Pre-Legendary VS Legendary Merit Stats

[Pmalek]

Question for legendary members:
Have you received more merits while in the process of ranking up from your initial rank (when the merit system got introduced) or after you became a legendary member?

Some members believe that legendary users don’t need any more merits because they have already reached the highest rank. I have to admit that I had a similar viewpoint. If given a choice to merit a post of a lower rank user and one of a legendary member, I would most probably merit the user with the lower rank. Of course, it goes without saying that the post is merit-worthy. Other reasons why legendary members get fewer merits could be because some pay less attention to the quality of their posts, thinking they can’t go any higher anyways.     

This is not the time to discuss why merits are needed, why they are important, etc.

There are different kind of legendary members on this forum. Some got the required airdropped merits and reached the rank immediately when the system was implemented. Others ranked up from lower levels, and a small group of quality posters went legendary, starting out as newbies.

When you look at your stats, how many merits did you get pre-legendary and how many as legendary?   


Big shout out to DdmrDdmr at this point. I PMed him before starting this thread asking if he has resources, I and others could use.

Thanks to his Merited profiles Google sheet, it’s possible to see what the initial rank of a user was when the merit system came out. You can see how many airdropped merits each member got. From there, you can calculate how many merits each Legendary user received while ranking up and how many he got as a legendary.

In the Merited profiles Google sheet,
-   The field startedwith shows how many merits a user got airdropped.
-   The field probableInitialRank shows which rank the user had when the merit system was introduced.

This is how it looks in my case:
I started as a hero. I got 500 merits during my ranking cycle to legendary and 940 merits as a legendary member.

This would show that my initial idea that legendary members receive fewer merits after they rank up is wrong. How do your stats look?

[1714036245]

1714036245

[1714036245]

1714036245

[1714036245]

1714036245

[ChuckBuck]

This would show that my initial idea that legendary members receive fewer merits after they rank up is wrong

Yup, personally, I also don't consider the ranks of the members when I read their posts. What I care about is the amount of content and the quality of their posts. I am not a source of merit, but I am also qualified to send merit to someone. And rank has never been a problem.

How do your stats look?

My profile looked pretty bad, received 208, sent 128. Somehow, the number of merits I send is more than half of the merits I receive. It doesn't seem to fit the 2: 1 rule that I knew before. Is it possible that I have received default merit since the merit system came into being?

Also thanks to DdmrDdmr for his statistics, it must have taken a lot of time 

[Pmalek]

My profile looked pretty bad, received 208, sent 128. Somehow, the number of merits I send is more than half of the merits I receive. It doesn't seem to fit the 2: 1 rule that I knew before. Is it possible that I have received default merit since the merit system came into being?

If you were active in the year before the merit system got introduced, you received an X amount of sMerits together with your airdropped merits. Two scenarios were possible when merits were introduced.

- You received only the airdropped merits if you weren't an active poster the year before the introduction.
- You received airdropped and sMerits if you posted during the 12 months before merits were created.

You probably belong to the 2nd category.

[ShowOff]

I have a little time to find out more about the history of merit you received from the first implementation of the merit system until the Legendary rank was reached. Based on record from the bpip.org site, you only need at least 5.5 month to reach Legendary rank after you get 500 merit + 500 merit airdrop. It was a short amount of time in my opinion. 500 merit to Pmalek's Legendary.

But once you reach Legendary rank, it will take you 23 month to collect 940 merit. If I can compare it, then the merit statistic you receive after successfully moving up in the ranking are much slower than before you move up the ranking. I think you have an answer on this, but it doesn't matter to me and that's not a bad look for someone called a contributor to this forum. Finally I can say that you are still much better than some of the other Legendary right now.

I know there are some Legendary who have experienced a downturn in the quality of their post after ranking and have hindered the amount of merit they received after advancing in rank. I don't know what caused that to happen to them and it's possible that some of the point you mentioned in the OP are part of it.

I don't know how long it will take me to reach Legendary because the merit needed are still quite a lot to move up the rank. I was in the same position as you when the merit system was implemented, the initial rank and the 500 merit airdrop. But unfortunately I didn't really care about the quality of the post at that time so Legendary was really very difficult for me. I've only managed to get 178 merit in the last 15 month and that's a very small amount for me. But at least now I care enough about the quality of the post and that will go a long way toward increasing the amount of merit I will receive. Sometime, I really need someone's attention and help to check my post history. But quite embarrassed to say it because I always remember the bad past. Trying to do my best is my path to attaining the highest rank this time.

