Do we need merit mixers for merit sources?

[ertil]

If you are such new sources or know of missing sources, please inform me.

You could catch someone, if he will ever send more than half of what was received, but this is the only way to detect it with 100% certainty.

I thought about it for some time, and I think it should be much harder to detect, if someone is a merit source or not, than it is today. Now, it is trivial to see, who can produce merits out of thin air, and who is just a regular user, without additional permissions like that.

Knowing about merit sources, when users are pseudonymous, is similar to knowing, who mined what, and seeing nicknames in coinbase transactions. However, even if most mining pools put their tags in their blocks, and list all mined blocks on their websites, then still, the system allows mining anonymously, and solo mining is still allowed by the protocol.

In general, I think it should be possible to send merits anonymously. Very often, the act of sending merits, is perceived as the act of agreeing with someone. And sometimes, it is simply not the case, or users don't want it to be perceived in that way.

If we think about the current implementation, someone could achieve things like that, by making an alt account called "mixer", sending some merits there, and then they would be distributed by that mixer. Then, the total cost of meriting someone anonymously, would be two times higher, than sending regular merits, without hiding anything.

So, what do you think about such feature? If merit sources could sacrifice two merits, to allow someone to send a single merit in a similar way, as that user would have this additional merit, if it would be a source, then it could remove the connection between sent/received amounts, and detecting a merit source. If all users could potentially have more sent than received merits in their stats, no matter if they are merit sources or not, then it would no longer be so easy to detect merit sources, and beg them for merits, or try to draw their attention.

I can see a value in going for example to "-10", and having a private history of pending "transactions", which would be visible only to the account owner

This. Regular users could make their own history of "pending transactions", when they will run out of merits. And then, that history could be visible for account owner, and all merit sources. If a source would visit someone's profile, and see, that this person wants to merit some great post, then sources could sacrifice two times more merits, to fill that pending transaction of a non-source user.

What do you think about it? Should it be harder to detect merit sources, than it is today? I know mixers are banned from this forum, but maybe that kind of merit mixers could be beneficial for us?

[Mia Chloe]

In general, I think it should be possible to send merits anonymously. Very often, the act of sending merits, is perceived as the act of agreeing with someone. And sometimes, it is simply not the case, or users don't want it to be perceived in that way.

Let's evaluate your point still using the bitcoin network as a reference like you have. Now although the bitcoin network is anonymous, it is also transparent and that's the best fit for the merit system too. A system will eventually break if it's not transparent.

Trying to say sending merit should be anonymous simply means you are saying all important tools like BPIP and ninjastic space which can be used to evaluate sent and earned merit should be dissolved. This means you on the bitcoin network you are saying that they dissolve block chain explorers since they can be used to map out addresses and track within same anonymous and transparent system.

[ABCbits]

I feel bothered with misuse term of "mixer", so here's mixer definition stated by admin on Mixers to be banned.

If we think about the current implementation, someone could achieve things like that, by making an alt account called "mixer", sending some merits there, and then they would be distributed by that mixer. Then, the total cost of meriting someone anonymously, would be two times higher, than sending regular merits, without hiding anything.

So, what do you think about such feature? If merit sources could sacrifice two merits, to allow someone to send a single merit in a similar way, as that user would have this additional merit, if it would be a source, then it could remove the connection between sent/received amounts, and detecting a merit source. If all users could potentially have more sent than received merits in their stats, no matter if they are merit sources or not, then it would no longer be so easy to detect merit sources, and beg them for merits, or try to draw their attention.

1. If a merit source keep sending 50 merit to one or more users every month, it won't be hard to find out the connection.
2. Merit source could publicly say they'll add all beggars to their ignore list, which should discourage such attempt.

[ertil]

A system will eventually break if it's not transparent.

It would still be transparent. If Alice is a merit source, and Bob is a regular user, then Bob could have zero merits, and Alice could have the allocated amount of two merits as a source. Then, Bob could pick some post, click "Merit", and make a "pending transaction". After that, if Alice would visit Bob's profile, and sacrifice her two merits, then the post would be merited by Bob, and would receive a single merit.

The system can still be auditable for Staff, to prevent abuse. Regular users will still see posts as today, and they will know, who merited a given post. The only hidden thing would be "from whom the merits originally came from?". Which means, that people would still see, that Bob merited a post he wanted to merit anyway, and they would no longer know, if Alice or Bob is a real merit source.

Also note one more thing: it can be done today, by using alt accounts, which could act as such mixers. If you think it is wrong, then how do you want to block sending merits to alt accounts, and distributing them from there? Technically, it can be done. And I guess it also happened in practice. Do you think, that everyone, who did it, received a negative or neutral feedback?

