[POLL] Should there be a 🍀 BTC AIRDROP 🍀 to Bitcointalk Merit Sources

[ajanwalker]

The title speaks for itself, one of the most thankless, time consuming and controversial jobs, for better or worse, Merit system has been in place for almost 5 years now, with absolutely no reward / compensation for the Merit Sources who have done overall an ok job to maintain some semblance of meritocracy in this legendary forum.

What do you guys think ? I believe when used constructively and virtuously, merit is a fantastic tool to encourage higher quality and intellect in crypto space, and a direct reward by the admin (@theymos) towards well performing sources would be a great incentive and accolade for them to do an even better job.

[1713587895]

1713587895

[decodx]

The title speaks for itself, one of the most thankless, time consuming and controversial jobs, for better or worse, Merit system has been in place for almost 5 years now, with absolutely no reward / compensation for the Merit Sources who have done overall an ok job to maintain some semblance of meritocracy in this legendary forum.

What do you guys think ? I believe when used constructively and virtuously, merit is a fantastic tool to encourage higher quality and intellect in crypto space, and a direct reward by the admin (@theymos) towards well performing sources would be a great incentive and accolade for them to do an even better job.

And what about the individuals who fight against spam? Don't you think that is also one of the most thankless, time consuming and frustrating jobs out there? I think it is. And it's not just the job itself that's tough, but also the posts you have to deal with on a regular basis. Those people also deserve our respect and appreciation because they work hard to keep the forum clean and safe.

[imamusma]

AFAIK, forums only pay moderators for their moderation work but forums don't pay anything for merit source. I'm also not sure if your idea is a good one to consider considering that merit source is basically a free job that can actually be turned down when you get an offer.

Edit:
So far, merit source is getting good returns from the community which has made their reputation on this forum very good and the community is proud of. It might be good to suggest this idea to icopress in particular to add new category of best merit sources on the year to the Bitcointalk Community awards thread.

[LTU_btc]

I don't think that Merit stuff should be monetized. When people become Merit sources, I doubt that they had expectations to get rewarded for their job. Don't understand me wrong, giving BTC rewards for merit sources isn't something fundamnetally wrong, but I just don't think that this stuff should be about money.
As @decodx, efforts of people who fight with spam isn't smaller, why not to reward them? Or someone who expose scams? Yeah, I know that scams isn't moderated, but merit system isn't moderated too.

[Sandra_hakeem]

Uhmmm.... NO!
point 1I'm not against merit sourceship , neither I'm I against meritocracy itself but, that'll incure an expenses -- to a magnitude that the forum managements would have to squeeze out to get funds, just to get 'em paid -- these will definitely happen after the forum's run bankrupt already. It'll make the admins loose-up to some risk -- risk that'll involve cash at the end, that was evaded, prolly in past due to some unforseen mishaps or sometimes, decipherable disruption, Sorta like real bugs, controlled by human just to make with the site (something I guess, had happened earlier on), IT MIGHT TEMPT 'em admins -- since they'll need to pay up a hundred merit sources -- to adhere on some nefarious deals(might be unknown to em, as it usually is, until whenever) that'll finally get us all FUCKED.

point 2: you just wanna make the sourceship a nice piece of cake; so you'd have alot of peeps scrambling and vying, day and night, bringing up testimonies and making references to what they did, just to keep getting many peeps on the affirmative. It's not even a paid position but, alot of peeps are flunting the meta board to get recognized, how much more when it is?? Huh?? We Gon find this board unreadable. I dunno why you don't reason out the intricacies of taking certain actions before planning 'em.

It'll be nice if they're awarded, annually? That'll make much requal-sense.
Sandra 💇

[examplens]

hmm, new discovery. Merit source as a way of earning.
if there was prize money, I can only imagine the drama there would be over the merit sources. probably a large number of users would submit a request to be a merit source, and just how many complaints would there be about the bad use of free/paid merits?

if we were to go in that direction, maybe it would be possible to introduce the possibility of sending tips for each received merit as thanks. What could go wrong?

[Bitcoin_Arena]

Being a merit source is more like a voluntary task, and most of the members applied as merit sources as volunteers. It's not a job. Monetizing it or even a simple airdrop would mess things up around here and cause a lot of unnecessary drama. If you were around when the merit system was introduced, I suppose you know what happened.