Question for legendary members:

@Pmalek, sorry I just wanted to answer even though I'm still a candidate for the next Legendary member. 

[NeuroticFish]

Have you received more merits while in the process of ranking up from your initial rank (when the merit system got introduced) or after you became a legendary member?
~
I have to admit that I had a similar viewpoint. If given a choice to merit a post of a lower rank user and one of a legendary member, I would most probably merit the user with the lower rank. Of course, it goes without saying that the post is merit-worthy. Other reasons why legendary members get fewer merits could be because some pay less attention to the quality of their posts, thinking they can’t go any higher anyways.     

Unfortunately I cannot answer your starting question because I've got 1000 airdropped merit.
But I can tell you that I've seen quite a lot this view that legendary members don't want or don't care about merit.

From my point of view merit can give a morale boost to a person. It can improve his day, it can improve his posting habits.
Also in my specific case I wanted so bad to get to 1000 earned merits you cannot imagine. Maybe to prove myself I can.
All in all, I was concerned about merit and I can clearly tell that the main rule is .... that there's no rule at all.

I'll tell something you already know:
Merit is personal choice. People will give you merit for a weak post that they may have found useful, funny, or proves their point.
People may not say anything or may just say thank you for a post you may have worked on to research and write it well.
Again. It's personal.

Yes, merit sources may find out (sooner or later) better posts and merit them at some point. Of course, they won't find them all and you have to keep in mind that there are a lot of possibly worthy posts, not only yours and their monthly sMerit is also finite.
I think that the forum may need more merit sources too, if there's to make more people happy. But all in all, the truth is that we just lack the patience. We do post good and the merits will come. Even if they do slower than you'd expect now and then, you should not worry so much about that.

Now back to the stats.
Since you've earned 1440 merit, you've earned more than I did (1063). But I think that since the merit is on you've also posted more than I did. And I think that this part should be added into the equation. After a certain level of quality (I don't know how to say it different), the quantity may be also a factor. The number of started topics may also count.

[tranthidung]

Many factors

• Your contributions (past and current). Some forever legendary members as @satoshi or @Hal still be able to receive many merits even they were inactively for many years (@Hal was gone away). Their accounts passively receive merits from huge contributions in the past.
• Posting intensity: It is about current contributions. If you don't post, you don't get merit for your newest contributions.
• Posting habit: it is the initial rank to begin with the merit system.
  
  • If a member began as a newbie or Junior member with the merits system, I believe that one will have very good posting habit.
  • Ranking up is a motivation and a journey from Newbie to Legendary (new-era newbie) is very long and challenging. When hits the Legendary rank, it is hard to change from good posting habit to bad or shit posting habit. Some might change but not all.
  • The same for old-era legendary members: some are not here to earn from post count, they post naturally. Their post quality does not change over years. Always have exceptions: satisfy with rank and only make average quality post to get weekly earnings
• Which sort of signature campaigns they are in
  
  • If they are in signature campaigns. Quality of campaign will indirectly affect their post quality.
  • Manager: if the manager only count quality posts, they will have to keep up their quality. In turn, they will be able to earn merit as almost same speed as before

Merit is not a correct parameter for quality of posts. Some members earned merits from shit posts. What a shame!

[FFrankie]

Or you get really close to 1k merit and no one wants to give you anymore

[pooya87]

When analyzing the data you should also take the timeframe into consideration. For example in early days of merit system introduction all users had the airdropped smerits and they were spending them more freely compared to today that [almost] everyone's smerits are earned and they are more tight fisted when it comes to spending it, specially when you earn little and have to spend more. That means users think about prioritizing who they give merit to more than before.

[Timelord2067]

I was already Legendary when this new system began and slowly, little by little, the number of merits I receive has dwindled.

Not because I don't contribute - far from it, it's just the "gangs" control the merits due to increasingly poor choices by @theymos and others surrounding who should be a merit font.

Having said that, I'm now at 598 merits received and my merit circle score is 378 giving me a "rank" over on BPIP of 78.  Such scores should be taken into consideration when theymos or others either review merit fonts to remain in as merit sources, or, replacing them with more inclusive applicants so as to avoid situations such as this golden shower by merit sources.

[SFR10]

~Snipped~
 and how many he got as a legendary.

As always, great job @DdmrDdmr but it seems to be lacking the stats for either the last activity period or just the past few days.

