Does the forum need more merit sources?

[Poker Player]

The question whether or not we need more Merit sources basically comes down to: "Do we think users rank up fast enough?",

I think so.

or better: "Are there users left out from ranking up even though they shouldn't be?".

If there are, they will be few and because they post too much on boards where they are not usually given as much merit as the gambling board.

But come on, people who make a decent contribution to the forum and do not rank up seem to me that there will be few. Even more if we take into account that there are specific threads like yours:

Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source

And that merit sources, in that kind of threads, when someone is missing for example 30 merits to rank up, if they see that he is a decent poster they give them to him right away.

[LoyceV]

This is true from one perspective and can be wholy acceptable if the only reason for merit is for rank up. For instance you are the most merited in the forum and yet you receive more merits, that is because every post you drop is quality. It therefore means that at the abundance of merit sources, merits would tend to flow to a certain group of people (the quality posters).

I don't need more Merit from more Merit sources, but I'm pretty sure it will happen if there are more. So my assumption is the "ratio" of Merit distribution to users stays the same, that's why I looked at the end of users who still need to rank up.

But isn't that the main purpose of merit, to stop shitposters from ever reaching higher ranks? So if decent and above members have no issues of ranking up, there is enough merit going around.

Exactly. Unfortunately, I don't have data on this (and it's kinda subjective).

And that merit sources, in that kind of threads, when someone is missing for example 30 merits to rank up, if they see that he is a decent poster they give them to him right away.

I was thinking of (hypothetical) users who need say 400 more Merit to rank up.

[Daniel91]

I would say YES especially when I look at the distribution merit local board. Need to add some merit source in local board or maybe some other board especially if local board or other board is quite active with lots of posts every month. Even if theymos doesn't want to add merit source, then I expect existing merit source to get more allocations every month.

Merit shared per local board during July 2022

-snip-

I don't know exactly what the situation is with other local boards, but on the Croatian local board we had a situation for a long time where we had a lot of quality posts but few merit sources.
In the meantime, the situation has changed and we have got new merit sources, but the number of active members has decreased.
I believe that theymos knows the merit statistics very well and will add new merit sources at the right time.
I think it is especially important that each local board on this forum has enough merit sources, due to language restrictions.

[dragonvslinux]

The forum could always do with more reliable merit sources for better distribution of merit, even if it means each merit source get's slightly less each month because there are more sources.

All the best for your application, hopefully you'll get approved soon enough  

The question whether or not we need more Merit sources basically comes down to: "Do we think users rank up fast enough?"

Personally I think this is a complete oversimplification and only considers the 1 variable of X merit sources and not X amount of merit that is distributed.

If users were ranking up too quickly, I'd still be in favour or more merit sources for broader distribution of merit, just with less merit being distributed...

[Poker Player]

And that merit sources, in that kind of threads, when someone is missing for example 30 merits to rank up, if they see that he is a decent poster they give them to him right away.

I was thinking of (hypothetical) users who need say 400 more Merit to rank up.

That hypothetical scenario looks almost as an oxymoron to me.

Someone who needs 400 merits to rank up would already have the Hero level, so he would have been noticed by the merit sources. The only exception to this would be if he had obtained his first 500 merits airdropped, which I don't know if anyonef got so many merits airdropped.

Short of 400, the only example I can think of of someone being a constructive poster and not getting enough merit is writing alone on a local board where there is no merit source.

But otherwise I don't think more merit sources are needed and I even think some of the current ones have too high an allocation of smerits, because they never give a merit alone. I have seen a minimum of 4 merits per post merited in many merit sources.

In the end if there are more merit sources, and if many give a minimum of 4 merits per post to finish their monthly merit allocation, what you end up with is merit inflation, which is precisely what Bitcoin avoids, inflation.

Giving merits has a component of subjectivity, but the minimum to be given should be one. The fact that there are several merit sources that never give a merit per post indicates inflation.

[indah rezqi]

I don't know exactly what the situation is with other local boards, but on the Croatian local board we had a situation for a long time where we had a lot of quality posts but few merit sources.

I also noticed, this happened on my local Indonesian board. Indonesian local board has several merit source (3 users or more) but the merit statistics are not much when compared to some other local board which have a number of active users that is not much different from the Indonesian local board. Some of the reasons I know of is the quality of posts that may not meet the standards expected by merit sources or other users, this affects the number of merits distributed there each month.

This situation seems to have been discussed often enough that @AakZaki and @skarais who are two of our local users submitted their applications so far. If there is an additional merit source on local boards, then I believe we can see a lot of users getting motivated to make quality posts especially for low ranking users.

Merit Source Aplication - AakZaki
skarais - Merit Source Aplication

[tranthidung]

There were cases like that year ago when theymos introduced merit sources, members becoming merit sources without even applying so I guess it is still possible.

It should be around that time but I did not have time to check it. I just remembered that is like a user who does not have too many earned merit, not impressive and I did not know about that user before Coin-1 wrote that it is likely a new merit source.

You can check post after this one to find a likely most recently added new merit source(s).

[Pmalek]

I think we need more merit sources to replace those who are inactive or those who are still active on the forum but have decided not to continue with their merit source tasks. But even more than that, we need an increase in new forum users who would be willing to start from scratch and slowly build their profiles and forum reputation. While we can solve the merit source problem, how do we solve a lack of interest in Bitcointalk? 

I don't know whether nowadays any user can get a single call (via DM) from theymos and become a merit source. It happened in early days (weeks) after the merit system kick-off. I guess this line is off already!

I never applied to become a merit source and yet here I am. I am pretty sure that several other people never applied for the role the last time theymos brought in some new sources.

[Jet Cash]

I feel a bit guilty, as I am a source, and IU haven't been very active recently. I had my 80th birthday in June, and now that I have hit middle age, I have been reassessing quite a few things in my life. I still believe that Bitcoin is the only virtual money/asset that has a hard value, but very few people seem to accept that. Maybe I should be more active, and promote that view here in Bitcoin Talk. I'd also like to see more discussions about the broader economic issues in the world.

I'm now committed to a nomadic lifestyle, and I want to start mining Bitcoin in a van with solar power. I haven't checked to see if this topic has been addressed here, but it must be one for the future.

Many apologies for my absence over the last few months.