Are These Accounts Part of a Merit Sending Circle?

[Vovchik90]

I don't have proof that these accounts are connected and I'm not even talking about it. You can't just sent merit to your friend or relative out of just respect. With Their sending pattern i can only say they probably form a group and sent merit to each other on a normal post. If you see other board no one give marit to a normal post. So basically you are saying if some people form group with 20 people and send merit to each other it's ok. Forum become unfair people won't give merit to a people based on quality but based on their relationship

If you don't have evidence why appointing someone as alternative account, GO TO THE HELL LIKE A STUPID DT just tag the user based on their assumption and saying SEEMS, LIKELY

[JollyGood]

Sending merits is absolutely a highly subjective matter. The fact that there is literally no benchmark and no yardstick as well as the lack of crucial accountability, that means it is sort of wild west 

When it relates to merits, the rule is send as many as you want to any member you want because it is absolutely fine. If you do however get caught engaging in merit abuse by sending to alt-accounts and farmed accounts, you will probably receive a tag. If you send them as part of a merit sending circle or merit abuse circle, you will probably face zero sanctions are there is virtually no difference between the two.

Sending merits is a very subjective topic, and i also believe nobody has to defend themselves on how they send their merits. If you can somehow prove that a user sells merits or sends them to their alt accounts, then by all means bring it here. If not, just enjoy the forum.

[ThemePen]

Profile links:

• ThemePen
• ZAINmalik75
• Hamza2424
• Publictalk792
• Faisal2202
• JunaidAzizi
• shahzadafzal

Welcome baby!

For your information here are our active user for last month via @Rikafip

So you can get idea why merit going to them (active users)

Second let me help you with another hint in your list

ThemePen   <--- Merit source
ZAINmalik75
Hamza2424
Publictalk792
Faisal2202
JunaidAzizi
shahzadafzal <--- Merit source


Anyway only thing I can say is our merit receivers are small in number , our Pakistani Urdu speaking users community are small. Most of us are active because of our only local language section here, so Our merits will goes around like that because due to language barrier we rarely get exposure to other sections. I hope you understand. "Thank you for your attention to this matter"

[dragonvslinux]

~snip

To be honest I've come around to the fact that merit is shat around like a common cold so there isn't much to be said about all that. But can I ask you about the following?

I looked into the IP logs, and most of his votes seem to be from legit users. I see only 3-5 votes for him which I'd classify as likely alts. (Always hard to say, though, in either direction.)

Edit: To be more clear, I don't mean 3-5 alts of ThemePen. Of voters for ThemePen, I identified 3 groups of voters with possible alts, like this:
    A and his alt B
        C and his alt D
    E and his alts F and G
The second group is lower confidence, and it may or may not also be the same as the first group. So that's 3-5 extra votes.

As well as your reply regarding that:

Regarding the same IP address, I am not very technical in this field. However, I believe that if we are connected to the same WiFi network, we would share the same IP address. Genuinely different people using the same WiFi should not be considered alternate accounts.

As far as I'm concerned, I'd categorised this as the "pet hamster" defence as it's known elsewhere. You have brother and sisters, cousins and uncles, hamsters and dogs; some share the same WiFi but you were unaware, is that roughly right? Feel free to exchange relatives or animals for friends, acquaintances, neighbours, arch enemies, those who try to frame you, etc, but the points remains. Honestly trying to get my head around things here; I'm not seeing what distinguishes you from all the other multi-accounts out there, other than being a merit source at present. Feel free to enlighten me, maybe I have a lot to learn about the Urdu section. Apologies for bringing questions to you here in this manner, but I think it's better than any immediate alternative.

[DireWolfM14]

I think as long as there is a two-tier merit system where some members are privileged by virtue of being merit source and some are not, it will create many problems including corruption and merit abuse.

Technically, anyone who earns merit is a source of merit and can distribute it anyway he chooses.  But to large extent, you're right.  The merit system is a centralized system, and is rife with misuse.  I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's broken or rife with abuse, but there is certainly misuse and room for improvement.

