Topic: Another initiative for newbie and junior members. (Read 728 times)

I'm sorry about that, but I wanted to see if I could kick start it. and maybe your post will help. I'm already guaranteeing 5 merits, and the possibility of more from other merit awarders, so I'm not sure that I want to offer more as an incentive. I toyed with the idea of making a sample post myself, and topics I considered were -
- The failing Venezuelan oil industry following the seizure of the State oil company's assets in Cuba. This was as a result of a debt default.
- The ex-IMF prime minister forced on the Italian people as a punishment for supporting 'populism'
- The way key loggers hijack interrupt handlers to harvest keyboard activity.

I decided not to as my two political topics would be rehashes of various Internet videos and postings, and I'm probably about 30 years out of date with my knowledge of interrupt handlers. I could write an article on the path to Brexit, and start the story with the decimation of the railway network under Dr Beeching in the 1960s. That could be a bit long though.

Give these people some useless tokens they will start spamming on the FtT project LOL
We humans are actually too much attracted to financial gains.
No one cares about personal development.

Mate, I was genuinely eager to read the post in the Ivory Tower thread after it popped up on my watchlist just there. Imagine my disappointment.

It's disappointing in general that you would put so much time, effort and money in to providing a project such as this, and newbies would still rather just shitpost and create the n^th hundred thread complaining about the merit system.

Unfortunately I don't have any bright ideas on how to change this pattern.

Agree. And what about the thematic? Maybe we can propose in the Fit to Talk project "the topic of the week", in which a thematic is proposed and we encourage people to research and build a great thread about this proposed one.
The winner one will be on the Ivory and also will receive some prices in the Fit To Talk project.

Lets see what the general opinion is about this. The participating member could have two posts/threads attributed to him, and these could attract merit from other awarders, so the potential is greater than the 5 I am offering for an Ivory post. As a merit source, I am able to support several submitted posts, and ensure that they will receive the merits. The posts will have to be of a fairly high standard to be accepted though.

Seems great to me. This is going to require a lot of effort from the users involved and the reward is fair enough.
As you are suggesting members from other languages be welcomed, maybe this same text in Spanish and Italian can be useful.

Be patient. This is a great initiative, a great idea, and it will take time. If you want me to spread the rules in the Spanish board, just say the word.

I've changed the character of this project, and I hope to upgrade the quality of the posts as a result. I'm guaranteeing a minimum of 5 merits for posts that are accepted after editing. Because of this, I will impose stricter quality standards. Topics that fall short of the Ivory Tower standards may be eligible for posting elsewhere, but with a smaller merit award.

I have written a preliminary outline of the concept on this page. Please let me know what you think of the new ideas.

http://talkmerit.com/projects/ivory-tower-project.html

I'll include this page as well - it's a prelim for the projects index.

http://talkmerit.com/projects/

Thanks for your support.

It was unfortunate that I was interupted before I could complete that post, and it had been my intention to return to it.

I started the thread because there seemed to be a lot of speculation and comment about my activities. I still believe that moving the thread into the reputation backwater was unhelpful. It follows on from a number of other such incidents, such as the moving of my topic about a hardware problem related to running a full Bitcoin node. That was moved to off topic, and I had to take the query to another forum for discussion. It wasn't helped by the arrest and imprisonment of Tommy Robinson in the UK, and this has made me take a very hard line over censorship.

I'm creating a Talk Merit projects page at the moment, and I'll post a link to that later. That may be the easiest solution to avoid these problems in the future.

I think you are being too hard on yourself here.

The thread that was moved to reputation, althought I understand was meant to be focused on all the projects you have started, was perhaps worded incorrectly to fit in the meta section:


I'd be hopeful that a new thread, worded slightly differently to focus more on your projects, would stay within the meta section. Your projects make the forum a better place, and we would all be worse off without them.

Thanks for your reply.

It seems that Meta is not the board for discussion about my projects. The thread that I started to discuss the structure that I have built up in an attempt to help the forum was moved to reputation. This pissed me off big time. I don't have a paid signature, and I don't trade in the forum, so reputation is not my primary concern here. I have real problems in trying to understand this move, as I can't see a new Spanish member ( for example), going to reputation and hunting through several pages in an attempt to find a thread providing posting advice.

