Interesting facts about the merit system

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This fact does not necessarily prove that there is not a single bounty hunter who does not care about the merit system because I think some of them still care about the quality of posts and the merit system.

Bounty hunters (in general) care about the merit system to the extent that it allows them to rank up, and that's about it.  I seriously doubt any of them care about what anybody else is writing, because they're not paid to read or hand out merits--and the vast majority of them are here for the sole purpose of getting paid.  There are exceptions, of course, but what I just described is the rule.  And OP, you've pretty much presented good supporting evidence for that.

Bitcoin-paying sig campaigns are harder to get into than bounties, which seem to accept any member who applies (including alt accounts).  So it stands to reason that members who write the best posts and are invested in the forum are going to flock to campaigns instead of bounties.  Plus they tend to be members who've been on the forum for a while and know that the tokens that bounties pay out are usually complete shit, and that's in addition to the risk of not getting paid at all.

Can you think of anything to change their behavior about this especially in an effort to reduce spam on this forum?

Well that's been discussed ad nauseam over the years, and I'm fresh out of ideas.  Theymos could probably come up with solutions, but I think he's satisfied that the merit system has reduced shitposts significantly since its inception (and it has).

[Lucius]

Linked to this, I really think that managers should ask for a higher amount of merits earned in the last 120 days in order to be accepted in any signature or bounty campaign.

Of course they should demand more, but then the problem would be how to fill in all the available spots in the campaigns. In addition, this criterion is completely meaningless, because each shitposter can in one way or another reach 5 merits in 120 days. Whoever invented this rule did not want to prevent spammers from being paid for what they do best.

Can you think of anything to change their behavior about this especially in an effort to reduce spam on this forum?

I would say that only two things would be effective, although both are in the realm of the impossible.

• The forum bans bounty campaigns, the number of active users falls by 50% +, and so does forum traffic.
• Managers are raising the bar and banning Newbie and Jr. Members from participating in bounty campaigns.

Of course, everything revolves around money, and no one will cut the branch they are sitting on - so we can continue to pretend we don't know where the problem is, even though it has long been clear to everyone.

[Mahdirakib]

The main factor remain because of the quality of the posts, so it's only natural that bounty hunters always have trouble getting merit and rank up.

This is because, most of the bounty participants make their posts in altcoins section. And the altcoins section doesn't have any merit source. Moreover, they doesn't make good qualitative post in altcoins section which deserve merits. While Bitcoin signature campaign participants spread their post all around the forum and you will find good qualitative post from them.

Can you think of anything to change their behavior about this especially in an effort to reduce spam on this forum?

Almost every bounty hunters consider the forum as a source of earnings. It's not possible to change their behavior until they change their mentality. The campaign manger search for qualitative posters for BTC paying campaigns. On the other hand, bounty manger doesn't search for good posters always (unless the campaign is run by a good manger). Many of them just pick some users to run the advertisement.

[DdmrDdmr]

Using data as of last Friday, and without taking into account banned accounts, I make it 4.438 profiles merited in the last 120 days. The distribution would be as follows:

Code:

nMerits	nUsers   %Merited120d
---------------------------------------	
>10     1076   24,25%
10	89	2,01%
9	79	1,78%
8	105	2,37%
7	103	2,32%
6	155	3,49%
5	201	4,53%
4	243	5,48%
3	276	6,22%
2	658	14,83%
1	1453	32,74%

Now placing the merit bar for campaigns above, let's say, 10 earned Merits over the last 120 days, would currently reduce the number of candidates to 1076 (24,25% of all merited users over the last 120 days). Taking into consideration that those precise profiles are currently likely in slots of the best forum campaigns, the actual available pool for "other" campaigns would be pretty low. I figure that leads to lowering the bar a fair share in many campaigns, and even to giving it a skip.

