Topic: Adding Merit was the most correct action against spam, let me explain why (Read 440 times)

So should everyone on this forum create a separate topic about his attitude towards merit system?

1) It will not decrease shit posts number, may be even increase it. Why? Simply because new merit system doesn't restrict anyone from posting and only fews trying to gain it, while all the rest don't give a f :)ck and keep generating tons of posts.

2) Why do new users need merit? To be available include well-formatted links to their signatures and to participate in signature campaigns. And who can give merit? Those users, who already can participate in campaigns and just are not interested in growing competitors for them by their own hands. So what do we see now: 90% of merit being spent on posts, which aren't in need of merit (e.g. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.33646534 ) and that doesn't mean there are no eligible ones.

3) The guys (mostly that are already who have enough merit to take a bath with it) who saying something like "it's not hard to be exceptional poster and get merit" - all of your merit is gained by exceptional quality posts..?

Ain't even mentioning human factor..


@shield132
You got merit for this topic, so it is valuable? May I create another topic with my opinion about merit system and get merit too?

Agreed to The Parmacist. As you mentioned, those high ranked members got merit as a reward but they post more shit than newbies. Now think about this: Since it's hard to gain merit, those high rank members will try to keep reward and not ruin their accounts by shitposting. So it will reduce spamming in high ranked members.
Now also look this: If high ranked members spam, then they may be in SMAS list and won't be able to participate in signature campaign, so since it's their main idea to earn from sigs, everything will end for them. And now, since it's hard for newbies to rank up, some of them will try their best to rank highrr, some of them will stop working on it.
So finally we have a great situation, less spam, less attempts to spam and even better forum.

Long story short.. There are positive sides!

With merit system now it became very very difficult to rank up. True
To get a single merit you need real efforts, you need to give time to your posts and posts should be helpful to the readers.

Simple comments like "very good post", "Interesting topic"; comment like these don't not add any value.
After all it's a discussion board not comment section like facebook.

Now this question have the shitposters reduced?
May be answer is no, but it's true we don't see many shitposts from Senior Members.
Newbie is new he/she will take time to learn and figure out what is going on.

Same or similar voting/meriting/scoring mechanism is placed on all major forums

Reddit have Karma -> Our merit system is much more easier than this KARMA
stackoverflow have reputation score and badges -> You must have expertise and technical knowledge
Microsoft MSDN have points and MVPs -> You must have 100% technical knowledge, your points will be reduced if your answer is un-marked

We should not forget the purpose of this forum.

"BitcoinTalk is a message board where people interested in the technical details and the development of Bitcoin software can talk to each other.
The forum also has places for people who are interested in bitcoin mining, in trading with bitcoin, and in the economics of Bitcoin"

Bounties, ICO or ANN were not the major reason behind this forum, a technical discussion was. These days whenever you click "Show unread posts since last visit." What you see is 90% posts in Bounties/ANN/ICO section.
I never get any benefit from this option "Show unread posts since last visit.". I have to go each board to find the interesting topics.

May be in future Admins can add voting a option to the post's replies so the most voted and relevant replies always stay up.

And merit is an appreciation to your efforts you feel proud of it if you get one.

[yes, I did this post that may be it will get a merit. But what ever I said is what i feel]

Give examples, please, of high-ranked members consistently posting one-line garbage posts.  And for every example you give, I can give you 20 examples of low-ranked members spamming for bounties.  Unless you do that, you're just talking out the side of your neck here.  The worst posters are, hands down, Newbies to Full members and usually they're the ones who have no merits so far.

In addition, your argument is extremely garbled and takes more neuronal activity than I like to expend in trying to understand what someone is writing. 

The current members who are Hero or Legendary earned that rank, regardless of merit.  You're just going to have to accept this fact and move forward.  Complaining about it smacks of ugly jealousy but doesn't shock me.  The maturity level of many users here is that of a special-school toddler, and one who picks his nose and hums during class, too.  Most high-ranked members got to that level not by shitposting, but by contributing to the forum in an interesting manner.  Not all of them, to be certain, but I'd say most.

