merit sources and threads that ask for good posts to merit them,  doesn't really sound like a master plan. Easy and reliable? Sure, but it's not intuitive tbf.

This used to happen to me but after over 2 years if this is the same heppens to users then I would say they are not regular on the forum. I have not checked your history and stuffs but for a reguler forum user it's a habit. Merit is there in your mind always, you can ignore it in public or can do whatever you want to do but it's in your mind.

If this was not in your mind then why would you wirte a long post about it? My wild guess is that somehow you are not feeling okay to become comfortable with the culture hence the alternatives in yoru mind. Maybe merit is not a perfect system but it's working just fine to guard the spammers.

So i was going through that "This shitty Merit System has ruined Bitcointalk and made it like Facebook" thread and it actually made me think  about this whole merit thing." Mostly because of that thread and this post kind of snowballed into what it is.

p.s. as I've said, I just like thinking about improving stuff. You should see my shoes, my shoe soles are partially filled with "liquid metal" (that super strong glue that's used to glue metal objects) because they were too soft and a small hole started to appear where my heels are hahaha

[Upgrade00]

So if someone posts something really useless or copy/pasta reply, he can get downvoted enough not to lose merit but to think about what's he posting next time. Like a small slap on the wrist.

If someone posts something 'useless' report the posts and admins would delete them.
If someone copy and pastes, report the posts and the user would be banned for plagiarism.

4. That would essentially eliminate merit trading because they'd have to upvote every post of the person they want to send merit to and when someone's constantly upvoting someone even if the posts are useless, it might raise some red flags.

If someone consistently merits posts that are not quality then it would also raise eyebrows, if anything, this suggestion would aid merit trades as users have unlimited votes to give, unlike finite smerits.
Using this suggestion; inaccurate and spam posts would be presumably marked as such similar to other discussion forums like bitcoinstackexchange. I say presumably as there's no guarantee that the members voting on the replies are knowledgeable on that particular topic. This system would be very complicated to understand and implement.
The merit system is fine the way it is.

[HOT_HEAD]

So if someone posts something really useless or copy/pasta reply, he can get downvoted enough not to lose merit but to think about what's he posting next time. Like a small slap on the wrist.

If someone posts something 'useless' report the posts and admins would delete them.
If someone copy and pastes, report the posts and the user would be banned for plagiarism.

yeah, I meant something like this:

I agree. People need to withdraw their savings some days. Otherwise, it will be a fake rich

Just a random board I've found right now. What kind of a post is this? IMO this is absolutely not needed and serves absolutely no purpose yet it's not deleted. :/ ya know? That kind of posts.

4. That would essentially eliminate merit trading because they'd have to upvote every post of the person they want to send merit to and when someone's constantly upvoting someone even if the posts are useless, it might raise some red flags.

If someone consistently merits posts that are not quality then it would also raise eyebrows

I don't see much difference between this and the current merit system except that inaccurate and spam posts would be presumably marked as such similar to other discussion forums like bitcoinstackexchange. I say presumably as there's no guarantee that the members voting on the replies are knowledgeable on that particular topic. Also that the system would be very complicated to understand and implement. The merit system is fine the way it is.

Yes, but it's easier to trade merit since you can give some guy a bulk of it for some shitpost or spread it out evenly and it can pass as a genuine merit giving, but if you see someone constantly upvoting one user every day in order to trade merit, it's a lot more obvious.

Well you know, they might be a little bit less knowledgeable on some particular topic but would give them a right path to go on. But it doesn't have to be a discussion, it can be a simple answer or how to solve some problem that might help someone else that has the same problem and that way it can tell everyone else that it helped him as well. Something like that.



Well yeah, I've had in mind of keeping the current merit system as much as possible, just added some minor details that would overall change quite something.

Also, you're somewhat arguing with me like I want to change the current system, I'm just interested in ideas. What would you like to see changed or would like to see in the future? I'm not here to argue if it's right or not.

[Rikafip]

Downvoting would be a little different. Since there are probably a lot of people that are higher ranks from before the merit system, it wouldn't be that great to give them that much power to shut someone down, so let's say that there would be a threshold where when you get enough of the downvotes you lose merit (maybe something like 0.5) but if you get downvoted by a legendary or some other higher rank, you'd lose merit when you get downvoted regardless of the amount of downvotes you have or do not have.

