Account selling is allowed but merit buying isn’t allowed

[ertil]

So, if you want to spend your monthly merit allowance you have to lower your standards

That's why Satoshi has so many merits: because sources would rather burn them, by sending them to him, than lose them permanently.

Because if you don't send your merits, then they will be lost. But if you send them to Satoshi, then they will be "burned", but they will come back, 30 days later.

[GeorgeJohn]

But what happens if accounts which are newly created after the merit system are brought up for selling?

People will be against selling such account..It’s discouraging to sell accounts, The reason been that, nobody knows the objectives of the buyers..if the objective will be far from the objectives of people who is in the forum already....A sold account can be used for illegal operations, such as scam and selling of what is prohibited in the forum

Does that not contradict the no-selling merit rules and account buying being allowed?

Something will happen before someone may decide to sell his accounts, it's neither you're tired of the forum or you have a job that consume almost your time, I have experience so many persons who is tired of forum, but they couldn't sell their accounts rather they make public announcements and state the reason why they wants to be off forum, I think that's the best to do instead of selling your account...

If a user can just create an account, feed it with enough merit and sell it out, is that not the same thing as selling merit directly?.

A merit selling is prohibited in the forum, anyone who sells merit have violated the rules and regulations of forum, so anyone who intentionally bought accounts because of merit, is in conjunction with someone who single handed sold a merit...So it will be good for we to back off from such intentions.

[Hazink]

OP, firstly, could you show me what rule has been changed in recent years? That's right, none. There's a problem with the use of AI in posts. Are there any changes to the rules regarding prohibiting or allowing the use of AI? No. The community itself condemns people who resort to AI. Likewise, is there a direct ban on plagiarism? Review the topic and see if all accounts are banned? Everything is reviewed on a per-account basis.

That's correct. No rules have been changed over the years. It's just as if the forum rules are stamped and not subjected to change aside from the mixer ban and DDoS service ban which were added recently as part of the forum rules, nothing has really been changed or amended, but it does not still stop us from making suggestion maybe the admin can one day wake up one day to honour some valid request just like the mood he was the day he approved new set of merit sources.

FWIW some merit source are being generous and it's exploited by account farmer/spammer. In addition, AFAIK theymos almost never remove such merit source either.

If it's about just being generous, those who take advantage of the source's generosity are the bad egg here and not the source, but if the source is also given merit to post that is questionable and the admin is somehow convinced it's not worth it, maybe he can take action, as he stated on his quoted statement below.

…but if you conclude that they're wrong, then that's that. You don't need to stress about it or defend yourself constantly. It's conceivable that someday you and I will end up disagreeing too much about this stuff and I'll remove your source status, but it's really not a big deal.

And this brings me to the question aside from Ratimov, aka Symmetrick, who was removed from source before later getting banned, have there ever been other sources removed who were active, not the replaced inactive ones?

Because if you don't send your merits, then they will be lost. But if you send them to Satoshi, then they will be "burned", but they will come back, 30 days later.

I don't think that's how it works. From what I have read, if I understand it correctly, the source merit is refilled based on how much they spend. For instance, if you are a source with a 100 Smerit monthly allocation, if you spend only 50 out of the 100 before the new time for refill, another 50 will just be added to the remaining 50 to sum it up to the usual monthly total the source is allocated with. Spending it or not will still make you have your usual monthly number, nothing added. Maybe a merit source can throw more light on this if I'm wrong.

[Vod]

Merit has lost its initial reason; to identify meritable posts.   I read them everyday but can't merit them because smerits are not distributed.  :/

Maybe you should apply for a merit source spot?  

Why do we have to beg Theymos to let people know a post is worth reading?  Is it a control thing for him, since it would be much fairer and easier to automate it based on DT - which is already community vetted?

[Rikafip]

it would be much fairer and easier to automate it based on DT - which is already community vetted?

The problem I see with this approach is that it would be hard to properly spread the merit sources across the forum, so some boards could end up even more undermerited/overmerited than they are now.

[Catenaccio]

The problem I see with this approach is that it would be hard to properly spread the merit sources across the forum, so some boards could end up even more undermerited/overmerited than they are now.

Without that change, people already shrink their merit distributions to local boards. With that change, if occurs, will result in more centralized local board merit distributions from merit sources.

In some posts, some forum members already said that merit system fails to distribute merit fairly to good posters and recent years, there are many shit posters ranked up like charms from their local farms by exchanging merit between friends or buying merits from their local members. On top of their merit activities, it's merit exchange but there is possibility that it's bought and sold merits.

[philipma1957]

The merit system is fully gamed.

But account selling is also still un stoppable

 Both need an overhaul

[ABCbits]

FWIW some merit source are being generous and it's exploited by account farmer/spammer. In addition, AFAIK theymos almost never remove such merit source either.

This "generosity" might be caused by the smaller number of quality members and therefore, fewer quality posts. So, if you want to spend your monthly merit allowance you have to lower your standards, which then leads to shitposters receiving enough merit to reach higher ranks.

Fair enough. While i don't claim it's always better, merit source could send more merit to each post/thread or even send to old account/post (which already stated times).