[sheenshane]

Not only merit sources are thankless members, but there are also a lot of them who spend time and effort just for the bitterness of the forum.
Reporters, scams, and spam busters deserve it too but they worked voluntarily to maintain the forum clean and safe because isn't moderated forum, and good thing we have them.

If there's a prize I think you must include them all but IMO, if you contributed a lot here you will earn benefits via an established member on the forum which is joining a high-paid signature campaign that isn't tough for you.

So my answer is NO and if there is, I tend to agree with them, it will create drama for sure.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

And what about the individuals who fight against spam?

Whaddaboutwhaddaboutwhaddabout.....yeah, there are a number of things non-staff members do for the forum that either go unrewarded or unacknowledged, but this thread is specifically about merit sources.

And hell yeah I voted yes!  I'd love to be paid for being a merit source--but that would be a sweet bonus for something I gladly have been doing for free for a few years now.  For me it isn't necessary, and I suspect for most of the other sources that's true, but this question popped into my noodle as I was pondering OP's question: If merit sources were paid (even if it were a small pittance) for a certain performance threshold, would you expect them to bust their asses to distribute as many merits as it took to reach that threshold? 

My point is that it could act as an incentive to be an active merit source.  As it stands, sources can do whatever they like and Theymos doesn't say boo.  And granted, the position is voluntary so Theymos is not their boss....but if that position was made into a pseudo-staff one, standards could be set to keep everything running smoothly.  Who knows?

I probably just did more typing than thinking, and now I'm going to do some reading of the replies.  No one has ever brought this up before.

And while we're at it: Theymos, I need more FUCKING source sMerits.

[OgNasty]

I don’t think payment is necessary and I don’t think theymos would want to take the time to set up some sort of payout method. It would be cool though of course. The idea of this forum providing jobs to people even if they are small payments, is a pretty cool one. Maybe if people received tiny amounts of satoshis for things like posts and merits, that would be a reason to use the lightning network.

[Solosanz]

Maybe if people received tiny amounts of satoshis for things like posts and merits, that would be a reason to use the lightning network.

I hope this wouldn't happen in this forum, many people will spamming in this forum in order to increase their posts count and create merit fishing thread in Meta or Beginner & Help to get many merit from merit sources. There's many legendary members get negative feedback because they're scammer or cheating bounties, I don't think it's good if they can get a payment when they're a scammer or cheater.

[hugeblack]

I would be glad if I get a one time payment or as a thank you but we can't count it as a job and therefore not as a payment.

I remember the 10th anniversary of bitcointalk there were prizes ----> 10th anniversary art contest so an occasion like this would be good (every 5 or 10 years)

[Don Pedro Dinero]

The title speaks for itself, one of the most thankless, time consuming and controversial jobs, for better or worse, Merit system has been in place for almost 5 years now, with absolutely no reward / compensation for the Merit Sources who have done overall an ok job to maintain some semblance of meritocracy in this legendary forum.

What do you guys think ? I believe when used constructively and virtuously, merit is a fantastic tool to encourage higher quality and intellect in crypto space, and a direct reward by the admin (@theymos) towards well performing sources would be a great incentive and accolade for them to do an even better job.

I find this idea of proposing actions to be financed with other people's money very amusing.

If you think it's so important, why don't you give money to merit sources out of your own pocket? Or if you don't have enough bitcoin you can organise a collection for your cause.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's good that certain very active merit sources like The Pharmacist are somehow rewarded, what I'm not clear about is your proposal.

[Rikafip]

and most of the members applied as merit sources as volunteers.

Not really as majority of merit sources were appointed by theymos without even applying. They could of course refuse that role and ask to have merit source status removed if they weren't up to that task.
I voted no as I don't think that it would be a smart thing to monetize merit source status as it would just create more drama.

As it stands, sources can do whatever they like and Theymos doesn't say boo.  And granted, the position is voluntary so Theymos is not their boss....but if that position was made into a pseudo-staff one, standards could be set to keep everything running smoothly.  Who knows?

