Attaining legendary rank - is that the end?

[Hyphen(-)]

I've been noticing this particular aspect in this forum since I joined in February of this year. Many legendary members do not receive more merits than lower rank members, in my opinion. This led me to believe that they had attained the highest rank and didn't require merit to move up. They can contribute whenever they want or not, and even provide detailed answers to questions that deserve to be answered. They only comment when they feel it is necessary and add to their post count, which is especially important for signature campaigns.

What I’m curious about is that only a few legendary guys are always active in the forum and providing lasting solutions to questions posed in the forum. Others that are active only post to complete their signature posts. Does that imply that after getting to legendary rank, making posts or comments to be merited is not necessary again? Kudos to those legendary guys that are always active and provide solutions to questions even when they’re not on any campaign. They’re amongst the real heroes here.

Many people used to come here to shitpost before the merit system was implemented. Merits were airdropped for users back then; is this why they don't understand the value of being a legendary because they didn't earn it through their knowledge contributions to the forum, but rather by simply posting whatever they wanted?

I recall a thread from this forum when a newbie asked a question about this: “Is there any specific Boards for newbies to Make Posts/Comments?
This particular reply baffled me and was prompt to ask this question on this topic today.

You should not be scared by any ranks. Some have earned their ranks for knowledge, some only by simply being very old here (but not necessarily knowledgeable). Even newbies can ask or tell smart things, even legendary members can ask or tell stupid things and make mistakes.

Can we conclude that not all legendaries are knowledgeable in the forum? I myself was scared to answer or quote legendaries when I initially joined the forum.

This post is not to disregard any legendary rank member in this forum. I only came up with this topic out of curiosity

[1714152599]

1714152599

[1714152599]

1714152599

[Charles-Tim]

Definitely there are some users that received the merit airdrop, some are bounty hunters and they never had more merits again. Such people are poor posters.

Some received the airdrop, sell their accounts (and probably they have many). Who supposed to be a newbie bought it. I regard those and some other bounty hunters as newbie legendaries because of their newbie kind of posting.

Can we conclude that not all legendaries are knowledgeable in the forum? I myself was scared to answer or quote legendaries when I initially joined the forum.

Yes. But those that started as newbies and were able to rank up and the the ones that were able to receive more and more merits after the merit airdrops are good posters if they continue to receive merits as long as they are actively posting on this forum and having quality contribution.

[imamusma]

Many legendary members do not receive more merits than lower rank members, in my opinion.

How would you come to such a conclusion if you didn't have the data?

I have data that I can show you about how many merit a Legendary rank receives each month and how many Legendary receive it. Look at this image, and check on the DdmrDdmr tool. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ddmrddmr/viz/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/MeritSendersReceivers



As of September, there have been 322 Legendary who have received merit with a total of 6.814. Isn't that a pretty high number?
There are an average of 420 Legendary during this year who have earned merits every month (excluding September), but if you want to know the full data, please visit the merit dashboard.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This led me to believe that they had attained the highest rank and didn't require merit to move up. They can contribute whenever they want or not, and even provide detailed answers to questions that deserve to be answered.

OP, are you familiar with the history of the merit system, i.e., when it was implemented, what the forum was like beforehand, and why Theymos created it?  It doesn't sound like it, but you'll probably get all the answers you need from the replies here and I suggest you read them all. 

My answer to the above is that there were tons of Legendary members prior to the merit system (before Jan. 2018), and they didn't have to earn merits to get there.  Any member who was below that rank on the day Theymos came down from the mountain and bestowed upon the shitposters, account farmers, and all the assorted reprobates his tablets of merit requirement, they immediately had to earn merits in order to get there.  If you were a Hero member the day before and were right about to rank up, you then had to earn 500 merits to get to Legendary. 

Obviously it was, and still is, much worse for newcomers to the forum.  But to your second statement above, anyone can contribute whatever they want, whenever they want.  That's not exclusive to Legendary members.  Nobody needs to rank up.  That's a requirement people put on themselves, usually because they want to maximize their campaign/bounty earnings.

