Combine merit abuse with delete post and you are good to go

loggin

newbie

Activity: 31

Merit: 0

Quote from: 1993jochico on May 07, 2018, 11:44:22 PM

That is the main problem here, actually there is no shortage of merits to distribute there are just many abusive members existing in this forum and they dont get punished and that is the reason why abuse is still happening.

They said that those abusers will soon get out of merits and thats true, but those deserving to receive merits will also get a lower chance to get some.

Yes, something like reversing the merits in case an abuse is confirmed would be good. But the admin has already ruled that out in his comments. I can understand that doing this manually would take a lot of time and thus not practical in the long run. That is why there should be limits at the first place to send merits per post, per member and so on.

First allowing abuse through loopholes and then spending time finding and reversing the abuse is a lot of precious time wasted.

1993jochico

member

Activity: 364

Merit: 46

That is the main problem here, actually there is no shortage of merits to distribute there are just many abusive members existing in this forum and they dont get punished and that is the reason why abuse is still happening.

They said that those abusers will soon get out of merits and thats true, but those deserving to receive merits will also get a lower chance to get some.

Welsh

staff

Activity: 3304

Merit: 4115

Quote from: bitmover on May 07, 2018, 09:07:34 AM

Maybe a solution would be to make impossible to delete a merited post.

I think this can be easily implemented.

If the post is already merited and needs to be deleted, mods could also delete the accounts involved.

A little extreme as a post which is worthy of deletion doesn't always mean that the account should be banned/deleted. I think the better alternative is that once a post has been deleted the merit no longer is credited, and the merit point either gets lost in limbo or refunded back to the original sender.

Kim Ji Won

full member

Activity: 350

Merit: 110

Quote from: MintCondition on May 07, 2018, 09:40:17 AM

It's impossible to delete an account by forum moderator. They can just ban a user. I think merit abuse is not on the list of crime that punishable by ban? I found some merit abuse thread such as giveaway of merit for every correct answer for trivia question.

Maybe in your point of view, the giveaway of merit for answering questions is a form merit abuse but for most of us, it is not. Actually, it is a great way to motivate other shitposter/spammers to put in a lot of effort and thought in their posts knowing that they will surely get a merit assuming they answer the question correctly. Moreover, they will understand the topic they researched on and will help them to contribute even better in the forum.

Sony.UK

full member

Activity: 532

Merit: 103

Quote from: loggin on May 07, 2018, 07:11:22 AM

I was reading a thread in meta where this problem was raised by a member. Did some research and found a possible abuse case:

Users involved:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/colorlessk-1029845

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/mela65-962182

See merit history:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=1029845

Member 1 has sent merits to member 2 for total of 10 times and now all posts are deleted. They did this in February and are safe till now.

This person ColorlessK is the bounty manager right? I see the hilarious already share the concerns and evidence for merit abusing. As it is true information you will be find these people have the negative trust with red note from the DT or moderator soon.

However this is nice catch mate. I hope moderators will not tolerated the merits abusers hope they will be punished soon.

mdayonliner

copper member

Activity: 630

Merit: 420

We are Bitcoin!

Quote from: bitmover on May 07, 2018, 09:07:34 AM

Maybe a solution would be to make impossible to delete a merited post.

Since we are talking about deleted posts on this topic so in my opinion, preventing a post to be deleted when it's already awarded merit by someone - could be a possible solution. You do not need to remove the account. Excessive abused account should be banned when we will have solid evidence. The ban should not be just out of suspicious behaviour.

Quote from: hilariousetc on May 07, 2018, 07:18:50 AM

People should lose the merit if the post is deleted for whatever reason. Allowing it is just ripe for abuse as people can just merit shitposts or posts that are in fact copy and pasted then delete to hide the evidence.

I guess we already know that merit is not removable or reversible. There might be someone in a topic made a real good comment and awarded merit, later the mod thought the topic should be removed (for any reason) means that merit for the good post will also be deleted.

MintCondition

legendary

Activity: 1147

Merit: 1007

Quote from: bitmover on May 07, 2018, 09:07:34 AM

Maybe a solution would be to make impossible to delete a merited post.

I think this can be easily implemented.

If the post is already merited and needs to be deleted, mods could also delete the accounts involved.

It's impossible to delete an account by forum moderator. They can just ban a user. I think merit abuse is not on the list of crime that punishable by ban? I found some merit abuse thread such as giveaway of merit for every correct answer for trivia question.

bitmover

legendary

Activity: 2352

Merit: 6089

bitcoindata.science

Quote from: DdmrDdmr on May 07, 2018, 09:16:27 AM

Quote from: bitmover on May 07, 2018, 09:07:34 AM

If the post is already merited and needs to be deleted, mods could also delete the accounts involved.

Wow. I think we need to hold our horses a bit. We may find Merit abuse that is being camuflaged by deleting the post, but accounts are not deleted unless it clearly leads to account farming uncovering.

lol, ok...
anyway, the impossibility to delete a merited post would be a good idea and would solve this problem...

DdmrDdmr

legendary

Activity: 2338

Merit: 10802

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. MTwain

Quote from: bitmover on May 07, 2018, 09:07:34 AM

If the post is already merited and needs to be deleted, mods could also delete the accounts involved.

