Ranking up/down

[PowerGlove]

So, back in the old days, "rank" ("Sr. Member", "Hero Member", etc.) used to be determined by your post count. To write that out in some symbolic form (that I'll iterate on as we go):

Code:

rank ≈ $postCount

Using the "Hero Member" rank as an example, all you had to do in order to reach that rank was make 501 posts (posts that survive moderation and don't get deleted, that is). People could max out their rank in just a few days back then...

Spammers be like:




Then, the first major intervention took place, and rank determination became:

Code:

rank ≈ $activity

If you back-read Meta, you'll see that people really struggled at the time to understand what this "activity" thing was.

A precise definition of "activity" isn't important for this post, what's important is to understand it conceptually: It's a way to slow down the ranking-up process. To reach "Hero Member", you now need to write 480 posts spread out over 480 days. For the purpose of increasing your rank, there's no real point in posting more than once a day; technically, there's more to it than that, and you can make just a single post in a given 14-day "window" and then make 27 (14+13) posts in the next 14-day window and have your "activity" jump up accordingly, but, that's an implementation detail and shouldn't distract you from the central idea of an effective rank-wise 1-post-per-day speed limit.

Spammers be like:




Then, the second major intervention took place, and rank determination became:

Code:

rank ≈ lesserOf($activity, $merit)

Now things get really tricky for spammers, because even making 480 posts spread out over 480 days isn't sufficient to reach "Hero Member". You'll also need to accumulate roughly the same amount of "merit". The idea here is that some of your readership will award your substantive/appreciated contributions by marking those posts with "merit". In this "new era", you can't just rely on patience in order to rank up, you also have to try to post things that might be appreciated: If nobody finds value in what you have to say, then you'll never rank up...

Spammers be like:




We're now up-to-date, and I'd like to propose a third "intervention":

Code:

rank ≈ lesserOf($activity, $merit - $carry)

The idea here is that there's a new term called "carry" that will slowly de-rank you if you keep posting/doing things that nobody appreciates. That is, you can't just apply yourself to the task of achieving a given rank, you also have to apply yourself to the task of maintaining it. Just like your "merit" is a >=0 balance based on logged events, your "carry" is also a >=0 balance based on logged events. There's a more general version of this idea where different forum actions attract different amounts of "carry", but, the simple version that I think should be experimented with initially is just one where there's a single type of system-generated "carry transaction": Whenever you make a new post, your balance goes up by 0.1. In effect, you'll need to earn at least 1 merit for every 10 posts you write (on average) if you wish to prevent your account from slowly drifting toward a lower rank. And you'll need to get beyond a 0.1 merit-to-post ratio if you're aiming to increase your rank.

Spammers be like:




I think this would help with a few things (without impacting any even halfway-decent posters):

(*) It would slowly decay "airdropped" merits that either belong to accounts that have now changed hands or that were awarded in the first place to users that would have been unable to earn those merits organically. Basically, I'm thinking of accounts like mich (that account has only managed to earn 36 merits over thousands of posts, but it has the rank of "Legendary" and wears a paid signature). If an adjustment like what I'm proposing were put in place, then the person behind that account would have to re-think their whole approach to the forum (if they wanted to keep spamming their signature, that is).

(*) It would make it harder to buy/sell accounts. As in, sure, you could buy a "Legendary" account, but if you're going to just post mindlessly with it to make money, then eventually the "merit" that came with the account will be undone by the "carry" that accumulates each time you make a post. (And then, hopefully, the account will be considered worthless and can stop being traded.)

(*) It would make it harder to buy/sell merit. As in, sure, you could cheat by buying some, but, you'll likely have to do that repeatedly, because, as with the previous point, if you're just going to post mindlessly, then eventually the "merit" you bought will be undone by the "carry" that accumulates each time you make a post.

(*) It would encourage more mindful posting in general, I think. A small "cost" risked by the poster each time they submit something encourages them to ask "Do I really need to be posting this? Do I really think that people might appreciate it? Or is this likely to be a post that only contributes to me losing rank?".

I was previously against this sort of thing:

Yep, I completely agree with you. I'm against any kind of de-ranking or account "erosion".

