Here Is One Reason Why Legendary Members Get So Many Merits

[Pmalek]

Oh God, another thread about merits? Yes! But I promise. This one will be a bit different.

Many times, we have heard the accusations: merit cycling clubs, merit gangs, legendary members giving merits to their legendary friends, etc.

I believe that Development & Technical Discussion and Bitcoin Technical Support are this forum's cream de la creme. These sub-forums are the sections where issues about the Bitcoin network are raised and solved. When users experience particular problems or have questions, the members in those subs take care of them. 

But who are the users that help newbies and everyone else to solve problems?
More precisely, what rank to they belong to?
That is precisely the reason why I decided to create this thread. On 27 August, I took a screenshot of the two mentioned sub-boards to check what ranks are the members who reply to threads there.

I checked 5 threads in each section.
In the tables below, I have listed the titles of those threads. You can see the number of legendary users who have replied there. Besides that, I have written down the number of times a legendary user was the first to respond after a thread was created, and how many replies there were in total per thread.

What is the purpose of all this?

My hypothesis is that legendary members get so many merits because they are usually the first to reply and offer advice. They are the most frequent posters in the mentioned sub-forums, and their posts are simply the best ones.

Let’s now take a look at the stats and see if I am right or wrong:

Bitcoin Technical Support

|	Thread Title	|	Total Number of posts	|	Number of Legendary replies	|	Was a legendary the first to reply?	|	Percentage of legendary replies	|
|	What info can be gathered using my receiving address btc	|	5	|	3	|	Yes	|	60%	|
|	*[Aug 2021] Mempool empty! Use this opportunity to Consolidate your small inputs!	|	19	|	15	|	Yes	|	78.9%	|
|	FindBTC TOOL help	|	19	|	3	|	Yes	|	15.78%	|
|	Umbrel - Discussion, issues, solutions	|	13	|	7	|	Yes	|	53.84%	|
|	Possible download block chain for air gapped linux from windows?	|	13	|	9	|	Yes	|	69.23%	|

*I looked at posts only from page 23.

Development & Technical Discussion

|	Thread Title	|	Total Number of posts	|	Number of Legendary replies	|	Was a legendary the first to reply?	|	Percentage of legendary replies	|
|	Curve point divided by integer - is it possible?	|	18	|	3	|	No	|	16.66%	|
|	*Pollard's kangaroo ECDLP solver	|	20	|	0	|	No	|	0%	|
|	BIP0062 and reduction s - problem ?when use.?	|	6	|	1	|	No	|	16.66%	|
|	**Why doesn't bitcoin have a "freeze" function?	|	20	|	10	|	Yes	|	50%	|
|	**A. Antonopoulos’ Take on Seed Splitting and Bruteforcing	|	20	|	16	|	No	|	80%	|

*I looked at posts only from page 105.
**I looked at posts only on page 1.


In summary

These 10 threads had:

-   153 posts in total.
-   67 (or 43.79%) of those came from Legendary members.
-   Legendary members were the first to reply in 6 from the 10 checked threads.


This is just a small sample that shows that legendary members receive plenty of merits for a reason. So the next time you think how the world is unfair or that the powerful are only helping the powerful, remember this thread and try to improve and do better. 

[kaggie]

Very nice data.

One might theorize this, but it's good to have the data to support it.
* Legendary members have already shown a commitment to the forum over a long period of time, so they are the most likely to be committed to the future of the forum over a long period of time.
* Legendary members have read the forum for a long period of time, posted, corrected others and been corrected themselves, so are the most likely to have a better understanding of underlying concepts.
* Legendary members are also very recognizable, both for their status but also because they have been regular members for so long
so are more likely to receive merits for those reasons.

On might theorize the opposite, if one thinks that they are the most likely to leave, having tired out on repetitive topics, simply getting older, or moving onto other things. But it's possible that those second class of legendaries and others have already left, so it has a 'founder' bias. As long as there is a sufficient trickle of new legendaries to replace old ones (who can stop posting for any number of reasons), then it's likely that your post will always be the case.