I don't think that introducing downvoting that can lead to loosing merit  would be a good idea. Rest assured, if something can be abused here on bitcointalk, it will be. For example, let's say that you caught group of high ranking scammers/cheaters, they can easily retaliate and make you loose the merit. Would that be fair?

So if someone posts something really useless or copy/pasta reply, he can get downvoted enough not to lose merit but to think about what's he posting next time. Like a small slap on the wrist.

You can achieve the same if you report useless posts to mods. Chances are spammer will think twice before posting crap when he sees his useless posts constantly getting deleted. Every once in a while we get someone opening topic about his posts mysteriously disappearing, so they do notice that.

[HOT_HEAD]

Downvoting would be a little different. Since there are probably a lot of people that are higher ranks from before the merit system, it wouldn't be that great to give them that much power to shut someone down, so let's say that there would be a threshold where when you get enough of the downvotes you lose merit (maybe something like 0.5) but if you get downvoted by a legendary or some other higher rank, you'd lose merit when you get downvoted regardless of the amount of downvotes you have or do not have.


I don't think that introducing downvoting that can lead to loosing merit  would be a good idea. Rest assured, if something can be abused here on bitcointalk, it will be. For example, let's say that you caught group of high ranking scammers/cheaters, they can easily retaliate and make you loose the merit. Would that be fair?

So then they'd have to constantly downvote me on almost every post, and if you were to check the history, you'd see that it very much looks like I'm getting targeted even tho my posts might not be deserving of that mass downvoting. So once again, it can be detected very easily and it would require them a lot of work to target some guy and downvote him.

What's stopping some high ranking member to leave a negative trust and say something like:" excessive spamming" or something like that without the ref post or any proof. Same thing would happen, as in your suggestion.

So if someone posts something really useless or copy/pasta reply, he can get downvoted enough not to lose merit but to think about what's he posting next time. Like a small slap on the wrist.

You can achieve the same if you report useless posts to mods. Chances are spammer will think twice before posting crap when he sees his useless posts constantly getting deleted. Every once in a while we get someone opening topic about his posts mysteriously disappearing, so they do notice that.

Ok then, let's say you don't lose merit but get your post deleted after you've reached a certain number of downvotes? It's faster to click one button and move on from that sihtpost, since other people might agree as well and will do the same, essentially removing the process of reporting the post and mods looking over it. I can only imagine how many reports per day they receive.



Why do I have a feeling that people here are scared of speaking about merit system? No one's going to lynch you for it, it's a forum, not a circlejerk bon fire.

[Rikafip]

So then they'd have to constantly downvote me on almost every post, and if you were to check the history, you'd see that it very much looks like I'm getting targeted even tho my posts might not be deserving of that mass downvoting. So once again, it can be detected very easily and it would require them a lot of work to target some guy and downvote him.

They won't care whether it's detected or not, they will just do that because you busted them for some wrongdoing and at that point they don't have anything to loose. And problem with your suggestion is that it doesn't have any mechanism to prevent abuse, which will happen for sure. We've seen it many times, scammers leaving negative feedback to those that busted them, but since they get excluded from other DT members their feedback is irrelevant.

What's stopping some high ranking member to leave a negative trust and say something like:" excessive spamming" or something like that without the ref post or any proof. Same thing would happen, as in your suggestion.

Leaving negative feedback for spamming is generally not the proper use of trust system. If someone abuses that constantly chances are he will get excluded from DT. I don't know if you read i before, but I suggest you to check LoyceV's Beginners guide to correct use of the Trust system. Even theymos said that LoyceV guide seems reasonable.

[Charles-Tim]

So i was going through that "This shitty Merit System has ruined Bitcointalk and made it like Facebook" thread and it actually made me think  about this whole merit thing.

