*Ended* Post history review offer

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Thank you for the feedback, though was actually waiting for your permission before sending it especially someone like me do not like a random pm from unauthorized user and I know how sucking it could be to us. Mostly someone like you for a review from various users sometimes its gets someone weird especially when you are not in a happy moment that was why I didn't send any till upon your approval which I just did now.

You're a Sr. Member and have been here a couple of years, right?  Well I get PMs from all sorts of members, from Jr. up to Hero, and most of the time when they initially message me I have no idea who they are.  But I extended this offer to the entire community (except for Legendary members), so I anticipated tons of PMs.  It doesn't matter what kind of mood I'm in, believe me, because you're probably going to have to wait a bit until I can get to you anyway.  My queue is long and my laziness isn't helping matters.

I don't know why certain members feel intimidated like this.  I'm nothing special on bitcointalk, just a merit source and a guy who just happened to have stuck around this joint for a few years.  What is it you think I could possibly do to you if you send me a message, especially one that I've essentially solicited by virtue of making the offer that's the subject of this thread?  I'm not going to give you negative trust or even bite your head off if your posts don't meet my standards. 

You don't need anybody's permission to send them a PM.  If you're using PMs to promote something or whatever, those might get reported but you don't need to feel timid just because someone has a higher rank than you or has been here longer.  Ideally we should be helping each other, and that's kind of tough when there appears to be a hierarchy, power structure, or the like that inhibits communication.

TL;DR: Feel free to PM me, any of you.

[SmartGold01]

You don't need anybody's permission to send them a PM.  If you're using PMs to promote something or whatever, those might get reported but you don't need to feel timid just because someone has a higher rank than you or has been here longer.  Ideally we should be helping each other, and that's kind of tough when there appears to be a hierarchy, power structure, or the like that inhibits communication.

TL;DR: Feel free to PM me, any of you.

You just explained everything actually most times it's scary to me while sending out pm in request to get my profile reviewed though this led me to create my personal topic on the reputation board seeking for the higher member to justify my profile or give a rating on my overall performance for the few months I have decided to change my posting style and also becoming more useful to our local board. So kindly I got few people whom I respected mostly got rated and they commended on my overall performance and since then I have been striving and I didn't even know when I succeeded going this far in rank but I can term it to the effects of change I have just accepted. Actually I never had a very solid skin over here whereby to whatever they said always got me pierced in my body which I have been trying to learn to grow a very thick skin to be able to withstand any pressure or the amount criticism that may arose from whomever.

One thing I later understood is that sometimes we can always judge by ourselves that Mrs. A could be very hard to approach and get accessed to but until we come encountered with them we can never tell how soft they are except coming in contact with them, so actually I was scared to Pm'ed you but your feedback gives me this joy and happiness that you are not what I thought about and same to others. Although sometimes when I am replying some comments i do include Sir, but few people did never wanted it and they always wanted anyone coming across their way to address them with their names. Well did not see this as any problem otherwise I wouldn't have address my pm with your names below but, I learnt that from reputable user who also suggested that few reputable user especially the high profile don't find it funny while addressing them with their names so I apologise if that gets you upset as well.

Btw there's this mentality I do have that most of the higher profile do not want the lower rank to grow but along the line the more I keeps exploring here the more I unveiled more things that shows I was wrong with my instincts and state of mind that is why we don't need to allowed our emotions or instincts controls us (especially people like me) who always allowed emotions to be controlled. Sincerely speaking I feels honored and grateful to interact with you irrespective of my newbie nature, of course I wouldn't say I knew it all because I am here open and always ready to learn my rank won't play any bad role in me rather to be positioned to learn and upgrade my wisdom bank.

Thank you sir ❤️

[PytagoraZ]

Don't worry, my skin is thick enough now, I still remember you giving me that advice when I made a post about complaints against other members. I'm also starting to get to know your writing style, which is often sarcastic and cynical  . If I'm honest, at first I hated JG for making a tag on my account, but maybe I should thank him because since arguing with him I've been challenged to read more forum rules (because I don't want to lose to him) even though in the end I can't do much . But the neutral tag doesn't seem bad  

Good, glad to hear your skin has thickened and hopefully you don't take things so personally that you either start to think this forum sucks or, even worse, decide to abandon it altogether.  Yes, I am as cynical as one can be and often sarcastic--but humor and sarcasm don't often translate well when written, and I try to keep that in mind.