I guess, my view on this has changed over time, and I now think that the right amount of de-ranking "drift" can raise the forum's signal-to-noise ratio while only really frustrating accounts that nobody would miss. If you think about it, rank adjustments like the one I'm proposing shouldn't affect organic usage of the forum. As in, why would someone coming to Bitcointalk so that they can ask a question or post a scam accusation, for example, be put off by the idea of a subtractive term in the rank calculation? They wouldn't care one way or the other, IMO. I think the only users that might feel something like "No. This will ruin Bitcointalk!" are the users that view the forum as some kind of weird "writing job". (And while it'll always be the case that some amount of the user base will only ever be interested in what they can get rather than what they can give, at least with the proposed adjustment in place it'll also be the case that their chickens will eventually come home to roost unless they also throw in a merit-worthy post once in a while.)

Two final thoughts:

(*) I can't really say that I'm happy with the name "carry". Maybe someone else will have better luck than me with finding a good name for a subtractive term in the rank calculation.

(*) I don't think "carry" (or whatever it ends up being called) should be something that's displayed independently. In my mind, it'll affect the display of your merit balance. As in, if you have 100 merit and 5 carry, then your merit balance will appear as 95. (I guess, for display purposes, your merit balance should then be clamped to prevent it going negative. Otherwise, it'll be kind of demotivating for most new users to see their merit balance as "-1" after making their first 10 posts.)

(I haven't managed to state things exactly how I would have liked, but, my wife is shouting at me from across the house to come and eat, so, I'm going to stop fussing this post now and go get some chow.)

[_act_]

In effect, you'll need to earn at least 1 merit for every 10 posts you write (on average) if you wish to prevent your account from slowly drifting toward a lower rank. And you'll need to get beyond a 0.1 merit-to-post ratio if you're aiming to increase your rank.

How is it going to be. Did you mean after every 10 posts someone make without having one merit, 1 merit will be deducted? Or the merit will not be deducted but the deranking will be based on carry? I think you meant the later. I still like how the merit system is and I will not like anything to be added.

Did you think some people will rank up and later become spammers or you think some accounts are waking up recently which belongs to spammers?

I noticed some people will have 10 posts and not yet have merit consistently, while sometimes they will earn merit.

[Mahiyammahi]

The idea here is that there's a new term called "carry" that will slowly de-rank you if you keep posting/doing things that nobody appreciates. That is, you can't just apply yourself to the task of achieving a given rank, you also have to apply yourself to the task of maintaining it. Just like your "merit" is a >=0 balance based on logged events, your "carry" is also a >=0 balance based on logged events. There's a more general version of this idea where different forum actions attract different amounts of "carry", but, the simple version that I think should be experimented with initially is just one where there's a single type of system-generated "carry transaction": Whenever you make a new post, your balance goes up by 0.1. In effect, you'll need to earn at least 1 merit for every 10 posts you write (on average) if you wish to prevent your account from slowly drifting toward a lower rank. And you'll need to get beyond a 0.1 merit-to-post ratio if you're aiming to increase your rank.

Spammers be like:

That's a great idea , but I think it would effect the paid signature campaigns for peoples posting right now. I'm not disagree with this carry system , but do you think for mapping this ratio we should consider it more flexible way. Cause for the advertisement Manager's are seeking a certain amount of posts, and mostly half of these came from gambling section and I saw that talking about sport/casino anyone hardly intersted to contribute the merits there.  instead of 1:10 ratio we can determine it by time countdown , like 30days /120D ratio. Everyone has to be maintain a certain amounts of merit in these timeframe, although the initial idea isn't that bad. Let's hear from the comminty.

I think this would help with a few things (without impacting any even halfway-decent posters):

(*) It would slowly decay "airdropped" merits that either belong to accounts that have now changed hands or that were awarded in the first place to users that would have been unable to earn those merits organically. Basically, I'm thinking of accounts like mich (that account has only managed to earn 36 merits over thousands of posts, but it has the rank of "Legendary" and wears a paid signature). If an adjustment like what I'm proposing were put in place, then the person behind that account would have to re-think their whole approach to the forum (if they wanted to keep spamming their signature, that is).

That's an excellent observation, it would eliminate those who is only seeking this forum for cash grabing and buying/hacking/airdroped account will loose their integrity. Well what's the point if you've received the Hero/Legendary rank and couldn't even earn bunch of merits by contributing forum. This shows a user's contribution on forum .

One more thing is concerning here is should theymos increase merit sources or the amount of merit they recive each month.