We don't always think and post that newbies are only known with shit posting and one-liners. You will be shocked what some high ranking members are posting here and users don't quote them because of the rank or fear of their account being tagged by their friends. In my view, I do not think that the most shit posting in this forum are from newbies rather, they are from the high ranking members who escaped being stocked by the merit system because of the default merit as a result of their rank.

See, if a newbie because of his inexpeience; is shit posting , I think is understandable and pardonable than a legendary whose shit post should be considered offensive and annoying

The way I interpreted @riffat is like this:
1. Before, he automatically clicks "post" but now he is taking time to review it.
2. By being creative, he probably meant being constructive.
3. He might have realize ways on how to improve(trying to be better) which is good sign. Thus, merit system is touching a lot of people and helping them to get better day by day in their own ways. Most knowlegde aren't gained at school but with experience and a lot of practice.

What a creative work did you imply?
Clicking Preview button repeatedly to show your creativity. Oh, no I don't think so. Please stop to stupid idea and start focusing on spending more time to read useful topics, threads in the forum; some time later you will grown up (I mean getting more knowledge) and be able to help others. It's better for you and for the forum, in general.

I agree with you.I don't know is that your topic or not . But i only talking about the Quoted line . Because of earn Merit Point i have learn many things (Not much but as a new i used "MANY" ) For me it's a creative work . When i was working with some topic , i Click PREVIEW button again and again , and it makes me happy  and wonder me .  thats created my me ?!!  .

Most of the people complaining have realized by now that the admin is not going to make any change or take the merit system back. But once in a  while, we see a new member (who might be inactive and thus noticed the change later) coming and repeating the same complaint. There should be some sort of sticky thread in meta mentioning that the  "Merit system is not going to be reversed " .

the opinions you express are enough to clarify my doubts about the effects of this merit system, but now, I can draw the conclusion that with this merit system:
Newbe:
- Will only level up to jr.member if they just keep posting junk.
- Will be tired of creating new topics by itself because they'll need 10 merits to level up. So retiring early from the forum was their only choice.
- means no money.

Jr. Member - Full Member:
- Must be satisfied with the level if never produce quality posts. thus triggering them to try to make quality posts to get merits.
- Spammers who have climbed to this level still have to deal with SMAS Blacklist.

Sr. Member and above:
- Spammers who have climbed to this level still have to deal with SMAS Blacklist.

Merit is The Worst nightmare to sig spammers , shitposters, account sellers and who owns a ton of alt accounts (scammers) . this feature makes their dance be out of balance, LOL.  there are so many complains about this feature and most of the complainants are really in need i guess. Check the progress of merit after six months or more than to it. then, everybody will be evaluated and refined.

I am still neutral to the new merit system as it is still new and the lack of merits being sent is understandable as majority of the members are still tapping into the new ranking system. And new merit sources might be added in the future meaning more merit sources equals more members sending merits. Having an opinion now seems to be inaccurate not unless you look at it in the long term.

I think you didn't get the difference between these 2 above points. I will explain to you my point. There are two categories of people, In common they write good English and develop his idea clearly, but they are not same, one will get some merit and the other one not. Why? The member who can get the merit point, he introduced a very great idea with a new content, I mean by a new content is something not found yet in the forum, something original, the other one he can write good but the problem is he can't get points because of the content of his post.

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For members who already posts high quality content which they deserve merit points and they didn't get any single one yet, they need to post more to be involved in the forum to be seen.

You don't even need to separate this two since they are just the same. There are a lot of people that are creating constructive posts but still they are getting any merits since they don't seem to see the post as constructive or a quality post.

There is a lot of posts like this in the Mega Threads which members don't really read the posts but just spams the board to reach the qouta of their Signature Campaigns.