This would show that my initial idea that legendary members receive fewer merits after they rank up is wrong. How do your stats look?

I was blessed with the airdropped merits so I can't comment in regards to my stats but as others have suggested, you should consider a lot of other things apart from the merit count itself. Unfortunately, I don't think there's an easy/accurate way to measure everything ^{[apart from the time it took [by ShowOff] and its intensity [by tranthidung]]} since all of the other remaining factors are in constant changes ^[dynamic] and that tends to overlap and complicate end results as opposed to measuring everything as if it was in a static state.

I think that the forum may need more merit sources too,

Amen to that!
^{- Most of the time, I'm left with just a single sMerit and that reflects on how I merit others.}

[MAAManda]

I have a little time to find out more about the history of merit you received from the first implementation of the merit system until the Legendary rank was reached. Based on record from the bpip.org site, you only need at least 5.5 month to reach Legendary rank after you get 500 merit + 500 merit airdrop. It was a short amount of time in my opinion. 500 merit to Pmalek's Legendary.

The difference between @ShowOff and @Pmalek is the number of topics created, I have observed the situation in this forum that the ones who make the topic are the actual contributors.

Comparison

ShowOff: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;threads;u=537721;sa=showPosts
Pmalek: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;threads;u=112493;sa=showPosts

@Pmalek often starts topics that I think are very useful and interesting to discuss.

This is the reason why the growth of PMalek merit is very fast, Not much People care about helpful replies on topics.

I'm Sorry For My Bad English, I've tried my best.

[crwth]

This would be more reliable if there would be a time-based time to merit because once you have reached the Legendary status, it's going to be your rank forever. What I'm trying to say is that have a calculation on time.

Let's say it's from your experience.

• You started as a Hero Member with 500 merits. Get the time it took you from 500 to 1000 (assuming your status became Legendary at 1000 merits).
• Once you have the time or duration you stepped onto legendary, Let's say X=20 weeks. How many merits did you get 20 weeks after you stepped on Legendary?
• Did you reach 500 merits in 20 weeks again or less than?

I know it's probably the latter but it's great info to do, assuming you have the same quality all throughout or something. Maybe add the variable with post counts as well. Larger data gathering would make a significant effect on having a conclusion on merit stats.

[DdmrDdmr]

Perhaps, a more reliable measure would probably that of a merit/post ratio (*) when trying to compare this type of data, on a before/after basis for a given event (in the case depicted in the OP, the event is reaching the Legendary rank), although even that is influenced by potential changes in posting habits (i.e. shifts in intensity from some boards to others, sharp reduction/increase in created posts, etc.). Ideally perhaps, considering a symetrical timeframe could be pondered (before/after timeframes).

(*) Post to be accounted for should be restricted to those created after the Merit System kicked-off (so as not to ponder those that barely postulated to being merited from the prior era).

Note: The stat referenced in the OP is something I created a while back, and that is updated every week within the Merit Dashboard thread, but it wasn’t specifically created to resolve the question depicted here, and on it’s own, it doesn’t really answer in full the before/after event number of earned merits.

One could derive his before/after number of Merits for a given date (i.e. date of ranking to Legendary) by knowing the date of the event, and then using the "Received Merit" tab on the Merit Dashboard setting date parameters for both periods of time (the before and the after).

-- End of tiny merit spree --

[Pmalek]

Or you get really close to 1k merit and no one wants to give you anymore

Are you talking about your personal case? I seriously doubt there is a conspiracy going on against you where everyone has agreed not to give you any merits to prevent you from ranking up.

Not because I don't contribute - far from it, it's just the "gangs" control the merits due to increasingly poor choices by @theymos and others surrounding who should be a merit font.

Gangs and merit cycling clubs... Many people talk about that but I don't buy it. I am neither DT nor do I have positive feedback from anyone accused of being a gang member. I took a look at the bpip stats for your profile and some of the users who are often accused of being "gang members/merit cyclers" are on top of your list of users who merited you the most. You have suchmoon, TMAN, and Foxpup in your Top 5. It's the same case with me. suchmoon is the member who has merited me more than any other Bitcointalk user. If those "gangs" operated in a way to only support each other, I wouldn't be on the list.

The difference between @ShowOff and @Pmalek is the number of topics created, I have observed the situation in this forum that the ones who make the topic are the actual contributors.