I like this forum, one thing I don't like so far is that not many members really like discussing and like to leave discussions before the discussion is finished. Even though I'm not good at English, I know you often use metaphors in your writing and it's certainly an advanced writing aesthetic (Ah... even though I usually don't like to praise someone)

And hey, JollyGood even wrote in his feedback that once he figures out who you are and what you're trying to do (if anything), he'll review that neutral.  Coulda been a hell of a lot worse.  You could have gotten a big ol' DT1 negative and then had that member die or just disappear forever from the forum.  You'd be stuck with that black eye forever.  Positive thinking, my man.

Hahahaha... It seems like a lot of members are hoping I made a mistake or found proof that I'm an alt, but so far no one has found it because I'm just me and nothing else

However, it seems like the negative tag only applies to regular members, I saw several popular members have negative tags including JG, but it looks like it's okay and they can still take part in the campaign. Trust systems are truly confusing

In fact, as far as I know, if we get a negative tag, we can still discuss it here. However, because not many members really like discussing, they will leave, because they only discuss for money

[Majestic-milf]

 (Ah... even though I usually don't like to praise someone)

It's no biggie. You just admire @Chymist's style of writing and I kinda enjoy reading it too. So playful and on point at the same time. He's one of the few users I've been opportuned to come across who doesn't take things too seriously but that doesn't mean you should take liberties though.
@pytagoraZ, I'm glad you've settled within yourself that this is a public space where opinions differ and some have no filter when dishing it out because that will help you go far here.
 It's not everyone that has the ability to take criticism both good and bad and work on where needs to be worked on, some will prefer to snap, thereby missing out on the essence of the criticism (good, in this case).

[AprilioMP]

You don't need anybody's permission to send them a PM.  If you're using PMs to promote something or whatever, those might get reported but you don't need to feel timid just because someone has a higher rank than you or has been here longer.  Ideally we should be helping each other, and that's kind of tough when there appears to be a hierarchy, power structure, or the like that inhibits communication.

TL;DR: Feel free to PM me, any of you.

Fear that has turned into courage. This happened after getting an extraordinary input for me to look into myself closer so that my confidence increased because he asked to review my post. During this time I do it very often routinely on the local board and find many positive things.

I had thought carefully about various advice that I would never find the location of the shortcomings if I did not have the courage to ask people to do it because I only had two eyes and it turned out to be true for positive things.

So, I have thrown away that fear and ventured to things that can bring my self-change. It turned out that the wisdom was quite large because all the input was valuable even though initially scared asking people to visit the profile and ask to review a post like fear of my mother when he was scolded and ignored because the level of confidence was not ready.

Just like I responded to this, courage was 70%, the rest was fear and over time I would continue to try to decrease.

[Zoomic]

You don't need anybody's permission to send them a PM.  If you're using PMs to promote something or whatever, those might get reported but you don't need to feel timid just because someone has a higher rank than you or has been here longer.  Ideally we should be helping each other, and that's kind of tough when there appears to be a hierarchy, power structure, or the like that inhibits communication.

TL;DR: Feel free to PM me, any of you.

Nice to read this from you. Honestly bitcointalk is so dynamic and sometimes unpredictable, especially when there are so many unofficial police in a forum where no police get punished even when they make wrong decisions or accusations. I most times have seen this type of thread intending to help people (new users), but I skip them because some come with conditions while some look like traps.
If only here could be seen by everyone as a community where people come to learn about bitcoin and also get necessary help, it would be fine.

Is most likely that some see here as a place to display superiority by oppressing the new generation members. Also I have seen new members attacking old members with great audacity. I have seen old members leave negative tags for slight mistakes and then the same tag givers also help others to grow by giving merits.
Tbh, here is so dynamic and I can say that it is unique also. Thanks for the offer and I think I will try my luck.

[Queentoshi]

so I anticipated tons of PMs.  It doesn't matter what kind of mood I'm in, believe me, because you're probably going to have to wait a bit until I can get to you anyway.  My queue is long and my laziness isn't helping matters.

Thank you for saying this, because I now understand exactly how your DM is and why maybe I never got a reply.

