[Merit] Legendary To Newbies Distribution Concern & Problem!

[_BlackStar]

What became of "helping newbies grow"? The truth is that not all Legendary members began writing quality posts when they were newbies. It's a learning process, and the longer you stay here, the better poster you become. I know the justification has been that newbies are shit and legendary members are great posters. C'mon lower some standard while meriting newbies.

OP, I don't have any specific standards on how I should spend merit on posts that I deem worthy. I don't spend it only on Legendary or high rank users, but newbie and low rank users also deserve it especially if their posts are quality. I'm not going to ignore newbie but I honestly don't have a particular habit of digging more newbie  across the various board.

As a user who has experienced what it's like to be a novice after the merit system was introduced, I also feel that users have to lower quality standards to submit merits. But actually it depends on who does it regardless of the rank of the recipient. The bottom line is post quality, but actually you might have a hard time finding newbie who really deserve help as most of them are not newbie but alt from high ranking members ^{[they are merit conscious from the start]} and that's the problem.

[1714558841]

1714558841

[Igebotz]

C'mon lower some standard while meriting newbies.

Oh, hell no.  There's no way I'm going to lower my standards, because if every merit source did that and just started handing out merits for mediocre or even shitposts, the merit system wouldn't function as it should.  It's not supposed to be easy to earn merits.  Never was, and that's the way it should be.  By making members work harder to rank up, forum post quality has gone up significantly (IMO) since 2018, and account farming has been decimated.

Not sure if the merits system was intended to be held or difficult to earn; if you judge a new member and a veteran member equally, something is wrong. It was created by the community and for the community to use. Lowering the bar does not always mean meriting shitposters.

If you don't up your rank on a discussion forum....it ain't a big deal, really.

Don't play yourself! Everyone wants to climb the ranks while also making a positive contribution to the community.

What about the merits source, which ignores B&H and Altcoin discussion boards?

I've got both of those sections on ignore, and I'm not apologizing for that. 

I was indirectly referring to you there! You ignore almost everything on the forum, so I wasn't expecting an apology; it's a personal choice!

I don't have time for all the B&H bullshit, and though altcoins interest me, the few threads I've created to ask for information have fallen flat.  That's likely because bounty hunters and assorted shitposters don't have any incentive to give thoughtful responses--and so my threads kept getting buried under a mountain of threads like "ETH or BTC???".  Fuck that. 

There is always one good poster in every spammer community; don't burn the community down because of a few bad eggs; try and SORT!! I would SORT if I become a merit source!

For start, I don't use "Show unread posts since last visit" option at all and instead I just browse the forum for interesting topic in boards I usually visit. That's pretty much the way I browse all other forums so when I  joined bitcointalk I just continued doing the same.

That's my favorite option on the forum.

[KingsDen]

It can be a bummer to follow a newbie that posts well and then they get caught for cheating earning a ban.

You are pretty old and experienced in the forum. No doubt you have experience on how different newbies behave and I have no doubt that in your capacity, you have many newbies rank up.
But on the issue of being skeptical of handing merits to newbies who might eventually get banned. I don't think it should very disappointing in as much as you merited the right and quality posts. Beside, we vote some politicians into power and in the end they don't perform, that should make us not to vote subsequently, rather we will be careful of who to vote.

C'mon lower some standard while meriting newbies.

Oh, hell no.  There's no way I'm going to lower my standards, because if every merit source did that and just started handing out merits for mediocre or even shitposts, the merit system wouldn't function as it should.  It's not supposed to be easy to earn merits.  Never was, and that's the way it should be.  By making members work harder to rank up, forum post quality has gone up significantly (IMO) since 2018, and account farming has been decimated.

Your standards are not so high or unattainable for a genuine newbie who wishes to grow. You have handed good amounts of merits to me, especially when I was in lower ranks. So, I can boldly attest to that.
My concern is knowing that you have B&H board on ignore. It doesn't only deprive the newbies merits, it also denies them some advice from an established user like you. Though other persons are there helping, who knows you could make the needed difference.

It's your personal decision and if it's cool with you, no problems. But visiting the B&H and maybe other boards you ignored occasionally (probably on your birthday) would be a good one.