What I’m curious about is that only a few legendary guys are always active in the forum and providing lasting solutions to questions posed in the forum. Others that are active only post to complete their signature posts. Does that imply that after getting to legendary rank, making posts or comments to be merited is not necessary again?

Not sure what sections you frequent most, but there are plenty of Legendaries posting all the time.  Sure, many of them who've been members for years are less active, but that's to be expected.  People lose interest or have less time to participate in discussion forums all the time.  And once more, it isn't necessary for anyone to post, earn merits, or anything else on bitcointalk.  Members you see posting very rapidly or very prolifically are usually shitposters trying to hit their campaign's post quota for the week.  Again, those are usually the members with the least to say.

[_BlackStar]

Many legendary members do not receive more merits than lower rank members, in my opinion.

About this, I think Imamusma has answered you.

This led me to believe that they had attained the highest rank and didn't require merit to move up. They can contribute whenever they want or not, and even provide detailed answers to questions that deserve to be answered. They only comment when they feel it is necessary and add to their post count, which is especially important for signature campaigns.

Regarding ranks and merit, only members below Legendary would still need merit to rank up where the required requirement was up to 1000. For the rest, you'll probably know that every merit they get is an award they receive for contribution and the quality of their useful posts. But I think you already understand that.

What I’m curious about is that only a few legendary guys are always active in the forum and providing lasting solutions to questions posed in the forum. Others that are active only post to complete their signature posts. Does that imply that after getting to legendary rank, making posts or comments to be merited is not necessary again?

Some Legendary might care about the amount of merit they get, it's some kind of race or just fun. But honestly, I don't think they will post for merit even though some of them want to get it ^{[non-merit source]} to distribute to other users. However, they also need to maintain the quality of their posts even if they've rank up to Legendary. I've reported a lot of bad quality Legendary posts, that means even Legendary should still care about post quality.

Can we conclude that not all legendaries are knowledgeable in the forum? I myself was scared to answer or quote legendaries when I initially joined the forum.

Yes, you will probably find plenty of evidence if you want to browse the forum more often.

[Coyster]

I for one do not see a reason to be particularly curious on how member's of a certain rank act or behave on the forum, that is too much of a chore imo. I'd rather say each user should contribue their own quota towards ensuring the forum is a decent enough place to communicate in, and thus if you find a shit post (from any rank/user) you report them, and you also make sure you aren't a shit poster yourself= great forum experience.

[examplens]

Can we conclude that not all legendaries are knowledgeable in the forum? I myself was scared to answer or quote legendaries when I initially joined the forum.

Legendary it's not the rank of knowledge, but the ranking on the forum. anyone can be a legendary member even without spectacular knowledge or knowledge from another domain. does it have to be crypto?
It is also possible to be Legendary from scratch with less Bitcoin knowledge, even with the current merit system (without airdropped merits). Such users exist.

if you perform in a good manner, there is no reason to be afraid of talking to Legendary members.

[tomos81]

Ranks below Legendary members must post higher standards for merit. Because the better posts they can earn a merit as a gift. So that he is a little more interested in posting later, we should support younger users and bring them up. Because there are many legends among them who we need to know through the post. We must select the one whose post is the best, a legend person.

[Sandra_hakeem]

Yeah, the legendary rank is the last formal rank. The rest are being appointed sequentially or based on the forum's criterion.

No,Not all legendary members are knowledgeable. I know a handful of them that can't even express themselves or proof a point on a thread. They'll sometimes-- just to increase post-count-- make an unleveled point or some unnecessary propaganda which, in turn becomes a nuisance.

I was afraid too just like you said but , I knew I had to keep it together so I went ahead till I realised most newbies are gonna make good LEGENDS someday.
I don't wanna say anything about the merit system cus almost everyone is doing that and I feel you understand enough.