That's true that, there are a lot of people as you said in Jr member rank or maybe a member are writing good posts and didn't get any single merit point yet. The problem is divided into two things:

1- Members write long posts with good English and nice formed, but they didn't get any merit, why? I think here that the content of his post does not deserve a merit point unless he post an original post which it help others or the forum in general.
2- Members write good quality posts which high content and they didn't get any merit points, It can happen because this post is not yet shown to the right person, but if you continue to do the same, you will be merited soon.

If you think this forum is what is driving crypto innovation I think you are a bit off the mark.

Until this merit stuff came about I didnt even know sig spam was a thing. There is an option in the forum to turn off signatures, which I do on every single forum I sign up for since they literally add zero value to the experience.

This site should not be about making money by spamming, it should be about sharing knowledge. Between the sig campaigns, the bounties, and the entire marketplace section where I would say at least 90% of what is posted sounds shady and illegal as hell, this place is already a toxic wasteland. Merits arent helping that because they serve no real purpose. Forum ranks are meaningless too, some of the most well known legendary posters are idiots who spread misinformation and argue about things they know nothing about. No merit system will fix that.

Signature campaigns helps promote a lot of projects, if this will be eliminated I don't think crypto currencies will continue to grow in the future. We must accept the fact that even if signature and other campaigns creates too many spammers this also helps the community to become more popular as people starting to learn the idea of cryptos and digital economy.

If the problem is sig spammers, just disable signatures and ban bounties....this forum isnt supposed to be about making money, its supposed to be about spreading knowledge.

Administrators need to address the core issue directly rather than adding this convoluted system that has added literally zero value to the experience here.

There is such a thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/list-suspected-users-that-are-abusing-merit-30-2896910
And the main investigations thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2544574.320


They will get caught sooner or later and it will hurt them. Many people have been caught with their armies of accounts and lost years of leveling up. Those were hundreds of hours! So while you may think that they are fine, it's like walking on thin ice. They're dedicating a lot of time and sometimes also money (bought accounts) into getting an army of socks and placing them all in signature campaigns, and then all get caught and it's all lost. Even if they get to earn some money in the process it's usually not worth the time and effort.

I think you cannnot identify it by just looking at their merit, there are many jr.member up that post high quality and useful post but many of their post did not gain even 1 merit. Im not against merit, actually I like it, this system help me to learn here in a short period of time. 

To be honest, Few numbers of spammers will not give up easily from the bitcointalk forum and joining signature campaigns, They usually find some shitty solution to rank up by abusing the merit system. We should focus more to find them and make some investigations, Merit system is a very great way to find alt accounts and scammers, In addition, you can see which one is posting shit posts and high quality posts by simply looking for his merit points.

Latest attempt at gaining merit...

Be a pajeet poster, see that lots of people with merit support the merit system.. scratch pajeet head, have bright idea, start threads praising the merit system in hope of getting merits...

Is there anything that makes you to think that my intention while creating this thread was to get merits? Yes, I can type a full thought, just wanted to make it easier for others I guess..
I wanted to state my opinion in my own thread to attract others attention too. I think there is nothing wrong here.

Merits is a good way to clean up this forum for scammers, and also a great way to improve the post quality. At the same time, I think this is way too hard to rank up now, for instance from hero member to legendary. But, in any case, is the system guilty of that. I mean: now the new system is implemented is our duty to make it works. When you look into your profile, in the merit section, you will read how important is to share smerit in order to give people the opportunity of ranking out (if deserved).
So this is our duty, as members, to make it works. The system is based on a great idea, at least from my point of view, but it is not going to be easy to people feel it as "fair".
As another user has mentioned, there are full rank members who maybe do not deserve it. I think the merit system is just pushing all of us, even legendary members, to be better writers, to share better contents, or, at least to try. So, as a system, this is brilliant.
Now, some ideas come to my mind when talking about how to make it works. One of them, that I've repeated a lot, is to make a "Merit Contest" about a nice topic, or about something difficult to achieve (a problem needing the solution, for instance). I've been seeing people offering merits only to newbies or jr. members, but such a thing is not too fair. Hero members, I repeat, are one of the most "affected" of all by the merit system. So, in my thoughts, I find much more useful for everybody can participate in any contest they want in order to rank out, no matter the rank they already have.