I don't know why certain members feel intimidated like this.  I'm nothing special on bitcointalk, just a merit source and a guy who just happened to have stuck around this joint for a few years.  What is it you think I could possibly do to you if you send me a message, especially one that I've essentially solicited by virtue of making the offer that's the subject of this thread?  I'm not going to give you negative trust or even bite your head off if your posts don't meet my standards.  

I cannot say I was not intimidated, my reason for not sending a follow up message because I felt like I did something wrong.

You don't need anybody's permission to send them a PM.  If you're using PMs to promote something or whatever, those might get reported but you don't need to feel timid just because someone has a higher rank than you or has been here longer.

You are a humble person, thank you for making lower rank members like me feel more comfortable with you.

EDITS:

I tried to resend my request for review, but the error message was that "my personal messages have been blocked"


I would like to publicly apologize if I did anything wrong before to warrant this. @ The Sceptical Chymist

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I tried to resend my request for review, but the error message was that "my personal messages have been blocked"


I would like to publicly apologize if I did anything wrong before to warrant this. @ The Sceptical Chymist

I was going to bump this thread anyway, but I guess I never replied to Queentoshi.  If I look at a member's post history and it's obvious that there's very little chance of that member improving their posts (more often than not because of a massive language barrier), I put their PMs on ignore so as not to have my time wasted.  I also do the same when I've given members a chance to improve their posts to meet my criteria for merit and they've failed.

So anyway, I've noticed that as soon as I do a few reviews I always get at least 2-3 requests within hours of doing them.  Can anybody think of an innocent explanation for that?  It's obvious to me that people are either looking at my merit-giving activity or saw that I just gave one of their alt accounts some merits (and I have no way of knowing).  It's making my paranoia itch.

Also, I'm starting to get back to reviews after a long slump for which I apologize.  A lot of real life stuff is happening, and I haven't been a great merit source as of late. 

[Lucius]

~snip~
So anyway, I've noticed that as soon as I do a few reviews I always get at least 2-3 requests within hours of doing them.  Can anybody think of an innocent explanation for that?  It's obvious to me that people are either looking at my merit-giving activity or saw that I just gave one of their alt accounts some merits (and I have no way of knowing).  It's making my paranoia itch.

It could be one of the two things you mentioned, and the third possibility that comes to my mind is that the users to whom you give merits may communicate with each other and thus find out that you have become active again. I don't think you can be sure what it is about, because the "community" we are talking about here does not have very high moral principles when it comes to using alt accounts, plagiarizing or using AI.

I already wrote it, but I still think that the best way to reward a post with merit is the natural one, which means that you read the forum and then reward the post that you think is "good" according to your criteria. For me, it makes more sense to use your monthly supply in a way to reward 10-20 posts you come across by using the forum normally, than to wonder if someone is taking advantage of your kindness - and I'm sure some are doing just that.

[KingsDen]

So anyway, I've noticed that as soon as I do a few reviews I always get at least 2-3 requests within hours of doing them.  Can anybody think of an innocent explanation for that?  It's obvious to me that people are either looking at my merit-giving activity or saw that I just gave one of their alt accounts some merits (and I have no way of knowing).  It's making my paranoia itch.

Someone offering post review and issuing merits is regarded as a forum philanthropist. You are ofcourse a celebrity. Also the forum is open, by visiting your profile, I would know how much merits you have given out today. So, such a thing shouldn't bother you because this is an open forum, everyone who visits your profile frequently will definitely know when you start releasing merits. Don't be surprised that there are people who on loggin into the forum, they will first visit your profile to know your merit activities.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I already wrote it, but I still think that the best way to reward a post with merit is the natural one, which means that you read the forum and then reward the post that you think is "good" according to your criteria. For me, it makes more sense to use your monthly supply in a way to reward 10-20 posts you come across by using the forum normally, than to wonder if someone is taking advantage of your kindness - and I'm sure some are doing just that.

I know, and I took your words to heart, believe me.  The problem is that there's no way I'm going to be able to unload anywhere near my monthly allocation of sMerits just by meriting posts I come across--plus I think my offer is a good way to help out members who need merits and otherwise might have their posts overlooked.  That could be because they're complete crap, but it could also be due to the sections those posts are in.  In any case, I don't just hand out 50 merits/month to anyone who asks.  It's not even close to that kind of situation, and yes I do realize that there are most likely alt accounts requesting reviews from me.  Note that I did not make a rule about that, but it is irritating to contemplate.  On the other hand, as long as the posts meet my standards for merit, I don't think I'm encouraging shitposting (at least I hope not; said standards have increased, and I've sent out tons of PMs to members telling them to either improve their posts or simply that they don't qualify for a review).

