Feeling more comfortable while integrating into the forum community

[blckhawk]

Regarding the first one, you don't have to worry too much about the grammar part too much, as long as you are doing you're getting your point across then you're doing just fine, maybe consider grammar if you're an active participant in a lot of discussion, it helps but it's not a voluntary thing for you to be grammatically perfect, being perfect might even get you scrutiny for using an AI because of your too good to be true posting structure although it's not a taboo to use a grammar tool like Grammarly. Number 3 and 4 is going to be difficult for newbies to do because let's admit it already, a lot of people that have recently joined this forum aren't just here to learn about bitcoin and anything related to that, they're here to try and make money because they've probably heard that someone has been in this forum making money through stuff or they have a friend that's been in this forum for a long time now and they want to get into too and try it but then find it difficult to do because of the merit system.

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[suzanne5223]

I do not think that anyone is sarcastic about the attempts of others to learn or even gain merits. We all learn daily things that we did not know, but some make fun of alt accounts that create specific topics to obtain merit, such as Help me it is my first topic, or My story with buying Bitcoin.

A lot of users are being sarcastic, especially in local boards, where you can feel it even more, because your language skills are higher to notice that. I am not saying that they have no right or reason to do so, but for newbies it could be too much pressure.

I agree with what you said about some newbies being sarcastic but we can't also blame the user that did that due to the level of abuse that was done by some newbies.
I know those who are innocent shouldn't pay for the mistakes of others but the point is that we all have different understandings and patient reactions to things happening around us but I think this forum should be more welcoming for newbies to question despite how it makes them look stupid sometimes.

[ImThour]

I agree, I reached Legendary just because of the contributions I made in my style. I was bearish with my charts when everyone was bullish and I am bullish when some of you are still thinking.
Maybe it's my chart reading skills which make me different than the others (in terms of my contribution to the forum), but I am glad to get the opportunity nevertheless.

So, stay loyal to your words, do not get influenced by anyone here no matter their rank, and the most important is to keep a healthy conversation.

[Etranger]

It is true that you need +2000 merits to get higher payments, but it is not a guarantee. Whenever your posts are good, you can get higher payments than someone with +4000. The system may not be suitable for everyone, but I do not think that merit is the only criterion to say that this account publishes high-quality posts or spam.

Of course not. There are many other criterions, but merit cannot be put aside, as most of the forum members and campaign managers keep an eye on it. I won't agree with your statement about whenever your posts are good, you can get higher payments than someone with +4000. I have seen a lot of situations, when users agreed to lower rank payments because the competition was very high and there were no enough place for the members with a high rank and a lot of merits. And I would rather say that the situation when someone with not enough merits gets higher payment is rare. Although those situations happen as well.

Be influential and you will not need merit.

Cannot agree with that either. I personally don't consider merit as the objective reflection of someone`s value and influence on the forum. However, most users do. And they will look at your merit stats to draw their conclusions an judgements about you.

Seeing how both high ranks and lower ranks rubbish that thread and correct the op made me to believe in your number 5 point. Believe me, even at this moment, I find it hard to interact with most of the high rank accounts because I always assume they are far better and I need to be careful with them.

I believe this feeling of yours will eventually fade away when you realise that you are ranking up as well.

Regarding the first one, you don't have to worry too much about the grammar part too much, as long as you are doing you're getting your point across then you're doing just fine, maybe consider grammar if you're an active participant in a lot of discussion, it helps but it's not a voluntary thing for you to be grammatically perfect, being perfect might even get you scrutiny for using an AI because of your too good to be true posting structure although it's not a taboo to use a grammar tool like Grammarly.

I am sure that grammar is of a high importance, because the purity and correctness of the language must be saved, even if you are not a native speaker. I get that most of the users here don't recognise English as their mother tongue (me as well). But, in my opinion, even good, quality thoughts don't have a right to be formulated in a bad grammar way. Because it will only provoke the meaning to be lost and misunderstood.

I agree with what you said about some newbies being sarcastic but we can't also blame the user that did that due to the level of abuse that was done by some newbies.