You are totally wrong to comment about the merit system to be shitty, and also know that merit system only contribute to the progress of this forum. You were not among the members before 2018 when merit system has never been implemented, just a single person can have as many as possible accounts as I was told. The merit system corrected that in a way having multiple accounts will be difficult to maintain. Only what I have seen is that the merit system contribute to the progress of quality posts on this forum. This forum is just still one of the best, I hope you to see that rather than critizimg the merit system which is still good.

Well since most of the people either don't have merit or simply never think about it (I completely forget about the whole merit thing even  when I come across a good post) and then you get dedicated people as merit sources and threads that ask for good posts to merit them,  doesn't really sound like a master plan. Easy and reliable? Sure, but it's not intuitive tbf.

The fact is that good posts are still receiving merits, if your posts are not receiving merit and you want it to receive merits, then work hard, double your hustle, learn about Bitcoin especially, and also learn about other cryptocurrencies. There are many people that have quality accounts and build it very fast with their quality posts.

1. You have " + " and " - " on every post. If you're in the " + " zone it shows the green number of upvotes next to it, if you're in the " - " zone you have a red number next to it.

This should not be suggested, negative as you meant above will not do this forum, I will tell you that most new members that are not good in posting yet will have most of the  negative and this will make newbie accounts stuck and not growing. There were many mistakes I made during my newbie days, but later correcting it from what ranked members are posting and from what I learned. Better we just leave the merit system positive as it is. Maybe not working for you, but it helps this forum.

So if someone posts something really useless or copy/pasta reply, he can get downvoted enough not to lose merit but to think about what's he posting next time. Like a small slap on the wrist.

This will make this forum more good for ranked members while making it hard for newbies to grow because they are not yet well conversant with posting on this forum.

Would you add something or maybe have a whole different idea? I'd love to hear thoughts on this and other "solutions" just for the sake of looking at a problem from different angles and getting a different approach on problems overall.

I do not have any suggestion, because the merit system is still working good in such a way you can easily identity good posters from the shitposters. This forum is growing good and full of quality posts while the shitposters are either not ranking up or later banned.

[NotATether]

You are totally wrong to comment about the merit system to be shitty, and also know that merit system only contribute to the progress of this forum. You were not among the members before 2018 when merit system has never been implemented, just a single person can have as many as possible accounts as I was told. The merit system corrected that in a way having multiple accounts will be difficult to maintain. Only what I have seen is that the merit system contribute to the progress of quality posts on this forum. This forum is just still one of the best, I hope you to see that rather than critizimg the merit system which is still good.

I don't believe he was criticizing the merit system, he was just giving constructive feedback on how it could be improved. This is at the very top of his post even:

! THIS POST IS NOT MADE TO SHIT ON THE CURRENT MERIT SYSTEM, IT'S JUST A DISCUSSION THREAD !

I'm reluctant against having any form of downvoting possible because then people with feuds and rivalries will abuse this feature by downvoting each other. And if you set up different downvoting amounts for higher ranks, in case one demotes the other into a lower rank they have just made the other person's downvoting power weaker. So your system as it stands can be weaponized.

[HOT_HEAD]

5. It's easier to look for answers if you need any, among the sea of basic replies, when there's a big green number sticking out to point it out to you.

Wouldn't it create similar problem with reddit where people upvote because they agree with someone and early poster have more advantage?
[/quote]

Yeah, I was thinking about that, but it giving out small fractions it wouldn't make that much of a problem at all. it could be like 0.0001mrt per like or something. So even if one person gets bombarded with upvotes and get's 1000thumbs up, he'd still get 1 merit. The intention wasn't that it should be direct replacement of merit or the solo way of getting merrited, but just something that everyone can do quickly and potentially reward people even with the couple merits  in the long run.

So i was going through that "This shitty Merit System has ruined Bitcointalk and made it like Facebook" thread and it actually made me think  about this whole merit thing.

You are totally wrong to comment about the merit system to be shitty, and also know that merit system only contribute to the progress of this forum.

Please read my post again and check the meta board for the "This shitty Merit System has ruined Bitcointalk and made it like Facebook" thread.

I'm reluctant against having any form of downvoting possible because then people with feuds and rivalries will abuse this feature by downvoting each other. And if you set up different downvoting amounts for higher ranks, in case one demotes the other into a lower rank they have just made the other person's downvoting power weaker. So your system as it stands can be weaponized.

