It's been only a year for you in this community. I wish you were here since April 2018. The number of useless threads popped up since the merit system are just painful to see, I don't think all forum members even read it all. Spam does not mean you are making a one line post. A thousand words article could consider a spam if you do not provide any new idea there. Just spend half an hour and read all these self praising threads. After reading first few lines you feel bored, you find nothing useful. If one user can make over half a dozen threads just to talk about himself with the same talk again and again then 100 users make 600 and a 1000 users make 6000 new topics with no new idea no new thoughts just wall of texts. What's the point? Only to earn merit or do you have anything else in mind?
I can give you example of so many users who are earning merits but not doing these self praise type none-sense BS just to whore merit. Yes it is just a dirty way of whoring merit. Look at fillippone, LoyceV, o_e_l_e_o, El duderino_, DdmrDdmr, suchmoon, LFC_Bitcoin, pooya87, gmaxwell, JayJuanGee, The Pharmacist or even theymos and many others. Find me few topics from them that are garbage self praising, showing off with bold head. You will find one from LoyceV in his 7 long years in the community, this is acceptable when it's once in a moon. So, aren't they earning merit? Of course they are! But they are not whoring for merit.
On the other hand some users just popped up with accounts since the merit system started with topics like I did this, here is my guide, list of my doings, citing articles from the web even translating in some other language and trying to tell you that it's their creating. All just to fish merit. If this was one or two once a year then it would make sense but no! Almost every week you will see a self praising thread is popping up in reputation board, in the H&B you will find a translation copy almost every day, just wall of text with nothing new added in there.
Can you tell us anything that is wrong about this? People are not sad about it and there is more room on Reputation board this can contain as long as the member is a reputable member on this forum.
It's annoying, it's redundant, it has not new idea behind it. It's like you are entering inventory information for the same product with just a new cover all the time. In fact after a day or two the topic is just buried under some other topics. After few days no one is finding it anymore.
I think if a member contribute good and ranked up, there is nothing bad for the person to create such a thread for himself.
Showing off should have a limit, should have a boundary to feel ashamed. When you are self celebrating after every 100 meters of running in a marathon then celebration become meaningless even if you win the marathon.
Why did you think sharing it here is better than creating a different thread about it. It is as simple as, if I see you contributing good, I will merit your thread about your achievements on this forum.
If you are doing this for merit then you are a merit whore. Merit is for your good contribution on the forum, not for a list of contributions. Deceiving merit and earning merit can not have same meaning.
I think having a thread like this is better because:
1. If you really want others to read the stories then they can find the stories in one place.
A single topic for each achievement is burying under other topics after couple of days. They can say that they are sharing experience to inspire others. When a topic is buried after few days, those who missed it are missing to get inspired.
2. Obviously it is reducing the redundancy. You don't need half a dozen topics from a single user to pitch you same product in a new packet all the time.
3. Obviously it's less annoying for old timers like us.
4. It helps not to play foul for merits. Stops merit whoring.
Consider this example:
Known Alts of any-one - A User Generated List Mk III (2022 Q1)This has 3751 reply and if I consider 70% of them indeed reported alt users then you are looking at 2625 posts. One topic simply helped the entire board to prevent creating 2625 new redundant topics but serving the purpose in more organized way.
Another example:
Report plagiarism (copy/paste) here. Mods: please give temp or permban as needed 70% of 2656 replay is 1859. Imagine if we have 1859 more topics from different users just to report plagiarism.
We need to take steps to reduce intellectual spamming.
Special thanks to Loyce for the cheeky push over the line at the end there.
