Is there anything unusual in these screenshot?

[DVlog]

Can you see anything unusual in these two screenshot? From the past few month i am seeing some unusual activity in some of the local board. I do not want to mention their name but some members are ranking up with unusual pace and they are getting merits in their every post in local board when they can not get few merits from the global board. How they are doing exceptionally well only in local board? What do you think what is wrong with them?

[Jocuserious]

Of course this is wrong
I think these are all inside merit connections. Because if they have so much skill or ability to help new members then why don't they get merit from any other board.
Only from the local board why so much merit is taken?

[LoyceMobile]

Ranking up is not a crime. I can't say anything about this case without reading the posts, if they're not worth the Merit, you may have a point.
It's easy to find who you're talking about, just not from Mobile.

[DVlog]

Ranking up is not a crime. I can't say anything about this case without reading the posts, if they're not worth the Merit, you may have a point.
It's easy to find who you're talking about, just not from Mobile.

I have checked some of their merit distribution behavior. They were just sending their merits to a handful of members and it looks like most of their post is getting merit when those merit is circulating between a few of the members. I do not want to accuse anyone directly because I do not have expertise in identifying merit farming activity. I think what is happening there is wrong so brought this topic forward. It is not about only those two boards there are other local boards as well where this same thing is happening. A group of member is trying to abuse the system because of no moderation activity in some local board.

[Jocuserious]

Ranking up is not a crime. I can't say anything about this case without reading the posts, if they're not worth the Merit, you may have a point.
It's easy to find who you're talking about, just not from Mobile.

It is a crime to take arbitrary merit from the local board only because btt does not mean that new members should be guided only from the local board.

Take a look at the top sectors like Bitcoin discussion, altcoins discussion where there are hundred percent good topics but no one has given merit.


Point: beginner and help
Here all new members are guided and taught well in all subjects.

[Little Mouse]

I do not want to mention their name but some members are ranking up with unusual pace and they are getting merits in their every post in local board when they can not get few merits from the global board.

I don't want to make a comment without observing closely. It requires lots of time. Anyway, the above quoted statement is wrong although it's possible that in this case, it may be true. There are a lot of users who don't post outside of the local board due to the language barrier. Or maybe they post a few times only. That's why they don't get merit in the global board. I'm not trying to say that's the case here, neither I'm saying that's not the case here. We can't tell without having a further look. Do they post on the local board only? If they post in the global section, how many times do they?
Anyway, if it's a big farm, feel free to share with logic and proofs.

[Rikafip]

I do not want to mention their name but some members are ranking up with unusual pace and they are getting merits in their every post in local board when they can not get few merits from the global board. How they are doing exceptionally well only in local board?

Its nothing that we haven't seen before, that members of local boards sometimes tend to have a lower standards or are more generous when it comes to merit. Another thing is that its easier to express yourself in your own native language, so members of some boards that are not so fluent in English struggle to earn merit in general part of the forum, compared to their own local board. Then again, I also woulnd't exclude the possibility of good old merit abuse but that's something that is much harder to prove.

Thing about merit is that last time theymos adjusted it there was more than 50% more posts being written and about the similar amount of active members. Less posts and active members means there's abundance of merit (speaking generally, there are still some part of the forum that are undermerited) so merits are being shared left and right to everything that is not a shitpost.

[DVlog]

I do not want to mention their name but some members are ranking up with unusual pace and they are getting merits in their every post in local board when they can not get few merits from the global board.

I don't want to make a comment without observing closely. It requires lots of time. Anyway, the above quoted statement is wrong although it's possible that in this case, it may be true. There are a lot of users who don't post outside of the local board due to the language barrier. Or maybe they post a few times only. That's why they don't get merit in the global board. I'm not trying to say that's the case here, neither I'm saying that's not the case here. We can't tell without having a further look. Do they post on the local board only? If they post in the global section, how many times do they?
Anyway, if it's a big farm, feel free to share with logic and proofs.

I haven't accused anyone about merit farming. I just raised concern about this unusual behavior. I do not have the expertise to do this kind of investigation. I saw abnormal behavior in some of the local boards and wanted to know what was happening there. This topic wasn't any investigative post indeed it was a general post to know about the possible explanation.

