Does sMerit actually Decay?

[Decimetre]

Each time I see this pop up I begin to wonder how it works and what it means by sMerit decay.  How long can the sMerit last without getting decayed or is it only a write up? Has anybody's own decayed and how long did it take to happen. I'm curious and really want to understand what it means by sMerit decay and it's possibility and timeframe.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Each time I see this pop up I begin to wonder how it works and what it means by sMerit decay.  How long can the sMerit last without getting decayed or is it only a write up? Has anybody's own decayed and how long did it take to happen. I'm curious and really want to understand what it means by sMerit decay and it's possibility and timeframe.

For your question, the information at the account merit page is clear enough.

If you read this Merit & new rank requirements that is the announcement of merit system launch can help you finding the answer about another thing, demerit.

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

There are no smerit decay and demerit so far.

[PX-Z]

"we reserved the right" is the important note in the merit page that can answer your question. Which means theres no exact time to do that, but it is very possible that it can be "decay"ed unused smerits, as the term used by admin.

[Cookdata]

"We reserve the right" means the forum Administrator can "do" and "undo" action to your smerit without your consent or knowledge if there is a reason to do it.

For now, there has never been any reports of decayed smerit or unused smerit taken away from any account.

[Upgrade00]

The key pharse isn't that the forum 'reserves the right', but that it can do that in the future. Thebfirs part just means that they can do that anytime they want, same way casinos reserve the right to ask for private documents and could be doing it to some other people already (this may have been the confusion).
Adding; 'in the future' means at the time of you reading that, the right has not been used yet. If there are any changes it will be updated.

[DYING_S0UL]

Each time I see this pop up I begin to wonder how it works and what it means by sMerit decay.  How long can the sMerit last without getting decayed or is it only a write up? Has anybody's own decayed and how long did it take to happen. I'm curious and really want to understand what it means by sMerit decay and it's possibility and timeframe.

As far as I know, NO, it doesn't decay (at least not to this date). Merit or sMerit isn't some radioactive isotope that decays over time.  

But nobody can say for sure what will happen in the future. As others have already mentioned, admin can basically change the current policy at any given time, and make them decay over time.

There is an exception when it comes to merit sources. Theymos allocates each merit sources certain amount of sMerits every month, for them to distribute throughout the month. Now if I understand correctly, if left unused, the sMerits will get a reset after the month is over. But we aren't talking about that here.

Certain users are designated as "merit sources". They can create new merit out of nothing, up to a limited number per month (which differs per source). I will not be posting a definitive list of merit sources (so that people don't bug them too much), though you'll soon figure out who they are if you pay attention.

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

[Cleanshit]

Well from my own end I was about asking another different questions, well am opened to learning I feel there was a time I noticed i had unexpected 5smeirt in my profile just like that I was confused how did it happen?

Please has anyone experience such before?

[bitmover]

Well from my own end I was about asking another different questions, well am opened to learning I feel there was a time I noticed i had unexpected 5smeirt in my profile just like that I was confused how did it happen?

Please has anyone experience such before?

There is nothing unexpected.

According to bip , you earned 90 merits and spent 39. You still have 6 smerits.
https://bpip.org/Profile?id=3588053

[(BTC)]

As far as I know, NO, it doesn't decay (at least not to this date). Merit or sMerit isn't some radioactive isotope that decays over time.  

But nobody can say for sure what will happen in the future.

When you said that, I got curious and researched other stuff that "does not decay" or "does not have a half-life". Interesting rabbit hole to go down. Aparently, it is one of the very few physical things in this universe/our reality that do not decay that we know of:

-photons
-electrons
-maybe neutrinos
-protons maybe can decay but experiments say it has ~10^34 years lifetime
-sMerit?  

Edit: @Pmalek's right. sMerit is indeed not physical.

[Pmalek]

@Decimetre
Don't worry about your sMerits decaying. Just use them normally. Merit posts you believe deserve them. I assume you like when your contributions to the forum are appreciated and someone merits you. Do the same to others, so they can feel appreciated too.

There is an exception when it comes to merit sources. Theymos allocates each merit sources certain amount of sMerits every momth, for them to distribute throughout the month. Now if I understand correctly, if left unused, the sMerits will get a reset after the month is over. But we aren't talking about that here.

Merit sources have two types of sendable merits. The usual sMerits like everyone else, generated when someone merits your post, and source merits that go in a separate pool. They first have to spend all of their source merits to begin spending sMerits. If they never manage to do that because of big source merit allocations, merit sources will have a big amount of sMerits in their accounts that keeps growing but doesn't get spent or rarely gets spent.

When you said that, I got curious and researched other stuff that "does not decay" or "does not have a half-life". Interesting rabbit hole to go down. Aparently, it is one of the very few physical things in this universe/our reality that do not decay that we know of

Except that merits aren't physical.

[TypoTonic]

How long can the sMerit last without getting decayed or is it only a write up? Has anybody's own decayed and how long did it take to happen. I'm curious and really want to understand what it means by sMerit decay and it's possibility and timeframe.

Here's what I found after looking for a while:

sMerits don’t decay to date. The warning shown when sending them is meant to incentivise people to move them into circulation, but not even the airdropped sMerits given to accounts when the Merit System kicked-off during January 2018 have decayed in any manner (those would be my first candidates to do so in the event of pondering sMerit decay).

I noticed i had unexpected 5smeirt in my profile just like that I was confused how did it happen?