You can imagine new users as little bursts of energy that burn out quickly, where older members are the 'engines that could' or consistent and steady performers.

edit:
* LM have more access to merits, which causes the reciprocal action of others giving them merits
* LM are more likely to be online to address topics higher in a thread

[actmyname]

On might theorize the opposite, if one thinks that they are the most likely to leave, having tired out on repetitive topics, simply getting older, or moving onto other things.

The metrics that lead one to the rank of Legendary include activity and merit. Users would have to have posted actively in at least 56 separate activity periods - a range spanning 2 years' worth of time.

If you're someone who receives merit, you are more likely to be someone who is active than not, and you are more likely to be someone who gains merit: conditions required for ranking up.
There is an implicit bias for the posts of high-ranking members to have higher rates of merit, since it's the high amount of merit that causes them to be high-ranking.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Many times, we have heard the accusations: merit cycling clubs, merit gangs, legendary members giving merits to their legendary friends, etc.

I haven't heard those accusations in a while, but as far as the "merit cycling club" goes, that's Foxpup's exclusive club and there's no conspiracy behind it to give merits to anyone in particular--and that includes Legendary members, other members of the cycling club, or anyone else.  The only merit gangs I've ever encountered were usually newbies with multiple alts or friends and/or account farmers.  Legendary members don't need merits to rank up, so they're probably the least likely to want them.

My hypothesis is that legendary members get so many merits because they are usually the first to reply and offer advice. They are the most frequent posters in the mentioned sub-forums, and their posts are simply the best ones.
<snip>
This is just a small sample that shows that legendary members receive plenty of merits for a reason. So the next time you think how the world is unfair or that the powerful are only helping the powerful, remember this thread and try to improve and do better. 

Agreed, and I also think that the Development & Technical Discussion and Bitcoin Technical Support boards are indeed two of the finest sections this forum has.  I rarely post in either one, as anything I write would probably be interpreted as a shitpost--those boards really are for the true bitcoin experts and yes, they're dominated by Legendary members who deserve merits.

There are some lower-ranked members who are working their way up the ladder right now who deserve all the merits they've gotten--and you can check my merit-giving history to see some of them--but it is absolutely the case (as a general rule with some exceptions) that older members tend to put more effort into their posts and display a better understanding of both bitcoin and how the forum operates.  Good analysis, OP.

[Charles-Tim]

What I have noticed is that newbies aways have this kind of wrong thinking, bringing up what is not, they know nothing yet or do not fully understand how the forum is perfectly and accurately operating but like to post shit contents. Some will bring up matters that have been frequently treated, some just like low quality posts to be merited which is quality enough for them but actually not quality enough for the experienced members of this forum, and merits are only distributed accurately by experienced members. But the newbies that understood how this forum works, they will find no problem to post and receive merits for their quality work on this forum.

[NotATether]

eh, the only reason why I send out merits there is when they help solve a problem I have, or offer a suggestion, or give me some helpful guidance (or maybe they developed some useful software).

[icopress]

My 2 cents ... By my own example, I can say that when reading the first post of any thread, I subconsciously ponder what I would like to add. Further, before answering, I briefly read at least the first page of the answers, and as I read it, I mentally edit my supposed answer since there is no point in resorting to taftology. Therefore, your statement is correct ... the first answers get more merit than the others for the reason that there is nothing to add to them.

[DaveF]

... Legendary members don't need merits to rank up, so they're probably the least likely to want them....

Or just to have them to give out. I admit I am way to stingy giving them out. But those who do give a lot, need to get some to give more. Unless they are a merit source.

eh, the only reason why I send out merits there is when they help solve a problem I have, or offer a suggestion, or give me some helpful guidance (or maybe they developed some useful software).

With the above statement that I am stingy with them, I do give out a lot of the time for the "huh, I didn't know that" too.


I also think a lot of the merit giving is because these are the people helping out others, not just recycling old discussions time and time again just for the sake of posting.

-Dave

[PrimeNumber7]

If you're someone who receives merit, you are more likely to be someone who is active than not, and you are more likely to be someone who gains merit: conditions required for ranking up.
There is an implicit bias for the posts of high-ranking members to have higher rates of merit, since it's the high amount of merit that causes them to be high-ranking.

If you are a legendary member, you need to have received a lot of merit, 1000 if you are a new era newbie, or a minimum of 500 if you created your account prior to the implementation of the merit system.

