How to spend smerits?

[hatshepsut93]

Is there an unofficial rule when giving merits? And what is your standard to consider post a quality

My problem with spending merit is that all the good posts that I see come from guys who already earned above 1000 merit, so they will get no benefit from it, aside from ranking on the list of top merit earners. And people with low ranks just don't make posts that would honestly deserve a merit, they tend to mage very simplistic "bitcoin to the moon" and "i love blockchain technology" posts.

If earning merits is a hard task, then so is spending it, except nothing bad will happen to you if you are not spending your merit. So I want to thank the people who actively seek good posts to merit and decided to become merit sources, they are spending a lot of their time to make this forum a better place. Maybe without them some good posters would have gotten discouraged, though I do hope that most good posters are posting because they have something to say and not to just rank up and join a signature campaign.

[Poker Player]

My problem with spending merit is that all the good posts that I see come from guys who already earned above 1000 merit, so they will get no benefit from it, aside from ranking on the list of top merit earners. And people with low ranks just don't make posts that would honestly deserve a merit, they tend to mage very simplistic "bitcoin to the moon" and "i love blockchain technology" posts.

It's similar to me. I wouldn't say as much as "all the good posts that I see come from guys who already earned above 1000 merit" but most of them are. Only a few are written by lower-ranked members.

To the OP tell him that once he has received the advice given in this thread, he has to move on to practice. He has to have an idea of what a good post is, a quality post. Of the posts he reads every day some will have more quality than others. Then, it is only fair that he sends smerits to the ones that have more quality.

[lovesmayfamilis]

Who said Legendary members do not need merits?

The Pharmacist was speaking. I cannot fully quote it, but the point was that you better help others, appreciate their posts, the merits are more needed for beginners who have good publications.

OP, I see that you take your merit very seriously. Remember how you felt when your posts were rated by other people? Was it pride, or was it the thought that you wrote something of value? I find people who keep their merit by struggling to find good posts too arrogant. It turns out that there are few posts on the forum that can be evaluated?
Or maybe it is easier to relate to this? Often we come across when reading something very close to us, why not just deserve these posts? Why would anyone give a lot of merits to one person when by favoring more people you can motivate them to keep growing on the forum.

[Pmalek]

Here is my take on the entire meriting dilemma.

This question came after I checked my merit history and realised I have only given out 1 merit.

I always take a quick look at a user's meriting stats. Why do I do that? I want to make sure that the merits are not being hoarded, but used to award other quality posts. I have noticed that you have slowly started giving out some merits. That's good. You should continue doing that. If you didn't and I came across a post of yours I though was merit-worthy, I would have checked your stats, noticed you have received plenty (50) but given out only 1 and I wouldn't have merited you. Even though someone's post is good, I want them to be part of the merit economy. If a user doesn't merit others, it tells me that he doesn't care about the system and thus should not reap the benefits from it either. It's that easy.

Legendary members do not look like they need more merit. FYI I have read a couple of lengends complain they rather merit be given to those who need it to achieve rank than themselves.

Everyone likes to receive praise and recognition. The rank doesn't matter. If time and effort is put into writing a post, that "work" should be awarded.

Merit given to a post is usually 1 or 2, very few cases have I seen someone giving 5 merits or more to a post.

I have seen people receive 20-30 merits per post. I remember suchmoon used to give 4-8 per post she thought was good. The supply is different from merit source to merit source. So you can't expect (although it's possible) a source who has 100 merits to send the same amounts as someone who has 1000 each month.

Having said all that, I am meriting your OP only because you slowly started to hand out some of your sMerits to others and I would like to see you doing that in the future as well.

[Daniel91]

Who said Legendary members do not need merits?

The Pharmacist was speaking. I cannot fully quote it, but the point was that you better help others, appreciate their posts, the merits are more needed for beginners who have good publications.

OP, I see that you take your merit very seriously. Remember how you felt when your posts were rated by other people? Was it pride, or was it the thought that you wrote something of value? I find people who keep their merit by struggling to find good posts too arrogant. It turns out that there are few posts on the forum that can be evaluated?
Or maybe it is easier to relate to this? Often we come across when reading something very close to us, why not just deserve these posts? Why would anyone give a lot of merits to one person when by favoring more people you can motivate them to keep growing on the forum.

In fact, this is a very interesting question, whether we should give more merits to new members and thus help them.
The fact is that new members do not yet have enough knowledge and experience to write better posts and contribute more to the forum community, although of course there are always exceptions.
The question is whether it's then okay to reward their weaker posts with merits and not give merit for some other quality posts from legendary members because we think they don't need merits.
This is not a simple dilemma to solve.
I solve this dilemma by rewarding the knowledge and experience of older members of the forum and with younger members I reward their efforts and the usefulness of some information for the forum community.

[Oshosondy]

Yes, you can't sell them.