Actually I was talking about higher ranks being sarcastic and rude toward newbies, not the other way around. I don't see many newbies being sarcastic toward higher ranks, because usually they feel some kind of a dependence on them. Because higher ranks could give newbies merits and they would rather not do so, if they are traded the wrong way.

[coupable]

Why Earning merit is important for newbies in Bitcointalk?

The people most interested in obtaining merit points are those who aspire to upgrade their membership in order to join one of the active signature campaigns. In addition to this, not obtaining merit points cannot prevent any newbie from benefiting from the forum, and no one is required to contribute to the forum. You can navigate the forum just to learn.
Merit points are a gift you will receive in exchange for your contribution to enriching the forum by joining discussions and sharing your experiences/knowledge/skills with the community.
The purpose of the merit system is to maintain healthy discussions among members with as little spam as possible, since before this system was established, it was easy to promote membership simply by publishing.

[Etranger]

The people most interested in obtaining merit points are those who aspire to upgrade their membership in order to join one of the active signature campaigns. In addition to this, not obtaining merit points cannot prevent any newbie from benefiting from the forum, and no one is required to contribute to the forum. You can navigate the forum just to learn.

Mostly merits become a subject of interest because of the reason you mentioned. However, they also are treated as a criteria of a self esteem, I would say. Everyone pays attention on the merit number, and it creates the situation, when every single users begins to understand his value on this forum based on a merit number he has. That is why even if you are not that interested in participating in signature campaigns, you would care about merits. Just because everybody else do so.

[Nheer]

Many topics are created to explain and guide newbies on their way to earning merit. And although I consider such topics important and useful, because receiving merits is of great interest and concern to those who take only the initial steps on the forum, but I also consider the question of how to feel comfortable in this community more important. After all, beginners often face stressful situations for themselves, when they do not fully know what and how to do, and how not to lose motivation when some users responds sarcastically or even rudely. And this happens, it's a fact.

Topics guiding newbies how to earn merits for themselves are useful to the entire community and not just newbies but newbies are the ones finding ig difficult to earn merits because they don’t do so the way they should, they are always earger to earn merits thereby making all their efforts go unnoticed. To earn merits here you need to be well familiar with the forum ways and when you pass through the learning process it would be even more easier for them to earn merit but they always want to skip the learning process. Also things can be more easier here when you are well comfortable in the community.

1. Do not try to imitate others. I will start with a piece of advice that can be perceived as very unpopular, because from all corners we hear that it is necessary to take an example from those who have achieved success on the forum, analyse how, where and about what they write their posts, and based on this to improve quality of your own.

But! Their style is not your style. You may not share their interests, and you may not understand (yet) the topics they write about. And that's normal. Instead of writing low-quality posts where your "idols" write them, it's better to focus your efforts on delving into the issues that interest you. Just write in the way you feel most confident. With respect to grammar, of course, and without violating the rules of the forum. Do not adapt your thoughts to some imaginary and subjective constructive templates.

I have always come to understand that everyone has their own style here and what works for you might not work for me so you should rather improve on your own style. Also our knowledge and interests vary so trying to imitate someone would only make things difficult for yourself and end up creating low quality posts which in the end you will be criticized for making such low efforts.

Everyone have areas they are interested in more and areas they are good at so instead of trying to delve in too many areas why not just improve yourself on the few areas of your interest and focus on making quality posts on them and that way your efforts will easily be noticed and appreciated. It’s good to have mentors or idols you look up to but you still need to pick an idol who has similar interests with you so you can learn easily from their work.

2. Do not chase the merits sources. I often see newbies writing in threads where a lot of merits are given away. Although they do not understand these topics, and therefore their posts go unnoticed. But they draw the wrong conclusion from this, and continue to attack various topics with their posts, without receiving merit, and without learning anything. It is better to write something what you understand and will be confident about. Sooner or later, sources will notice you if you focus on the content of your posts and not on impressing merit sources.

Doing this will only make them lazy to work and create quality contents of their own. Most of the threads created by merit sources regarding merit giveaway newbies are the ones who flood them with replies the most even though they are not qualified or meet the requirements. Doing this will only make them be placed on ignore list by merit sources. Ranking up or earning merit’s doesn’t require you to impress anyone, when you stick to making quality posts people will appreciate your work and gradually you will increase in rank.