[skarais]

Bounty hunters (in general) care about the merit system to the extent that it allows them to rank up, and that's about it.  I seriously doubt any of them care about what anybody else is writing, because they're not paid to read or hand out merits--and the vast majority of them are here for the sole purpose of getting paid.  There are exceptions, of course, but what I just described is the rule.  And OP, you've pretty much presented good supporting evidence for that.

I went through those times on this forum and to be precise before the merit system was introduced in January 2018. But after this system was born there was no best way to rank up and get merit except simply by improving the quality of posts to be more constructive and useful. Without reading and trying, I think people would still have a hard time doing it, and my success since then stems from a growing interest in reading more things and posting them at every opportunity.

OP, you have been recognized as a spam hunter so far based on your reported activity. I only advise you to keep doing it if you intend to keep the forum from spammers. Usually a temporary signature ban or temporary ban will make the spammer change his mind and post behavior and I think it works quite well in some cases.

This might have been the rule if the user kept on making spam posts and most of them were deleted:

• 7 days ban
• 14 day ban
• 30 days ban
• Permanent ban

[Coyster]

Can you think of anything to change their behavior about this especially in an effort to reduce spam on this forum?

I understand all the points you made, but I don't think there is any need narrowing it down to the sort of campaign one is in, merits actually have nothing to with whatever campaign a user is on, I'm reiterating this so users on altcoin bounties don't get the impression that their sort of campaign gives them the 'liberty' to post spam more often than not.

Merits is basically just based on what quality you can generate/produce, it doesn't matter the kind of signature you have on, or if you do not have any at all. The only way there can be a behavioral change based on this is if more users actually understand what exactly the forum is for, if they do then they'll engage in discussions without expecting anything (mostly merits) in return, and that way they get better and become an invaluable member to the community.

[Pmalek]

The problem with bounty hunters is that they don't understand that they can participate in their bounties but still make some effort to create decent posts in other areas of the forum. But they don't care, and they don't want to do that. That's why many users don't like them. Especially social media spammers. Why can't you be a designer who creates artwork for new projects, does translations, or writes articles, but in the same time has a genuine interest in Bitcoin and participates in discussions on those subjects like a normal human being? You don't get many of those. Bounty hunters are mostly focused on their tokens.

Established members and merit sources have altcoin subs on ignore or they simply don't go there. Bounty hunters post mainly in those sections. Add those two pieces of info together and you get the reason why those willing to discuss things normally are users who get merited and are meriting others with similar interests.

[Stalker22]

Bounty hunters (in the altcoins section) only care about the merit system if it is a requirement for participating in the campaign. They probably don't even care what else is on the forum. Almost all of them only care about their bounty payment, and they are not paid to read comments or participate in discussions. What is worse, the vast majority of them have more than one account on this forum, which requires a great deal of time to manage them all.

[BITCOIN4X]

~Snip
Established members and merit sources have altcoin subs on ignore or they simply don't go there. Bounty hunters post mainly in those sections. Add those two pieces of info together and you get the reason why those willing to discuss things normally are users who get merited and are meriting others with similar interests.

I've been ignoring altcoin boards for some time because I know I can't achieve good quality posts there which I think will only make my posts more likely to be reported/deleted. Indeed there is nothing wrong with altcoin board if users can post on topics that are constructive enough, this allows them to increase the insight of other users whose understanding is still subpar.

As you said, the best post quality standard is when the poster is willing to engage in an interesting discussion where they can interact with each other based on their knowledge and experience on the forum. This is the best advice I've ever received when I was struggling to improve post quality, so I've chosen to keep it until now.

[Sayeds56]

The main factor remain because of the quality of the posts, so it's only natural that bounty hunters always have trouble getting merit and rank up.

This is because, most of the bounty participants make their posts in altcoins section. And the altcoins section doesn't have any merit source. Moreover, they doesn't make good qualitative post in altcoins section which deserve merits. While Bitcoin signature campaign participants spread their post all around the forum and you will find good qualitative post from them.