Sandra👩‍🦱

[Ahli38]

What you're saying is undeniable and that's what we see a lot of but regarding Merits then I think that a good Legendary rank that is not a Merit Sourch will still NEED Merits. So making quality posts is still a must if you want to get Merits.

why do they (Legend) need Merit?
because they must have a limit of sMerit that can be distributed. While they also definitely want to help beginners or motivate beginners to make quality posts. sometimes sending Merit makes the beginner more motivated to make his writing better.

the contributions of the legends are indispensable. Even I saw many useful threads written by Legendaries.
and feel free to give them Merit. because They also need Merit to be sent back to the members under them they want to encourage so they can be more excited in this forum.

I also don't deny that there are some Legendary members who only make posts to fulfill their obligations in the signature Campaign they participate in. but that's their right. and I hope that if one day we become Legendary, then we should continue to be useful to the people in this forum.

Don't care about Rank, if the member makes a post that is useful and deserves Merit then just give it, no matter what the Rank.

because even Legendary Ranks (who are not Merit Sourch) need Merit so that they can contribute to meriting the Members with Ranks below them as well.

Even a Merit Sourch deserves a Merit if they make a post that is useful and deserves an award. because that's one of the Merit Functions in my mind.

but it's up to everyone to make a post useful or not and it doesn't matter what rank it is.

[mk4]

Does that imply that after getting to legendary rank, making posts or comments to be merited is not necessary again?

You shouldn't post solely for the merits in the first place. Merits should just be the cherry on top due to the quality of your posts, not necessarily the goal.

Also, while I really don't need merits per se, I'd like to maintain my fairly decent Activity:Merit ratio.

[Ultegra134]

This led me to believe that they had attained the highest rank and didn't require merit to move up. They can contribute whenever they want or not, and even provide detailed answers to questions that deserve to be answered.

OP, are you familiar with the history of the merit system, i.e., when it was implemented, what the forum was like beforehand, and why Theymos created it?  It doesn't sound like it, but you'll probably get all the answers you need from the replies here and I suggest you read them all. 

My answer to the above is that there were tons of Legendary members prior to the merit system (before Jan. 2018), and they didn't have to earn merits to get there.  Any member who was below that rank on the day Theymos came down from the mountain and bestowed upon the shitposters, account farmers, and all the assorted reprobates his tablets of merit requirement, they immediately had to earn merits in order to get there.  If you were a Hero member the day before and were right about to rank up, you then had to earn 500 merits to get to Legendary. 

Obviously it was, and still is, much worse for newcomers to the forum.  But to your second statement above, anyone can contribute whatever they want, whenever they want.  That's not exclusive to Legendary members.  Nobody needs to rank up.  That's a requirement people put on themselves, usually because they want to maximize their campaign/bounty earnings.

What I’m curious about is that only a few legendary guys are always active in the forum and providing lasting solutions to questions posed in the forum. Others that are active only post to complete their signature posts. Does that imply that after getting to legendary rank, making posts or comments to be merited is not necessary again?

Not sure what sections you frequent most, but there are plenty of Legendaries posting all the time.  Sure, many of them who've been members for years are less active, but that's to be expected.  People lose interest or have less time to participate in discussion forums all the time.  And once more, it isn't necessary for anyone to post, earn merits, or anything else on bitcointalk.  Members you see posting very rapidly or very prolifically are usually shitposters trying to hit their campaign's post quota for the week.  Again, those are usually the members with the least to say.

As others have already suggested, OP's statement isn't true. I've noticed that legendary members still acquire a ton of merit, despite not practically needing it in order to rank up, but because they're worthy members of this community. I think there's even a thread here showing how merit has been distributed.

Although it may suck for newcomers, I didn't find it too hard to rank up. I was here before the introduction of the merit system and had managed to rank up to Sr Member. In approximately 2017 or 2018, the merit system was introduced. I a little after Bitcoin's crash, which took away all my interest in Bitcoin. I quit shortly after, not because of the merit system, but because I completely lost my faith in Bitcoin. Signature campaigns were much more popular back then and finding one wouldn't be that much of a hassle, but most of them were paying in terms of BTC and not USD. Thus, the rewards were minimal due to Bitcoin's value. At least in the campaigns I participated in.

