Should Merit-Sources send merit based on their feelings or quality of the post?

[freedomgo]

Before anything, these are human beings you are dealing with & emotions are very much part of the biology!
So understanding the point raised means , if you choose a path that  will put you in bad books with merit sources and not get you these golden nuggets you have yourself to blame, and let's not forget this isn't an easy undertaking especially that this isn't a paid job for them to spend time going through threads looking for posts that qualify to be merited... otherwise naturally merit should be based on the quality of the most just like they do when making applications when trying to become merit sources.

Honestly, it’s hard to send merits to those posters you dislike in the forum. But I don’t think we should tolerate this kind of feeling towards other members in the forum since we are here not to compete nor take an edge over others but to work harmoniously with other members. Anger nor envy has no room in the forum.

Merits are actually given freely to those who are deserving high quality posters in the forum, and I think we should stick to this idea because merits should be earned, not to serve as an exchange for some favors.

[Sandra_hakeem]

Hey! I was thinking of something this night, this thing about merits and the merit-sources. If you are a merit-source, should you always give away merit to good posts even if you dislike the user that created the post?
Or are you allowed to be controlled by your feelings and only give away merit to people you like or don't know?

OP, I understand exactly what you tried to describe.. you see, I also noticed this way-back, and I brought it up - but that wasn't because I was slow in getting merited (atleast in my own timing) or because my post wasn't worth meriting -- at some point, I needed to stop writing congratulatory messages since it was seen as a way of "begging for merit".. That's the last think I'd do -- ( I didn't have any hate about whoever earns alot), it was because i thought they could be some "recognition policy" that actually barrier newbies or other middle-class posters to rank up easily... until I realized I was right, Jay convinced me otherwise... don't get me wrong! (he might not be practically doing the same thing, based off of the fact that he's an old, respectable member of this forum, but some peeps don't even care... Believe that if you want it but I'll tell you the truth.
I'll always pay so much respect to the few merit sources that have stooped low to see the need of realizing the potentials in every rookie

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

[AnonBitCoiner]

Honestly, it’s hard to send merits to those posters you dislike in the forum.

It's an irresistible thing for most people.  They can't keep personal grudges aside in such matters, besides, why would you want someone to be considered good when you generally don't like them or what they do?

Even if it doesn't have anything personal to do with the user who is to receive the Merits, if you don't like their posting habits, writing style, or anything in general, you wouldn't want to Merit a post that they do which is constructive.

However, if one can let go of their ego, that would be much better, for the forum. 

[Zoomic]

Honestly, it’s hard to send merits to those posters you dislike in the forum.

It's an irresistible thing for most people.  They can't keep personal grudges aside in such matters, besides, why would you want someone to be considered good when you generally don't like them or what they do?

Even if it doesn't have anything personal to do with the user who is to receive the Merits, if you don't like their posting habits, writing style, or anything in general, you wouldn't want to Merit a post that they do which is constructive.

However, if one can let go of their ego, that would be much better, for the forum. 

This is a very nice observation. If people begin to award merits base on personal sentiments and bias, then the purpose of awarding merits will be defeated. Many people have already blacklisted some members in their minds, no matter the quality of your post, they will never appreciate it. This is a very wrong approach, personal sentiments should be kept aside while appraising a person's work. Merits should be given to those who deserve it irrespective of personal differences with the poster.


I can still remember my first merit in the forum, I thought it was quite easy getting merits, after all  I just have to put few good sentences together and I'll be merited . It took me some time before I got my first merit. I chased merits for some time but didn't get it. My first merit came when I stopped thinking about how to get merits and started giving out good information instead. A good post from a dedicated poster will always get a well deserving merit at the right time.

[stadus]

Honestly, it’s hard to send merits to those posters you dislike in the forum.

It's an irresistible thing for most people.   They can't keep personal grudges aside in such matters, besides, why would you want someone to be considered good when you generally don't like them or what they do?

Even if it doesn't have anything personal to do with the user who is to receive the Merits, if you don't like their posting habits, writing style, or anything in general, you wouldn't want to Merit a post that they do which is constructive.