Yeah, now that It's settled, I can think of some improvements and see some mistakes. haha
Yeah, I really don't like upvotes and downvotes and downvotes downranking someone seems like a bit too much when I think about it right now. 
It could have a nice indicator of a bad post tbh. I've noticed that a good majority of the people here don't read the post or don't understand it and give a totally wrong answer, so that might be a bad thing in discussions (luckily discussions here don't get heated enough unless it's something on politics board hahaha), but still a good thing to point out unnecessary posts and I can surely find one that would fit my standards.

[iamsheikhadil]

I disagree. While this type of system might seem to stop spam, it will create more spam than right now and the advantages mentioned can also be applicable through the present system as well.

Creating such a system where a member's merit value is lower than a legendary's merit value would only create more division.

There are many legendary or higher account members who have so many merits, and a minority of them have many alt accounts as well, don't you think it will really be much easier for them to rank up their own alts than how a normal newbie would struggle against?

Plus, most higher rank members have so many smerits, that when they like a post, they giveaway as much as 50 merits lmao. So technically, higher level members already have some advantages in that way.

[HOT_HEAD]

I disagree. While this type of system might seem to stop spam, it will create more spam than right now and the advantages mentioned can also be applicable through the present system as well.

Creating such a system where a member's merit value is lower than a legendary's merit value would only create more division.

There are many legendary or higher account members who have so many merits, and a minority of them have many alt accounts as well, don't you think it will really be much easier for them to rank up their own alts than how a normal newbie would struggle against?

Plus, most higher rank members have so many smerits, that when they like a post, they giveaway as much as 50 merits lmao. So technically, higher level members already have some advantages in that way.

wow an actual argument haha

Merit would essentially have the same value, you'd still need 300 merit to rank up to senior mrmber, or whatever the needed amount is, but you'd just be getting some on the side. You could still merit someone just like right now, but you could also be getting small fractions on votes, yeah? So it's just the "bitcoin faucet" of merit and it will still point out good posts and point the direction of posting for some. Tho I still think that there should be a penalty for having lots of downvotes.

"There are many legendary or higher account members who have so many merits, and a minority of them have many alt accounts as well, don't you think it will really be much easier for them to rank up their own alts than how a normal newbie would struggle against? "

Well you could use the same argument for how it works now, so not much of an argument tbh.

Only one time I've seen someone merit 50mrt is to theymos on his merit post. hahaha

But yeah, I get what you're aiming at.

[suchmoon]

It sounds like you would make everyone into a merit source with an unlimited amount of smerits and I don't think that would work. On top of that, anything based on ranks is doomed to fail. Ranks don't make the person or their judgement any more valuable.

That's without even going into the pitfalls of negative merits/downvoting. This has been discussed a lot, particularly at the start of the merit system, and I don't recall any particularly robust abuse-proof ideas on how to implement it.

[HOT_HEAD]

It sounds like you would make everyone into a merit source with an unlimited amount of smerits and I don't think that would work. On top of that, anything based on ranks is doomed to fail. Ranks don't make the person or their judgement any more valuable.

That's without even going into the pitfalls of negative merits/downvoting. This has been discussed a lot, particularly at the start of the merit system, and I don't recall any particularly robust abuse-proof ideas on how to implement it.

Well only one of your upvotes on one post would be worth about 0.01mrt, so you'd have to upvote one user 100 times in order to give him one merit, therefore much more people would have to agree with the post being good or helpful or whatever, therefore that post would get at least merit partially since there's a chance like this that it wouldn't get merited. We all know what's the definition of merit, and a lot of people finding a post useful or helpful or informative is enough to be at least acknowledged.

btw I did acknowledge that there are a lot of high ranking users from the time before merit system.

[gredinger]

Call it something else.

Use a combination of that, merit, activity, and trust to determine a new score that ranks users in a slightly different way.  

[Laudanum]

It sounds like you would make everyone into a merit source with an unlimited amount of smerits and I don't think that would work. On top of that, anything based on ranks is doomed to fail. Ranks don't make the person or their judgement any more valuable.