[n0nce]

Then how about a board not in the Altcoin section, but in the Bitcoin section; something like 'Altcoin concepts', a place to discuss specific concepts / aspects of certain Altcoins that could be interesting for Bitcoin?
Whereas discussions about Altcoins themselves can stay in the Altcoin section?

"Altcoins that could be interesting for Bitcoin"? Do you think that something like that makes sense at all, given that the vast majority of altcoins have no purpose and that they generally do more harm than good for the entire cryptosystem? If the Terra/Luna fiasco hasn't taught us anything, then we're really in big trouble.

I do think so, yes. Exactly because of that; exactly because of the fact that most altcoins have no purpose, it would be nice to have a section for people to talk about actually interesting or novel 'altcoin concepts'. Not concepts like 'how can we make the 1000th coin that makes us rich quick', obviously.

This is what would set it apart from the existing Altcoin board(s), make it more interesting for some of BitcoinTalk's technical / development people and allow talented cryptocurrency enthusiasts who e.g. love smart contracts or topics like this to have civilized, constructive discussion that everyone can learn from.
I'm sure these people exist, and are annoyed too about being drowned in scamcoin ads and scamtoken fraud schemes.


In my humble opinion, it's somehow to be expected that in a Bitcoin Forum, topics that aren't directly about Bitcoin are 'less recognized', in a way. Simiarly as how I wouldn't expect a lot of reaction and / or a lot of recognition if posting about sports on a computer forum or vice-versa.

[Radja Rimba]

As a user who has experienced what it's like to be a novice after the merit system was introduced, I also feel that users have to lower quality standards to submit merits. But actually it depends on who does it regardless of the rank of the recipient. The bottom line is post quality, but actually you might have a hard time finding newbie who really deserve help as most of them are not newbie but alt from high ranking members ^{[they are merit conscious from the start]} and that's the problem.

The existing system is quite flexible, but in the end only the user will determine how he can get out of his comfort zone about writing quality. There are thousands of users who only make posts to fulfill the campaign's weekly quota, they don't care about quality but really care about rankings and merit. This is the weirdest thing I've ever experienced as a bounty hunter and I honestly can't get as much merit as I see on users like you due to the very obvious difference in post quality.

Actually I also want to be like them who can post something quality, constructive and informative, but that's something I'm still having a hard time doing so far. I try, but sometimes I have to ignore some opinions of people who think it's something bad. Hopefully one day I can be like you who managed to get merit and rank up to a higher rank to reach Legendary.

[NotATether]

Plus, the section matters. Technical discussion is always going to get more merit, as people generally learn a little more or have interesting discussions, and debates. Gambling discussion doesn't get nearly as much, which a lot of newbies tend to gravitate towards. The altcoin section in general has been boycotted by a lot of users, on its reputation alone.

Well, lets talk about gambling discussion first. I'm not going to merit a guy just because they posted that some club just signed a player, or they predicted the outcome of a game, or anything quoted from a news article. Anybody can do those things, and we have a responsibility to regulate the ranks pipeline so that we suddenly do not have Legendaries and Heros running around with garbage posts wearing signatures from the highest bidder.

If we let that happen, then Bitcointalk campaigns will have a lower standard, and less projects will use that advertisement mode in the future.

Sure, one can argue that there are already a swarm of legendaries making garbage posts in gambling discussion, and there is nothing much that we can do about that. But we have to prevent even more of this type of poster from cropping.

Otherwise, what will happen is that bounty (yes bounty) campaigns will be full of these type of people, and the projects that they are advertising will suffer because they are all congregating in gambling, and altcoin discussion with all the other bounty participants, and the advertisements will be wasted as nobody is going to wade through 5 pages of posts on megathreads (the high-quality and low-quality ones alike). So without this advertising, the campaigns will stop, and the bounty campaign industry will basically implode, with websites taking their advertising elsewhere.

Maybe they'll even degrade Bitcointalk to a low-quality forum as cryptotalk. I don't think anybody desires this outcome.

Above does not apply to signature campaigns as managers already do a fine job of screening applicant's posting quality first.

One can argue that Bitcoin Discussion & Economics, maybe even Service Announcements, could use some more merits than what's already being distributed, and I would agree with that.