That's also correct. I think many users have a tendency of meriting OPs more, rather than replies in the thread. But there are good counter examples as well. My OP in the thread The Ethereum VS Bitcoin Fork received fewer merits (and rightly so) compared to oryhp's post, which offered a fantastic counterargument.

A PM from DdmrDdmr made me aware that I completely overlooked an essential factor when creating this thread and the requirements to become legendary. I only considered the merit requirements and didn't take into account that the required activity numbers are different from account to account. That point alone invalidates the entire thread. The only thing that it can be used for now is knowing how many merits you got before you had the required amount to turn legendary, and how many you got afterwards. What it can't tell you is the exact point in time you ranked up to legendary.  

[skarais]

~~~

I think you are right, even though I am not a very good OP on several time but it is almost impossible for people to ignore the OP from merit if the thread has quality and contain useful information for other users. Because the assessment of the quality of that post is the perspective of every user, it will also affect a person's gain. Generally a person will be very motivated to achieve the desired goals but will relax a little after these goals are achieved. I think that is a thought that is generally adopted by some users after legendary ranking have been achieved.

The only thing that it can be used for now is knowing how many merits you got before you had the required amount to turn legendary, and how many you got afterwards. What it can't tell you is the exact point in time you ranked up to legendary.   

I don't know if that consensus will apply to me. I just finished the hero rank a while ago and I am on my way to legendary rank, there is still plenty of time for me to continue to think positively and reach it naturally. Maybe I'll also see the difference when the legendary rank is reached. Thank you all for supporting.

[MAAManda]

That's also correct. I think many users have a tendency of meriting OPs more, rather than replies in the thread. But there are good counter examples as well. My OP in the thread The Ethereum VS Bitcoin Fork received fewer merits (and rightly so) compared to oryhp's post, which offered a fantastic counterargument.

That's just one of the cases that happened in this forum, it's not strong enough to only compare 1 example.

I think you are right,

Not only that, the number of posts also affects in my opinion, of course good posts.

(The more you post good things, the greater chance you to getting merit even if the post is old.)

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Yup, personally, I also don't consider the ranks of the members when I read their posts. What I care about is the amount of content and the quality of their posts.

I do, though I end up meriting plenty of posts made by Legendary members anyway.  I'm a merit source, so I see my job as at least partially helping lower-ranked members to get enough merits to get to the higher ranks.  Unfortunately a lot of what gets written by Newbie-Jr. Members tends to be unreadable garbage (or at least too mediocre to warrant giving merits to).

I was fortunate enough to rank up to Legendary shortly before the merit system was implemented, so my data point probably doesn't help OP's hypothesis at all--but man, I'm glad it turned out that way, else I would have had to wait a lot longer to get to Legendary.  Even without the merit system, it took almost three years for me to get there if my arithmetic is correct.  That's why nowadays it's almost impossible for the average member to achieve Legendary status.  You'd have to be very committed to the forum for a very long time frame in order to do it, and I suspect many members have just given up on trying.

[tranthidung]

When analyzing the data you should also take the timeframe into consideration.

There are four periods (from my point of view) of the merit system

• First one week after it was kicked off: people used their smerit for non-sense or too easily. It can be from people who just sent it as a like (on Facebook) or love (on Twitter). It also can be from abusers who sent smerits to their alts.
• After that, till 17 September of 2018 (when the enhanced merit system, the derank on 0-earned merit Junior members were applied): people are strictly with merited posts. Detectives work so hard and break abusers down.
• A few weeks after 17 Sep. 2018, many old-era Sr.+ members sent their smerits to newbie alts to promote them back to Junior members.
• Since mid of November 2019 when new merit sources added and monthly sourced merits were re-allocated, it seems smerits have been more easily to be exchanged. It is a failure of the merit system. Fortunately, I feel happy that theymos does not change monthly allocated sourced merit.

