Topic: Are these members merit sources or what they're doing is OK? (Read 562 times)

@OP
For now there is no rule against the cited case, you should also know they have good reasons for doing what you are complaining about.
Though it can be abused but same applies to everything that has to do with humans, there is no perfect system in reality.

It seems to me as if you are confusing trust and merit. They are separate features here, which is why @theymos didn’t make all DT members merit sources or all merit sources Default Trust members. I do make a difference IRL, as well. I am board member of a charity organization that directly helps the community, specifically the lower advantage families in a third world country. We provide a food bank and a soup kitchen, as well as a literacy program and children’s shelter. What I do here on the forums is a mere extension of my desire to help people. By your admission of statement in stating that you don’t believe that the members here who partake in my challenge are deserving of help implies that you believe yourself to be some sort of dictator. You say you’re a proponent of decentrization, yet you want to hold all the power, along with other merit sources, to be able to dictate how merits are sent and received. That’s my issue that I have with you. You’re directly contradicting yourself, and all it tells me is that you are on a power trip. That you believe that your merits are more valuable than anyone else’s merits. That is simply not the case, and I wish you could understand that.

All merits were created equal.

#meritlivesmatter

Oh, and a protocol for merit distribution is already in place, as implemented by @theymos: merits are distributed and then they are redistributed. Given that sMerits are valued at half the points of merits, your duty as a merit source is simply to introduce new merits into the community; not to dictate how and where they should be distributed by other members.

I had to pick the fight with the biggest and the strongest, figurative speaking. I have no problem with you or anybody else doing something similar, my concerns are major concerns regarding policies. I have used some of my source merits for political reasons, I don't want my party to fail. lol. I have merited sir Salty with 5 of my source merits to support what he/she did which was adding Lauda to his/her trust list, it was a political move. second lol. I didn't want Lauda to start tagging people for misusing merits and give any chance to her enemies. I wanted an official update on forum policies, if there was any clear new rule about merit transactions-exchanges, there would be less responsibility for Lauda to take on the matters to her hands all alone and like always. I believe theymos is working on them as we speak, but I wanted to push him to speed up the process.


There should be a protocol for every system, without it there is no system. if everybody ignores the protocols, we'll have the same issue, putting too much on DT1-2 members to decide, when we would let that to happen, there will be not enough due process to take on every single case. there will be 3-4 DT2 members trying to enforce unwritten rules. again I'm more about major policies. you could try your best helping a few garbage posters to change, there are billions of people in need of money and education, instead of wasting your time to fix the ones not deserving your help, try to change the system which they would be the product of.  this forum is important, members like Lauda are important if we are going to change the world with decentralizing the currencies.


Here you have your civil discussion. I'm sorry if you feel that I am ignoring you or trying to avoid the discussion, but I have no time to spend on minor policies.

Hey @digaran, I'm going to try my best to keep it civil with you to have a healthy discussion. I'm really trying to understand your point of view, because obviously this seems like a huge issue for you. Help me to understand why, please.

First of all, my challenge actually started months ago. It started weeks before the merit system was introduced to the forums. The idea was actually born to eliminate shitposting on the forums, as can be seen in this thread (Originally titled "🔥🔥🔥Signature space, Avatar & Personal Text Available for rent🔥🔥🔥" before OP edited out his original post). Here is my direct quote:


Merit had absolutely no factor into my decision to give up $50 a month to offer to shitposters to keep them from spamming the boards.

When I introduced the current challenge that you see here, I introduced it to reward a lucky user with $25 and one merit. I had no idea if anyone would actually be interested in this, but even if I got one person to join the challenge, and that one person decided to carefully manicure their posts, instead of continuing to post shitty one-liners, then I'd have been okay with it. My challenge was targeted to existing members of the forum who were not eligible for any significant paid signature campaigns, either due to rank restrictions or negative trust ratings. These users' options were to join shitty altcoin signature campaigns; you know the ones where anybody can join, and the companies that pay for the campaigns don't give one rat's ass about the post quality of its participants.