Now as for Altcoins, it's hard to merit a board that you don't even browse, and this is the case for most merit sources here including myself. I'd say there are several posts inside that are worthy of merit that simply haven't been read by a merit source yet (owing to being in Altcoins board). So this area is a work in progress for merit-sources. Of course, its not possible to find every single merit-worthy post, owing to the sheer volume of this board, but it's a board we could improve on.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I once noticed a very strange pattern regarding newbies getting merit from legendary.

To be honest, many of them are very cunning. At one time, I saw Ratimov very actively encouraging newbies. I don't know how he found them in large numbers, but later most of these newbies either went to bounties or were banned and, as philipma1957 noted, received a negative tag for something.

It can be a bummer to follow a newbie that posts well and then they get caught for cheating earning a ban.
I have been following majestic-milf

And it's not the giver's fault. It is easy to observe, as newbies did. In what cases can merit be obtained? They started creating hundreds of new topics with the same content, slightly changing the essence. And they were hardly different people. This is how the farms developed, until Ratimov paid attention to this, and became less kind to newbies.

It is likely that many people have such a judgment that once you easily give motivation for development, you only encourage people to try less and cheat more.

[philipma1957]

There's a flaw in these statistics: Newbies with Merit don't stay Newbie for long.

So the real way is not legendary to newbie but legendary to member or at legendary to 120 day or less fourm member.

This changed the whole thing. I would like to see the comparison for account older to 120 days vs Legendary. Hopefully we will not see much difference and there will be no concern too.

I am now debating to delete this or post it.
I write over 100 posts a month that I never post.

I never looked at your post number. It just got my attention, 39396 is a crazy number 🙄

yeah 10 years in august 2022 means 10 x 365 = 3650 days.

I deleted about 1200 old posts here and there.
I had about 1000 posts deleted by mods or self modded threads. so my true total is likely 42000 posts divide by 3650 and I think I average 12 posts a day.

was more back in the 2012-2018 time frame. maybe 15 a day.
and say from 2018-2022 maybe 9 a day.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

yeah 10 years in august 2022 means 10 x 365 = 3650 days.

I deleted about 1200 old posts here and there.
I had about 1000 posts deleted by mods or self modded threads. so my true total is likely 42000 posts divide by 3650 and I think I average 12 posts a day.

was more back in the 2012-2018 time frame. maybe 15 a day.
and say from 2018-2022 maybe 9 a day.

That's a crazy number considering that you have not taken any break at all. You must have few weeks busy with something else and did not find time to post.

I used to post a lot few years back. I remember once in a week I had around 147 posts LOL
Then slowly I got busy in real life and I was even not regular for few months. From last few weeks I am feeling that I am back. Yesterday I made almost 15 posts. I am averaging 8 to 9 posts per day now.

Merit was introduced in 2018 and considering the number of posts you make, the average per merit for x number of posts is still low although you have over 4.5k Merits. Some members like n0nce are way to relented.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Not sure if the merits system was intended to be held or difficult to earn; if you judge a new member and a veteran member equally, something is wrong. It was created by the community and for the community to use. Lowering the bar does not always mean meriting shitposters.

You've been here since 2017, so you've got to remember what it was like before the merit system, right?  I mean I was so frustrated by all the idiotic nonsense being posted that I started handing out negative trust to chronic shitposters when I got on DT2, because that was the only tool available to combat them.  There were people farming accounts like crazy in order to enroll them in bounties, because all it took was time and activity.  That crap even continued for a few months at least after the merit system started, because I caught a whole bunch of alts (or a bounty farm) in April 2018.  And I'd seen similar stuff like that many times prior to me creating that thread.

So yeah, it's supposed to be hard to earn merits and rank up.  I've said that a million times since 2018, and I'm sticking to it.

If you don't up your rank on a discussion forum....it ain't a big deal, really.

Don't play yourself! Everyone wants to climb the ranks while also making a positive contribution to the community.

I guess I can only speak for myself, but I've been a member of other discussion forums in the past, and I was never the least bit concerned about what my rank was.  I suspect that the reason it's extremely important on bitcointalk is because the higher your rank, the more signature space you have available to rent out--and I think a lot of people would agree with that.  There's an obsession with earning merits that goes way past any rational desire to contribute positively to the community, and that leads me to believe that my suspicions are correct. 

And why do people buy high-ranking accounts?  Is that because they want to contribute to bitcointalk?  Didn't think so.