[Hatchy]

Also note one more thing: it can be done today, by using alt accounts, which could act as such mixers. If you think it is wrong, then how do you want to block sending merits to alt accounts, and distributing them from there? Technically, it can be done. And I guess it also happened in practice.

I still see no use of the system you propose mate. No matter how you try to hide who sent and to whom the merit was sent from, the forum is transparent and will eventually be seen. If a merit source eventually abuse his source merit by selling or ranking alt accounts, he will be punished by the admin.

Do you think, that everyone, who did it, received a negative or neutral feedback?

most time such act is common with local board users. And not all might be noticed since they hide in their locals and continue such acts. But be rest assured that if they are found they will still have to face the whatever punishment comes their way..

[ertil]

It has a feature advertised for taking property, improving its privacy somehow, and then returning roughly the same type of property.

Yes, "merit mixer" would take your merits, "improve the privacy" by hiding the original author (while also getting 50% fee, because it is hard-wired into "consensus rules" of a merit system), and return "roughly the same type of property", by sending a merit to the same post, as two people agreed to (but attributing it "on-chain" to the mixer, instead of the original sender).

Of course, there is always a problem of self-transfer from the merit source to his own posts, but it works exactly the same, if someone has any alt accounts.

It is possible for the mixer to steal property passing through it.

It is the case, when it comes to using alt-accounts. It can be prevented, if there will be an official feature.

The service does not collect KYC-type info from all users.

Well, it is pseudonymous. KYC is not required, because nobody introduced that on forum, but it can be seen, who sent merits to whom, and it is traced by many BPIP-like sites and some forum threads, so the chain is KYCed by users doing "merit analytics", but from the protocol perspective, it is pseudonymous.

Examples of things that are not banned mixers include exchangers (unless they have a mixing function), CoinJoin-supporting non-custodial wallets, and Monero.

In case of merits, "exchangers" are also banned. When it comes to "merit join", it is technically possible, but very costly (50% fee, when using alt accounts). When it comes to Monero, it would require hiding not only usernames, but also amounts, which is hard (but maybe, by splitting everything into many transactions, sending single merit each, it could be also done in practice).

Let's evaluate your point still using the bitcoin network as a reference like you have.

Yes. Going back to comparisons, it is like mining the coinbase transaction on someone's behalf. The system is still auditable, and users and amounts are still visible, as they previously were. The only shortcut is that someone else is perceived as a merit source, but everything else stays the same: users still opt-into meriting the same posts, and it can be still seen by the rest of the network.

[NotATether]

No. This would make merit abuse undetectable.

[_act_]

If you want people to be sending merit anonymously, why not propose a system that the merit will be sent by individuals in a way that the person that send the merit can not be known? This is very simple but I can not also recommend this because of what NotATether posted about anonymous sending of merit which is abuse of the merit.

[ertil]

No. This would make merit abuse undetectable.

Even if such feature would be used only by merit sources? And even if Staff or other people with a lot of access rights would see it anyway?

But even if you are right, then still: the problem of sending merits to alt-accounts remains. My idea won't make it worse, because then, at least Staff could explicitly see such cases, if sending merits in that way would be more profitable, than sending them through alt-accounts first.

If you want people to be sending merit anonymously, why not propose a system that the merit will be sent by individuals in a way that the person that send the merit can not be known?

Because I don't want to make all merit-related traffic completely anonymous. If your goal is to hide, who is merit source, and who isn't, then you don't want to mix every merit with everything else. You only want to make bribing sources harder, and make it more difficult to detect, who received such rights.

Because recently, many users became merit sources. Should they really be automatically hunted, listed on some topics, and should each and every merit they sent, be scanned in a KYC-like way?

Edit: By the way, if you sometimes wonder, why some skilled users don't want to create any "merit source application" topic, then you can read it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5063098.msg62586247#msg62586247

It is in Polish, but Google can translate it to English more or less, and you would probably understand it.

And now, we are in the middle of a witch hunting period, where people are updating their list of merit sources, and trying to "catch them all". Months later, I guess some sources would be heavily criticized, and judged by their merit sending history. And honestly, by reading some posts like that, I wonder, if it should look like that.

[EarnOnVictor]

What do you think about it? Should it be harder to detect merit sources, than it is today? I know mixers are banned from this forum, but maybe that kind of merit mixers could be beneficial for us?

I don't see it your way, and the way you paint mixing of merits like a mixer does not correlate.

Besides, what's there to hide about merits? Why should it be in secrecy? There's no point in that. Bitcoin advocates openness and transparency, so why not its forum? This is the reason why people love open source in tech, so I support the visibility of merit activities on the forum.

[_act_]

1. If a merit source keep sending 50 merit to one or more users every month, it won't be hard to find out the connection.

