Don't PM for merit, no magic tricks for earning merits: advice for forum newbies

[The Cryptovator]

Today I received a message about merits. I am not angry, but I think it's necessary to share with newbies; hence, I intend to create this post. I haven't reported him as well and not been tagged for that, because he is a newbie and may not know the forum culture. So it's necessary to know how newbies could earn merits. I have hidden the username; some of you may criticise him or ignore him. Here is the quote:

Hello sir, I hope you and your family are all well. Sir, I want your help. I have come to you to ask a strange question. I don't know how you will take me. I apologize in advance if I have said anything wrong. Let me tell you the main thing.

I have been on the BitcoinTalk forum for about 50 days. From what I have understood from studying the forum these past few days, most of the users here dream of first becoming a Full Member and then becoming Legendary. You have achieved this. But without merit, the rank does not increase. Sir, my question is, how can I earn merit from everyone (even from you) by posting? Please don't misunderstand me, I have not come to ask for merit from you. But I have come to you to know how I can get everyone (even you) to give merit. That is, what are the things you consider when you give merit to someone's post?

 Finally, I want to tell you that if my unnecessary question makes you feel annoyed, then I am sorry. I hope you will teach me from your valuable time.

Thank you sir,,

So my answer was very simple. There are no magic tricks for earning merits; you have to spend more time to learn first, and then you have to contribute to the forum. Except for this, there are no quick magic tricks. This answer is for all newbies; I didn't take it negatively since he is still a learner and he may be curious about earning merits.

Also, my advice to all newbies: don't send such a PM to any user. Because if someone takes it negatively and reports it to the admin, then you might get your account banned. On the other hand, DT members would tag as well if they took it negatively. This won't be a good practice for newbies; don't make a merit post or don't send a merit PM.

[coinlary]

The frustration is actually understandable. Newbies always have the urge to get to the full member rank as soon as possible with little effort, comparing their account with another knowledgeable user they started with.

The drive is also understandable, especially the campaign part.Taking  their time to understand the forum and also learn to be able to contribute better could vary and takes  time depending on the user but it surely rewards 22hen they start cntributing .
N9t focusing too much on merit is also important.

[rat03gopoh]

A person's innocence can sometimes lead to the next ranks, as long as they openly demonstrate their inexperience and need guidance in getting started with Bitcoin. I've seen this happen on numerous occasions.
Not only are social media monetization algorithms, but merit systems are also completely random. Merit givers sometimes prefer beginners who are honest about their ignorance over those who pretend to be smart when they're just starting out.

[notocactus]

Today I received a message about merits.

He is not the first newbie does that. LoyceV, The Skeptical Chymist sometimes post about such PMs from newbies begging for merit.

So my answer was very simple. There are no magic tricks for earning merits; you have to spend more time to learn first, and then you have to contribute to the forum. Except for this, there are no quick magic tricks. This answer is for all newbies; I didn't take it negatively since he is still a learner and he may be curious about earning merits.

Also, my advice to all newbies: don't send such a PM to any user. Because if someone takes it negatively and reports it to the admin, then you might get your account banned. On the other hand, DT members would tag as well if they took it negatively. This won't be a good practice for newbies; don't make a merit post or don't send a merit PM.

Your advice is good but if newbies actually read and learn, they would have known that theymos emphasizes that "Don't beg for merit".
Assuming newbies know about merit, they would know about this thread Merit & new rank requirements

Do not beg for merit excessively.

theymos also guides how to contribute in the forum, write good posts, and get merit.
Writing a welcome message.

Forum rank

When you start out, you are a Newbie, and you will run into various annoying limits. These limits will be reduced to the point where you shouldn't usually notice them after you have participated in the forum for a few weeks. If you are on the forum to talk, then that's all you really need to know about rank. Don't worry about it too much, and you will eventually rank up.

If you want to maximize your rank, then you need to increase two statistics which are listed on your profile:

• Activity, which is maximized by posting once per day on average. Posting more than that is useless in raising your activity.
• Merit, which is gained by making good posts.

If you make ten thousand posts in a week, your activity will be capped and you will still be a Newbie. If you make ten thousand useless posts over any period of time, you will gain zero merit and you will still be a Newbie. You can rank up only by making good posts consistently. It's quality over quantity.