[Su-asa]

 this will be a nice idea but I don't think it's going to help because people are active in the forum to share their ideas with others on the crypto space and at the same time we are all here to improve too, people like to progress in anything they do and when they don't they forget about it. And you know, if we divide the accounts on this forum into four parts I'm sure that roughly one part of the accounts here normally earn merits in each post. And if in the future people also see that their ranks are decreasing many will leave the forum and the forum might lose it traffic too. Just like what happened when mixer was banned, some people left the forum.

(I haven't managed to state things exactly how I would have liked, but, my wife is shouting at me from across the house to come and eat, so, I'm going to stop fussing this post now and go get some chow.)

Enjoy your meal

[Plaguedeath]

Well I'm someone who struggle to earn merit, but I think my post wasn't that bad, it just I'm not a part of circle.

If the forum really implement this, probably my rank would stuck at Full Member.

I prefer with demerit idea.

Basically, I'm thinking of accounts like mich (that account has only managed to earn 36 merits over thousands of posts, but it has the rank of "Legendary" and wears a paid signature).

I don't agree if this as one of your reason to propose this idea.

If a participant spamming, it's the manager should be the one who make decision to extend or remove him.

Didn't the solution of spamming is report the post to moderator? and then if the moderator didn't delete the post, the post isn't spam/meet the forum's standard?

[nutildah]

As everything PowerGlove does, this is a very thoughtful approach to introducing a possible improvement to the forum. I don't think encouraging a user to earn 1 merit for every 10 posts is too much to ask.

Let's say a post-merit system introduction user just earned their 1000th merit and became a Legendary. They have to earn 1 merit in the next 10 posts to maintain that rank. If they don't do this and drop to Hero, they can go 5000 meritless posts before they are deranked to Senior Member. However, if they earn >1 merit for every 10 posts, they'll be bumped back up to Legendary. Which I think is fair.

I can see how this would help prevent mindless posting.

A bit off-topic but for next year's April Fool's day, I would like to see the introduction of "merit zapping," where you can spend 10 sMerits to remove 1 merit from any user's profile. (at least for up to a week.) That would be fun. Lol.

[Mia Chloe]

Seems Power glove got bored again  . Anyways Can we just leave the forum as it is now? I'm already suffering enough from activity and adding carry to it might just be a nightmare. Now from the perspective of a merit source things change based on how you receive merit after you become a source (especially if you are not in a gang circling merit).

My main point here is I'm someone that surfs a lot more than I post most times a read multiple threads without making a single post and it became more often since I have to distribute merit. Now that simply means if I continue same way I'll probably be jr member in no time.... There are tons of members like this all over the forum.

[Tungbulu]

Inasmuch as implementing this would seem to only combat spammers and low quality posters across the forum, i still believe that some good quality posters who are mostly active in boards that don't receive quite a lot of merits would also be affected. for example, there are a lot of good posters who are mostly active on the gambling board and a few other boards that we all know doesn't receive much merits would be affected in one way or the other, even if they manage to earn a few merits from other boards, it's not guaranteed to come in the next 10 posts, which means they'll constantly be deranked.

Additionally, don't you think this would result to some people hoarding their smerits rather than giving it to other quality posts, just incase they fail to earn any merits after making 9 posts, so they'd simply just look for someone to trade it with, which IMHO defiles the merit system.

[Btcdeybodi]

The merit system is already making things difficult for some genuine users to grow in the forum since our growth is dependent on others judgement and help but do we need anything to make the forum become more difficult for each one of us? maybe we need to transition into a military regime whereby the forum will become stricter for all of us

However, no matter the strategy that is being employed to tackle spammers, shitposters and low quality posters, it won't completely sanitize the system.

That notwithstanding, it will really be a hectic work for the algorithms to function properly at all times which means that this development might at some point develop some bugs which might affect forum activities.

[Odohu]

I don't know what this will achieve but to me, the idea will make the forum lose membership very fast. It is more or less saying that active users must earn merits daily, something that is not possible given house merits can be very scarce sometimes. Therefore, my opinion is that status quo should be maintain because the forum is just fine as it is.

[TokenTikas]

The way the account rankings increased in the old days was straight. Any user could become a room member and a legendary member by fulfilling the requirements of the post. Then, a minor update came, and the rank was increased based on the activity with the post. This was also not very difficult for the forum at that time. Then came the countdown of merit with activity. This was a good time for the forum accounts to move towards the ranking. Combining activity with merit was a very good thing for the forum, which complicated things with the growth of beautiful scammers, which continues to this day.