There is not rule that stated that merit can't be sold, but forum members against it because it can lead to scam or used in a way low quality posts will be given merit by the same person with two accounts using one account to merit the other. But theymos made it clear that merit source should not sell merit, it is against this forum for merit source to be selling merit, they should not sell merit.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I solve this dilemma by rewarding the knowledge and experience of older members of the forum and with younger members I reward their efforts and the usefulness of some information for the forum community.

For the most part, I talked about ordinary users who, while receiving merit, keep it for some special occasion, without giving it to others. But this does not apply to sources of merit, which, in my opinion, have such responsibilities for rewarding useful and high-quality posts. Pmalek is right, the system should work, and the assessment of the quality of posts cannot always be on a ten-point scale. Again, this applies to regular users. According to my observations, it turns out that the one who gives out more often gets it. 

[BlackHatCoiner]

There is not rule that stated that merit can't be sold

Yes, any non-merit-source member isn't forbidden, typically, to sell merits, but there are some unwritten principles, you know. Just like you must not merit your alt accounts. But, yeah, if you're a merit source and choose to abuse the system this way, it's lots worse.

According to my observations, it turns out that the one who gives out more often gets it.  

I have to confess that I'll be discouraged to merit someone who isn't active on meriting. Still, if they respond constructively, I will. Take DannyHamilton as an example; meriting him is like burning your merits.  

[SatoPrincess]

I can't reply all your messages individually. But I want you all to know I appreciate your contributions to my development. I can't send a thank you to everyone and there is no like button to show I like a post. I will be borrowing BlackHatCoiner criteria of giving out merits. I have given 16 merits since creating this topic. I will be more than happy to merit any good post I find irrespective of the user's rank

[Smartvirus]

Merit source speaking.

FYI I have read a couple of lengends complain they rather merit be given to those who need it to achieve rank than themselves.

Some don't feel they need merits. In my opinion, it's more than just a rank un-locker. It shows how valuable you are for this community.

Like BlackHatcoiner has rightly said, merits on a post defines value on that particular post and not the user. It is the post that gets which ever merit or merits on it and not the user that made the post. For sure, the merit accumulates to your merit meter qualifies the user as per contributions and to some rank but then, merits is an appraisal to some quality contribution.

Now, the amount of merits to be given at any particular time and a determinant or rating for a merit deserving post is where it gets tricky. Mind you, the maximum merit that can be awarded on a post at a time is 50merits. Now, post are merits based on individual perceptions as, some users are more experienced and knowledgeable than others. So do the grading too likewise, when qualifying a beginners contribution.

Should quality of a post be judged by a certain  set of criteria, then we would have ended up having a more biased form of write up which would follow a certain  pattern just to merit hunt. Hence, when it comes to meriting, let your experience and a good sense of judgement should lead the way.

[Coyster]

<....>

Just as it has been said a couple of times in the past, the whole issue about sending Smerits is basically subjective, it depends a lot on the sender and their perception of things, especially what they perceive to be quality or not. Another thing is that, sending Smerits also depends a whole lot on how frequent you receive merits, or if you're a merit source that gets refilled every 30 days or so. For example if you take a good look at the thread on 'generous merit givers', you will find out that a lot of users on the list are MS, that's cause they really do not have to depend on their earned merits, that thus generates Smerits, cause the forum gives them an extra amount of smerits every 30 days to distribute to good posts, thus they will most likely be more generous and liberal when meriting posts than the user who isn't a MS and is trying to save their smerits for the best posts possible.

Having said that, personally I do not set any high standards when I want to merit posts, if I read a post and I'm actually convinced that the writer actually makes a whole lot of sense, then I can give out a few Smerits if I have any. There is no rule to guide you on how to spend smerits and do not overthink it, as long as you're not doing anything shady with smerits, then no one really cares how to distribute them.

[Stalker22]

~
I have given 16 merits since creating this topic. I will be more than happy to merit any good post I find irrespective of the user's rank

That is good, and I believe it is the right way to use a merit system. You have no use for accumulated smerits, and trust me, the more merits you share, the more you will earn.

[Trojane]

Since the introduction of the merit system, users have been giving out merit only to quality post until the forum selected a couple of merit source who are allocated with a certain quantity of merit to disburse to only and strictly quality post.
Yes of course, you can send 50 merit at once and i think that's the highest in one transaction but the question is:
What post are you sending that huge merit to?
Whats the content of the post, does it worth giving 50merits at once?
Apart from maybe creating a new application or site that could either support bitcoin mining and makes it fast,promotes it or something very creative in technical discussion or any vital board, i don't think any other post would deserve 50 merits at onew

[Pmalek]

Do you also check whether the user is known merit source? If not, your method could lead sending more merit to merit source.

