Topic: best replies should appear first in a thread. - page 2. (Read 1008 times)

I totally disagree with what you just said. Every poster must not get a merit reward from a merit source, because what can be quality in your eyes might end up not being quality in my eyes, just because everyone can not be the same as you think or, as I think. So, if a post is not quality enough to get a merit reward from a merit source, that same post could be quality for any of us to merit it, although the merit system is not for posts that are only of quality to a merit source, but if the post have points that sound somehow interesting, and supposed to receive a total of five merits but because it is not quality enough, the post might receive 2 or even 1.

If you observe, you will see posts that have 20 merits, 10 merits, 8 merits, 5 merits, 3, 2, even 1 merits in just one post but get merited by different users, both merit source and non-merit source. That is not because the post is not good, but some people who give the post lower merits see the post as not quality enough and those who give the post high merits see the post to be high quality.

So that is to say, you might not like what I like, and I might not like what you like.

That's why sometimes people give the merits can be subjective. Each person can have a different view about the quality and usefulness of a post. It can depend on the perception, knowledge, experience, and the need of each individual.

No, merits shouldn't be the only a measure of the quality of a post. But if a post gets merits, there must be something valuable on the post. Low quality post or useless post can't get merits. It it still gets merits, there should be something wrong with the members who send the merits. I believe a post which deserves to get merits is a post that fulfill the minimum standard* of good posts.

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* On topic, constructive, useful, valuable, informative, etc

I am very far far away of being merit course, and I also believe that merit system is more subjective, and that will be an obstacle in the way of becoming one, I guess, but when I see a post I found to be of a high quality, constructive and sometimes the one I simply agree with, but I don`t have enough sMerit to appreciate it with, I make a note for myself, and return to it when I have better ability to reward it. At first, I also thought that someone else would give merits, because a good post will definitely not be missed, I could not be the only one whose attentions caught.

But then I saw many times that good posts remained without merit, or received 1-2, which in my opinion is extremely few, because merit sources are able to give from 10 and more, but they do this mostly for those users who already have a lot of merit, and not for those who still have room to grow. Therefore, I decided to return to such posts myself and reward them. Sometimes, of course, only those merits from me are very few, but I am sure that such an approach still allows us to correct the situation when good posts do not receive merits at all, because other users do not have sMerits at that moment, and then such posts simply get lost in the flow, and become forgotten.

Thanks for the merit rain. Yes, I do get nudges to apply to be a merit source but the literary long wait for Godot isn't what my patience can carry. I wish theymos could attend to such issue speedily, so those accepted or rejected would know their fate and move on.

Once again, thanks.

I agree with you completely because being too fixated on earning merits really kill the fun of the forum and make discussion here sort of boring as people will tend to jettison their opinion in order to align with those of merit sources or those they feel will give them merits. I have seen few threads where everyone make comment just to align with the big people because they need the merits. If I'm not wrong, this should be one of the biggest Bitcoin community and considering the very essence of Bitcoin, people are supposed to feel free to express their views, criticize positively, disagree to agree and just have fun. The moment we make everything about the merit, then there will be serious problems.



I know a lot of people that are so committed to the forum that they read each and every comment in any thread they are following, giving merits to deserving comments irrespective of the page the comment. These are people I respect a lot as I have not see such level of commitment. They are always willing and help, guide and correct any misconception as it relates to Bitcoin and blockchain. Furthermore, since threads with with the latest comments comes to the top, most people usually go the latest comments and this shows that every comment gets the needed view and attention.

This problem arise because there's no punishment, there are many users are still giving their sMerit to their gangs, this is really easy to notice when someone receive and send merit to the same user over and over. We need de-Merit feature and only merit sources are able to use it.

Let's say I make a complaint about this matter, it's useless because they only get neutral feedback since theymos have stated DT user who leave negative feedback about merit will not become a DT member anymore.