The idea here is that there's a new term called "carry" that will slowly de-rank you if you keep posting/doing things that nobody appreciates. That is, you can't just apply yourself to the task of achieving a given rank, you also have to apply yourself to the task of maintaining it. Just like your "merit" is a >=0 balance based on logged events, your "carry" is also a >=0 balance based on logged events. There's a more general version of this idea where different forum actions attract different amounts of "carry", but, the simple version that I think should be experimented with initially is just one where there's a single type of system-generated "carry transaction": Whenever you make a new post, your balance goes up by 0.1. In effect, you'll need to earn at least 1 merit for every 10 posts you write (on average) if you wish to prevent your account from slowly drifting toward a lower rank. And you'll need to get beyond a 0.1 merit-to-post ratio if you're aiming to increase your rank.

Here, you want to add a new "carry" with merit that will control the system of a user's rank going up and down. This idea of yours will generate an idea about the disability of the users of the forum and the quality of posts they are making. You have explained that the "carry" system will show the merit number as a reduction. Although your idea is nice, I could not agree with it because the number of users in the forum is not very high. If such a system is introduced, the number of users in the forum will be reduced even more. If someone cannot earn a merit in every ten posts, then the busyness of their account will decrease. In reality, if a user has made ten posts but cannot earn merit, their "carry" will increase, indicating the reduction in merit. In reality, this will have an impactful signature. In reality, this is effective; the number of spammers will be completely zero, and the number of users in the forum will decrease, which is natural. I believe the current merit system in operation is sufficient for this forum.

(*) It would slowly decay "airdropped" merits that either belong to accounts that have now changed hands or that were awarded in the first place to users that would have been unable to earn those merits organically. Basically, I'm thinking of accounts like mich (that account has only managed to earn 36 merits over thousands of posts, but it has the rank of "Legendary" and wears a paid signature). If an adjustment like what I'm proposing were put in place, then the person behind that account would have to re-think their whole approach to the forum (if they wanted to keep spamming their signature, that is).

Yes, it will erode airdrop merits, and accounts that have changed hands will no longer be able to grow. However, it would be great if all legendary rank accounts were progressing as they should be, clearly visible. Signature spammers can be identified and removed.

(*) It would make it harder to buy/sell accounts. As in, sure, you could buy a "Legendary" account, but if you're going to just post mindlessly with it to make money, then eventually the "merit" that came with the account will be undone by the "carry" that accumulates each time you make a post. (And then, hopefully, the account will be considered worthless and can stop being traded.)

(*) It would make it harder to buy/sell merit. As in, sure, you could cheat by buying some, but, you'll likely have to do that repeatedly, because, as with the previous point, if you're just going to post mindlessly, then eventually the "merit" you bought will be undone by the "carry" that accumulates each time you make a post.

I agree that accounts that are bought and sold will no longer be able to move forward. When these accounts see that it is complicated to move forward in this forum, no one will buy them, and the buying and selling of accounts on the forum will stop.

(*) It would encourage more mindful posting in general, I think. A small "cost" risked by the poster each time they submit something encourages them to ask "Do I really need to be posting this? Do I really think that people might appreciate it? Or is this likely to be a post that only contributes to me losing rank?".

If this practice is introduced, then after writing a post, a user will think about what it will look like if they make this post. Nowadays, people write posts very quickly to fulfill the requirements of the signature campaign, but do not care about the quality of the post or how much that post can be appreciated in the forum.  The "carry" of accounts that meet such requirements will increase, and those accounts will lose their position by decreasing their rank. If this practice is implemented, the poster should try to write quality posts with great care before and after writing a post. This will maintain the balance of the forum, and many good-quality posts will be noticed.

[Alone055]

It's not a bad idea at all, and I also believe it is going to encourage users to improve their posts if they don't want to keep losing their ranks. Even though I know I might not earn 1 merit for every 10 posts that I make, I'm pretty confident that I'm not going to lose my rank if this addition is made in the ranking system, because I know if I lose 1 merit, I will regain it soon, this might slow me down for achieving the next rank, but I don't have a problem with that.

Those who are saying that this is going to affect those who post only in a specific board where merit circulation is very low, I would say that it's better because such a system will make them get out of that board or section, and visit other boards and have discussions all around the forum, and this shouldn't be an excuse used by them to say that they are getting deranked only because there are no merits in that section. No one is restricted, and even signature campaigns don't ask you to make all your posts in one section, be it Gambling or anything.