If you have received a lot of merit in the past, you are likely to receive a lot of merit in the future, assuming you maintain your posting habits.

If you have received a lot of speeding tickets in the past, you will likely receive an elevated number of speeding tickets in the future.

There may be other issues with the merit system.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Obviously the one imparted solid topics and helpful post iwll get a lot of merits. Regardless of rank however, we can see that even though higher ranks or legendary members have attained their ranks they keep and continously posting good one so its not shocking that those cotnributed are from the higher ranks.

I salute those guys whom keep making useful thread example of this is @DdmrDdmr and many more.

[Pmalek]

eh, the only reason why I send out merits there is when they help solve a problem I have, or offer a suggestion, or give me some helpful guidance (or maybe they developed some useful software).

You only merit people in those boards if they help you personally? What if they help other members or post something that can be of benefit to everyone, even those who don't seek help?
You are a merit source, so I guess you were joking with the statement above.

[icopress]

[...] You are a merit source, so I guess you were joking with the statement above.

Honestly, there is nothing wrong with his statement, since this is not a forum for philanthropists. The purpose of the dissemination of merit is to make the forum more useful in the context of the extracted knowledge by one person, all merit sources are autonomous and have a volume of sMerit that, within their worldview, they can distribute at their own discretion.

And as far as I understand, NotATether meant not what you emphasized .. in the context of solving personal problems, he probably meant either the current usefulness of the message or usefulness in the foreseeable future, (because everything is relative). In addition, if all m'sources begin to care first of all about others, and not about themselves, then the forum will certainly be imbued with the spirit of communism.

[Daniel91]

eh, the only reason why I send out merits there is when they help solve a problem I have, or offer a suggestion, or give me some helpful guidance (or maybe they developed some useful software).

You only merit people in those boards if they help you personally? What if they help other members or post something that can be of benefit to everyone, even those who don't seek help?
You are a merit source, so I guess you were joking with the statement above.

Each of us has a different mindset and attitude about merits and that is normal.
First of all, each of us has different interests and follows different parts of the forum.
Also, each of us has a different definition of what kind of post or content on the forum deserves merit.
I believe NotATether didn’t express himself best in the post above and that he probably meant to say that he rewards posts and forum content that help him and others.

[PrimeNumber7]

[...] You are a merit source, so I guess you were joking with the statement above.

Honestly, there is nothing wrong with his statement, since this is not a forum for philanthropists. The purpose of the dissemination of merit is to make the forum more useful in the context of the extracted knowledge by one person, all merit sources are autonomous and have a volume of sMerit that, within their worldview, they can distribute at their own discretion.

I don't think it is appropriate for merit sources to only give merit to those that help them specifically. Merit sources should be giving merit to high quality posts, and should be encouraging people to make more high quality posts.

The term high quality post is subjective, but it reasonably should not be limited to those that help the merit source.

[icopress]

[...]

If you want to quote me, quote in full, or do not quote at all, as I don't really like it when my thought is taken out of context. But if we continue to talk about evaluating quality posts, then I like the methodology of one of the merit sources, (although I do not remember who it is). The source simply edited his settings in such a way that he does not see signatures or avatars, and focuses solely on the quality of the messages and not on the popularity of a particular user.

[Trojane]

Oh God, another thread about merits? Yes! But I promise. This one will be a bit different.

Many times, we have heard the accusations: merit cycling clubs, merit gangs, legendary members giving merits to their legendary friends, etc.

I believe that Development & Technical Discussion and Bitcoin Technical Support are this forum's cream de la creme. These sub-forums are the sections where issues about the Bitcoin network are raised and solved. When users experience particular problems or have questions, the members in those subs take care of them. 

But who are the users that help newbies and everyone else to solve problems?
More precisely, what rank to they belong to?
That is precisely the reason why I decided to create this thread. On 27 August, I took a screenshot of the two mentioned sub-boards to check what ranks are the members who reply to threads there.

I checked 5 threads in each section.
In the tables below, I have listed the titles of those threads. You can see the number of legendary users who have replied there. Besides that, I have written down the number of times a legendary user was the first to respond after a thread was created, and how many replies there were in total per thread.