When trying to write quality posts, a lot of people act as though they're writing a book report for school: putting facts that we already know into their own words. Nobody wants to read that, and you will not get merit for it. Moreover, the length of your post and the quality of your English are only minor factors. In trying to write a quality post worthy of merit, you should offer new ideas, personal experiences, or perspectives that other forum users will actually find new and interesting.

[Die_empty]

OP, you did well by bringing this issue for discussion. Other newbies would learn from it and avoid making the same mistakes.

7. No begging. [5]

29. Sending unsolicited PMs, including but not limited to advertising and flood, is not allowed.

Begging in form of any form is against the rules of the forum. So, directly or indirectly asking for merit from a member is wrong. Sending unsolicited messages is also not welcome, so let others take note. Some time ago, some merit sources were accepting PMs for post reviews but it has been discontinued.

There is no shortcut to getting merits and ranking up. Newbies just need to add value to discussions and be patient.

[7juju]

All I see here is desperation from them newbies that randomly send such messages soliciting merits. I believe they don’t know the forum is against that. Op I must commend you on how you handled this, using it as a medium to educate other ignorant newbies is highly commendable. I just hope the right people that this post is meant for come across it, so they won’t fall victim, because they might do it with someone who won’t handle it the way you did yours.

[hd49728]

All I see here is desperation from them newbies that randomly send such messages soliciting merits. I believe they don’t know the forum is against that. Op I must commend you on how you handled this, using it as a medium to educate other ignorant newbies is highly commendable. I just hope the right people that this post is meant for come across it, so they won’t fall victim, because they might do it with someone who won’t handle it the way you did yours.

Maybe they are even not newbies as if the PM receivers are merit sources, I assume that such Newbies truly knew which forum members are merit sources, and they beg merit from merit sources by sending PMs. By knowing that information, I guess they also knew that the forum is against merit begging but you know with newbie accounts, what will they lose?

Nothing, so they try with hope of getting one or some merit easily and you can not tag them with a negative feedback for that.

[crwth]

Have you encountered this before, OP? They might be targeting those who have many merits and could be generous enough to give it.
^{(I doubt that it's easy like that, but maybe in their mind it's might as well try)}

For those newbies that PM, why not PM me? Kidding aside.

Just focus on making merit-worthy contributions to the forum and offering an original insight. Then maybe you can earn it correctly. Focus on the board selection and see what you can offer that is new.

It should be seen as a "side-effect" rather than a goal of "earn more merit."

[Charles-Tim]

In my own opinion, I do not see anything wrong in what the newbie did. He is a newbie and he asked the question.

It is an unsolicited message that I think people can not see as unsolicited. But if anyone do not want to receive personal messages from newbies, the person can disable newbies from sending them personal messages.

You have given good advise about it already.

I will also add what some people may not add. If established members from his country are many on this forum, he should also get close to them. But he has to be a good poster before they would want to get close to him. So follow the advise of Cryptovator. Learning is important. First be reading than posting.

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

The only magic I'm aware of to earn merit is actually making fine posts not exactly sending PMs. Plus most times it's naturally better to just focus on trying to contribute and learn from the forum and allow merit to come as a byproduct of your efforts instead of chasing merits.

I believe impatience is one of the major reasons why most newbies are actually unable to create organic posts and contents so they just resort to copy pasting AI content instead. With in my own limits I'll try to genuinely support those that are doing what's right.

[Doan9269]

The frustration is actually understandable. Newbies always have the urge to get to the full member rank as soon as possible with little effort, comparing their account with another knowledgeable user they started with.

Nothing is frustrating them as a matter of facts, all the have in mind is impatience and their intention to quickly rank up the ladder and achieve their signature aim, the feels more comfortable to spam and also give less and expect much in return, just show me some few quality post that deserve merits and were not even merited by either the sources or other individuals that freely gives to quality post,  what I will say is that the rate at which newbies engage on quality post is diminishing except they realize that they have to work out on the standard of the forum and give some thing that could attract a generous merits giver on their post.

[promise444c5]

OP, you did well by bringing this issue for discussion. Other newbies would learn from it and avoid making the same mistakes.