[Rikafip]

I saw abnormal behavior in some of the local boards and wanted to know what was happening there. This topic wasn't any investigative post indeed it was a general post to know about the possible explanation.

Well, if you want to get better answers, you should share the name of the accounts from that screenshot because without looking more deeply into situation its hard to say what exactly is going on and you can only do that by actually checking those accounts.

By the way, you don't have to adjust both width and height of the image you are sharing as one of those is enough while the other adjusts automatically. That way image won't be distorted when you mess up the ratio, like in the case of that screenshot you shared.

[BitMaxz]

I haven't accused anyone about merit farming. I just raised concern about this unusual behavior. I do not have the expertise to do this kind of investigation. I saw abnormal behavior in some of the local boards and wanted to know what was happening there. This topic wasn't any investigative post indeed it was a general post to know about the possible explanation.

Why not mention their name? So that they can review how this user earns merits.

Anyway, I found the first one and 2nd one is pretty hard to find because my keyboard is limited, and can't able to type in a different language.

Based on my own view of the first user, some of his posts are meritable and some of them are not. I don't know if I'm right; I just use a translator to understand the content, but I see that his posts are worth giving merit.
I think the one who can investigate further more about his posts history are those who use the same language.

Edit:
Since they are looking for the username I think you talk about this one JunaidAzizi.

[m2017]

Ranking up is not a crime. I can't say anything about this case without reading the posts, if they're not worth the Merit, you may have a point.
It's easy to find who you're talking about, just not from Mobile.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with ranking and all forum users go through this if they don't remain passive. The author is trying to draw attention to the fact that some users are promoted very strongly and quickly, rewarded with merit. This looks suspicious. Sometimes this also comes across my field of vision and I feel bewilderment and misunderstanding when a user receives stacks of merit from one source over and over again. Well, probably the whole point is that he saw legendary huge potential in the newcomer, which pushes him to quickly rise in the ranks. You are right in the statement that it is impossible to objectively assess the situation using screenshots alone. If OP had provided links to these accounts, then it would have been possible to check the posts and then draw the appropriate conclusions.

[DVlog]

I saw abnormal behavior in some of the local boards and wanted to know what was happening there. This topic wasn't any investigative post indeed it was a general post to know about the possible explanation.

Well, if you want to get better answers, you should share the name of the accounts from that screenshot because without looking more deeply into situation its hard to say what exactly is going on and you can only do that by actually checking those accounts.

By the way, you don't have to adjust both width and height of the image you are sharing as one of those is enough while the other adjusts automatically. That way image won't be distorted when you mess up the ratio, like in the case of that screenshot you shared.

Thanks for the suggestion about the image size adjustment. I will keep that in mind next time.

I haven't accused anyone about merit farming. I just raised concern about this unusual behavior. I do not have the expertise to do this kind of investigation. I saw abnormal behavior in some of the local boards and wanted to know what was happening there. This topic wasn't any investigative post indeed it was a general post to know about the possible explanation.

Why not mention their name? So that they can review how this user earns merits.

Anyway, I found the first one and 2nd one is pretty hard to find because my keyboard is limited, and can't able to type in a different language.

Based on my own view of the first user, some of his posts are meritable and some of them are not. I don't know if I'm right; I just use a translator to understand the content, but I see that his posts are worth giving merit.
I think the one who can investigate further more about his posts history are those who use the same language.

As you have said you are not familiar with that language so Google Translate will not be able to give you a proper translation I think. Also as you have said some of their posts are meritable when some of them are not and i found this true after checking some of them. I think someone from that local community can investigate that matter more clearly.

[Stalker22]

The first member is JunaidAzizi. He recently applied for "[Merit] Help newbies and those who have a little left to the next rank" and "[Merit] Help posts in local boards that did not receive enough merits", so most of his recent merits likely come from those threads. I cannot really judge the quality of his posts since I don't understand the language, but I don't think he is a bad contributor, and he probably deserve to move up the ranks.

As for the other member in the screenshot, I have no clue about who he is.