What is the purpose of all this?

My hypothesis is that legendary members get so many merits because they are usually the first to reply and offer advice. They are the most frequent posters in the mentioned sub-forums, and their posts are simply the best ones.

Let’s now take a look at the stats and see if I am right or wrong:

Bitcoin Technical Support

|	Thread Title	|	Total Number of posts	|	Number of Legendary replies	|	Was a legendary the first to reply?	|	Percentage of legendary replies	|
|	What info can be gathered using my receiving address btc	|	5	|	3	|	Yes	|	60%	|
|	*[Aug 2021] Mempool empty! Use this opportunity to Consolidate your small inputs!	|	19	|	15	|	Yes	|	78.9%	|
|	FindBTC TOOL help	|	19	|	3	|	Yes	|	15.78%	|
|	Umbrel - Discussion, issues, solutions	|	13	|	7	|	Yes	|	53.84%	|
|	Possible download block chain for air gapped linux from windows?	|	13	|	9	|	Yes	|	69.23%	|

*I looked at posts only from page 23.

Development & Technical Discussion

|	Thread Title	|	Total Number of posts	|	Number of Legendary replies	|	Was a legendary the first to reply?	|	Percentage of legendary replies	|
|	Curve point divided by integer - is it possible?	|	18	|	3	|	No	|	16.66%	|
|	*Pollard's kangaroo ECDLP solver	|	20	|	0	|	No	|	0%	|
|	BIP0062 and reduction s - problem ?when use.?	|	6	|	1	|	No	|	16.66%	|
|	**Why doesn't bitcoin have a "freeze" function?	|	20	|	10	|	Yes	|	50%	|
|	**A. Antonopoulos’ Take on Seed Splitting and Bruteforcing	|	20	|	16	|	No	|	80%	|

*I looked at posts only from page 105.
**I looked at posts only on page 1.


In summary

These 10 threads had:

-   153 posts in total.
-   67 (or 43.79%) of those came from Legendary members.
-   Legendary members were the first to reply in 6 from the 10 checked threads.


This is just a small sample that shows that legendary members receive plenty of merits for a reason. So the next time you think how the world is unfair or that the powerful are only helping the powerful, remember this thread and try to improve and do better. 

I have seen instances that newbies like me or Jrn members reply first,second and even third in a post like that but won't be given any merit no matter how reasonable the information looks ..
Sometimes i use to feel bad and ask different questions in beginners and help to know if people that deserve merits are people that have them already ?
Seriously, i mean no disrespect but it is what i have seen several times and it sucks
I am not saying these to gain merit to myself Earnestly, but this is what i feel..
What you have analysed now should be the normal thing to be done because no body has the time and strength to review several pages just to see everyone's opinion except in rear cases.
Please, no offense legends
But lets be FAIR
This forum and the world of bitcoin would be a better place tomorrow..remember,people are still joining day by day ..LEGENDS REMAIN THE GRANDMASTERS HERE AND SHOULD ACT LIKE ONE
Trojane

eh, the only reason why I send out merits there is when they help solve a problem I have, or offer a suggestion, or give me some helpful guidance (or maybe they developed some useful software).

You only merit people in those boards if they help you personally? What if they help other members or post something that can be of benefit to everyone, even those who don't seek help?
You are a merit source, so I guess you were joking with the statement above.

Each of us has a different mindset and attitude about merits and that is normal.
First of all, each of us has different interests and follows different parts of the forum.
Also, each of us has a different definition of what kind of post or content on the forum deserves merit.
I believe NotATether didn’t express himself best in the post above and that he probably meant to say that he rewards posts and forum content that help him and others.

Exactly brother.
We all know that the truth is sometimes bitter.
Nobody started a hero member or legendary
Everyone started from the scratch and most legends were supported to the toll of 1000 merits depending on their post and activity when merit was invented.
If you are a merit source, i wouldn't tell you what to do with it but whatever you do,always remember to do the right thing and make the right judgments..these is not about your presumptions
Try to encourage any newbie,not just me because i know how excruitiating it feels when you read very well just for a topic and you finally get nothing for your reasonable opinion but will see people getting merits for just one line of rigid statements just because he has the tag ''legendary" lets grow beyond these ..
I mean no disrespect at all
Trojans

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[DdmrDdmr]

To shed some numerical context here, it seems that absolutely every rank favours the content created by Legendries, being Legendary the rank that receives a higher percentage of the sMerits awarded by every single rank.

