A possible improvement to the merit system (my thoughts)

[LoyceV]

I think you aren't just meriting but it's also about the quality of the post he merited right?

Are we really having the discussion whether or not the first post satoshi sends Merit to is going to be worth the Merit?

We already know not all worthy posts receive merits, many are overlooked.

Can I challenge you to share those posts?

[Alone055]

the sources of merit must still give merit to everyone, whether they are quality posts or low-quality posts.

No, who said so? Merit sources must not give merit to everyone, including those making low-quality posts. See what theymos said about it:

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

And:

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.

I also remember theymos saying that when a person finds a user who is at least writing good quality posts and they need a push to rank up, they should give them more merit instead of 1 or 2 so that they can rank up if they deserve it, but he never said that merit sources or normal users should merit low-quality posts only to exhaust their smerit stash. What will be the point of the system if low-quality posts are also merited, allowing undeserving users to rank up when the system was introduced to stop them from ranking up because they don't contribute anything towards the forum's well-being?

[dkbit98]

IMO just stop worrying about merit and your problem is solved. Most of the people only worry about merit for campaign reasons, but if you actually put in effort and make some quality posts, they will be noticed at some point.

This is easy to say when you reach some higher ranks, but lower ranks also want to have more merits to remove some of the forum limitations.
I respect members who put decent effort to increase their ranks, but I don't like anyone begging for merits.

The problem with this is: if someone only puts in effort just to earn Merit, it starts looking like a school assignment. I could probably write a good post about knitting if I put in enough effort, but if it's something you're not interested in, why would you even start?

Yet most of us had to go through school indoctrination education with school assignments

[JollyGood]

If I were to start looking through the forum I would find plenty of examples.

Going further, in my opinion sharing posts in dedicated threads designed to have unmerited posts highlighted in order for them to receive merits would defeat the object if merit sources are unable to find the posts themselves. If instead of relying on non-merit sources to bring it to their attention (to evaluate whether the post deserves to receive merits), they should not be merit source in the first place.

I am in no doubt an argument could be made justifying all the reasons why those threads are important and how all merit sources are doing fantastic and important jobs but I see it differently.

There are of course exceptions to the position I hold. Without a doubt JayJuanGee and vapourminer are two shining examples of merit distribution. They are the most consistent members that seem to go through new and old threads giving merits as and when they deem appropriate.

We already know not all worthy posts receive merits, many are overlooked.

Can I challenge you to share those posts?

[LoyceV]

Going further, in my opinion sharing posts in dedicated threads designed to have unmerited posts highlighted in order for them to receive merits would defeat the object if merit sources are unable to find the posts themselves. If instead of relying on non-merit sources to bring it to their attention (to evaluate whether the post deserves to receive merits), they should not be merit source in the first place.

Allow me to disagree
As a Merit source, I can't and won't read all posts. I read what I want to read, and I read less than 24500 posts per week.
The fact that so little posts are reported as being under-Merited, confirms that Merit isn't scarce at all.

If I were to start looking through the forum I would find plenty of examples.

What's stopping you from doing the thing you expect others to do?

There are of course exceptions to the position I hold. Without a doubt JayJuanGee and vapourminer are two shining examples of merit distribution. They are the most consistent members that seem to go through new and old threads giving merits as and when they deem appropriate.

Agreed, they're doing a great job in reading many old posts. I guess most Merit sources don't have the time for that. Being a Merit source is a thankless unpaid job with ever increasing workload.