7. No begging. [5]

29. Sending unsolicited PMs, including but not limited to advertising and flood, is not allowed.

Begging in form of any form is against the rules of the forum.

What he did isn’t directly considered as begging though but I’m  not OP so I don’t really know his intentions… it shouldn’t be encouraged anyway.

When I was new @member rank  I was stuck a bit, I do not post that much anyway but I couldn’t get merit even with my little post.. and as a newbie, I literally sent a couple of messages to some users to know what exactly I was doing wrong about my posting that isn’t fetching merit .. I got feedback from some and even merit, I worked on the feedbacks and also get to know some of my LB users.

To some , what I did might be wrong but as a real noob  , you will always mess up..

[Hatchy]

In my own opinion, I do not see anything wrong in what the newbie did. He is a newbie and he asked the question.

Same view here, though like The Cryptovator said, everyone would not respond or view his message the same way.. maybe for me I'll just overlook it or just advice him on how to become better in making post and earning merits..from the message, he wasn't directly asking op to send him merits, he clearly mentioned that he wants to know how to earn merits from members including op. Many newbies on forum are usually desperate to earn merits for different reasons, but don't know how to go about it. It looks like magic to them, when they see other members earning alot of merits and try to see what they are doing wrong. They just have to put in a little bit more efforts to their posting, it's as simple as that..

[Comeacross]

But I don't really see anything bad in this message. All I see here is a newbie who's looking up to you as role model. May be he's impressed by your forum activities or you earn merit frequently. He made it clearly that he's not asking you for merit but to tell him how to start getting merit, what you consider before meriting a post (so he can adjust probably).

Even high rank members solicit for merits either by asking for a profile review through pm or submit links under threads for merits. A merit source made a thread for profile review for merit. Maybe it's normal when high rank members do it but become a problem when newbies do it. I don't know.

The strange thing here is getting worried just after 50 days. This is just like getting started and there's time for improvement. Tagging or ban accounts for this singular reason will be weird in my opinion.

[Taskford]

The frustration is actually understandable. Newbies always have the urge to get to the full member rank as soon as possible with little effort, comparing their account with another knowledgeable user they started with.

Nothing is frustrating them as a matter of facts, all the have in mind is impatience and their intention to quickly rank up the ladder and achieve their signature aim, the feels more comfortable to spam and also give less and expect much in return, just show me some few quality post that deserve merits and were not even merited by either the sources or other individuals that freely gives to quality post,  what I will say is that the rate at which newbies engage on quality post is diminishing except they realize that they have to work out on the standard of the forum and give some thing that could attract a generous merits giver on their post.

Usually if they aim to join on campaign the frustration is provably so high if their post made didn't get a merit.

Maybe this is the reason why they decide to send a pm to merit sources asking for merit.

But they don't need to do that, because it will just put them on bad position. If they are eager to learn lot of things and make sure they contribute well on the discussion also bring informative or something useful on the table maybe everything will just follow. So better for them at this point to learn lots of information about Bitcoin also other things which they are interested to learn.

[Doan9269]

The frustration is actually understandable. Newbies always have the urge to get to the full member rank as soon as possible with little effort, comparing their account with another knowledgeable user they started with.

Nothing is frustrating them as a matter of facts, all the have in mind is impatience and their intention to quickly rank up the ladder and achieve their signature aim, the feels more comfortable to spam and also give less and expect much in return, just show me some few quality post that deserve merits and were not even merited by either the sources or other individuals that freely gives to quality post,  what I will say is that the rate at which newbies engage on quality post is diminishing except they realize that they have to work out on the standard of the forum and give some thing that could attract a generous merits giver on their post.

Usually if they aim to join on campaign the frustration is provably so high if their post made didn't get a merit.

Maybe this is the reason why they decide to send a pm to merit sources asking for merit.

But they don't need to do that, because it will just put them on bad position. If they are eager to learn lot of things and make sure they contribute well on the discussion also bring informative or something useful on the table maybe everything will just follow. So better for them at this point to learn lots of information about Bitcoin also other things which they are interested to learn.