The following is the layout of the number and percentage of Merits sent (horizontal rows) and received (vertical columns) for the current month (up to last Friday):

https://public.tableau.com/shared/NFQQH5BMR?:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link

Now numbers are often poor storytellers, as they frequently do not depict the why’s. Numbers do not speak-up for content, promptness, focus, knowledge, favourisms, subjacent skills, trust, and so forth. They are though excellent indicators to things to look into to better understand, thus the need for threads such as this one.

Note: Changes in rank within the period of time considered in the data, drag all data to the new rank.

[suchmoon]

If you are a legendary member, you need to have received a lot of merit, 1000 if you are a new era newbie, or a minimum of 500 if you created your account prior to the implementation of the merit system.

Nonsense. Airdropped merit was given even to the shittiest shitposters and it means nothing. As evidenced by the fact that median earned merit among Legendary members is 19. Goes up a notch to 34 if we take only ones still active this year. >80% of active Legendaries have that title only because of the airdrop.

Merely being a Legendary has no relevance to post quality. You'd think you would know that what with all the account farming.

[NotATether]

eh, the only reason why I send out merits there is when they help solve a problem I have, or offer a suggestion, or give me some helpful guidance (or maybe they developed some useful software).

You only merit people in those boards if they help you personally? What if they help other members or post something that can be of benefit to everyone, even those who don't seek help?
You are a merit source, so I guess you were joking with the statement above.

Easy there, you basically highlighted the catch-all criteria in bold ("give me some helpful guidance").

Most of the time what I think is beneficial by my own standards is also helpful to the vast majority of other readers, because I have really high standards to what I consider helpful guidance vs. tripe that's just been recycled in dozens of other threads (including in Dev&Tech), e.g. you should not place money in exchanges because they are risky; we already know that exchanges are a bad place for that (and I could give you more examples like that) so there's no need to merit another answer that just mentions that again, and I think that is the view that most other merit sources share as well.

e.g. I sent 20 merit to garlonicon the other day because his post had a breakdown about multiplication and addition results that other devs (the key word here being "other") can benefit from for testing their own implementations with.

edit:

I'm not sure where you got the "personally" part from but I never wrote that.

[Pmalek]

I have seen instances that newbies like me or Jrn members reply first,second and even third in a post like that but won't be given any merit no matter how reasonable the information looks ..

There are no rules to what is worth meriting and what is not. What you consider reasonable and merit-worthy, I might not, and vice versa. The fact that you replied first doesn't put you in a better position to be merited compared to someone who replied after you.

Seriously, i mean no disrespect but it is what i have seen several times and it sucks😑
I am not saying these to gain merit to myself Earnestly, but this is what i feel..

There is a thread where you can add links to posts you believe deserve merits. It can be your own posts or those of other members. [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source. Feel free to use it. You can even PM me when you do and I will take a look and see if I like what you shared.
A couple of suggestions. Don't quote the entire OP when you are replying to someone. There is no need for it. The fact that you are writing a post in this thread is enough for me and others to understand that you are somehow contributing to this discussion. Take a look at how long your post is because you quoted my entire OP. I would appreciate if you could remove the quoted part because it looks bad. It's especially irritating to quote posts that contain a lot of images. When you quote, you can leave only the part you are replying to from someone's post. Just like I did with your post.

Another thing is double-posting. It's against the rules. If someone were to report your second post, it would be merged with the first one or deleted by mods. Usually, the first option happens.

Most of the time what I think is beneficial by my own standards is also helpful to the vast majority of other readers, because I have really high standards to what I consider helpful guidance vs. tripe that's just been recycled in dozens of other threads (including in Dev&Tech)

I was sure that I just misunderstood you because your merit history shows one thing and here you are saying something that to me sounded you merit only those that are helpful to you.

I'm not sure where you got the "personally" part from but I never wrote that.

From the bolded part of your post which is about solving a problem you have and offering guidance to you. Like I said above, a misunderstanding of what you were trying to say.