I returned in early 2021, during the Covid-19 quarantine and after Bitcoin had skyrocketed once again. I didn't have any merit except the 250 I was distributed due to being a Sr Member. Within approximately 1.5 years, I earned more than 250 merits without acknowledging too much of Bitcoin's technicalities in order to further assist the community. I didn't have too much available time between university and a full-time job, but I managed to rank up by trying to make worthwhile discussions and posts and being patient enough.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I've been noticing this particular aspect in this forum since I joined in February of this year. Many legendary members do not receive more merits than lower rank members, in my opinion.

There was one interesting topic, here on the meta.

Here Is One Reason Why Legendary Members Get So Many Merits

She completely refutes what you said. I think you will change your mind about legendary accounts getting less merit. Also, take note that beginners who are just trying to get on their feet don't always pretend to be who they are. A lot of "manuals" created by beginners are subsequently challenged by more senior ranks. What does it say? Don't try to be cooler than you are. I see that legends get merits easily; they are natural. In addition, it is possible that they do not go in cycles for merits; the latter comes to them easily. 
If you just live on the forum and slowly increase your rank, it will come to you as quickly as possible. 
"Any action gives rise to a reaction." Just let go of your observation of who and how many merits are received.

[Yawa2020]

Many legendary members do not receive more merits than lower rank members, in my opinion.

I beg to differ on this your opinion. From my little observation since I joined the forum, I noticed that more merits circulate between legendary rank members than the rest of the ranks. Was even thinking of coming up with a topic "why do legendaries circulate merits within themselves" but after coming across some thread, especially just like the one from reply above me, I don't see it necessary again.

[Hyphen(-)]

How would you come to such a conclusion if you didn't have the data?

I didn't come to a conclusion yet, I just come up with this out of curiosity. Thanks for providing this useful data, my curiosity is now answered.

Obviously it was, and still is, much worse for newcomers to the forum.  But to your second statement above, anyone can contribute whatever they want, whenever they want.  That's not exclusive to Legendary members.  Nobody needs to rank up.  That's a requirement people put on themselves, usually because they want to maximize their campaign/bounty earnings.

If you just live on the forum and slowly increase your rank, it will come to you as quickly as possible.
"Any action gives rise to a reaction." Just let go of your observation of who and how many merits are received.

You shouldn't post solely for the merits in the first place. Merits should just be the cherry on top due to the quality of your posts, not necessarily the goal.

Also, while I really don't need merits per se, I'd like to maintain my fairly decent Activity:Merit ratio.

It is also possible to be Legendary from scratch with less Bitcoin knowledge, even with the current merit system (without airdropped merits). Such users exist.

if you perform in a good manner, there is no reason to be afraid of talking to Legendary members.

I for one do not see a reason to be particularly curious on how member's of a certain rank act or behave on the forum, that is too much of a chore imo. I'd rather say each user should contribue their own quota towards ensuring the forum is a decent enough place to communicate in, and thus if you find a shit post (from any rank/user) you report them, and you also make sure you aren't a shit poster yourself= great forum experience.

Regarding ranks and merit, only members below Legendary would still need merit to rank up where the required requirement was up to 1000. For the rest, you'll probably know that every merit they get is an award they receive for contribution and the quality of their useful posts. But I think you already understand that.

Definitely there are some users that received the merit airdrop, some are bounty hunters and they never had more merits again. Such people are poor posters.

Some received the airdrop, sell their accounts (and probably they have many). Who supposed to be a newbie bought it. I regard those and some other bounty hunters as newbie legendaries because of their newbie kind of posting.