However, if one can let go of their ego, that would be much better, for the forum.  

Meriting a post should not be based on ego or personal emotions, but you merit a post because the poster deserves it. By being deserved means you are appreciating his post because it’s based on fact, and you give him merit because it’s actually on point on the given topic. There are great posters in the forum, but there are actually exceptional posters that exceed our expectations from them. Those are the ones that should be given higher appreciation so that they will continue to inspire and motivate others to do the same thing.

[Learn Bitcoin]

Even if it doesn't have anything personal to do with the user who is to receive the Merits, if you don't like their posting habits, writing style, or anything in general, you wouldn't want to Merit a post that they do which is constructive.

But that does not happen always. There are some people whom I don't like because of their weird behavior and I don't like some of them for their writing and habits. But, Sometimes I find their posts go with my ethics and I agree with them. I know some of my locals who did some abuse in the past (And probably still do), but sometimes I see valuable posts from them as well which I merit too.

If someone disagrees with my point of view yet posts something logical that makes sense, I send them merits too. For example, I do not support those ordinal things, but they are a supporter of these Ordinal things, If they post something that makes sense, I guess they deserve to be merited.

[Obari]

If a merit source do not like you, another merit source will like you unless you are not posting something useful.

I see no reason while a merit source will dislike anybody, this is a no man land. Everyone is on its own. I do not see what feelings will be doing in the forum. Bitcoin is decentralised so also to the forum if not for moderators and administrators who are supervising the forum activities. The last time I checked,  merit is only to be earned when you make a quality post(contribution) notwithstanding whosoever that made the post. Once a post is quality enough to be merited, it will be merited just like our Facebook, where there are numerous post and the one that catches your interest gains your like.
Merit and Facebook 'likes' are synonymous. When you come across a good post, you like it. It becomes a source of inspiration to the poster spurring him or her to do more.

+1 for you as I see that you’re actually making great improvements on your writing which is a great sign that consistency is one of the best way to learn on the forum and I like it when people learn from criticism rather than drawing negative energy.
There is absolutely no need for emotions while sending merits but the truth is that, there is actually favouritism as one might find favour in the sight of a merit source if there writings are good and pleases the merit source at all time.
This simply means that you have to be very consistent with your writings especially when your writings are good and qualities are top notch and in conclusion, merit will be earned with good post irrespective of who the sender is.

[Etranger]

Meriting a post should not be based on ego or personal emotions, but you merit a post because the poster deserves it.

Giving merits depends not only on the quality of the post. If this were so, then absolutely every useful and interesting post would receive merits. But many such posts go unnoticed, or those who would like to give merits for them do not currently have such an opportunity. That is why there are topics that are created by senior members of the forum, who themselves receive a lot of merits, in which they conduct additional review of posts that can ultimately receive merits.

And yes, emotions, subjective assessment, preferences and other 'biased', 'subjective' and not always rational things are present when giving merits. This is even evidenced by the fact that the same post can receive a different number of merits from different people. It would seem that these people all appreciated the post, but for some reason everyone did it in their own way.

[Casdinyard]

-----Emotions-----Opinions-----Fact------

Hey! I was thinking of something this night, this thing about merits and the merit-sources. If you are a merit-source, should you always give away merit to good posts even if you dislike the user that created the post?
Or are you allowed to be controlled by your feelings and only give away merit to people you like or don't know?

It's a different a user can give merit to whoever he wants, because it's his/hers own merit and they can do whatever they want with it. But a merit-source how should he act? Without feelings or with feelings?

I don't trying to blame anyone, or create any drama and I am not disappointed with my low merits, I am quite happy and proud that I already got ten merit and being a member rank, so I am in no rush what so ever to rank up, I actually love the farming and the journey, because when and if I reach Legendary nobody can say I didn't earn it the right way. I rather let it take years of honest farming then months of cheating.
But back to my question, what do you think aboiut merit-sources when they handle out merit? They  should give merit to all good posts right, even if a user they dislike made a very good post. Or is it okay to just skip to give that user merit even that he made a very good post?

Maybe this come as bit confusing, I am sorry my English is not 10/10. But I hope you will understand! Great weekend everyone.

