A simpler version of demerits: "dmerits" for every X merits earned

[BenCodie]

All credit/merit should go to OddJobsForBitcoin's thread, "Hey Theymos, There Should Be a Demotion Button" for the inspiration of this simplified idea that may be easier to implement.


Poll: Should "dmerit" be added to allow a member to demerit (-merit) another member?
- Yes.
- No.

Specification:
- Demerit a member = burn x merit and log the burn in the profile.
- Effect: 1 dmerit -1 merit
- 2 (or more, TBD) Merits earned = 1 dmerit

Discussion guidelines
- If discussing please stay on-topic and provide constructive feedback, not drama or unrelated discussion.
- Discussions and suggestions for a 2nd refined poll would be appreciated.

First thoughts:
- How many merits to earn 1 dmerit?
- Would a tweak to smerit like 1 merit = 1 smerit be appropriate if dmerit were implemented?
- Why would anybody not want this (if they either aren't an alt account or a poor community member/pest?)

Votes reasoned in thread (votes made in poll):
- Yes 0 (1)
- No 0 (2)

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[Mia Chloe]

Firstly let me start by asking, where is this merit demotion idea coming from? If it is from altcoin talk well it won't work. The merit system has been around for a couple of years now and if you ask me , it is actually doing its job of fishing out spammers.

As long as the merit circulation on this forum is going as expected there should be no need for these suggestions. I am very sure Theymos is at the back door watching everything on this forum no wonder he hasn't been accepting merit source request for quite some time now since the merit system is quite ok as we speak.

You see the demerit idea will only bring more reasons for people to just ruin the account of others by constantly demeritting those they hate.

None of these really matters since theymos decision is what counts but I doubt he will agree with this. He will probably ignore like most times .

[Plaguedeath]

The suggestion is good, but it won't work, why? because people are scared.

Take a look with the current trust list and feedback, many users are afraid to distrust the big names even though they makes mistakes e.g. leave a negative feedback due to personal conflict, leave a positive feedback because the user kind, has higher position etc. Instead of correct their mistakes, you could be distrusted by them even you have no mistake and most people will silent because they're also scared.

Merit is only for high quality post, right? but there are some people get merit by posting an image without any words. If it's posted by respectable user, will you believe someone will dmerit his post? I bet no.

[OcTradism]

Themos drafted this idea in Merit & new rank requirements but he states clearly that he does not want to deploy it.

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

theymos actually stepped in and did some demerit transactions in Bitcointalk merit transaction history.

If you see some bad posts received merit, you can report it to theymos and hopefully demerit transactions will be executed by theymos.

demerit with 569 demerits.

[_act_]

Let me start by saying demerit would be rubbish. Theymos knew this and that was why he did not included it at all. This forum is good as it is. Just only merit and smerit system is enough. Nothing should be added as we are achieving good post quality. If demerit is going to be added, it is not going to cause any increase in post quality. Or why did you think it would be better if it is added? I see no good reason.

[Forsyth Jones]

You see the demerit idea will only bring more reasons for people to just ruin the account of others by constantly demeritting those they hate.

I agree with @Mia Chloe's idea, in addition, it's already very difficult to climb the rankings after implementing the merit system, which means that good posters are not recognized enough and while some users post things without much meaning they gain more merits than the others.

Don't get me wrong, I think the merits system is working very well and fulfilling its purpose, but as not everything is perfect, if it's already difficult to climb the rankings, imagine if we had a demerit system, the intention is good, but the opposite effect can also occur, this can make good posters or newbies simply give up on the forum, especially newbies who are just joining and are faced with the giant challenge of at least progressing to Sr. Member.

Furthermore, if have a demerit system, users with bad intentions or those with personal problems could ruin another's reputation without good enough justifications, disqualifying purely on their arbitrary ideas without something that really justifies it.

[philipma1957]

Altcoinstalks uses it . We could use it but it only is a way to fuck around with peoples heads.

I know this forum and people may gang up on someone to strip enough merits to lower someones rank.

Others would rally round and add merits to help the guy out and it would be a fucking mess..

[Hatchy]

Furthermore, if have a demerit system, users with bad intentions or those with personal problems could ruin another's reputation without good enough justifications, disqualifying purely on their arbitrary ideas without something that really justifies it.

I Wonder why this suggestion still stands for some members as it literally makes no sense why we should have a demerit system.
Would op be happy to wake up and see all his merit burned same way he had mentioned? If it were a good suggestion like those I've seen from so other members, the forum admin, Theymos would have by now implemented it on the forum. But it's of no use and it's function is still unreasonable.
This suggestion would only complicate more things on the forum. As no member will be Happy having seen their merits removed. For me, the trust system is good and enough to punish any spammer it offender like stated on the first op. If someone goes on spamming or abusing the merit system then they should be tagged as enough negative tags from dt members on their account will render it useless.

my vote is no. my answer is simply because there's no good reason provided by OddJobsForBitcoin for this suggestion to be implemented.