If I drag this "merit connection" to cheating (using alt accounts to participate in a same campaign), people will not believe it and start asking more evidence because merit isn't a strong evidence.

I've said it before: being a Merit source often feels like a burden. Don't get me wrong: I like being able to reward good posts, but there's an ever increasing pile of sMerit waiting to be distributed. Right now, I have 175 source sMerits again, and it keeps going up. I can't find 175 good posts today, so I send larger amounts. That's how the system is supposed to work: it gives others the chance to distribute it further.

Of course it's subjective, but I also believe on average it turns out quite okay.

This is difficult:
I've also changed my view on this: the Merit system was supposed to stop spammers, not the average poster. If someone isn't a spammer, that's enough for me to Merit them.

You can of course apply to be a Merit source. It requires "some" patience though

Interestingly, the merit system has now formed a fulcrum for most campaign managers in getting members into their campaigns. To get high paying campaigns, members would go extra length to get loads of merit. I'm one of those who believe that the merit system is more subjective than objective and doesn't represent quality at all time (just like you noted too).

I wish I had some merit to splash on your comment. Again, another merit deserving post but I lack the ability to splash any on it and I believe there are others who would've done so too but lack merit.

I guess there are a smaller number of merit sources on this site compared to users who are not merit sources. So, everyone on this forum, be it M source or non M source, usually has their own way of awarding merit. You cannot just say that other comments are noise (although so many shitposts can appear) because you can't fully be sure if it's noise or not; it could be a comment that someone else can learn from. If a merit source visits a thread and notices a few comments on the first and second pages that seem appealing and of good quality to them, they can decide to give merit to those comments, but I could proceed to read pages four and five of that same thread and I can see a very good comment that is very appealing and educational for me, and I can just decide to merit that comment.

So, every member on the forum, apart from the merit source, has their own way of distributing their merit, depending on who they wish to give it to. Also, I think they distribute their merit on posts that they think are appealing to them.

I already mostly read only those comments that are more merited or are from reputable members, who I know write good stuff, scrolling such way doesn't need any implementation and is easier to do. I understand, this also makes me skip replies that could potentially be quality, but I do not care that much.

What you gotta say in response to any technical analysis/problems in Bitcoin that's depicted by your braincells alone??.. yunno how much more people read sleeplessly, all through the nights just to become gurus?? And for this reasons, have been online all through - that any complaints that's filed in, gets a response from them almost immediately?? Can the late comers - as you call them - make such sacrifices??...
Chill buddy!

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

If this will be implemented then what will be or what are the criteria to determine what post are the best or which post is the best that will be displayed first in the forum?. Merit system is already here and it is also used to reward forum members who posted good/high quality post which means the post is one of the best post in the forum and to prove it is where the merit comes although some good post are not seen or missed by some people and that's why there's no merit but to find a way for that is the reason why there's a thread about submitting a good post that isn't merited or never receive a merit.

The purpose of the merit system is to mark those comments that carry value in order to stand out from the rest of the noise. So if the merit sources are not going to the fourth or fifth page to read on those, then the purpose of the merit system does not get fulfilled but is only a superficial idea.

I can speak for the sources too, they are humans and they get tired of reading through bucketloads of cesspool.

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One idea that came to me:

Apart from merit sources, another group needs to be created like "Merit Pointers" - these are users who help the merit sources reach the posts that they feel need merit. We already have people posting their list of merit worthy posts on threads created for similar purpose, but a button to mark these posts seems to me as a forward step.

In my opinion, I don't think that is necessary. There are some people who arrive late to a thread; let's say the thread has gotten to four pages, but because they still wish to drop their opinion, they can drop quality comments, which might likely not earn any merit, probably because merit has already been awarded to users that made quality comments on the first page. But one thing I understand is that sometimes the OP may not even get the idea he wanted from a comment that received merit; he may even end up getting the idea he seeks from the fourth page, which may not bear any merit. So, sometimes it's not really about a comment getting merit; the thing is, did everyone or the OP learn from that comment? It could even be that a non-merit comment presented a great idea too. We learn every day from every day, and you never can tell what experiences others have shared in their comments that could be helpful to the reader.