UPDATE 18th November: I now been on the forum a bit longer then the time I created this topic and I truly believe being a Merit-Source is not as easy or fun as it may look like.
So I want to take the time to say Thank you to all Merit-Sources that seeing this with neutral eyes! 🙏

Generally speaking, how and why they send merits to people (as long as it doesn't spark suspicion) isn't anyone's business but the sender's. For one, they got their Smerits fair and square and whatever they'd like to do with it, they're the ones that should only be held responsible and accountable for. They want to hoard it and perhaps grant someone with a rainshower of merits by checking their good posts? By all means, they want to spend it as they come and grant people they want to give merits to regardless of how good they post or not? None of our business yet again. The only time it should concern us if there's something fishy going on which warrants the attention of the forum and the moderator. People hoarding merits and then sending them all at once on a single post without particular reason or whatsoever so they can cycle the Smerits, hackers getting into people's bitcointalk accounts and sending merits to a single account to hoard Smerits and possibly amp their reputation in the forum illegally and artificially, etc. are just among the very reasons as to why people should take notice of people sending merits. In my opinion, anything else that's not what's mentioned here should be let go.

It's theirs to keep and send to people, for merit sources the same can be said but they certainly have virtues that require them to send merits under a principle and not necessarily just cause they like the person. But in any case they could easily do that and I believe no one's gonna bat an eye really.

[BabyBandit]

-----Emotions-----Opinions-----Fact------

Hey! I was thinking of something this night, this thing about merits and the merit-sources. If you are a merit-source, should you always give away merit to good posts even if you dislike the user that created the post?
Or are you allowed to be controlled by your feelings and only give away merit to people you like or don't know?

It's a different a user can give merit to whoever he wants, because it's his/hers own merit and they can do whatever they want with it. But a merit-source how should he act? Without feelings or with feelings?

I don't trying to blame anyone, or create any drama and I am not disappointed with my low merits, I am quite happy and proud that I already got ten merit and being a member rank, so I am in no rush what so ever to rank up, I actually love the farming and the journey, because when and if I reach Legendary nobody can say I didn't earn it the right way. I rather let it take years of honest farming then months of cheating.
But back to my question, what do you think aboiut merit-sources when they handle out merit? They  should give merit to all good posts right, even if a user they dislike made a very good post. Or is it okay to just skip to give that user merit even that he made a very good post?

Maybe this come as bit confusing, I am sorry my English is not 10/10. But I hope you will understand! Great weekend everyone.

UPDATE 18th November: I now been on the forum a bit longer then the time I created this topic and I truly believe being a Merit-Source is not as easy or fun as it may look like.
So I want to take the time to say Thank you to all Merit-Sources that seeing this with neutral eyes! 🙏

Generally speaking, how and why they send merits to people (as long as it doesn't spark suspicion) isn't anyone's business but the sender's. For one, they got their Smerits fair and square and whatever they'd like to do with it, they're the ones that should only be held responsible and accountable for. They want to hoard it and perhaps grant someone with a rainshower of merits by checking their good posts? By all means, they want to spend it as they come and grant people they want to give merits to regardless of how good they post or not? None of our business yet again. The only time it should concern us if there's something fishy going on which warrants the attention of the forum and the moderator. People hoarding merits and then sending them all at once on a single post without particular reason or whatsoever so they can cycle the Smerits, hackers getting into people's bitcointalk accounts and sending merits to a single account to hoard Smerits and possibly amp their reputation in the forum illegally and artificially, etc. are just among the very reasons as to why people should take notice of people sending merits. In my opinion, anything else that's not what's mentioned here should be let go.

It's theirs to keep and send to people, for merit sources the same can be said but they certainly have virtues that require them to send merits under a principle and not necessarily just cause they like the person. But in any case they could easily do that and I believe no one's gonna bat an eye really.

"Should Merit-Sources send merit based on their feelings or quality of the post?" 

[nutildah]

"Should Merit-Sources send merit based on their feelings or quality of the post?"  