FWIW some merit source are being generous and it's exploited by account farmer/spammer. In addition, AFAIK theymos almost never remove such merit source either.

If it's about just being generous, those who take advantage of the source's generosity are the bad egg here and not the source, but if the source is also given merit to post that is questionable and the admin is somehow convinced it's not worth it, maybe he can take action, as he stated on his quoted statement below.

…but if you conclude that they're wrong, then that's that. You don't need to stress about it or defend yourself constantly. It's conceivable that someday you and I will end up disagreeing too much about this stuff and I'll remove your source status, but it's really not a big deal.

And this brings me to the question aside from Ratimov, aka Symmetrick, who was removed from source before later getting banned, have there ever been other sources removed who were active, not the replaced inactive ones?

This is the only other case that i remember.

Apologies to all concerned, I will no longer be handing out merit in this thread. Theymos removed me as a merit source because he disagreed with the way I spent my merit. I will leave this thread open and you can continue to post merit requests here if you like; however, I won’t be answering them.

Good luck to all.

CBH

[nutildah]

So, if you want to spend your monthly merit allowance you have to lower your standards

That's why Satoshi has so many merits: because sources would rather burn them, by sending them to him, than lose them permanently.

sources who forfeit 100s of merits monthly:


I will probably never touch my sMerit balance. Yet I would still be sad if theymos reduced my monthly source merits.

"YOU'RE WASTING THEM!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY'RE JUST GOING TO WASTE..." - a sad merit farmer somewhere, probably

Actually I should merit more satoshi posts now that I think about it, because whenever you see a screenshot of a satoshi Bitcointalk post in any other media, you can see who merited it. Its like a way to advertise yourself.

[LoyceV]

sources who forfeit 100s of merits monthly:

I haven't emptied my Merit source in a very long time. I've posted a little challenge in Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source a few times: show me posts worth 50 Merit and I'll send them 50 Merit. It's just not happening, and I don't have time to search for that many rare good posts each month.

Can I sell merit?
Selling merit is disallowed.

I've never seen this officially from Admin. But there's this:

It is not allowed for merit sources to sell their merit.

If this would also apply to non-Merit sources, I'd expect to see it on all accounts.

Here's an idea: instead of buying Merit, write about a topic you're passionate about and know more about than the average reader!

[Rikafip]

That's why Satoshi has so many merits: because sources would rather burn them, by sending them to him, than lose them permanently.

Because if you don't send your merits, then they will be lost. But if you send them to Satoshi, then they will be "burned", but they will come back, 30 days later.

That's actually not a bad way way to get rid off merit, without lowering your standards.

Luckily I have no issues with that since I am not a merit source and I usually spend what I get within few hours, so for like 99.99% of the time I am at 0. 

[d5000]

One could interpret the rule "merit selling is not allowed" in a way that it then is also not allowed to sell merits bound to an account.

That would mean: Account sales are only allowed, if the account has absolutely no merits on it.

Which would, of course, trash the whole account sale business. Perhaps some niches like "account created in 2010 but never merited" would be still possible lol.

[The Cryptovator]

Account selling is frowned upon, but it's allowed. Those caught selling accounts or sold accounts caught either get a neutral or red tag. How about disabling the account selling rules completely in order to protect and promote the no-merit selling rules?

To prevent account sales and change the rules, acouple of thread have been raised. But unfortunately we haven't seen any change in the rules. Merit sales seem prohibited only for merit sources; there is no mention about non-merit sources on the merit page. Also, theymos isn't too strict about merits unless something is wrong with the merit sources. For me, I strictly dislike selling or buying forum accounts. If you see feedback left by me, you can see I have tagged a lot of account sellers. But does it really help to reduce account sales? Very few sold accounts have been tagged; only the thread creator account has been tagged.

So what will happen when the forum officially bans selling accounts? We may just see fewer or no account sales threads on the forum. Because if someone creates an account, the sales thread might be deleted by moderators. But they still could trade accounts outside the forum. Probably still, you may find account sales on the marketplace like Fiverr. If you really can't stop this activity, then implementing a rule would just be a formality. It won't be effective at all to prevent account sales.

DT members tag sold accounts if caught, and theymos isn't against DT members in that case. That's the reason why Theymos is not bothering to prevent account sales when he knows it can't be prevented anyway.

I'm wondering whether you specifically disapprove of account dealers being tagged--not necessarily your opinion on the matter, but whether you'd consider that an inappropriate use of the trust system.

Since some people view account sales as fundamentally untrustworthy, I think it's an appropriate use.

But I feel forum rules need to be updated from time to time. A lot of things have been changing day by day; the forum should comply with that.

[Zoomic]

One could interpret the rule "merit selling is not allowed" in a way that it then is also not allowed to sell merits bound to an account.

That would mean: Account sales are only allowed, if the account has absolutely no merits on it.

Which would, of course, trash the whole account sale business. Perhaps some niches like "account created in 2010 but never merited" would be still possible lol.

Lol, of what important is it to make rules that are not straightforward.

"Account sales is allowed but it's discuouraged" is so powerful and it is all we need. That very controversial clause (rule) has been working so fine.