3. Ranking up takes time. Just accept it as a fact and stop dwelling on it. You won't be able to run ahead of the train, and there's really no point in doing so. Perceive the time while you gain merit and activity as necessary to increase your personal level, not your position on the forum. After all, if your motivation is to study and improve your knowledge and skills, then this time will only benefit you.

Running ahead will simply cause you to break certain regulations for which you will undoubtedly be held accountable, therefore there is no reason to run. However, newbies do not want to be delayed because they are eager to get the legendary rank, which is why they are the most implicated and banned accounts on the forum. Newcomers must recognise that learning will be the most beneficial to them in the long term.

[coupable]

The people most interested in obtaining merit points are those who aspire to upgrade their membership in order to join one of the active signature campaigns. In addition to this, not obtaining merit points cannot prevent any newbie from benefiting from the forum, and no one is required to contribute to the forum. You can navigate the forum just to learn.

Mostly merits become a subject of interest because of the reason you mentioned. However, they also are treated as a criteria of a self esteem, I would say. Everyone pays attention on the merit number, and it creates the situation, when every single users begins to understand his value on this forum based on a merit number he has. That is why even if you are not that interested in participating in signature campaigns, you would care about merits. Just because everybody else do so.

This may be a good reason in the eyes of some, but I do not see it as useful in reality. Why would I need to evaluate my post if my purpose is to participate in discussions according to my knowledge, especially since I am participating for the purpose of learning and not for any other purpose?
I reiterate that the purpose of establishing a merit system is not to evaluate posts, since any member can send merit points to any post he likes, even if it is worthless. The system was designed to make it difficult to upgrade membership, which was generating a lot of spam.
If everyone views the matter as important, this does not necessarily mean that it is true. Each person has his own vision and evaluation.

[Distinctin]

 Have your own originality in the forum. Regardless of your rank or position, you can establish your own identity through the content and authenticity of your post. You don't have to underestimate yourself because you are just a newbie, everyone started from a scratch. You can still be reliable in the forum if you know how to build your own name through your genuine answers and ideas that you share with the rest of the members.

Honesty and transparency is the key. Even if you can't give the best idea or suggestion from a single thread, that's okay. No one will criticize you for that as long as you give your honest and genuine answer that everyone can relate. Getting merits is not actually giving the best ideas in the forum, sometimes its more on relating with other people that they become satisfied with your desires to give them the most honest answers.

[Sanitough]

Be yourself without inventing anything and without overestimating your knowledge if you don’t have any; similar advice has been heard on the forum for a long time. Sincerity, honesty, patience, and genuine interest are all that a beginner needs. Unfortunately, the advice will again become a thing of history, and tomorrow you will see guides from beginners with information that is not entirely correct, or maybe copied, and new topics like: Hello, here I am! Tell me—that is, transfer everything to this topic. There will be a lot of information in the forum.

You know, even if you know you have a lot to share in the forum, just don't act like you know everything. It's better to stay lowkey and continue to accept and learn from all the significant post from other members. Know that everyone has its unique ideas, so always appreciate everyone's post. And always be mindful of every post you make. It's good to be honest but by being straightforward sometimes, you will end up offending other members especially those who are in the higher rank.

Although there's no rank distinction here as everyone is fair when it comes to expressing your own ideas, but always maintain a healthy relationship with other members because the forum is not made to create competition but to encourage everyone to create an informational and interactive learning.

[Etranger]

I have always come to understand that everyone has their own style here and what works for you might not work for me so you should rather improve on your own style. Also our knowledge and interests vary so trying to imitate someone would only make things difficult for yourself and end up creating low quality posts which in the end you will be criticized for making such low efforts.

Yes, that`s what I was talking about. But this is rather hard to do and even understand in the first place, because newbies and even higher ranks as well are often bump into advice when you should analyse what members with lots of merits do and just do the same, follow their lead. It is suggested that by doing so you will find out, how to write more noticeable and quality posts. Although I find it useful, I also think that only you can realise how to improve the content of your posts, how to make them more interesting and valuable. Nobody else would give you a proofed instruction, you should come up with it by yourself.

because the forum is not made to create competition but to encourage everyone to create an informational and interactive learning.