The replies i have gotten so far have changed my initial thoughts. It is true that some people post to maximize their earnings. i was only expecting more from high-ranked members which shouldn't be so, everyone is good in different aspects of the forum and can contribute to the forum irrespective of rank or merits earned.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Many people used to come here to shitpost before the merit system was implemented. Merits were airdropped for users back then; is this why they don't understand the value of being a legendary because they didn't earn it through their knowledge contributions to the forum, but rather by simply posting whatever they wanted?

What's the value of being Legendary exactly? It only shows you've probably made an effort to reach a particular rank. To acknowledge the contribution of a user, you just look up their earned merits. If most are airdropped, make your own conclusion.

Can we conclude that not all legendaries are knowledgeable in the forum?

Absolutely. Ranks don't grant knowledge. Earned merits (hopefully) do, and it depends on which sub-boards they're earned.

[DdmrDdmr]

Just a minor addition from the Merit perspective:

If we go to the Rankings Tab on the Merit Dashboard (where I’ve added the current Rank), we can see on the right hand side those that have received most Merits:
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ddmrddmr/viz/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/Rankings

If we then delimit the timeframe to say 2022, the top 100 Merit Receivers correspond to the following Rank distribution:

Code:

rank	       nUsers
Legendary	81
Hero Member	10
Sr. Member	 7
Full Member	 1
Member	          1

If we go for the top 200 Merit Receivers we get:

Code:

rank	       nUsers
Legendary	134
Hero Member	29
Sr. Member	29
Full Member	 5
Member	         3

And if we go for the top 500 Merit Receivers we get:

Code:

rank	       nUsers
Legendary	230
Hero Member	120
Sr. Member	 77
Full Member	 53
Member	          15
Newbie	           5

Note: Rank represents the current Rank, not the Rank at the time of receiving Merits.

In light of the above, it would seem that a fair share Legendary accounts have the least difficulty in earning largish amounts of merits individually. This denotes, to the least, that those aggregated in the above stats are active and manage to make some decent content.

[Pmalek]

In terms of ranking up, Legendary is currently the maximum you can be here. When you achieve that rank, one of two things can happen:

1. You become content with it and the quality of your contributions decreases because you know there is nothing higher/better.
2. You don't let the rank affect what you do on the forum and you continue with your quality contributions.

Since you mentioned signature campaigns, campaign managers will check the post quality of applicants. Low quality posting won't land you a place in a good campaign no matter your rank. Your chance of being accepted is greater if you are of a lower rank with many merits than a legendary with just a couple of them. Not that long ago, ChipMixer accepted a member who couldn't even wear the signature because his rank didn't allow it yet. He still got accepted despite dozens of Legendary members applying for a spot. 

Merits and rank are not always a sign of superior knowledge. And if Legendary accounts didn't continue receiving merits, you wouldn't see people with 2k, 3k 5k, or 10k merits to their names.   

[aysg76]

I believe legendary rank members are receiving more merits on the forum due to their quality posts they made on the forum and which is why they have attained to the highest rank on the forum.Those who have registered before the merit system implementation were airdrop certain merits according to their rank at that time and still there are legendary who are stuck at 1000 airdrop merits because they didn't contribute anything useful to the forum so they don't get anything in return.

But if you see the above charts then you would find lot of merits distribution on the forum and legendary rank is always the first one to get more merits as they have more knowledge and it's required for merit distribution.

There have been some discussion to add some more rank or distinguish between legendary who have attained more merits but still there is only legendary rank to the top on the forum at this time.The system has helped to reduce spam to some extent as they cannot rank up to high rank if they don't post quality stuff.

[Pmalek]

There have been some discussion to add some more rank or distinguish between legendary who have attained more merits but still there is only legendary rank to the top on the forum at this time.

I understand why theymos is being quiet about addressing these questions. It's never going to stop. If theymos were to add one more rank for let's say +5.000 merits, someone would come along and say what about those who have 10.000 merits? Can't they be in their own club? And what about when someone reaches 50 or 100k merits, can we do something special for them now?