The WO thread is a good example of frequent misuse, and almost every local board that has a merit source is yet another.  Favoritism always comes into play , as well, but that's just human nature and there's not much that can be done about that.  For years, Foxpup has been famously parodying that particular aspect of it's nature.

@thymos, maybe it's time to decentralize the merit system?  Do you want to hold another monthly lottery, lol?  The system is 8-years-old, and many of it's flaws have been made clear.

That reminds me, my "birth day" was a few days ago.  My account tuned 8!

[ThemePen]

As far as I'm concerned, I'd categorised this as the "pet hamster" defence as it's known elsewhere. You have brother and sisters, cousins and uncles, hamsters and dogs; some share the same WiFi but you were unaware, is that roughly right? Feel free to exchange relatives or animals for friends, acquaintances, neighbours, arch enemies, those who try to frame you, etc, but the points remains. Honestly trying to get my head around things here; I'm not seeing what distinguishes you from all the other multi-accounts out there, other than being a merit source at present. Feel free to enlighten me, maybe I have a lot to learn about the Urdu section. Apologies for bringing questions to you here in this manner, but I think it's better than any immediate alternative.

Come on do not be naive, I did not mean connected to same wifi router. In Pakistan we have broadband cable internet provided by our local ISP. It is a direct cable internet through a resellers. This is very common in small cities and villages you get a shared internet services and as far as I know we all will have similar IPs on the same network. How I know this because we play online games like Counter Strike and we can see each other on the same server. I am using one at home, of course I have 3G/4G direct from mobile but when I am at home I will be using my WiFi router which is connected to this cable net of local vendor.

[dragonvslinux]

As far as I'm concerned, I'd categorised this as the "pet hamster" defence as it's known elsewhere. You have brother and sisters, cousins and uncles, hamsters and dogs; some share the same WiFi but you were unaware, is that roughly right? Feel free to exchange relatives or animals for friends, acquaintances, neighbours, arch enemies, those who try to frame you, etc, but the points remains. Honestly trying to get my head around things here; I'm not seeing what distinguishes you from all the other multi-accounts out there, other than being a merit source at present. Feel free to enlighten me, maybe I have a lot to learn about the Urdu section. Apologies for bringing questions to you here in this manner, but I think it's better than any immediate alternative.

Come on do not be naive, I did not mean connected to same wifi router.

Well that's definitely what I thought, as it was implied to be fair. Thanks for clarifying, maybe you did in that topic I didn't check all the pages, hence asking the question.

In Pakistan we have broadband cable internet provided by our local ISP. It is a direct cable internet through a resellers. This is very common in small cities and villages you get a shared internet services and as far as I know we all will have similar IPs on the same network. How I know this because we play online games like Counter Strike and we can see each other on the same server. I am using one at home, of course I have 3G/4G direct from mobile but when I am at home I will be using my WiFi router which is connected to this cable net of local vendor.

Admittedly this I wasn't aware of, nor was theymos by looks of it. Hence having a lot to learn about the Urdu section it seems, or how internet works in Pakistan more specifically (which briefly confirms what you are saying). From a technical point of view, it explains why there would be "pockets" of you on the same network, presumably that's based on the few providers that are available in the country.  Anyway: my apologies again. You have explained what distinguishes you from your other multi-accounts and it didn't involve a pet hamster excuse (honestly, that's a first for me).

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I don't have proof that these accounts are connected and I'm not even talking about it. You can't just sent merit to your friend or relative out of just respect.

One shouldn't do that; however, Theymos has made it known that as long as any case of merit abuse isn't egregious he isn't going to have the moderators do anything about it.  Cases like the one you've shown have been a reality ever since 2018 when the merit system was created.  It's good detective work on your part, but as some others have said, just let it go.