I haven't made "this contest" yet because I want first to have your opinion. What do you think it can be about? Do you have something you need some help with to be the "Contest-topic"?
Let's help this merit system and make it really works!

Another thread about the merit system that has nothing unique to add and full of assumptions. We already had SMAS list before the merit system for punishing those spammers and a lot of members were placed there.

Now regarding only genuine members being ready to wait and contribute for so long, it appears very doubtful to me. I think a lot of genuine members will leave as well. No one will wait an year or more to rank up. Now we will have more of the members who are interested in just discussions here and getting information about bitcoins and other alt coins.

There are many ways to earn. Just drop by at the bounty section to explore more and earn tokens from social media campaign.

+1 on it. There are high rank spammers that continues their attack. Deserved posters must be leveled by the quality of post. But since merit system are implemented, i think admin will be seeing highrank members with a low merits earner by the end of implementing the merit system until the circulating merits would fade away or decay and putting them into SMAS will be a great idea.

Really? I guess you can check the Services board and see it for yourself.

Oh, and one more thing, there is also bounty campaigns at the Alltcoin Bounty Section where they even accept Newbie in a campaign. They don't even need to rank up to Jr. Member to earn money.

Is English your native language? Did you make this thread to just merit? Why can't you type a full thought out paragraph instead of just combining sentences together

The facts are if a user deserves to rank up, then they will rank up by earning merit. Gaining activity was never a problem as you get 1 for every day of posting, similarly, if you post high quality, informative material, then it is quite possible gain 1 merit+ per day also, making no difference to the amount of time it takes to rank up. The likely case is, it will take longer for people to rank up, but it also ensures that the users in the higher tiers are likely to be of an increasingly high quality due to the filters they have to go through to rank up.

I actually think that certain high ranked users should have been knocked down to a lower level too, just because people were in before the new system was placed doesn't mean that they should continue to stay there. It shouldn't be about who got there first, it should be about who deserves it.

The fact that you are not able to see something doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

I also think it was a good way to deal with the spam problem. It’s not perfect but it can be improved. Newbies shiptosting one-liners doesn’t work any more:


Yes but Junior members can’t wear signatures, so they can’t rank up to a level where they can earn money from campaigns.

I have not seen the success of this system ...
because the fact that there are still many spamer yg berkeliayaran ...
either because they are less understanding or others

Merit ruins lives. Do you people have no compassion for shitposters?

#newbielivesmatter

I am not certain if people are enjoying it since there are a lot of members that are not changing despite of the new system, they are just being themselves. But in terms of other members, because of this new system we identify great members that are not really popular before.


Newbies do not need Merit to rank up to Jr. Member. Please Read. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/faq-everything-you-need-to-know-about-forum-activity-account-ranks-and-merit-2766177


Unless they have some friends that can help them to rank up. Reading this, I think it is great to have a list of members that ranked up, we don't need to include the individual who ranked up to Members but the members that ranked up to Full Member and above. Though, I don't know how will we do this.


I think with the new System it will be the opposite. People will start to add some thought to their posts so that will mean that spammers will be decreasing and not increasing..

Hello guys
As I see some people hates merit, some of them enjoys but usually people don't look further to see more positive sides.
Merit was added because of sig spammers, right? People spam to rank up and join campaign and continue spam.
So currently most campaigns require high rank in order to participate. For newbies it's hard to rank up these days....
Now imagine, for spammers it will take maybe years to become SR member, this is much time and will require nervous + it can become annoying for spammers too. So only good poster newbies will fight for this (at least I think so ).
And you may ask about current high rank members....
We have SMAS list which grows and grows, so current spammers will be included in this list in future.
Now imagine, current lucky merit given spammers will be banned from campaigns + for new users ranking up will be almost impossible without good posts.
What we will get in a result?
Less spammers....
Just wanted to share my opinion....