[LoyceV]

In this proposal, ChartBuddy is going to need a couple thousand Merits to keep it's rank, and to prevent it from being a Newbie again. Even though I expect it to receive enough Merit to keep it's Rank, I think the 1:10 ratio is too strong. Even 1:100 would be enough to drop the worst spammers back to Newbie. But that makes me wonder (again) why we keep those spammers here. There are accounts with 1000+ Activity and 0 Merit. Dropping them to -100 Activity doesn't help, unless it comes with severe restrictions. Maybe 36 million seconds between posts.
On a more serious note: deMerit and other forms of expiring airdropped and abused Merit have been discussed before, but so far it never happened (other than a few cases where theymos manually undid Merit transactions).

[Hridyansh Labs]

This will bring a very good change to the forum. The number of posts that are posted in large numbers will decrease. No one will be able to post randomly whenever they want.

[MithiRM]

Interesting idea, but I think this could backfire pretty badly.
You're basically taxing people for posting, which seems backwards for a discussion forum. Good contributors who help newbies or engage in active discussions would get punished just for participating. Meanwhile, people will probably just focus even more on merit farming instead of actually contributing useful content.

Also, merit distribution is already uneven across different board sections. Someone posting helpful stuff in the altcoin section is going to have a much harder time than someone in Bitcoin Discussion.
Maybe instead of penalizing every post, we could look at post quality over time periods? Like if someone's merit-to-post ratio tanks for a month straight, then apply some kind of warning or temporary rank adjustment.

Just my 2 sats - I think we want to encourage participation, not make people scared to post.

[mcdouglasx]

In a perfect world, it could work, but what happens when you publish quality content that's considered unvaluable by others, or when users are simply too lazy to give merit to someone? Most people here have their own criteria for awarding merit, and many only award it to people who share their thoughts and ideas, even if the posts aren't of quality.

An alternative would be to have certain post moderators as sources of merit. That is, for every 10 posts from a user, if they haven't received merit, they would be re-evaluated to see if any quality content has slipped through the cracks, in order to be 100% fair.

But I think this would be difficult to maintain due to the large number of posts.

It would have to be thought through very carefully, since not everyone is in the habit of awarding merit.

[Upgrade00]

This could come off as putting too much emphasis on merits. A simple approach to spam will be to have heavier spam moderation and a full application of the rules for defaulters, which involves a couple of temporary bans and then a permanent one if it persists.

I could get on board with something like this for airdropped merits for accounts that have not earned a single merit per 500 or 100 posts made. For members who have been able to contribute constructively and help out other users, they have effectively earned their merits and shouldn't need to retain it.

[aoluain]

I want to use a gardening analogy for this proposal..

Spraying toxic weedkiller everywhere to eradicate troublesome weeds which actually
kills all the other beneficial plants which largely go unnoticed - but yay we killed a
few nasties

There was discussions a while back that the forum was in decline, I fear with
this approach there will eventually only be 20 or so members with 10,000 merit
each just rattling around on their own on an otherwise empty forum.

[Brainnybtc]

I want to use a gardening analogy for this proposal..

Spraying toxic weedkiller everywhere to eradicate troublesome weeds which actually
kills all the other beneficial plants which largely go unnoticed - but yay we killed a
few nasties

There was discussions a while back that the forum was in decline, I fear with
this approach there will eventually only be 20 or so members with 10,000 merit
each just rattling around on their own on an otherwise empty forum.

Anyone that implement such a thing in this forum don't have the forum at heart because it's the easiest way to kill the the forum.
Members will be afraid of posting and sharing an idea or knowledge because if the post is not merited, he might loose his rank, and because of that we can't have a decent conversation anymore concerning a topic, which will make this forum very boring and uninteresting .
Or are we going to kill the forum because of spammers?
If that's the case then it's a very big shame to all of us here

[Ivystar5]

Believe me the traffic Bitcointalk used to have, and has right now will drop as soon as possible.

I believe Theymos probably have thought of the demeriting system over and over since the suggestions have been flying up and down the meta board but I guess he knows what will happen if he initiated it, we are only getting the level of entertainment because most things are allowed, once they are gone even those who post most meaningful things will become boring and the great Bitcointalk will fall off!

Mind you, I'm not underscoring your proposal PowerGlove but I'm trying to think this in another perspective, maybe high increase in banning spammers would reduce it, than eliminate it totally because an atom of everything makes it more important and interesting.