I think what he means is not about finding out the connection between the merit sources account and accounts the merit sources are sending huge merits to before distributing it to other users. What he meant is that merit source A can not be traced to merit source A specifically even though the second accounts can be known to be owned by the merit source but people will not know which merit source has the accounts, although they know it belongs to a merit source but they do not know which merit source it belongs to.

Even if such feature would be used only by merit sources? And even if Staff or other people with a lot of access rights would see it anyway?

But even if you are right, then still: the problem of sending merits to alt-accounts remains. My idea won't make it worse, because then, at least Staff could explicitly see such cases, if sending merits in that way would be more profitable, than sending them through alt-accounts first.

It can not lead to merit abuse, you are right about this because everything is still transparent. But what do you want to achieve with your explanation? It is like I am not getting it from the OP.

[Dunamisx]

Come to think of it this way OP, I merit source can be easily noticed once you study the pattern and number of merits he gives, you can also track on what is being received by the source to the amount sent by him, there's no how you can compare a source to an ordinary member who just merit post, their pattern will be different from each other base on the capacity each of them has for smerits.

Also, knowing who sent merit or suggesting being an anonymous sender does not change anything from this context as well, because we can't expect it to go hidden in other for people not to abuse it, what goes out comes in, merits works more better openly here than when hidden.

[Z_MBFM]

Everyone in this forum is creating and using accounts using pseudonyms, no one shares any of their personal information here. So why should merit mixing be done, why should a person give merit anonymously. Merit transactions are open and it is completely tracked who gave merit to whom from which account and when, yet many people are creating accounts, many are bumping other accounts by taking merit from their own accounts, if merit transactions are kept hidden, then these will be done in greater quantities, who will protect them? Making the merit system anonymous is a completely unnecessary topic.

[Solosanz]

But even if you are right, then still: the problem of sending merits to alt-accounts remains. My idea won't make it worse, because then, at least Staff could explicitly see such cases, if sending merits in that way would be more profitable, than sending them through alt-accounts first.

So the problem is, you think there's a merit sources intentionally gave merits to his alt accounts before it distributed to other users? you should open a new thread in Reputation and show the evidence.

And now, we are in the middle of a witch hunting period, where people are updating their list of merit sources, and trying to "catch them all". Months later, I guess some sources would be heavily criticized, and judged by their merit sending history. And honestly, by reading some posts like that, I wonder, if it should look like that.

Doubt.

Most people won't criticizing merit sources because it would decrease their chance to be merited by them, we might see a complain, but from a brand new user. But as long as there's no solid evidence, "merit abuse" is almost nothing in this forum.

[LoyceV]

I don't really see the problem: in all my years as a Merit source, I've received just a few PMs asking me to send them Merit. What would be next: hiding Mods?

[vapourminer]

Should it be harder to detect merit sources, than it is today?

no

as i value some peoples merit more than others. so if i see a merit from (say) Satoshi im far more likely to check that post closely rather than when some no name scammers is meriting some alt. or a campaign manager. or some other sketchy etc

keep merit sources accountable

[bitmover]

I don't really see the problem: in all my years as a Merit source, I've received just a few PMs asking me to send them Merit. What would be next: hiding Mods?

In the beginning theymos was right to make merit sources hidden because nobody knew what could happen.

But after all that time, there is no reason to keep the name of those people hidden because we are not receiving PMs and everyone knows who they are. Just looking at this link
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topusers

[virasog]

I don't really see the problem: in all my years as a Merit source, I've received just a few PMs asking me to send them Merit. What would be next: hiding Mods?

In the beginning theymos was right to make merit sources hidden because nobody knew what could happen.

But after all that time, there is no reason to keep the name of those people hidden because we are not receiving PMs and everyone knows who they are. Just looking at this link
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topusers

No, this list doesn't show that these people are Merit Sources, it just shows that the Top-merited users, meaning those users who received more merits.  To confirm this, you can check few users in that list, some of them do not send merits, only received it like BlockchainWizard, so he cannot be a merit source for sure.

[AVE5]

Users identification on the forum is pseudonymous so, why the agitation of sending merits anonymously?
Trying to keep what profile or identity unidentifiable are you trying to protect on this propose? Because hence the motion is implemented here, it significantly means sent merit history on users profiles will be undetectable even when the user is abusing the sMerits.

[Justbillywitt]

This your bill or proposal is dead on arrival, why will you ever want to hide your name as a merit sender? Post are merited because it was found helpful. This your proposal will practically kill the joy that comes from receiving Merits from high and reputable members of the forum. When you wake up and see your post has been merited by certain forum users, it gives you joy to know that your post was found helpful to have attracted the attention of such users. This alone will motivate you to keep making more quality posts.

 Do you know the feeling to see the name of Theymos as the person who merited your post? There is this feeling that comes with it, please don't try to take that away. Since the merit senders are not complaining of their name showing on posts they merited, I don't see any reason to implement this your proposal.