That's without even going into the pitfalls of negative merits/downvoting. This has been discussed a lot, particularly at the start of the merit system, and I don't recall any particularly robust abuse-proof ideas on how to implement it.

Why would it matter?
You said that without specific criteria to measure against ...good poster and bad poster are meaningless terms?

Make up your mind fool.

If the merit metric is meaningless then who cares who gives it out?

Actually if there were criteria and requirements for allocating merit then it who gives it out would matter a lot less.

Of course trust in financial terms has nothing to do with making an objectively good post.

Suchmoon et al will fight against any changes to the broken status quo that hands her and her greedy non achieving pals chipmixer sigs and all the other rev streams here.

Also being able to block legitimate scammer warnings based on independently variable evidence is another thing suchmoon likes having the power to do..

I dont think objective readers can take anything this self debunking fool who was previously claiming the merit metric was a useful and sensible metric to base the trust system and was clearly correlated to good posters. ...then says merit is meaningless.
Fights against the introduction of transparent objective standards as a basis for the trust system and is a proven scammer protector and enabler?

Want to debunk anything I've said then get specific.  You wont

Whilst there is any financial incentive for abusing merit then it  will be abused no matter how you do it unless you have AI that can correctly and accurately assess each post against a specific set of criteria. Robovac cant do anything except suck on dirt so that is of no use.

Merit should have zero implications for making money and zero implications for the trust system. It is for making a valuable post end of story.
Just remove the stupid ill conceived garbage altogether.  It's a cancer that killed the forum for the reasons explained 1000x that nobody can debunk.

You place everyone's paid2post capacity under the control of handful of greedy proven losers and guess what happens.
They make sure only the cream off all the good rev streams and starve off any competition.
On top of this since they have zero achievements for years all they have is catching 2 bit scammers and then other DT members offer to repatriate them to the forum if they use their paid services.

Like going on a scouts field trip where the lazy leader hands the food containers to the fat greedy kids and says just give the food out to anyone you think should have it. So they just hand it to each other and the other kids all go home after a few days starving. Lol what none of the kids wants to go on the next trip with the same leader and fat kids ?

But wait this is worse the lazy leader also said hey here fat greedy kids here are a  few guns let those who get the most food from you all decide who controls the guns. Just blast away as you think best no need to explain why.

Lol it's a brilliant system......  look the scouts membership numbers are dwindling?

This is a strange phenomenon I hadn't foreseen says the leader.

Why no more willing scouts to starve and shoot wanna come out with me and my fat greedy kid generals?

There is zero merit to the merit system and never can be. Whilst there is financial incentive to abuse a system wide open to abuse guess what happens?

It created way more problems than it solved. I dont notice any greater improvement here at all. There is less spam but there is nobody left lol

Guess what. People who want transparent decentralized trustless provably fair projects and systems dont want to be exploited and raped by the merit central banking system theymos created. When a tiny tiny few issue merits out of their ass make sure each other are their own top fans and recipients and then use the trust system via the merit earned votes to control every single aspect of everyone else's ability to paid2post, trade, speak freely, whistleblow. Whilst they can scam with impunity, block valid scam warnings and take all the best rev streams...lol

What ? the forum is dead ? Wonder why

I mean what's the incentive to post? Or contribute?

I mean even if you dont care about earning money from posting and there is no evidence of financially motivated wrongdoing anywhere in your history theymos will put a bunch of lies and defamation on your threads telling everyone that other members have reported you're a scammer??
Then to real scammers he will say oh I'm very sorry to see you leaving the forum lol

Sounds crazy right? Try to debunk a core point here that I've made.
I double dare you.

The OP suggestion is better then the scammy centralized merit banking system we have but it will not solve abuse whilst there is financial incentives to abuse it.

Now where is my fucking merit?

I come here daily posting very UNPOPULAR truths that nobody can debunk or even field a compelling counter argument against.
Therefore bringing the most value to this derelict corrupt echo chamber?
I mean the hidden and unpopular truth is not valuable ?
It is the most valuable content here in meta bar none

Of course it wont get get merit...like my predecessors recieved fuck all merit.
The truth is poison to meta sources and DT1 sig spamming scammer shielding trust abusers.