I kind of like the idea of this one but this tends to create an echochamber of opinions and ideas which isn't my jam given that in an ideal world, all opinions should have an equal footing when it comes to being heard. I think that the FCFS(First Come First Serve) system employed in the forum right now is working just fine plus the effort of the one who have created the Bitcointalk SuperNotifier for people that wants to keep up with the latest posted topics would be in vain and I like to use that Telegram bot.

They will because the early replies often set the tone for the discussion.

This is not always true, there are some topics where perspectives and opinions cannot be repeated because of how many perspectives and opinions a topic can have. The first page often contains nineteen replies to a topic after the OP's post, the second page will contain Twenty replies. After page one and two you would have had about thirty-nine replies of which not all will be proper perspectives and opinions. The response on the first and second page are not always the most reasonable or proper perspective/opinions.

Different time zones, so many of us see the topics at different times.

As someone interested in a topic, Always try to read through the replies so you do not miss out on the best replies. 

OP you said you do take your time to read every replies before commenting yours, if I'm not mistaken right? What if we already have about 25+ replies before your arrival, are you saying you'd leave what the OP is saying about the thread (which is the key to start up your point) and be glancing through every 25+ comments? Hmm.
Sometimes the best part of those comments are found at the end and those who started the comments in page 1 or 2 might be battling with same replies like repeating same thing, call it spamming.
And what you see as quality post and drop merit another might see it as blabbing and to that person the post you dropped even 500 merit that person might see it as rubbish so the way you see things and accept it might be different from other people. You know, everyone have different taste for something.

You are right, and there is another drawback to this, which is there are many shitposters here who can get merits on their posts to keep them on top, and many will give that post merit too, just because others have given it. I know you must be thinking about where those shitposters will get merits, you are a newbie here, many people have alts, and they try to give merits hunt merit like a hunter.

Well, if they are able to get merits then all the good posts will be buried under mud and no one can actually get benefit from those, I mostly read whole threads if there are only 2 to 4 pages but if the pages range from 4 to 8 then I just read those whom I found good posters. Because with time I came to remember some names and do know that the post from this member must be a good one.

I believe others have contributed quite well to this discussion but I just want to add mine as well because my reasoning might be different from what other have said and it could be right or wrong but the more view we have to this topic the better we understand it. I want to start by saying not all quality posts get merited. Sometimes the more quality response don't get noticed and the reason differs based on individual posts like the poster not been a well known user for his quality contributions yet, or those that saw the contributions didn't have smerits at that time to reward the posts so ranking posts based on merit will be an injustice to those quality posts that didn't get merited and as the saying goes, instead of an innocent man to be convicted, let the guilty be set free irrespective of their numbers so instead of one worthy post not been ranked at the top of the relies, let all the less worthy post be there based on it is nwo (first come, first post).


You did well and here are some reason I feel it won't make sense to sort the thread by merited replies.

• Each thread has a flow of discussion like from one discussion (OP) other discussion (subtopics) pops up on that thread and sorting the thread by merit will obstruct the flow of discussion on the thread.
• It'll bring about more merit abuse as people will want their replies to be at the top of the threads so they'll be abusing the merit system often to achieve that.
• It might lead to campaign managers only accepting users that their replies are always top of the thread which will leads to my second point (merit abuse)

It was going to get renamed to merittalk for a while back then

But seriously I do agree a major point in this forum is the merit earning and the reason why people flock in this forum so much is because of the campaigns that are run and the merit needed to get into them. Whatever disucssion we end up doing, merit becomes a key factor in it.

Still I guess this thread has served it purpose and the community created tools to show max merited posts first should help out instead of anything official from theymos. I think the topic should be closed now.