Can you think of anything to change their behavior about this especially in an effort to reduce spam on this forum?

Almost every bounty hunters consider the forum as a source of earnings. It's not possible to change their behavior until they change their mentality. The campaign manger search for qualitative posters for BTC paying campaigns. On the other hand, bounty manger doesn't search for good posters always (unless the campaign is run by a good manger). Many of them just pick some users to run the advertisement.

True. I have been promoting bounties since past one year and mostly I join signature campaign and try my level best to make versatile and quality posts while meeting the Targeted quantity. Indeed  Bounty Manager have vital role to control quality of posts and some good Managers  do take of it and some don't. i think we should initiate debate on this forum to define what is quality post and what is not and make it mandatory for Managers to strictly implement it.

[ShowOff]

Indeed  Bounty Manager have vital role to control quality of posts and some good Managers  do take of it and some don't. i think we should initiate debate on this forum to define what is quality post and what is not and make it mandatory for Managers to strictly implement it.

Actually we have long had the correct rule to apply to all forum users if you have paid attention to rules 1 and 2 of this thread: Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ. So I don't think there's any need to argue about what users should do when they join a signature campaign. While the number of users who care about the quality of posts in my opinion is very small compared to spammers, it is true that the merit system has made these users more recognized and they will be stuck in the same rank for a long time until they start to care about quality.

Some bounty managers will care, and many others don't, so they can still accept users with negative tag in their bounty campaign. I think it's the manager's decision how he builds his campaign management well, but of course this will open up opportunities for scammers to get a place in the campaign and get paid.

[KingsDen]

I have never done a bounty and as such might not tell how it works perfectly.
But in a common sense, if I have a project and all I care is the publicity of the project, irrespective of the means of publicity or the reputation of the one behind the publicity. My only problem should be the end result - how viral my project is going

Again, if my primary aim of being in this forum is to gain knowledge, at some point, I should be able to appraise myself and know the amount of knowledge I have gotten.
But if my aim is to be paid with any token, my self appraisal would be to check how fat my portfolio is becoming.

Not everyone values the merit system.

Yet, the number of merits one has does not only  define how quality the person is, it hugely defines interest. Some users careless about merits that they will even ask you not to merit them no matter how quality their posts appear.

[Peanutswar]

You cannot stop them because we have a different perspective they want to support altcoin projects, also we have a merit system in the altcoins campaign they don't require too much also few people rank up with the altcoins because their goal is to make in the quota. Today it makes it hard to rank up because of the merit system and they don't want to spend a lot more time to get it most of the campaign now requires a minimum of full members and it took a long journey to have this because of 100 merits than the member rank of 10 merit requirements. Still it is better to have a quality post than spamming post only it does not benefit the whole community.

[libert19]

If BM counts shitposting for payments, consider that project already failed one, bounty hunters already pay for it by not getting payments/delays and if they even get the payments they get measly value out of it.

[BITCOIN4X]

You cannot stop them because we have a different perspective they want to support altcoin projects, also we have a merit system in the altcoins campaign they don't require too much also few people rank up with the altcoins because their goal is to make in the quota.

One of the most effective method of stopping spammers is to report as often as possible posts that you find off-topic, non-constructive and low-quality to moderators.

Today it makes it hard to rank up because of the merit system and they don't want to spend a lot more time to get it most of the campaign now requires a minimum of full members and it took a long journey to have this because of 100 merits than the member rank of 10 merit requirements. Still it is better to have a quality post than spamming post only it does not benefit the whole community.

Whether or not it is difficult to rank up as long as this merit system exists depends on the user's own interests. If users have a great interest in learning bitcoin then they will probably rank faster without worrying too much about merit. But this will never happen to users who from the start only thought about how to make money through bounty and you may find they don't get a single merit even though the number of posts has reached thousands. If users care about rank then they should make an effort to learn and improve their knowledge about their interests in order to make quality posts.