You are ofcourse a celebrity.

I am no such thing.  If you could see me behind the keyboard you would assume I regularly sleep on a park bench and forage for food in dumpsters.

Also the forum is open, by visiting your profile, I would know how much merits you have given out today. So, such a thing shouldn't bother you because this is an open forum, everyone who visits your profile frequently will definitely know when you start releasing merits.

Why in the world would anyone keep checking my profile?  Is that a thing for some people?

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

So anyway, I've noticed that as soon as I do a few reviews I always get at least 2-3 requests within hours of doing them.  Can anybody think of an innocent explanation for that?  It's obvious to me that people are either looking at my merit-giving activity or saw that I just gave one of their alt accounts some merits (and I have no way of knowing).  It's making my paranoia itch.

Then i think its time for you to revisit the rules for applications and make it clear for anyone not to use alts in applying and if i may bring a suggestion to you, you can demand that each application can be made once in three month and no alts account should apply or risk being tagged, what you're doing is out of love and passion you have for the members of the forum to receive a fair worthy merit to their quality posts, but flooding request once they see that you're giving more will attract them to abuse the privilege, but restricting alts from applying and making each applicant to only have a privilege of quarterly application will give you enough time to make it up to every deserving applicants, even though am also not able to send you a PM long time ago, but i count it nothing than to keep the quality post and without applying, one day you may find my post worthy of receiving merits from you, keep up the good works.

[Lucius]

I know, and I took your words to heart, believe me.  The problem is that there's no way I'm going to be able to unload anywhere near my monthly allocation of sMerits just by meriting posts I come across--plus I think my offer is a good way to help out members who need merits and otherwise might have their posts overlooked.
~snip~

As far as I can see, you are active on the forum, and if you see a really good post, why not reward it with 5 or 10 (maybe even more merits) and that way you can share a lot more than you do through private reviews. There are also people who will never ask anyone to review their posts, and all of them somehow remain out of your reach - and I know there are a lot of good posters who don't get nearly the merits they deserve.

There is no doubt that your intention is good, but you yourself have doubts about the sincerity of those who send you PMs.

Why in the world would anyone keep checking my profile?  Is that a thing for some people?

Every merits source is in some way a person of interest, especially those like you who offer private reviews - because unlike those who do it publicly, it is much easier to hide bad intentions (alt accounts) when no one but you can see it.

I'm not at all surprised that people do everything to get merits, because for a good part of the members, this forum is, as they say, "a place for work", and nothing more than that.

[SatoPrincess]

So anyway, I've noticed that as soon as I do a few reviews I always get at least 2-3 requests within hours of doing them.  Can anybody think of an innocent explanation for that?  It's obvious to me that people are either looking at my merit-giving activity or saw that I just gave one of their alt accounts some merits (and I have no way of knowing).  It's making my paranoia itch.

I don’t think people are keeping on your profile. Well you can never tell but my theory is these accounts are following a pattern. It’s possible they figured you do post reviews at the end/beginning of the month, so they know the right time to pitch in their request. If you’re being taken advantage of by alts, it won’t be long before you find a resemblance in their posting pattern.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

There is no doubt that your intention is good, but you yourself have doubts about the sincerity of those who send you PMs.

Any person who has no doubts about what he's doing is either stupid or a sociopath (take that statement with a grain of salt).  Of course I've got doubts about people taking advantage of my offer.  I always have, and I had them right from the get-go.  But since I eliminated gambling posts from my review offer I think I might have prevented myself getting taken advantage of just a little bit.  And again, what nobody else sees aside from me and the PM recipients is that I reject a lot of requests based on post quality, and I put a lot of members' PMs on ignore so that I don't get fooled into doing reviews for them again.

Also, I do also give merits to posts I happen to come across, so it's not as though that doesn't happen at all.  It just accounts for much less of my sMerit stash.  I do thank you for the input.