It was not made for it initially, but we cannot deny that those things are widespread right now. Ranks, merits, bounties - all of it creates the field for competition. And forum members don't want to find themselves overboard. It is hard, but it is also a motivation for many to become better and develop themselves.

[Jegileman]

You know, even if you know you have a lot to share in the forum, just don't act like you know everything. It's better to stay lowkey and continue to accept and learn from all the significant post from other members. Know that everyone has its unique ideas, so always appreciate everyone's post. And always be mindful of every post you make. It's good to be honest but by being straightforward sometimes, you will end up offending other members especially those who are in the higher rank.

Nobody knows all and if you think you know all that means you’re still confined in a place where you can’t seek for knowledge and assume that what you have is enough for you whereby the world keeps evolving and new things come out everyday. If you remain low key, you will always have a lot bunch full of information coming to you since you’re open to learning new things but the day you claim to be better than the rest and wants to raise shoulders amongst the higher ranked and more educative forum members, you will begin to lose important informations and your self entitlement of being the best won’t allow you to accept new things even when you know it is the truth and right path to take to find solution to what you’re seeking for. Just be humble and seek for knowledge in this interactive and educative forum.

[iBaba]

Thanks Buddy! It is absolutely awe-inspiring and refreshing to read through the lines of this topic and learn from it. I will also like to mention the fact that all your points resonates with some of my feelings, at a point in time, on this forum but the bulk of the whole thing is for you to improve your knowledge and understanding on how the Bitcoin technology and crypto world operates in general.

At a point, when I joined this forum, I was filled with the euphoria that comes with the spirit of a newbie and I wanted to always impress X,Y,Z even when I barely know them, thinking that my writing skills could fetch me some merits. Little did I know that was merely fallacy and I was practically being untruthful to myself.

This forum requires mammoth time, efforts and consistency to fit in and these are not hard-lines to drive anyone away but to further solidify the true nature of the forum, which is a thought-provoking informative platform where a mixture of students, deep thinkers genius and experts from different places and climes meet to discuss brainstorming ideas and problem-solving issues.

Like I mentioned earlier, few weeks after I came into the forum, I thought my writing prowess would help me gain accolades but if I did not take my time and efforts to acquire the knowledge, I can't get to solve problems or spring up thoughtful ideas. All thanks to the bosseson on here.

Although, my intention was not vested on the rewards or merits that will emanate from this forum, but more of writing posts and topics that will make sense to the general public. Hence, I didn't take the route of chasing specific threads in the name of getting merits.

My advise to other members here especially to the newbies and low-ranked members is to remain original in engaging this forum. Create posts and topics that will solve problems and drop personal opinions on issues discussed. I won't advise anyone to be pressurized by the ranking system thereby bring about the subjective thoughts of impressing one merit source or the other. The merit sources are well experienced and know when and how to reward efforts with merits.

[yazher]

The bottom line is, it's not all about the merits and you need to understand that the more stay in this forum, the more you learn about the crypto community in the right way. I managed to acquire solid information from this community and one of the best parts of being here is you can ask them every question related to crypto which you don't really find on other sites and you can be assured that they provide you with the right one because if not, huge numbers of users will correct them and that's the uniqueness of this community from others.

[Fiatless]

Honesty and transparency is the key. Even if you can't give the best idea or suggestion from a single thread, that's okay. No one will criticize you for that as long as you give your honest and genuine answer that everyone can relate. Getting merits is not actually giving the best ideas in the forum, sometimes its more on relating with other people that they become satisfied with your desires to give them the most honest answers.

The problem with some newbies is that they are very impatient. When they see the merit some members have earned they assume that it was received in a few weeks. This will push them to begin to devise means to acquire their own merits. In the process, they want to create posts they feel will earn them merit. This is why we are seeing threads created by chatbots increasing in the forum. The reason for the use of these AI tools is to create posts that they don't even understand to get merit. They want to skip the process of learning and understanding the forum and the workings of the crypto space. If you want to enjoy this forum, you need to take a step per time in your adventure don't claim to know what you have zero or little knowledge about.