If merit sources use their sourced merits for their personal interest, it is a failure of the merit system.

For example in early days of merit system introduction all users had the airdropped smerits and they were spending them more freely compared to today that [almost] everyone's smerits are earned and they are more tight fisted when it comes to spending it, specially when you earn little and have to spend more. That means users think about prioritizing who they give merit to more than before.

Agree with you partially.

[Pmalek]

That's just one of the cases that happened in this forum, it's not strong enough to only compare 1 example.

I know that it's only one example. It's the one I immediately thought of. But if I went through my own threads, I am sure I could find other similar cases and so could you in your topics. The same goes for most other forum members except the top posters and merit who receive huge amount of merits for each thread they create. 

[Timelord2067]

Not because I don't contribute - far from it, it's just the "gangs" control the merits due to increasingly poor choices by @theymos and others surrounding who should be a merit font.

Gangs and merit cycling clubs... Many people talk about that but I don't buy it. I am neither DT nor do I have positive feedback from anyone accused of being a gang member. I took a look at the bpip stats for your profile and some of the users who are often accused of being "gang members/merit cyclers" are on top of your list of users who merited you the most. You have suchmoon, TMAN, and Foxpup in your Top 5. It's the same case with me. suchmoon is the member who has merited me more than any other Bitcointalk user. If those "gangs" operated in a way to only support each other, I wouldn't be on the list. [/color]

I'm not going to dwell on this too much - except to point you back to the first line of my post:

I was already Legendary when this new system began and slowly, little by little, the number of merits I receive has dwindled.

Perhaps I chould have written the number of merits I receive has dwindled since the gangs in this forum became more entrenched in their dogmas...

You have suchmoon, TMAN, and Foxpup in your Top 5.

suchmoon:

https://loyce.club/Merit/history/131361.html

2021

Six weeks ago:

  309. Thu Feb 18 00:39:54 2021: 4 (Σ 586) from suchmoon (Trust list) (history) for Re: Need a loan
   308. Sun Feb 14 21:53:54 2021: 4 (Σ 582) from suchmoon (Trust list) (history) for Re: [β] BPIP Extension: user info & extra features add-on/extension, Firefox/Chrome

Then you've got to go back nine months:

2020

  242. Mon Jun 29 22:10:47 2020: 7 (Σ 458) from suchmoon (Trust list) (history) for Re: DefaultTrust changes

then another four months:

  169. Sat Feb  8 14:11:25 2020: 7 (Σ 348) from suchmoon (Trust list) (history) for Re: [BPIP] Bitcointalk Public Information Project [Back in Action]

then a further seven months:

2019

  130. Sat Sep 28 01:00:17 2019: 4 (Σ 289) from suchmoon (Trust list) (history) for Re: Flag - "CryptoSparks"

then nearly four months:

   93. Sat Jun  8 14:10:59 2019: 4 (Σ 216) from suchmoon (Trust list) (history) for Re: Tomatocage wakes up, posts a ref link... be careful

then back a further two months:

   31. Mon Apr 23 17:00:35 2018: 4 (Σ 67) from suchmoon (Trust list) (history) for Known Alts of any-one - A User Generated List Mk III (2018 Q2)

and lastly three months:

    1. Thu Jan 25 03:46:45 2018: 1 (Σ 1) from suchmoon (Trust list) (history) for Re: Merit & new rank requirements

2019 - 13 merits in four instances,
2020 - 14 merits in two instances,
2021 - 8 merits in two instances...

Just six instances in three years - if you sample others you will see suchmoon hands out four (and sometimes seven) merits at a time.


TMAN isn't online to defend themselves, so I'll just point you to my trust feedback and default trust lists https://loyce.club/profile.html?id=131361 (TMAN'S sent merits were in three short bursts - I'm sure he'd say something smutty about it being three short bursts)


foxpup's last merit was 13 months ago:

2020

  251. Tue Feb  5 01:54:48 2019: 1 (Σ 251) to Foxpup (Trust list) (history) for Re: @Timelord2067

six months earlier:

2019

  123. Wed Sep  4 11:46:17 2019: 4 (Σ 278) from Foxpup (Trust list) (history) for [Flag] DT ring creation discussion / merit abuse / collusion to harm BCT
   118. Sat Aug 17 11:51:13 2019: 3 (Σ 269) from Foxpup (Trust list) (history) for Re: ▄▀▄ REMOVE LAUDA FROM DT ▄▀▄▀▄▀▄

another gap of six months:

   65. Tue Feb  5 05:42:22 2019: 3 (Σ 142) from Foxpup (Trust list) (history) for Re: @Timelord2067
    60. Wed Jan 30 12:49:19 2019: 5 (Σ 125) from Foxpup (Trust list) (history) for deleted post
    57. Fri Jan 25 19:03:14 2019: 2 (Σ 109) from Foxpup (Trust list) (history) for Re: Iasenko's DT Negative/Positive feedback discussion thread.

Three merits... two merits... one merit.  None .

Looks like it's dwindling to me...