Then i think its time for you to revisit the rules for applications and make it clear for anyone not to use alts in applying and if i may bring a suggestion to you, you can demand that each application can be made once in three month and no alts account should apply or risk being tagged

I'm not sure about the 3 month thing, but I might consider the suggestion about alts and tagging.  But I think I've tagged at least one member for taking advantage of my offer before, so it's not like that's unprecedented.  Anyway, I'm going to sleep on it and appreciate the suggestion.

[Vod]

The problem is that there's no way I'm going to be able to unload anywhere near my monthly allocation of sMerits just by meriting posts I come across

The merit system doesn't seem to be able to automatically throttle; when I left as a merit source I had over 1,000 smerit.  Theymos said to give more merit to an individual post rather than merit posts not worthy.

Merit has now become a commodity; I am going to be reviewing negative trust on profiles in the past regarding this.

[Sandra_hakeem]

I am no such thing.  If you could see me behind the keyboard you would assume I regularly sleep on a park bench and forage for food in dumpsters.

Naaaa...Damn it!!! That's not true old boyyyy!! Remember I looked through your profile and somehow, I described you ... Only that i learnt you don't have a protruding tummy, but that doesn't make you look like anything close to your description..

The merit system doesn't seem to be able to automatically throttle; when I left as a merit source I had over 1,000 smerit.  Theymos said to give more merit to an individual post rather than merit posts not worthy.

I see alot of sense in that as well... I've read through several post that didn't get merited but has a shitty reply as though it was a constructive criticism merited.. That alone made the discussion a chaos of unnecessary point proving and argument.

Merit has now become a commodity; I am going to be reviewing negative trust on profiles in the past regarding this.

I got messaged by a user several months ago from bitcoingirl's thread, begging me to merit their post for some returns....I'm afraid the worst is yet to happen,Vod.

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

[JollyGood]

As has been unravelled in this excellent thread PytagoraZ & komisariatku are alts, there are far too many nefarious characters around the forum that have one goal which is to obtain a higher rank to join signature campaigns.

Those accounts cannot rank up without a sizeable amount of merits therefore they try a wide array of activities to try to achieve their goal. You mentioned that thread you were asked by PytagoraZ to review his posts, thankfully it seems his alt-account and cheating competitions was made public before you responded but that episode demonstrates why it is difficult to review posts and give merits.

I am curious, will you raise the The Sceptical Chymist review assessment bar in order to give out merits to posts that meet a certain higher threshold because of what happened with those alt-accounts being linked?

[Sexylizzy2813]

So anyway, I've noticed that as soon as I do a few reviews I always get at least 2-3 requests within hours of doing them.  Can anybody think of an innocent explanation for that?  It's obvious to me that people are either looking at my merit-giving activity or saw that I just gave one of their alt accounts some merits (and I have no way of knowing).  It's making my paranoia itch.

I don't think that's the case, like going through your merit giving activity, you're like a teacher in this Forum that always push members to get on their feet whenever they're slowly dropping their efforts to give the Forum quality post. And you're well known to give out merit by reviewing posts that deserves it not like you wake up one morning and start giving merit to post that's not close to receiving any merit, you know how to do your thing and I believe you're more popular than the other merit source.
And again, you can't tell in any way that you're giving alt account merit, you're not from the spirit world to know who's who, you do what you have to do without minding if you're giving alts some merit, believe me that if you start thinking that way, this journey of post review will come to an end, you'll stop doing the merit review because you feel you're giving alt account merit.

Also, I'm starting to get back to reviews after a long slump for which I apologize.  A lot of real life stuff is happening, and I haven't been a great merit source as of late. 

Long or short slump it doesn't matter, you also need a time out to cool down a bit before coming back to start up from where you left it. Everyone have some other things to do outside the Forum that's why we get to see some account being inactive for long, so I'd say take your time in handling your stuff before coming back (which you have, I suppose) stronger.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

To the community:

After giving this a lot of thought, I've decided to end my offer to do post history reviews for people on request.  The whole thing started off great, but as of late I get the strong feeling that I've been basically helping a bunch of mediocre posters (and most likely their alt accounts) rank up, which was never my intention.  I've also been refusing more and more requests because posts don't meet my standards for merits, and it's just turned into a big time waster that I don't want to deal with any more.

I'm going to take a look at the requests that are still in my PM box, and if any of those members have written decent posts they'll get merits.  Aside from that, I am done.

I'll leave this thread open for a little bit and then I'm going to lock it.