[Hewlet]

This may be a good reason in the eyes of some, but I do not see it as useful in reality. Why would I need to evaluate my post if my purpose is to participate in discussions according to my knowledge, especially since I am participating for the purpose of learning and not for any other purpose?
I reiterate that the purpose of establishing a merit system is not to evaluate posts, since any member can send merit points to any post he likes, even if it is worthless. The system was designed to make it difficult to upgrade membership, which was generating a lot of spam.
If everyone views the matter as important, this does not necessarily mean that it is true. Each person has his own vision and evaluation.

this is so true. You can't effectively express yourself based on your experience and your level of knowledge if all you do is fishing after merits. The reality is that the idea that might not go down well with one individual might be what the other person needs just to understand a particular concept that the person has been struggling with and that's the reason it is very important to make your contribution in the forum as real as you would have done if a reward was not attached to quality content. Like what happens on Facebook, people just see a topic and will give out an indebt analysis and explanation to it knowing fully well that no one is paying them a dim or rewarding them a thing for there contribution. It is what make the forum a reliable place to source for information when you see that forum members are offering there wealth of ideas to those in need of it.

[Promocodeudo]

OP, I see this piece of writing as good advice to many of us here, when I was coming up as newbie in this forum I wanted to go the wrong direction, but some of our senior colleagues here help me in different way, the criticized me but I learnt a lot from those criticism, the criticism reshaped me and made me to do things differently, this forum is informative, as newbies, we have to learn first, this determines our future here, setting a goal is also good but don't be hasty to achieve it, I know as newbies, we different goals that we want to achieve here in the forum, if this must come, then we have to do the needful by learning and contribute to the growth of this forum. 

[Etranger]

The bottom line is, it's not all about the merits and you need to understand that the more stay in this forum, the more you learn about the crypto community in the right way. I managed to acquire solid information from this community and one of the best parts of being here is you can ask them every question related to crypto which you don't really find on other sites and you can be assured that they provide you with the right one because if not, huge numbers of users will correct them and that's the uniqueness of this community from others.

I would even say, it ia not only about merits, but it is also not only about sharing and gathering information. From some point forum becomes just a place for your communication. I get that everyone here is anonymous, and I have no clue who is sitting behind the screen, however, I find it more and more interesting and tempting to come here everyday just to talk to people I feel I know. This is about the community, and I guess, this is how it was designed in the first place.

[DYING_S0UL]

Regarding the first one, you don't have to worry too much about the grammar part too much, as long as you are doing you're getting your point across then you're doing just fine, maybe consider grammar if you're an active participant in a lot of discussion, it helps but it's not a voluntary thing for you to be grammatically perfect, being perfect might even get you scrutiny for using an AI because of your too good to be true posting structure although it's not a taboo to use a grammar tool like Grammarly.

The grammar part can be ignored as long as a person is able to make others understand his point. Not all of us are native English speaker. We have much lacking. We don't have enough collection of vocabulary or grammar knowledge. But, yes. correcting grammar is a good thing. Even though, most of us don't maintain this. Even me. I try to be but not always. I only use Grammarly or Quilbot only when making an official own thread. But apart from that, I'm always writings English as I see fit. 

[Renampun]

Why Earning merit is important for newbies in Bitcointalk?

The people most interested in obtaining merit points are those who aspire to upgrade their membership in order to join one of the active signature campaigns. In addition to this, not obtaining merit points cannot prevent any newbie from benefiting from the forum, and no one is required to contribute to the forum. You can navigate the forum just to learn.
Merit points are a gift you will receive in exchange for your contribution to enriching the forum by joining discussions and sharing your experiences/knowledge/skills with the community.
The purpose of the merit system is to maintain healthy discussions among members with as little spam as possible, since before this system was established, it was easy to promote membership simply by publishing.

I was on this forum before the "merit" system was created, so I know quite well how many spammers and account breeders pollute this forum. The "merit" system makes this forum more organized and also cleaner from spam, so that every discussion created is more constructive and far from spam or out of topic. When the "merit" system first appeared, there were quite a lot of members who complained and even traded merits, fortunately the DT team was able to suppress those illegal activity. This forum is very great, lucky people who succeed in getting benefits from this forum.