Just take a look at your merit stats (Profile > Merit). You received 12 merits these past few days, and gained half of that as sMerit. There's nothing confusing about it, maybe you just didn't notice because you were inactive.

-snip- when someone sends you merit points, half of those points can be sent by you to other people.

[promise444c5]

Well from my own end I was about asking another different questions, well am opened to learning I feel there was a time I noticed i had unexpected 5smeirt in my profile just like that I was confused how did it happen?

Total Merit = 2 x (Smerits)
How many Smerit are you having left ? It should be 6 , if  your claim is true then you should still have upto 11merit. Proof it by spending the  11 Smerits on this post  or the thread itself .

Please has anyone experience such before?

No… you’re probably the first user if you can proof it or it was all in your dreams .. or you’re just whining us here 

[_act_]

Admin are not interfering with people's merit amd smerits on this forum, know that the smerits can not just decay for no good reason, but admin just give it as a warning I think to encourage people to spend the smerits. No history of anyone that saying their smerits decayed.

If it is merit source, that is different. The smerits given to the merit source monthly will decay if not used, but it will later be generated in the following month.

[Decimetre]

"we reserved the right" is the important note in the merit page that can answer your question. Which means theres no exact time to do that, but it is very possible that it can be "decay" unused smeris, term used by admin.

Okay, this is all encompassing. I thought as much but then wondered if there could be any time frame when the unthinkable could happen, when you log in and discover you've lost it all. I'm a thinker and a curious being and a knowledge seeker. Such phrase could have been added for policy reasons.

Admin are not interfering with people's merit amd smerits on this forum, know that the smerits can not just decay for no good reason, but admin just give it as a warning I think to encourage people to spend the smerits. No history of anyone that saying their smerits decayed.

Perhaps!

If it is merit source, that is different. The smerits given to the merit source monthly will decay if not used, but it will later be generated in the following month.

Oh, that means the merit given to merit sources are quite different from the merit received? That means that merit sources are obligated to spend all monthly.

[SuperBitMan]

They have already made it clear to you in the write up you put out, they said they reserve the right to decay unused Smerit, this show it can be possible for your unused merit to decay.
However I have not seen someone complaining about that but I think it usually happens to merit source when they fail to use their monthly Smerit given to them for that month, but I have not seen it happen to ordinary members in the forum, but I believe they have a time limit for that trust me, if you have Smerit and you are no longer active for many years those Smerit may decay.
So it’s possible and I believe they have a time frame for it to happen to someone.

If it is merit source, that is different. The smerits given to the merit source monthly will decay if not used, but it will later be generated in the following month.

Oh, that means the merit given to merit sources are quite different from the merit received? That means that merit sources are obligated to spend all monthly.

Yes but is not mandatory if they decide not to finish it for that month, maybe for not seeing quality posts to distribute it to.

[_act_]

Oh, that means the merit given to merit sources are quite different from the merit received? That means that merit sources are obligated to spend all monthly.

Yes, all the merit that merit source are auto-generating have to be spent because of this reason. But the smerit that the merit source are receiving from the merit sent to them by other members which is 1 smerit from 2 merits received, it can not decay just like other members that are not merit source which their smerits can not also decay.

[Mia Chloe]

Each time I see this pop up I begin to wonder how it works and what it means by sMerit decay.  How long can the sMerit last without getting decayed or is it only a write up? Has anybody's own decayed and how long did it take to happen. I'm curious and really want to understand what it means by sMerit decay and it's possibility and timeframe.

It's more like an urge for you not to keep holding on to smerits. Basically why it means is there isn't really a specific time frame before they decay however just know that it isn't really impossible for it to decay and I think if it's gonna be done it will be manually.

Based off my personal speculations I think the admins will only probably use it in a case where there could be excess merit in circulation then they might just burn up some existing ones. Then again like I said I'm just adding this up here as a speculation not really facts.

[Mrbluntzy]

or is it only a write up?

It's actually a write up but a deep information telling you that they could decide to decay those smerit at any time in the future. The information is not specific about the duration of time it will take for the decay to be done but it's something they might do depending on some circumstances or something that will not be done. It's a decision that has never been take but you must be aware that they have the right to decay it at any point in time if they want to. If you are looking for someone that has experienced it before, I doubt anyone has, there has never been any complaint about that since I came to the forum.

[BitBakerr1]

I have not heard of that before and I don’t think it has happened to anyone before I believe that statement of decay if not used is a way of telling people to make sure they use their Smerit, and if it those decay then it’s better that way since you don’t want to use it theirs no point in it being their but more time should actually be given to people because seeing a quality post that deserves merit is sometimes very difficult.
But since I started this forum till date I have not experienced that before and from the replies here it shows same thing and it looks like merit source are the only people affected by that decay of Smerit since they are always given a particular number to distribute to the public.

[EarnOnVictor]

"we reserved the right" is the important note in the merit page that can answer your question. Which means theres no exact time to do that, but it is very possible that it can be "decay" unused smeris, term used by admin.

You nailed it! Reserving a right doesn't mean it will happen now or later, but will happen at the admin's discretion. This could mean any time or "never."

But I hope it could still be revisited for it to be actually decaying if not used. Some users might have the merits stored for years and nothing has happened. Whereas some members who needed it never received it. And not only that, it would even be better if a decaying merit reduces users' existing merits to show the system's bitterness for allowing it to deacy. Of course, unless the account is not active.