<snip>

I was indirectly referring to you there! You ignore almost everything on the forum, so I wasn't expecting an apology; it's a personal choice!

It seems like I just browse the forum in a different way.  If others visit certain sections they like instead of always checking unread posts, I'm guessing they're not visiting every section on the forum.  My way seems more efficient; I know the sections I like to browse, so I just ignore all the others and simply check in on all the new posts made in all of those sections I haven't ignored. 

I bet if you checked which sections I've given merits in, it'd be pretty broad.  I'm not sure how to look for that data, else I would have posted it here.  Most of my sent merits have probably been in Meta, Reputation, and Economics, but I do post history reviews for members on request, and so I often travel outside my ignore zone to hand out merits.  Keep that in mind whilst you're judging me, eh?

<snip>

There is always one good poster in every spammer community; don't burn the community down because of a few bad eggs; try and SORT!! I would SORT if I become a merit source!

You'd sort what?  And why would you only do it if you were a merit source?  As far as burning things down, when it comes to sections like Bitcoin Discussion that's the only thing I can do, because that's where the shitposters live.  B&H I'm not so sure about as I haven't visited it in a while, but remember: I'm just one merit source out of many.  I've got my preferences just like any other source, and in my defense I do take my "job" seriously and have handed out a lot of merits since I became a source.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

I can understand the angle OP is coming from, he might be right in his assumptions, but not totally right if the matter be looked at technically, I will draw my opinion from what Welsh said.
High ranking members, like the legendary members make far more posts than newbies, and as such, are more exposed to receiving merits, legendaries already know the right boards to post on, they also know the right post that fits a board and are much more constructive when making a post, to plainly put it, if it's about receiving merits, legendary members already know all the rudiments to making a merit worthy posts, this is what newbies don't know and must learn, it is true that many legendary member today were shit posters when they were newbies, but also do not forget that many of this legendary members already were legends or Close to being legends before the merit system was introduced, this, I believe is the advantage those who signed up earlier on the forum have over those who are signing up now.
The conclusion is that newbies should start watching the legendaries and learn from them, watch posts patterns and learn from it, I too was a shit poster, but when I became interested in ranking up, I began watching post patterns of those that earned alot of Merit, I started learning from them, each time a make a post, I tried to follow same pattern, and since then, my posts started getting noticed by meriters.

[ShowOff]

The conclusion is that newbies should start watching the legendaries and learn from them, watch posts patterns and learn from it, I too was a shit poster, but when I became interested in ranking up, I began watching post patterns of those that earned alot of Merit, I started learning from them, each time a make a post, I tried to follow same pattern, and since then, my posts started getting noticed by meriters.

The learning method only depends on ourselves and how we are able to make useful, quality and constructive posts. Everything requires a process, but when they want to follow the process then sooner or later they will also be able to achieve it. The point is, no one will stay at the same rank "except Legendary" if the posters are quality. It's not about long posts, but it could also be about short but really useful posts.

Your method is also good, but I think beginners can still have other ways to make their posts constructive, namely by reading references while posting.

[LoyceMobile]

High ranking members, like the legendary members make far more posts than newbies

Go to https://loyce.club/active/7d.html, and check the 10 most active Newbies. Then come back and explain how evil Legendary members are for not Meriting them.

[Igebotz]

Not sure if the merits system was intended to be held or difficult to earn; if you judge a new member and a veteran member equally, something is wrong. It was created by the community and for the community to use. Lowering the bar

So yeah, it's supposed to be hard to earn merits and rank up.  I've said that a million times since 2018, and I'm sticking to it.

Sounds more like Hellyal to me. I had to work hard to earn my merits, and you will have to do the same. What happens to the phrase "parents should never make their children go through what they went through"? Because the Legendary members serve as mentors to the Newbies.

We had fewer merit sources back then. We now have more than 100 and still counting.

I bet if you checked which sections I've given merits in, it'd be pretty broad.  I'm not sure how to look for that data, else I would have posted it here.  Most of my sent merits have probably been in Meta, Reputation, and Economics, but I do post history reviews for members on request, and so I often travel outside my ignore zone to hand out merits.  Keep that in mind whilst you're judging me, eh?