If you don't have evidence why appointing someone as alternative account, GO TO THE HELL LIKE A STUPID DT just tag the user based on their assumption and saying SEEMS, LIKELY

Let it out, man.  Scream it from the hilltops until your vocal cords are raw and your anger directed toward the DT list is exhausted.  At least I assume that's what you're angry about.

[Satofan44]

I don't have proof that these accounts are connected and I'm not even talking about it. You can't just sent merit to your friend or relative out of just respect.

One shouldn't do that; however, Theymos has made it known that as long as any case of merit abuse isn't egregious he isn't going to have the moderators do anything about it.  Cases like the one you've shown have been a reality ever since 2018 when the merit system was created.  It's good detective work on your part, but as some others have said, just let it go.

That is not really the relevant argument here. Theymos does not do anything about the cases where the same person sends merit to their own accounts, but DT does. As such, DT can decide what kind of behaviors are allowed and disallowed -- and they have done this, although in a very loose and disorganized way. Therefore, any new behaviors can be added if someone decides appropriately that something is unethical. The subjectivity of the rules and their interpretations is exactly why all sorts of abuse happens. Imagine if you had a household of 4 people, each with 3 accounts. That's 12 accounts, and you can farm up each other's accounts as long as you don't send merit to your own accounts (as long as each uses their own deposit addresses). Without any proof that this was an "agreement", nothing will be done here even if the abuse is obvious because the posts that get the merit are shitposts.  

Technically, anyone who earns merit is a source of merit and can distribute it anyway he chooses.  But to large extent, you're right.  The merit system is a centralized system, and is rife with misuse.  I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's broken or rife with abuse, but there is certainly misuse and room for improvement.

The WO thread is a good example of frequent misuse, and almost every local board that has a merit source is yet another.  Favoritism always comes into play , as well, but that's just human nature and there's not much that can be done about that.  For years, Foxpup has been famously parodying that particular aspect of it's nature.

You are being way too generous. Given the subjectivity and loose rules with practically zero enforcement here, it is hard to objectively establish with data what would constitute a broken system that is rife with abuse. From what I can tell at least based on the cases presented here and looking around at various sections it is rife with abuse. People who are not part of any "group" or do not "know the tricks" will have a hard time getting merit regardless of their quality of posts if they are not posting in some specific sections, whereas those that find themselves in one of the former positions will easily farm up large amounts of merit -- this is exactly what would happen in a system rife with abuse. Sometimes in campaign applications you can find many full member accounts that have all earned the merit required in the last 120 days and display a high amount of merit received in their applications, 99% of the time they are pure shitposters.  

@thymos, maybe it's time to decentralize the merit system?  Do you want to hold another monthly lottery, lol?  The system is 8-years-old, and many of it's flaws have been made clear.

I hope that you are just joking, the DT system is a complete failure too.  

[JollyGood]

Technically, anyone who earns merit is a source of merit and can distribute it anyway he chooses.  But to large extent, you're right.  The merit system is a centralized system, and is rife with misuse.  I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's broken or rife with abuse, but there is certainly misuse and room for improvement.

The WO thread is a good example of frequent misuse, and almost every local board that has a merit source is yet another.  Favoritism always comes into play , as well, but that's just human nature and there's not much that can be done about that.  For years, Foxpup has been famously parodying that particular aspect of it's nature.

You summed it up aptly. The WO thread and virtually every local language board has shown the merit system is not fit for purpose, it really does need to change.

Part of the problem is that any number of merits can be given by any member to any member without any justification and without the need to provide an explanation. The issue is compounded when it relates to merit source rather than the non-merit source members and I think that is the aspect that has made it a bigger problem than it needed to be.

@thymos, maybe it's time to decentralize the merit system?  Do you want to hold another monthly lottery, lol?  The system is 8-years-old, and many of it's flaws have been made clear.

That reminds me, my "birth day" was a few days ago.  My account tuned 8!

You will probably feel as though you joined the forum just yesterday, that is how it feels for me