[LoyceV]

- How many merits to earn 1 dmerit?

That should be at least 100 Merit per 1 deMerit. And, to up the stakes, using 1 deMerit should reduce your own Merit count by 10. Let's make it a challenge.

demerit with 569 demerits.

You're misreading this data. The "569" is the sum of all deMerits plus the Merits sent by "userID 0".

[Casdinyard]

All credit/merit should go to OddJobsForBitcoin's thread, "Hey Theymos, There Should Be a Demotion Button" for the inspiration of this simplified idea that may be easier to implement.


Poll: Should "dmerit" be added to allow a member to demerit (-merit) another member?
- Yes.
- No.

Specification:
- Demerit a member = burn x merit and log the burn in the profile.
- Effect: 1 dmerit -1 merit
- 2 (or more, TBD) Merits earned = 1 dmerit

Discussion guidelines
- If discussing please stay on-topic and provide constructive feedback, not drama or unrelated discussion.
- Discussions and suggestions for a 2nd refined poll would be appreciated.

First thoughts:
- How many merits to earn 1 dmerit?
- Would a tweak to smerit like 1 merit = 1 smerit be appropriate if dmerit were implemented?
- Why would anybody not want this (if they either aren't an alt account or a poor community member/pest?)

Votes reasoned in thread (votes made in poll):
- Yes 0 (1)
- No 0 (2)

I love the intent and I honestly stand behind creating features that would allow us to protect and improve the post integrity in the forum, but I don't think demerits is the way to go here.

Bitcointalk's got its fair share of merit hoarders, trolls, and merit-hoarding trolls. Few years ago we had problems with the trust-rating being abused (during the Yobit Scam breakout) where people just threw in negative trust points to anyone regardless of if they are being very honest or what not. We don't want the same thing to happen yet again with another feature that could be abused just as much if not more here. We get heated arguments in the forum every now and again, people could easily throw in demerits against those they don't agree with to further fuck with them, regardless of how sound their arguments are during the discussion. Ergo, someone's bound to get punished for being very sensible, a direct contradiction to what we're clearly pushing for.

Pretty sure the forum's moderators and Theymos have been keeping a close eye on those who are creating posts that do not contribute shit to the discussion, I say let the mods do their jobs and delay citizen justice for now until we actually find a helpful solution that would not harm people for being themselves. Demerits are a good step forward but it's not the final recipe we're looking for.

[criptoevangelista]

Even if you add 1 demerit for every 50 or 100 merits, the system will not work, as taking away 1 or 10 merits from someone will not change absolutely anything, because to remove 1 merit or downgrade an account hundreds or thousands of merits are needed...

The suggestion is valid, but it doesn't make sense to implement it on the forum. The current merit and trust system already fulfills its purpose very well.

[PX-Z]

You see the demerit idea will only bring more reasons for people to just ruin the account of others by constantly demeritting those they hate.

I could only think that if this is implemented this will be worse than the how the DT works before, too much hate will be around.

Reddit have this kind of way to + and - karma but the good thing there is, sender isn't visible to all users and you can do it to anyone without time restrictions unlike on altcoinstalks, so hate is implausible but will only push of quality and friendly posts, it's also the same thing for merit-only karma system.

[SamReomo]

I have voted "No" on the poll because I think dMerit system will ruin the current level of this forum as it could create a dMerit war between members of this forum. The forum is a good forum but there are always those members who disagree with someone, and they don't let such people to grow on the forum no matter how well the other member is contributing. The dMerit system will make job of such people easier and one its implemented such members could easily dMerit and reduce the ranks of those members who don't agree with them or who share their own honest opinion about things.

I know that the merit system is also not at its best, because if you notice the flow of merits then most merits are given to those members who are either part of a Local board or to those who are already established members with thousands of merits. This lets a huge group of members to receive way less merits than what they deserve but who cares about that? So my simple suggestion is to allow the current system of merits and make no changes to it at the moment. If change is really necessary then it should be improving the current merit system instead of add a dMerit solution.

[robelneo]

So far this is the result of the poll
Yes   - 1 (6.3%)
No   - 15 (93.8%)
Total Voters: 16

Those who voted Yes understand that there's going to be abuse, we are not speculating we just foresee the scenario based on all our experience here in Bitcointalk

I know this forum and people may gang up on someone to strip enough merits to lower someones rank.

Others would rally round and add merits to help the guy out and it would be a fucking mess..

Total mess indeed.

[Zaguru12]

I know this forum and people may gang up on someone to strip enough merits to lower someones rank.

Others would rally round and add merits to help the guy out and it would be a fucking mess..

Exactly this why i am against it to be honest, we will be causing more drama than we already have on hand. The merit is already a one way function and the whole reputation board is filled with drama adding another end will just create more problems. The people supporting it are only looking at how perfect they want the system but we can’t get that spontaneity or transparency no matter the rules we set or twerk here, even bitcoin that brought us here is not total spontaneous, going for a perfect system only creates more problems.