As of time of writing you've sent out 14k+ smerits since 2018,
4082 to Economic
3270 to Meta
63 to B&H ( not surprise)
61 to Offtopic
295 to Altcoin discussion.
Others.

There is always one good poster in every spammer community; don't burn the community down because of a few bad eggs; try and SORT!! I would SORT if I become a merit source!

You'd sort what?  And why would you only do it if you were a merit source? 

Because I would have enough smerits to distribute at my own pace, Do you have any idea how it feels to see a good post and not have any merits to drop on it

[Agbe]

Though this is Senate House/House Lords. Please forgive me for my comment here. My mind is disturbing me so I have to say it to have peace of mind.
In any country, State, Firm, Organization, Institution etc. Distribution or allocation of resources is the main issue/problem. And this is one of the main thing that causes crisis in the Society or the above mentioned. Look at what is happening here. Because of this distribution issue, the lower class (the poor) is always (24/7) having problems with the upper class and the middle class (the rich).  I believe the highest rank in the forum is the Legendary rank. Therefore, since you are legendary member you are not going to any other rank again. So you are to encourage the up coming ones to rank up. Then another question again, if a legendary member is not a merit sources where will he get merits to give to the newbies so with that they have to merit themselves to merit the newbies.

Distribution of resources in any community is a problem

[Ppearl]

It's as surprising as it is informative to read this message about #Merit.

Looks like for one to advance to another level of membership, he /she needs to have some merits. And merit comes from quality posts. After reading many replies that follows this topic, I am bothered by one thing which I want to ask now. If I make a post, how do I know that what I am about to post is going to be considered as high quality or who does the quality check?

If there is actually a criteria for measuring quality of posts before posting them, I will like some of my senior colleagues on the platform to kindly assist me with even one of the criteria. I will really appreciate.

[AsongJosh]

The #Merit topic is very interesting. When I was brand-new member, I scalled through other members and discovered they were either Jnr or Snr members, while others were Members and Legendary, some Hero, I felt like I was really brandnew and intimidated by such two stars, three and four to five stars members. You know what? I comforted myself! I thought that when I start posting and as my days on the platform increases, I will be a Jnr member one day. Never knew my post has to be quality to attract merit and that merit too could influence my rank, or possibly not.

Till now, I am a Newbie with 22 posts and just 1 merit.

Please how do I know that I am making a quality post because I need to start posting high quality posts, get merits and leave Newbie zone.

[decodx]

Please how do I know that I am making a quality post because I need to start posting high quality posts, get merits and leave Newbie zone.

You can start by posting and joining discussions outside of the Bounties section. No one is reading those.

I find it fascinating that you have been a member of this forum for more than a year, but you claim that you dont understand how the rank system works? Do you find it hard to read or search the forum?
For God's sake, why don't you at least read the sticky threads at the top of this board?

Forum ranks/positions/badges (What do those shiny coins under my name mean?)

[Maestro75]

This thread reminds me that over time I learned the meaning of "cycling merits".

I am one of those who hardly gives merits to lower ranked members and I have sent and received many from higher ranked ones.

Mind you, when I was a lower ranked member I did receive many merits from higher ranked ones.

I simply believe that there are few newbies and lower ranked members that stand out but when there are they receive a lot of merits, look at the case of n0nce for example.

n0nce that you mentioned is exceptional. In school there are students like that who are also referred to as gifted students but that does not make others who are not gifted like them dull. It is only that everybody will never have the same capacity to understand and interpret things at the same speed. Also you said you received alot of merits from higher ranks when you were lower rank but that you hardly give to lower ranked now that your are higher. Should that not be what you have to look into and change by being more compassionate to lower ranked members?

[Coyster]

Please how do I know that I am making a quality post because I need to start posting high quality posts, get merits and leave Newbie zone.

The purpose of making high quality posts isn't solely to get merits, or for you to "leave newbie" like you said, Bitcointalk is a forum for Bitcoin discussion and other whatnots too, so we basically discuss the aforementioned here, so as you discuss with other users and contribute to discussions in places other than the bounty section, users will give you merits if or when they like your contribution. But your contribution shouldn't be because you want merits, it should be because you want to discuss about Bitcoin with others, thus you go in search for knowledge that is required and it becomes a win-win for you in learning, contributing to the forum, and receiving the appreciation for it in the form of merits.