THESE were the users that I wanted to attract with my challenge. Much to my surprise, I started getting entrants not only from Newbies, but also higher ranked members. I never anticipated the success that this challenge would bring.

You have stated in another thread that you believe that I am doing this for my own personal benefit. How do you gather that? I'm putting up over a thousand bucks a year to run this challenge. That's not chump change, by any means, so what personal benefit are you seeing? The personal benefit for me is knowing that my actions directly benefit the betterment of the forums by taking what would have ultimately been a shitposter and providing feedback to make their posts more constructive. The way that the challenge is designed is so that shitposters won't have any interest in continuing with the challenge knowing that they have a slim chance of winning week after week against other members. So why would they bother continuing the challenge to "farm merits" if they are not receiving any to begin with?

I have never once asked for a single merit from anyone. Not once for myself, and not once for sponsors of the challenge. Every single person that has helped sponsor the winners with merit or cash have done so on their own accord. Personally, I would have been fine with giving up $25 and a merit every single week. But it just goes to show that others do believe in the challenge the same way that I do. Has it blown up to become one of the best ways to earn merit on the forums? Absolutely. But not every participant is entitled to the winnings. It's a competition that encourages quality posts. If it ever comes to a point where the quality of the posts doesn't warrant any merits, then I have no problems ending it. But I encourage you to take a look at the past 3 winners and see for yourself. The quality of the posts by the winners are great.

Are there shitposters in the challenge? Of course. But they all know what they're up against. In fact, I have countless PM's sitting in my inbox from participants who have not earned any rewards THANKING me for letting them be a part of this. Many users have personally thanked me for helping their English-speaking skills. So maybe you're right; I do get personal benefit from this, and it's knowing that I've done my part in helping users become more passionate about posting in the forums and contributing to healthy conversations about Bitcoin/crypto for reasons other than posting for the sake of increasing their post counts.

As you can see, I am very passionate about this. I LOVE the merit system. And like so many other users here, I was getting sick and tired of the spam and shitposts that were starting to flood these forums.

You have also made the assumption that I have not applied to become a merit source because the moderators were busy. I don't know where you got this idea from, but the reason I don't want to apply is because I don't care if I am a merit source or not. I earn plenty of merits to be able to sponsor 1 merit per week, which is what I committed to when starting this challenge. I don't need to be a source to be able to fulfill that. If it ever becomes a problem for me to keep up with the merit demands, then I don't have a problem applying to become a source. Otherwise, why try to fix something that isn't broken? I would rather have people that are interested in the position apply for it. I don't want to have to add things on top of my responsibility of checking, scoring, and critiquing posts every week. I don't work well under obligation, so being a source would just make me feel like I have to pass out the forum's merits, rather than wanting to distribute my own. Huge difference.

Going back to your original topic here, you are criticizing users for giving out their merits without being a merit source. I'd like to remind you that merit sources are not the only ones that are allowed to give merits... The whole merit ecosystem depends on them being distributed by users across the board. However they decide to do that should be up to them. Whether it's by silently perusing the multiple subs and finding quality posts, or by inviting users to submit their posts that they deem meritorious... Either way, merits are meant to be distributed, so I think it's fine that users start topics to offer their merits to qualified recipients.

I don't believe that @theymos would have any issues with these types of threads, or he would have created a definitive rule about it by now. In fact, I believe that we are doing exactly what theymos envisioned when implementing the merit system.

I'm curious to see how others will address your concerns. Merits aren't meant to be a centralized reward to be given only by merit sources. It's a way for users to govern themselves. Yes, you will see merit abuse in the beginning. But once the sMerit supply starts to dry up, you'll see less and less abuse, as merits will become harder to come by. I'm already anticipating that will happen, at which time my challenge will more than likely end becoming a cash-only challenge.

For the record, I have given more merits to members outside of my challenge than I have within the challenge, so that invalidates your argument that I am running a "merit farm".