Read, comprehend,  accept.

Or debunk a some of my points??

Or cry trolling,  I'll tell theymos, ban the truth.

[suchmoon]

Well only one of your upvotes on one post would be worth about 0.01mrt, so you'd have to upvote one user 100 times in order to give him one merit, therefore much more people would have to agree with the post being good or helpful or whatever, therefore that post would get at least merit partially since there's a chance like this that it wouldn't get merited. We all know what's the definition of merit, and a lot of people finding a post useful or helpful or informative is enough to be at least acknowledged.

Sockpuppets would upvote each other's posts and honest users would be at a disadvantage. At the very least this would incentivize absolute garbage posts because in order to e.g. rank up to Jr. Member one would need to make 100 posts and upvote them with an alt, or 50 posts and upvote with two alts, or 1000 posts and upvote only every 10th post to evade detection, etc.

I would rather see some sort of "send for review to a merit source" button but even that would need protection against abuse/spam.

[Laudanum]

Well only one of your upvotes on one post would be worth about 0.01mrt, so you'd have to upvote one user 100 times in order to give him one merit, therefore much more people would have to agree with the post being good or helpful or whatever, therefore that post would get at least merit partially since there's a chance like this that it wouldn't get merited. We all know what's the definition of merit, and a lot of people finding a post useful or helpful or informative is enough to be at least acknowledged.

Sockpuppets would upvote each other's posts and honest users would be at a disadvantage. At the very least this would incentivize absolute garbage posts because in order to e.g. rank up to Jr. Member one would need to make 100 posts and upvote them with an alt, or 50 posts and upvote with two alts, or 1000 posts and upvote only every 10th post to evade detection, etc.

I would rather see some sort of "send for review to a merit source" button but even that would need protection against abuse/spam.

Define honest user?

Lol at finding holes in his system. The current one is worse.

Why don't you want to adopt  transparent objective standards as a basis for the trust system ?

What about honest users?

Would you say you are an honest user?

Is someone using puppets to power up alts to sell more honest or less honest than someone who deliberately protects scammers and prevents legitmate scam warnings on their pals ? Lies and tries to prevent honest debate,  fights against transparent objective standards to ensure everyone is treated equally and fairly? Makes outrageous claims then says the opposite later.  

The current system demonstrates that the " select merit sources " or top 200 earned merit holders lose around 80% of their merit if you take away what they give each other. I mean some lose 50 -70% if you take away just 10 of their pals. How do you know those are not puppets anyway ?

Then look at their top merit fans and recipients.
Then look at their trust includes.
Then look at their chipmixer and highly paid sigs and other rev streams
Then look at their collusion to prevent any change the status quo
Then look at how they all fight against transparent objective standards as a basis for giving negative trust
So they can continue using the trust system to crush free speech, scam with impunity and ensure they get all the best sigs and rev streams, it's a protection racket.

This self debunking fool suchmoron says...but but but people can farm accounts.
Lol yeah cos that is worse than what is happening now lol

His system gives

Way more freedom of speech and less creating echo chambers
No more centralized control and manipulation
Sure can still be abused like it is now but by everyone on the same basis.
No more scamming with impunity for DT
No more scammer protecting
NO more whistleblower punishing

The list of benefits is huge and unarguably superior to what we have now.

Stop with your save a dime waste a dollar defense. Hence why you're a broke bum after all these years here you fat clown.

[so98nn]

[...]

Something like this:
 
 
So if someone posts something really useless or copy/pasta reply, he can get downvoted enough not to lose merit but to think about what's he posting next time. Like a small slap on the wrist.
 

Umm, I’m not sure if I’m reading everything right or not but the options that you suggested are more or less like other social platforms only. This is a discussion forum, not any platform where you like or dislike something. Merit system completely meant for increasing the post quality or at least motivate forum members to work on their basic posting habits.

No matter what how it looks today, if you are doing it right you get merited if not then you simply get argued or skipped. That’s but obvious because unless you don’t find right answer or discussion point why would you even merit someone?

“+” and “-“ would bring battle of pulling and pushing a member on its posts.

Merit is at most well thought process considering the nature of forum!