Afaik theymos removed  merit source status from inactive members (and also increased/decreased their merit allocation according to their performance) in the past so its not like you can do whatever you want. It doesn't happen often though, like every two years or so, when he notices that amount of shared merit drops considerably, like he did last year.


 

[NeuroticFish]

and most of the members applied as merit sources as volunteers.

Not really as majority of merit sources were appointed by theymos without even applying. They could of course refuse that role and ask to have merit source status removed if they weren't up to that task.

One can refuse the merit source status or one can simply not spend his sMerit. Easy.

What do you guys think ?

I guess that it could be a nice addition, or better said a nice surprise, but it should not be something permanent / mandatory, like a rule, because that would only bring unnecessary drama.
Merit sources do get - sooner or later - recognized in a way or another. Even the fact they've became merit sources means they are very active, hence recognized.
Those who care about the money do participate in well paying signature campaigns.

So, again, it should never become a rule or something that looks mandatory. But I am sure that a tip like surprise would bring some smiles here and there.
However, let's try not to break something that already works well, OK, please?

[ABCbits]

It's not best time to make this suggestion considering theymos recently suspend ad sales[1]. The idea isn't bad, but getting paid without following certain guideline or minimum standard may have unwanted outcome. For example, send more sMerit than usual or lower the criteria to increase sending quantity. Besides, checking performance of 100+ merit sources need some effort, either by doing it manually or creating algorithm which could be exploited.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5407725.msg60976136#msg60976136

[Pmalek]

As a merit source, I voted no. My life hasn't become harder after I became one. I distribute merits in the threads and sections where I am currently reading and posting. I do the reading part already because I need to know what to say if I a going to make a post. The only difference now is that I have to click a few additional buttons and spend 10-20 seconds to send a few merits to the posts I believe deserve them.

It can't really be considered "work" that deserves monetary reward. On the other hand, it would be different if theymos one day decided to reward the top 100/1000/whatever, forum members with some BTC for their contributions to the forum.

that'll incure an expenses -- to a magnitude that the forum managements would have to squeeze out to get funds, just to get 'em paid -- these will definitely happen after the forum's run bankrupt already.

The forum sits on 750 BTC or so. There is very little chance for Bitcointalk to go bankrupt.

The first thing that came to mind when I saw the proposal of getting paid for being a merit source is the song Toss a coin to your Witcher, oh valley of plenty...

[NotATether]

I don't need a BTC airdrop to send out my merits, thank you.

Besides, ever since ad space stopped being auctioned, the forum has been running at a loss. Admin is not going to throw more money out of the window when there's no reason to financially incentivize merit sources.

[Lucius]

What do you guys think ?

It is unfortunate to see that some people completely misunderstand how the forum works and that they think that every function on the forum should be monetized in one way or another. It is true that some members applied to be merit sources, but there are those who were selected without asking for it - but all of them have no obligation to award even one merit they receive, it is all a matter of their good will. Their real reward is that they help all members below the Legendary rank to progress towards that rank, and if someone wants to donate anonymously to someone who is a merit source, they can do so at any time.

And what about the individuals who fight against spam? Don't you think that is also one of the most thankless, time consuming and frustrating jobs out there? I think it is. And it's not just the job itself that's tough, but also the posts you have to deal with on a regular basis. Those people also deserve our respect and appreciation because they work hard to keep the forum clean and safe.

All of them are obviously a different category and apparently quite underestimated because, as some prominent members of the forum say, they "waste their time" instead of using the ignore button. I do not think that they should be financially motivated for what they do, because that would only result in massive reports and abuse of unprecedented proportions. If the administration thinks that once a year it can simply say thank you to those members, most would understand that as additional motivation.

[LoyceV]

Merit system has been in place for almost 5 years now, with absolutely no reward / compensation for the Merit Sources who have done overall an ok job to maintain some semblance of meritocracy in this legendary forum.

I guess you weren't around before the Merit system. I see a better forum with less spam, which is a great reward!

a direct reward by the admin (@theymos) towards well performing sources would be a great incentive and accolade for them to do an even better job.

As the #2 most generous merit sender, and as a Bitcoin HODLer, I say: yes! But as a forum user, I think this would give a very bad incentive to Merit sources, so NO! And don't even get me started on the drama it will create.