So @digaran, I would love to hear your argument as to why you feel that what I'm doing is not okay. I know you've addressed it before, but given the nature of this thread, I'm willing to give you a civil answer item by item as long as you commit to remaining civil, as well. I'm glad that you started this topic, as it gives me an opportunity to hear valuable feedback from others, as well.

Cheers.

---

You obviously didn't even click through to any of those posts. None of the merits that are in question are "donated". All of the people providing merit are doing so in exchange for QUALITY posts, as defined in the stipulations of their topics.

Again and again
Why the hell do these people abandon everything?
Merit was added to prevent spam because users have to deserve their rank fron quality posts, not from donations. Those people donate merit and are absolutely against theymos's idea.
You'll say one merit is nothing but no, I would say: thief is thief, it doesn't matters what he/she steals, pepsi or a car.

It is totally OK as long as they are not demanding anything in return, though they might expect to get something out of their service, which is normal in my opinion as all of us have got that natural instinct. We all expect to get positive or encouraging reactions from people for what we do, and getting Merits is just about that.

You're stating that I'm not using my merits properly by sponsoring the challenge, and specifically link to that challenge, which is an attack against me.


Also apparently giving a few merits out to people through some method of distribution other than straight up meriting posts is laziness and wrong. A synonym for abuse is 'misuse', so yes, you are saying that I'm abusing my source merits.

---

If the challenge didn't exist, those members would very likely still be posting. His challenge isn't really forcing people to post more (7 posts in a week is very reasonable for someone semi-active). There were also quite a few people who wanted to join in the 18ish hours between his announcement and my decision to sponsor 8 merits, showing not many would join without a large merit prize. The original prize if I remember correctly was 1 merit to first place, which is a negligible amount.

I do not hold 1000+ sMerit but I do have some I received, and instead of wasting time in digging for good posts in all the sections only to distribute them fairly to the people, I prefer to give a chance to the ones that already have received something and are needing just 1-2 merit to rank up. Don't get me wrong, I do give merit to people outside my service too.

Maybe 1 or 2 are nothing for you, but yesterday for example TheQuin helped me by point out something I was puzzling for quite some time and I wanted to give him some merit. I saw that he needed only 3 point to rank up to Hero and I just gave them because he deserves them. So I think even a small amount, I can put it in a good use.

Think about the newbies or lets say Jr. Members, they need 10 points to rank up. Almost no one is reading newbies comments as they are 90% crap but, there are actually some good people with good intentions, I'm trying to help them.

Sure many shitposters do apply but this is also a good thing. I check everyone and If I see some shitty behavior I do report them, also I keep clean my thread and from time to time, remove the shitposter's applications.

Any of the members doing this reviewing, how many sMerits do they have? I'm saying they should have thousands of sMerits to distribute now that they are working hard and posting pages of content. you are doing the same amount of work as a merit source with 1000+ sMerits, your job results in 1 merit distribution, their job results in hundreds. what you are doing is waste of your time. others could do the same, without actually wanting to help, they might see this as an opportunity to increase their post count because there is no rule against it.


Did I even mention your name? did I say that you are abusing your source merits? I'm saying that we shouldn't ask people to post for merits, would any of the participants in Joe's challenge accept to post without any merit prize?

Honestly speaking "In our ranks or to newbies here who the hell will not join that kind of event if getting merit in posting is too hard for us (like 1 merit in a hundreds of post)" < just an example.

Of course all of us will find those kind of event very helpful, but in the other side you are right this kinds of event can cause abuse to the system like this one: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/some-attention-to-this-3189979 Im shocked the time I saw this I thought Dingdong7 was me.  

But still there are more legit event's happening than a abuse like the posted link above.

Just some decent proof, maybe in the form of screenshots and circumstantial evidence. No one's asking for each individual merit transaction. The Reputation board would like to hear about my "friend" meriting, and I'm sure theymos would love to as well, and the Known Alt Accounts of Anyone thread would greatly value your contributions in exposing my alt accounts.