I'll chime in on this one. For me, the answer is both. Of course, the quality of a post should be at the center of whether or not it deserves a merit. Other factors include:

 - how close is the account to ranking up, and does the general quality of their posts suggest they are worthy of ranking up?
 - did they buy their account, are they likely to be multi-accounting or cheating campaigns/lenders/contests?
 - is there a possibility they are a scammer looking to build some kind of cred via obtaining merits to perform a scam of sorts?
 - do I get an immediate sense of dishonesty/disingenuity about them in any way?

So yeah, you could say a lot of these extra criteria are based on "feelings," or intuition, or both. Really I'm not that strict; I don't always go down this checklist before meriting a post. But there's few things on the forum that bother me more than watching a scammer or shitposting spammer rank up. It cheapens the meaning of the ranks for everyone else who is here to play by the rules and make a genuine contribution.

[liasbaa]

One truth is: the more you chase merits, the more the merits will escape you... let things happen, participate in the forum normally, always be here, the merits will come naturally.

I think your opinion is exectly! But we are always running behind the merit. We should be getting knowledge at first, after getting the proper knowledge the merit will run behind us.

[EarnOnVictor]

One truth is: the more you chase merits, the more the merits will escape you... let things happen, participate in the forum normally, always be here, the merits will come naturally.

I think your opinion is exectly! But we are always running behind the merit. We should be getting knowledge at first, after getting the proper knowledge the merit will run behind us.

I've read this story over and over again, but it is not particularly true. Many would chase after the merits but with quality posts and would get it, while others would not chase after it and have quality posts and would still not get it. Nonetheless, some with lesser quality posts would chase after the merits and get it even more, so what you said is though a general saying here. but it's not particularly true.

The merits distribution on this forum is so unexplainable, regardless, do your bit and leave the rest. Nonetheless, if you are writing quality posts, it will often attract merits no matter how little.

[Distinctin]

One truth is: the more you chase merits, the more the merits will escape you... let things happen, participate in the forum normally, always be here, the merits will come naturally.

I think your opinion is exectly! But we are always running behind the merit. We should be getting knowledge at first, after getting the proper knowledge the merit will run behind us.

I've read this story over and over again, but it is not particularly true. Many would chase after the merits but with quality posts and would get it, while others would not chase after it and have quality posts and would still not get it. Nonetheless, some with lesser quality posts would chase after the merits and get it even more, so what you said is though a general saying here. but it's not particularly true.

The merits distribution on this forum is so unexplainable, regardless, do your bit and leave the rest. Nonetheless, if you are writing quality posts, it will often attract merits no matter how little.

Exactly. Just do what you think is right, and if you think that certain post deserves a merit, then go. In the end, we all give merits based on our own analysis. Of course, some feelings are inevitable, so it could be that others give merits because there is positive feeling towards the owner of the post. But whatever it is, just mind your own. In the end, posts that are good and highly meaningful to other members deserve to be merited, although not all valuable posts are given the same opportunity.

[Casdinyard]

"Should Merit-Sources send merit based on their feelings or quality of the post?" 

Kinda general and drawn out when I started to capitalize on every merit sender instead of just merit sources, yeah I know but the thing is this topic's gonna boil down to that at the end of the day. Every merit source in this forum's got their own way of cycling the merits among the users, but the main gist of their job is that they only send merits to people they see fit, which oftentimes coincides with the quality of their posts among certain factors. The discussion literally ends there.

All I'm saying is that, it wasn't for us to say or tell them who to merit and how much. They could send it to people they like or personalities they deem as friends in here and it wouldn't really matter. Long as the merits are cycled and there's nothing fishy going on, they are good.

Am I wrong? Do we have specific guidelines stating that merit sources, and everyone who has merits to share are required to only send those merits to posts that they feel are good in quality and structure (I mean the intent is there, but where is it explicitly stated that they have to abide by these rules?)

[OgNasty]

Before anything, these are human beings you are dealing with & emotions are very much part of the biology!
So understanding the point raised means , if you choose a path that  will put you in bad books with merit sources and not get you these golden nuggets you have yourself to blame, and let's not forget this isn't an easy undertaking especially that this isn't a paid job for them to spend time going through threads looking for posts that qualify to be merited... otherwise naturally merit should be based on the quality of the most just like they do when making applications when trying to become merit sources.