No, I don't take that into consideration and I am pretty sure that I have rewarded many merit sources with merits because of their quality posts. To become a merit source, a user needs to have a proven track record of sending merits, needs to be relatively known on the forum or his local, and have the ability to recognize a quality post. I only check to see that people who receive are also active in the giving part. Whether those merits that are being sent are source merits or sMerits, is not that important to me.

I think it's pretty normal that a merit source who has several hundred source merits has an increased number of sMerits that he doesn't always manage to share. And that's OK. I think it was LoyceV who said somewhere that he has over 1000 sMerits. That doesn't make him a hoarder. He simply has a huge number of source merits, so he rarely gets around to spend anything else.

[LoyceV]

Legendary members do not look like they need more merit.

It might be true for few legendary member, but all that matters is their post.

Agreed. Merit isn't meant to make users rank up, it's meant to prevent that. It's a crucial distinction.
But if you only have a few sMerit to give, by all means, give them to good posts made by users who can use it to rank up. Merit can help encourage them to continue.

I want to make sure that the merits are not being hoarded
~
If a user doesn't merit others, it tells me that he doesn't care about the system and thus should not reap the benefits from it either.

But why? Is this under the assumption that sMerit is scarce? I may be biased being a Merit source, but if scarcity would be a problem, theymos can easily increase the total supply. I don't consider sMerit scarce, so if the post deserves it, I don't mind if it doesn't trickle down from there.

I think it was LoyceV who said somewhere that he has over 1000 sMerits.

Correct, I have just over 1000 sMerit "hoarded" by now. But I've sent 27308 sMerit, so if I would have sent only 5% more, I would be completely empty. My Merit source adds 850 per month, and I've said before that it sometimes feels like a burden: No matter how hard I try, the next day there's a huge pile waiting again.

My short answer: If you see a post that you think is good: Merit it There's no need to overthink it.

[Rikafip]

My short answer: If you see a post that you think is good: Merit it There's no need to overthink it.

+1

That's pretty much my M.O (I am not merit source); when I see a good post I send merit. I don't think about keeping some just in case I stumble upon better post or anything like that. That way I am 99% of the time at 0 merit available (currently I have 1 but before end of the day I will be again at 0) and I help the merit to circulate.

[qwertyup23]

I was just thinking how full members, Senior members, heroes, legendaries are generous with merits. This question came after I checked my merit history and realised I have only given out 1 merit. Legendary members do not look like they need more merit. FYI I have read a couple of lengends complain they rather merit be given to those who need it to achieve rank than themselves. How about you guys, what is your standard for giving merits? Merit given to a post is usually 1 or 2, very few cases have I seen someone giving 5 merits or more to a post. Is there a limit to how much merits one can send? Is there an unofficial rule when giving merits? And what is your standard to consider post a quality

Remember that in order to get 1 sMERIT, you must receive 2 merits from users across this forum. Now for my standards, it depends upon the quality of the posts and the value that it brings to the forum as a whole. Since giving merits is a subjective topic, it really depends on the user and to his standards whether he finds a topic which is worth meriting for.

The only limit into sending merits is the amount of sMERITS that you currently have. Well an unofficial rule is that there should be no merit trading where you trade merits with someone in order to indirectly help them rank-up.

[GeorgeJohn]

Actually people give merit to a post according to the gravity of the post on educational standard or inspiration of what your comment is narrating. Post's deserve more than five (5) merit's but it depends on how constructive in meaning and how constructive is the English arrangements the post is all about. So the same is applicable to you op, because you can't exhaust all your Smerit to a particular user in a process that you want to uplift the user.

I think that you can't give more than fifty (50) Smerit a day to a particular person but you can give below fifty (50) Merits, and the gravities of post's now even threads only deserve ten (10) Merits from my own Perspective, because people are not researching again to create inspirational post like before and that's is the reason it's hardly before you can come across a recent post that is been awarded twenty (20) merits at a time from one particular person.

[SatoPrincess]

Merit isn't meant to make users rank up, it's meant to prevent that. It's a crucial distinction.

LoyceV has brought an interesting thought to the discussion. It never occurred to me that merit system was introduced to prevent users rank up. I know years ago before merit system all users needed to rank up was activity. All I have read talks about merit introduced to reduce shit posting. Shitposts do not get any merit so the shit posters are discouraged and leave the forum

[acroman08]

LoyceV has brought an interesting thought to the discussion. It never occurred to me that merit system was introduced to prevent users rank up. I know years ago before merit system all users needed to rank up was activity. All I have read talks about merit introduced to reduce shit posting. Shitposts do not get any merit so the shit posters are discouraged and leave the forum

it is not just to discourage shit posters, it is also to encourage current members at the time and new members after the merit was implemented to put effort on what they post in order to get merit if they want to increase their rank. I can only imagine what the forum would be like if theymos didn't introduce the merit system and other restrictions.