[Findingnemo]

2nd one is pretty hard to find because my keyboard is limited,

As for the other member in the screenshot, I have no clue about who he is.

The other person is 2Pizza410000BTC. It took a few pages of browsing and matching the merit history from the screenshot shared by OP.
It is probably due to the low number of active members in both local boards so the one who has merits is trying to encourage them to keep the upcoming members active and it's usually the case when the active members are fewer.

Every local board has different source merit allocations from merit sources and every source has different meriting habits so you cann't get the same kind of treatment from your local board.

I can't able to read those posts to determine the quality of posts but it's true that the members received most of the merits from local boards while they equally posted the number of posts in global sections.

[_BlackStar]

I think the OP seems to be questioning possible abuse of the merit system at one of the local board - but I don't think the OP has much guts to reveal who he suspects other than trying to throw mud at the reputation board.

The OP should know what to do when you really wants to questioning another user's reputation or activity on the reputation board - so you shouldn't play hide and seek over someone's reputation if you yourself aren't brave enough to reveal who the person is. I think the potential for abuse of the merit system can occur on various local board - even on global boards. But to accuse someone without wanting to reveal evidence would not be good. OK you probably don't want to ruin someone's reputation because of your suspicions - so what's the point of this thread?

Many users are encouraged to grow in their respective local board because they master the language well. Of course this can help them get the quality of posts they expect - but the limited circulation of merit to some users is not entirely considered abuse, but could also be because they have good interactions with each other.

[The Cryptovator]

Regarding merits, the forum is strict about selling merit through merit sources. Otherwise, the forum or theymos isn't too strict about merits. I'm pretty sure the screenshots you posted have an unusual merit history. Since it's a local board, we can't decide whether they deserve it or not. However, someone may think the posts deserve merit, and they might send them. If you find something suspicious, like selling or exchanging merits, then provide evidence. We may take a look at that. Otherwise, it's not a big crime. It does increase merit circulation.

[JeromeTash]

Hard to tell if the behavior is suspicious or not, especially for the second user, since some posts are in his native language. A few posts in English that he made and were merited didn't seem bad, like this one https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5132720.msg62761915#msg62761915

Perhaps another reason for the recent merits he got could have been due to this post he made. Let me quote the translated version

Assalamu Alaikum my humble request to the respected members of bangla community I am not able to get full member membership for only 8 merits. Please if you help me with the said merit then I can get full member membership.

Go to my profile and review my post if you like it, then you can give merit to that post.

Thank you all

[Asiska02]

The forum does not have a big case about merit distribution, keeping of Smerits when there are a lot of quality posts to merit is not even ideal to the forum. One of the simplest board to distribute merit to quality posts should be the local board, since understanding of your dialects is easier than in the general board. This will also enhance merit circulation is such local boards. If there’s no a case of selling merits, then distribution of merits to quality posts in the local board is fine.

Perhaps another reason for the recent merits he got could have been due to this post he made. Let me quote the translated version

Assalamu Alaikum my humble request to the respected members of bangla community I am not able to get full member membership for only 8 merits. Please if you help me with the said merit then I can get full member membership.

Go to my profile and review my post if you like it, then you can give merit to that post.

Thank you all

This is also enough evidence to show that the user was merited by those members after a review of his post history by their local board members .

[Sim_card]

OP, I can sense what you mean but no one will be able to question anyone on who they send their merits to. That is a local board that will be hard for anyone to know if the posts are worth the merits. Another thing you should know is that those two local boards have enough merit source that his encouraging them to post in their local board. Until there are good evidence that they are merits farmers that is when the forum can look into this issue. Another thing is that maybe those members whom you screen shot their profile might be poor in English but can contribute in their local boards with ease. Nobody can tell if it is a bunch of merit farmers or not, only with good prove.

[Timelord2067]

You should also look at their Default Trust of each other and and trust feed-backs they may have left.  Digging deeper, the tried and true methodology of the user creation date and even if they post one after the other (usually in sequence) are key indicators of insider meriting.  It happens at the top, so it's not surprising it happens at the bottom also.