My only option if ever big T consider it is it should be restricted to the person that sent that merit, they should be the only one to take it away and it shouldn’t been added back to their smerits too.
My reason for this is maybe you sent an excess mistake due to mistake like we read on the forum and you feel the post doesn’t deserve that much merit you can take it back. Or you merit a post that ended up to be a plagiarized post, you can take it back too. But still if you look at this there will still be problems, so the best is leave it like this

[promise444c5]

All credit/merit should go to OddJobsForBitcoin's thread, "Hey Theymos, There Should Be a Demotion Button" for the inspiration of this simplified idea that may be easier to implement.


Poll: Should "dmerit" be added to allow a member to demerit (-merit) another member?
- Yes.
- No.

Specification:
- Demerit a member = burn x merit and log the burn in the profile.
- Effect: 1 dmerit -1 merit
- 2 (or more, TBD) Merits earned = 1 dmerit

Discussion guidelines
- If discussing please stay on-topic and provide constructive feedback, not drama or unrelated discussion.
- Discussions and suggestions for a 2nd refined poll would be appreciated.

First thoughts:
- How many merits to earn 1 dmerit?
- Would a tweak to smerit like 1 merit = 1 smerit be appropriate if dmerit were implemented?
- Why would anybody not want this (if they either aren't an alt account or a poor community member/pest?)

Votes reasoned in thread (votes made in poll):
- Yes 0 (1)
- No 0 (2)

I saw this thread earlier but I decidedly to wait for comments  
The demerit of a thing will mess things up so bad in my opinion but if we decide to bring it in then there should  be a negative effect on the issuer as he or she must sacrifice merit to do that and it has been proposed by @LoyceV. This should really show how badly a user need to sacrifice his/her merit  to demerit another user

[PowerGlove]

I voted no.

I basically have 2 or 3 ideas a month about things that might make sense for Bitcointalk, but I keep most of them to myself, because after the initial excitement wears off, I ponder them more deeply and almost always come to realize that they are flawed in some subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) way and/or that they would throw off the balance that theymos has (presumably) worked so hard to achieve. It's really hard to find things that would be strict improvements (that is, ideas that would have nothing or almost nothing but upside if they were implemented). It's easier (though still hard) to find things that might/will create new problems but that you're almost certain will solve an even bigger problem (or set of problems) in exchange. So, if I were you, I'd start by asking: "What is the problem (or set of problems) that I'm aiming to solve?". If you can't come up with a really clear problem-statement, then, in my experience, it's usually not worth unpacking/debating the details of the solution (at least, not yet). Another way to think about it (just abstractly, I mean; there are no general-purpose units that I know of that would let you reason this out concretely), is that if you can't estimate the magnitude of the problem(s) being solved, then you have nothing to weigh against the magnitude of the problem(s) being caused.

(I mean, I know that sometimes the answer to something can present itself before you actually know the question, but, in general, that's a really inefficient way to work. A semi-related example that comes to mind is that I think the constant factor of 0.5 in the sMerit calculation could be swapped out for a rank-dependent value: that is, instead of the per-transaction sMerit calculation being something like sMeritBalance += meritsReceived * 0.5, it could be something like sMeritBalance += meritsReceived * LUT[receiversRank], or even something like sMeritBalance += meritsReceived * LUT[receiversRank][sendersRank]. In either the 8-entry 1D LUT case, or the 64-entry 2D LUT case, the values could all be set to 0.5, which would keep things working like they currently do, but, I have a hunch that experimenting with those values could have multiple benefits: it's easy to come up with LUTs that would make it much harder for unestablished accounts to rank each other up, or LUTs that would make the merit system less source-dependent by generating sMerit a little more generously for the higher ranks, etc. but because I came up with this idea before I had a specific problem in mind, I've just been sitting on it, struggling to arrive at a really convincing argument for why it should be implemented. But, I also can't just push if off my plate, so to speak, because I think it's likely the solution to something, I just don't know what.)

[paid2]

Why this sudden collective interest for a demerit function?

I don't see why, is it because of the airdroped merits? even those who have a majority of airdropped merits don't bother anyone either. We can all already see who has earned merits and in what proportion on Bpip or with the web extension, this is not misleading for anyone (I mean campaign managers etc..) ; for example with OP:


As for the others, apart from airdropped merits, I'm not such a hater myself lol. So, no real need for demerit imo.

In any case, for the moment the result of the poll look pretty clear:

[mr.smith]

The other forum Altcointalks has this plus and minus karma the same features OP wants to be added, OP's suggestion here is very premature why not monitor the other forum first if it's going to succeed or fail so you have your model of merit and demerits so you have a build-up of your argument.

[examplens]

Altcoinstalks uses it . We could use it but it only is a way to fuck around with peoples heads.

I know this forum and people may gang up on someone to strip enough merits to lower someones rank.

Exactly this. Recently, there was a case of abuse on Altt, so the admin deleted all karma points.
Something is different here and I wouldn't expect theymos or moderators to monitor possible abuses or organized demerit user profiles.