I think I'm capable of writing a quality post (I hope anyway); would it not be much simpler and "suspicious" for me to write a good post on my supposed alt, and for me to merit it with my main account? Seems much easier than jumping through hoops with a 'challenge', convincing BTCforJoe to let my alt win (unless BTCforJoe = DarkStar_  ) just for 8 merits.

Here is a statement from theymos regarding the same type of service by QuestionAuthority:

You want me to provide links to thousands of merit transactions? they are public, you can see it for yourself. I'm telling them, what they are doing is wrong. why would I report them to moderators? merit is not moderated (only sources are being moderated). what I'm asking is for a clarification on new rules or lack thereof. I know there are circles of friends, groups of friends governing this forum. theymos being the high king.

I know that I am humiliating myself by doing this, but this is the right thing. I want to know if posting to get merits is allowed? I want to know if every forum member above full member rank is welcomed and appreciated to post similar topics? I want to know if we are going to look the other way when somebody from the circle is doing exactly what we would've tagged others for the same reason?

What I have posted is what you could get from me, directly pointing fingers, links I have provided will take you directly to usernames and their friends, don't expect me to expose them with a video like the one I had to show to nullius in order to open his eyes **to the truth about alia.

*Don't give me that line, that's my line.

**Sir theymos the first, sorry for the uncensored graphics. at least you had the chance to see her before this scandal. I haven't seen her picture yet. fully fledged lol.


I wish nullius was the one behind every one of them, do I look like somebody who would question the integrity of the forum's idol of quality posting? who is this izanagi? why are you acting as if you were born yesterday? IP address lol. I'm not saying they are ranking hundreds of accounts to get Millions and then help the terrorists with that money. I'm telling them to quit being pricks, what they think they are getting away with is not worth it, if I can see what they are doing, others could see as well. this is a friendly warning, wakeup call. I'm telling them, this is a trap, don't fall into it.

AFAIK, for who use same exchange although they are 2 different people or just 1 people , they consider as 1 person and the other one is his/her alt.
That's forum stance !

About Digaran's case, let say if Nulius or other member who same level with his posting skill abusing his/her power by creating alts, it's possible to happen but in order to prove it happen, I think there are many member on this forum that able to identify the abuser or admin can see every people's IP address,right ?

OP,Please provide the proof that all the people/threads mentioned in your first post are favoring their friends and alts.

Do you think that Moderators are not able to spot these threads till now when they are active for more than couple of weeks?
Best option is to use "Report to Moderator" if you think it is abuse and you will get your answer automatically. (If thread trashed by Moderators, then you are right otherwise it is permissible )

Nothing, because there is no rule, guideline officially being announced by the admin.


Not just you or just sources, I'm talking to everybody, we all have been given power and we all are favoring our friends. thousands of people are lined up to get a chance at receiving merits, we are picking our friends, alt accounts. when you are giving merits to random members, they'd get tagged for attempting to farm merits, when our friends or partners are doing the same, we wouldn't tag them, we would even defend them.

You do realize that it's very likely those posts would have been made anyway, right? I'm just going to leave this post here:

It was a pretty good idea, I think also making a thread just to help member is not violated here in the forum or it is not prohibited to our admins and staff. As long as members are not begging on smerit to have on. They did not have to break any rules here but besides they are really helping for those need smerit by selecting your good quality post who will deserving to have.

If these members are not violating any rules (like creating these threads just to send merit to alts), it is fine in my opinion. Senior members might not have much time to go through all the posts made in different sections. At such, it is a nice idea to spend their merits this way. I have heard some members saying here that admin might start decaying of unused merits to prevent hoarding of merits. So it is better if these merits are distributed with the help of such threads.

Since you also mentioned my thread, I can comment on it.

Although I'm not a merit source (I'm not an old enough member here to be one), what I'm trying to do is bring more visibility to the people posting especially in the altcoin sections. These sections are very low in merit sources.

Another reason is that I want to put my merits (I have just a few of them) to better use and select the most appropriate posts that would deserve merits.

What's wrong with that?