It could have been better had it been that what they sent are links to quality post and not for soliciting for merits, moreover all these are not even an excuse to PM a merit source or any individual for merit, to me is even against the forum rule because it is not expected that we should beg or ask for merit to be given to us, there are many threads already existing for rank up, they can check for the requirements and try to apply to the ones they are eligible, sending unsolicited p.m. could be annoying and also an unacceptable act, I've seen members getting temporary ban because of this, when they send PMs  too much and are being reported.

[Z-tight]

The only way to earn merits in bitcointalk is when others give it to you, i believe that to be the honest way to put it. There are a lot of smart and knowledgeable users who make very good posts, but they do not earn so much merit. That could be because of the boards they frequent, a flaw in the merit economy itself or because they are not a part of any local board.

However, over time, 'good' users would earn merits and could rise up in rank. My recommendation is simply to be yourself and have a good knowledge of what you are talking about. Don't suck up to anyone or lick asses for merit, neither should your quest for merit hold you from saying what you really want to say.

[Emjay24]

Hello sir, I hope you and your family are all well. Sir, I want your help. I have come to you to ask a strange question. I don't know how you will take me. I apologize in advance if I have said anything wrong. Let me tell you the main thing.

I have been on the BitcoinTalk forum for about 50 days. From what I have understood from studying the forum these past few days, most of the users here dream of first becoming a Full Member and then becoming Legendary. You have achieved this. But without merit, the rank does not increase. Sir, my question is, how can I earn merit from everyone (even from you) by posting? Please don't misunderstand me, I have not come to ask for merit from you. But I have come to you to know how I can get everyone (even you) to give merit. That is, what are the things you consider when you give merit to someone's post?

 Finally, I want to tell you that if my unnecessary question makes you feel annoyed, then I am sorry. I hope you will teach me from your valuable time.

Thank you sir,,

Dude already has the wrong orientation to be seeking to make his post merit worthy, instead of looking out how to contribute meaningfully to the forum. This PM speaks desperation and he needs to slow down on such, else he's gonna act out of it and get burned pretty soon

So my answer was very simple. There are no magic tricks for earning merits; you have to spend more time to learn first, and then you have to contribute to the forum. Except for this, there are no quick magic tricks. This answer is for all newbies; I didn't take it negatively since he is still a learner and he may be curious about earning merits.

In addition to this, I believe every user has their own interests, you need to identify with your interests on the forum whether Bitcoin technical, Economics, Politics, e.t.c and try to contribute more to those sections and merit would flow naturally. Very importantly he should identify with his LB. That's the best place to begin his learning journey.

Also, my advice to all newbies: don't send such a PM to any user. Because if someone takes it negatively and reports it to the admin, then you might get your account banned. On the other hand, DT members would tag as well if they took it negatively. This won't be a good practice for newbies; don't make a merit post or don't send a merit PM.

Correct!!, If I received an unnecessary PM, I'll report the user right away.

[Amphenomenon]

In my own opinion, I do not see anything wrong in what the newbie did. He is a newbie and he asked the question.

Same view here, though like The Cryptovator said, everyone would not respond or view his message the same way.. maybe for me I'll just overlook it or just advice him on how to become better in making post and earning merits..from the message, he wasn't directly asking op to send him merits, he clearly mentioned that he wants to know how to earn merits from members including op.

I share the same view as both of you but maybe because of past experiences from others or themselves, seeing how things turned out in the end.

To be honest, it can be difficult and sometimes one might not understand their flaws especially as a newbie since this improve with time, and other times they might be having quality posts without the merit which can be tiring but if one can continue to improve or post it becomes better with time.

Many legendary figure have experienced this, maybe as a newbie or as now with the reputation they have.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I will not show the nickname of the sender of the PM, but I can say that the request for merit once came to me not from a novice but from someone who suddenly decided that he was my friend and therefore decided that he could write whenever he wanted, as well as write asking me to send him merit, since he ("she") He was impatient that his rank was rising very slowly, and he wanted to feel like a legend.



I would like to add that such requests completely change the attitude towards people. I was a little disappointed because I don't like "underhand" games.

Yes, newcomers sometimes write with similar requests, but they have neither knowledge nor experience, but they can be understood, and those who are annoyed by newcomers can simply forbid them to receive PMs from them.

However, those who have been on the forum for a long time, with similar requests, should be careful, because sometimes you can get problems in your reputation.