As a result of this thread move, I have decided that I will no longer be proactive in promoting these sites here. I have spent a considerable amount of time, and a small amount of my own money, in an attempt to improve the quality of posting in the forum. I get no payment for this, and i do not want to enter into a battle with the administration over it. I will continue to provide the facilities at my expense, and I will support the projects reactively.

I appreciate the support that I have received from several senior members here, and I hope that they will continue to look favourably on the projects. I am also appreciative of the new members who have joined the Fit to Talk project, and I won't let them down if they continue to make posts for discussion and translation.

I will keep the chat room that i created for merit sources and other seniors open, and I will be happy to discuss any changes or enhancements in the blab room.

Well, given the concern from senior members regarding good newcomers and how to find them, maybe this is a matter for the Meta section because it is part of a "forum issue". Of course, a self-moderated post is obligatory to stop all this begging newbies and shitposters in general.
Besides, Meta has been used for issues about scam accusations, merit abuse and misuses in general. Maybe this is time to use the meta as a way of finding good posters too, so we all can see it and give them some merits.
Also, I think this maybe should be a sticked post in some section, (Meta, under my opinion, should be the best, for, again, this concern the functionality of the forum, but maybe a sticked one and self-moderated in the Begginers&help board can work as well).
The problem I see with the Ivory Tower idea is it getting kind of messy, for it will provoke repeated posts and can be confusing for some newbies, unable to reach the Ivory Tower. Anyway, since you already have created the post in the Ivory Tower, let's wait and see, it is an experiment and probably will take some time.

Let's take a breath and wait for others to express themselves. I believe we are many users preoccupied in making the forum a better place.

Thanks for your support, and that of everybody else who has helped me to modify my original crude ideas.

I'm going to use the Ivory Tower for the reference thread, and make it self-moderating. I won't make any bump posts, and I would remind members that if they are interested in following the topic, they can add the thread to their watch list.

I'll add the master thread to the Ivory Tower now.

This is a good solution, and the best of both worlds. It allows the user to post normally, and (potentially) generate an organic discussion from the post, whilst also giving us a way to quickly find (potentially) meritable posts from newbies without having to trawl through the cesspit that is the Beginners' board.

Read the many threads about it.
Don't make posts that just ask questions that have already been answered.
Make quality posts with topics other than merit, bounties and ICOs.

And what is the best way to get merit in your opinion?

Good idea.
I am looking forward to become a member.

So far NO merits  

I've been looking at the beginners board, and I think it may not be the best place for the main post showcase. It will require a fair bit of moderation and promotion, and there may be a better solution. I propose that the new member makes his post in the beginners forum in the normal fashion, and the post takes its chance in the general ruckus. I will start a thread in serious discussion or Ivory Tower ( which do you think would be the best ? ), and I will quote the post from the beginners board in full. Any merits to be awarded can go to the original poster on the beginners board. My listing thread will be self moderated, and will only contain the quoted posts, apart from an introductory post by me,

I think this is a cleaner and simpler option, and it still allows a good foreign language poster to make an English language post on the international boards. It also gives the better new members a chance to pick up a few merits as a reward for quality posting.

OK

Here is the problem. I want to avoid any spam posts, and all the work involved in deleting them. I can make the thread self-moderating, and lock it after a post, that's no problem. The difficulty is in adding the promoted post, and that should be attributed to the member who made it. I can work with the member to open a window for posting, or I can request a mod to move the post into the thread. Is there a mod who can/will help with this. Bumping isn't a problem, as I can make  bump post, and delete the previous one, and then lock the thread again.

There are possibly three of us who may be involved in this, and I am the lowest ranking member.

Do it. No negatives.* All positives.

I've just merited this post in the Spanish section. I know it's a topic that has been asked before, but it could start an interesting thread in the beginners section. Anyway, I think it would be more useful than the rubbish that is on there at the moment.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/se-pueden-crear-bitcoins-fisicos-con-total-seguridad-billetes-monedas-2489144