Honestly, it’s hard to send merits to those posters you dislike in the forum. But I don’t think we should tolerate this kind of feeling towards other members in the forum since we are here not to compete nor take an edge over others but to work harmoniously with other members. Anger nor envy has no room in the forum.

Merits are actually given freely to those who are deserving high quality posters in the forum, and I think we should stick to this idea because merits should be earned, not to serve as an exchange for some favors.

It's especially hard to send some people merits when you've ignored them.  As a merit source, I try to give merit to those who deserve it and not just those who cycle it back and forth.  However, I have ignored quite a few people on these boards for various reasons.  Those people who have been ignored will never get a merit from me, not just because I don't like them, but because I literally can't even read their posts.  I guess there's a lesson in there somewhere...  Don't be a total dick or spread lies about people if you want them to read what you have to say. 

[vapourminer]

It's especially hard to send some people merits when you've ignored them.  As a merit source, I try to give merit to those who deserve it and not just those who cycle it back and forth.  However, I have ignored quite a few people on these boards for various reasons.  Those people who have been ignored will never get a merit from me, not just because I don't like them, but because I literally can't even read their posts.  I guess there's a lesson in there somewhere...  Don't be a total dick or spread lies about people if you want them to read what you have to say. 

i merit people on ignore. because you do see their quoted text in other posts. so on occasion i will see an ignored persons quoted post thats decent, go to the original post and unhide it and merit it.

people go on ignore for a variety of reasons and even assholes make the occasional good post.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Giving merits depends not only on the quality of the post. If this were so, then absolutely every useful and interesting post would receive merits. But many such posts go unnoticed, or those who would like to give merits for them do not currently have such an opportunity. That is why there are topics that are created by senior members of the forum, who themselves receive a lot of merits, in which they conduct additional review of posts that can ultimately receive merits.
<snip>

Yep, and there are many other reasons why some posts receive merits and some don't--but we could go back and forth with that all year and nothing would be resolved.

I already made a reply in this thread, but I just want to say that I do my best to keep emotions out of my merit-giving behavior and I like to think I do a decent job of that, since there aren't too many members here I really dislike (and the ones I don't like are all Legendary ones, and since I try to merit lower-ranking members, that's my excuse). 

But I mean, come on.  People can't be expected to always be impartial when evaluating a post and who it was written by, nor are merit sources even expected to give merits to every single post they find interesting.  There are plenty of merit sources and non-merit source members with sMerits to hand out who could give merits to posts that someone wouldn't because of political disagreements/dislike of the poster/whatever.

[Kingperry22]

One truth is: the more you chase merits, the more the merits will escape you... let things happen, participate in the forum normally, always be here, the merits will come naturally.

I think your opinion is exectly! But we are always running behind the merit. We should be getting knowledge at first, after getting the proper knowledge the merit will run behind us.

As a newbie, the merit things sound impossible to get. In defense of my reasoning of conviction is only the legendary Members that gives merits that is only if they found your post interesting. my question is it only a particular group of members that gives merit?

[Troytech]

I can say most of merit sources are objective, while most of non merit sources are subjective.

Example:
1. A merit source with 5K merits give someone merit, then this user will merit back the merit source in the next post or other post because he want to make the merit source notice to him or giving more merit.

It's not very right to assume that sending merit to a merit source is meant for them to notice you, yeah some can do it but not all, and have you noticed that old members on the forum with high rank up and merit up to 3k and above earn merit so frequently that even if you where to give them merit they won't notice you.

Some times it's out of appreciation than to get attention.

There are plenty of merit sources and non-merit source members with sMerits to hand out who could give merits to posts that someone wouldn't because of political disagreements/dislike of the poster/whatever.

IMO I think it's quite balanced, everyone was given the privilege to also merit post that they like and feel it deserves merit both merit sources and non-merit sources alike, and I think merit is distributed based on individual preference, I might like a post not because it was helpful to me but because it was well constructed and I gave it merit based on that.