Imagine that account sales is legal in the forum, but can anyone point to me a successful account sales transaction without a negative tag?
So, account sales is invariably not allowed in the forum, simple!

[SuperBitMan]

Without law there's no society, the bitcointalk forum is a community or society and what is keeping the bitcointalk community are the laws that has been made, this laws guide the members here in the forum and make them conduct themselves.
Now when this law that is guiding the society or community is not amended sometimes, it also causes the society or community to die away. The law is suppose to grow with the people, what do I mean by this?  As time goes on the society are changing new technology and knowledge are coming up and when the law is not also changing to suit this new technology and knowledge the society or community is in a big problem.
I think it's time for the forum management to conduct a law reform here in this forum there are a lot of things that needs to be corrected.
I have a lot to contribute if being allowed.

[philipma1957]

Account selling is frowned upon, but it's allowed. Those caught selling accounts or sold accounts caught either get a neutral or red tag. How about disabling the account selling rules completely in order to protect and promote the no-merit selling rules?

To prevent account sales and change the rules, acouple of thread have been raised. But unfortunately we haven't seen any change in the rules. Merit sales seem prohibited only for merit sources; there is no mention about non-merit sources on the merit page. Also, theymos isn't too strict about merits unless something is wrong with the merit sources. For me, I strictly dislike selling or buying forum accounts. If you see feedback left by me, you can see I have tagged a lot of account sellers. But does it really help to reduce account sales? Very few sold accounts have been tagged; only the thread creator account has been tagged.

So what will happen when the forum officially bans selling accounts? We may just see fewer or no account sales threads on the forum. Because if someone creates an account, the sales thread might be deleted by moderators. But they still could trade accounts outside the forum. Probably still, you may find account sales on the marketplace like Fiverr. If you really can't stop this activity, then implementing a rule would just be a formality. It won't be effective at all to prevent account sales.

DT members tag sold accounts if caught, and theymos isn't against DT members in that case. That's the reason why Theymos is not bothering to prevent account sales when he knows it can't be prevented anyway.

I'm wondering whether you specifically disapprove of account dealers being tagged--not necessarily your opinion on the matter, but whether you'd consider that an inappropriate use of the trust system.

Since some people view account sales as fundamentally untrustworthy, I think it's an appropriate use.

But I feel forum rules need to be updated from time to time. A lot of things have been changing day by day; the forum should comply with that.

Banning the sale of accounts would mean sales would go off the website.

ALSO how about a free raffle for an account.

In fact maybe I will alter my will so that when I die my wife give a free raffle of my account.

To be clear my wife won't do this. But you can see the issue with no account sales.

To me I say encourage account sales on an account sales thread and that the sold account gets an indelible 5 year mark as a sold account.  Ie :  theymos sold on 12/31/2025

New thread

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5569129.msg66200632#msg66200632

Note I have not seen the idea of an official sales thread.

And marking the sold account for 5 or 10 years.

If it is an old idea please find a link to credit that person .

[Rikafip]

Imagine that account sales is legal in the forum

We don't have to imagine it, account sale is legal.

Banning the sale of accounts would mean sales would go off the website.

99.99% of the account sales probably already happens outside of the forum, seeing how all those who attempt it here get tagged.

[trendcoin]

Merit is just nonsense... It's a system based entirely on political affiliations. Furthermore, placing a merit source in a superior position to other users creates an elite order, and this does nothing but squeeze forum users into the concepts circulated by the elite. So, boooom. Over time, the forum turns into a place where only one type of person gathers, appearing free but actually not free. I think the big contradiction and problem is this nonsense called merit. I think it's normal to find such a distortion in this system...

[dkbit98]

Account selling is frowned upon, but it's allowed. Those caught selling accounts or sold accounts caught either get a neutral or red tag. How about disabling the account selling rules completely in order to protect and promote the no-merit selling rules?

That would not change anything and it wouldn't stop accounts from being sold.
Even now accounts are being tagged by some DT members if ownership was changed, so account trading was always grey area happening secretly.
I would say that similar thing is happening with merits, but they are used more for cheating with multiple accounts.

Here's an idea: instead of buying Merit, write about a topic you're passionate about and know more about than the average reader!

You mean they should actually use their brain instead of ''wonderfull'' AI tools that generate everything in few seconds? 

[Vod]

I haven't emptied my Merit source in a very long time. I've posted a little challenge in Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source a few times: show me posts worth 50 Merit and I'll send them 50 Merit. It's just not happening, and I don't have time to search for that many rare good posts each month.

That's why Theymos needs to spread out smerit distribution. While his intention and choices may be good, the community complaints continue to grow about merit.

50 merits to one post nullifies (with extreme prejudice) the 1 or 2 merits the average user sends - I tried to show this to Theymos once but he responded by removing my source status.  Less stress for sure, but I am a Legendary member that has more experience here than most - I should be able to identify good posts the same as you.   Instead of giving one person 1,000 smerits a month, he should give 100 smerits to ten people.    We already have a voting mechanism to identify members that use merit properly.

I have an alternative I am launching end of year, but I'd hate to see the merit system devolve further into a private club.