Wow. I think we need to hold our horses a bit. We may find Merit abuse that is being camuflaged by deleting the post, but accounts are not deleted unless it clearly leads to account farming uncovering.

bitmover

legendary

Activity: 2352

Merit: 6089

bitcoindata.science

Maybe a solution would be to make impossible to delete a merited post.

I think this can be easily implemented.

DdmrDdmr

legendary

Activity: 2338

Merit: 10802

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. MTwain

Quote from: athanz88 on May 07, 2018, 08:18:43 AM

I dont know for others, but i think it would be worth it and would be a meritorious post, especially if you can make a comparison between the deleted posts, and would be even greater if it categorized as deleted by mod or deleted by self.
~X,

I will take a look at it then, but can't start today. I'll try from here to midweek.
We can't tell who deleted the post (user or mod), but could compare sMerit on deleted posts vs non deleted for implied users, list users above X sMerits on deleted posts, etc.

athanz88

sr. member

Activity: 476

Merit: 359

@DdmrDdmr I dont know for others, but i think it would be worth it and would be a meritorious post, especially if you can make a comparison between the deleted posts, and would be even greater if it categorized as deleted by mod or deleted by self.

For OP, this matter also haunt me. I have said it before. To make merit more transparent, we should have a special grave for deleted posts that has merit on it.

DdmrDdmr

legendary

Activity: 2338

Merit: 10802

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. MTwain

The overall sMerit awarded to deleted threads is 5,16%, adding to just over 7.500 sMerits in all. I could list user cases with most awarded or received in deleted posts, but would if be worth it?

Welsh

staff

Activity: 3304

Merit: 4115

Quote from: Insanerman on May 07, 2018, 07:33:44 AM

Pros: Good posts with merit that has been deleted would be a problem for people
COns: It can be a source of merit cheating and post bumping.

Yeah, but if it doesn't exist on the forum anymore then I don't see why they should keep the merit. You could argue that they've made an effort in their post and it deserves to be credited but, I'm against that viewpoint as I see the merit system as somewhere to look for good quality posts and I quite often look at someone's recent merit received to identify some of their better posts.

In these situations I think the Cons outweigh the Pros. However, I will say minuscule issues like these probably aren't all that bad, and it would only become an issue if a merit source was doing this or someone exchanging a massive amount of merit points between their alternative accounts. Then again I guess it's easy to identify if this does happen.

mdayonliner

copper member

Activity: 630

Merit: 420

We are Bitcoin!

I came to a conclusion for myself.

There will be new ways of merit abusing and different tactics/approaches to cover the abuses, on the other hand there will also be good contents those will be genuinely merited for their good works. We just need to accept it and do our best whether in seeking or sharing knowledge.

It's a fact IMO.

click here if unable to see image

Furthermore, merit is doing it's job without any doubt. The amount of nonsense posts/spamming dropped a lot since the merit system introduced.

Kim Ji Won

full member

Activity: 350

Merit: 110

This is the topic I recently created.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.36548849

That is what I am talking about there and you found a good example. We can't say that the thread he posted it in just got deleted or not, but assuming that many posts is deleted, maybe it is one of his own replies and it got deleted?

Insanerman

sr. member

Activity: 1162

Merit: 450

Wow, so nice for those people here investigating such a cheating issues, whenever this merit got implemented in the system, I actually thought of this kind of problem that someday people here in bct will do meriting themselves and delete their post.

Pros: Good posts with merit that has been deleted would be a problem for people
COns: It can be a source of merit cheating and post bumping.

Welsh

staff

Activity: 3304

Merit: 4115

I'm guessing this wasn't implemented due to longer code that the person who sent it would need to be refunded etc. But, I don't see why this should get overlooked. If a post that has been merited no longer exists on the board then the merit shouldn't be given neither.

Quote from: loggin on May 07, 2018, 07:26:18 AM

Also, as members are raising voice against this problem, more abusers will get to know about this. They will also try to get away with their merit abuses by doing the same thing till a fix is implemented. Is there any page to see recently deleted posts here ?

Only by staff members: https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php

Although, this post and others that are being abused are likely to be deleted by the user and there's no page to my knowledge that shows this.

loggin

newbie

Activity: 31

Merit: 0

Quote from: hilariousetc on May 07, 2018, 07:18:50 AM

People should lose the merit if the post is deleted for whatever reason. Allowing it is just ripe for abuse as people can just merit shitposts or posts that are in fact copy and pasted then delete to hide the evidence.

Also, as members are raising voice against this problem, more abusers will get to know about this. They will also try to get away with their merit abuses by doing the same thing till a fix is implemented. Is there any page to see recently deleted posts here ?

hilariousetc

legendary

Activity: 2968

Merit: 3061

Join the world-leading crypto sportsbook NOW!

People should lose the merit if the post is deleted for whatever reason. Allowing it is just ripe for abuse as people can just merit shitposts or posts that are in fact copy and pasted then delete to hide the evidence.

loggin

newbie

Activity: 31

Merit: 0

I was reading a thread in meta where this problem was raised by a member. Did some research and found a possible abuse case:

Users involved:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/colorlessk-1029845

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/mela65-962182

See merit history:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=1029845

Member 1 has sent merits to member 2 for total of 10 times and now all posts are deleted. They did this in February and are safe till now.

Topic: Combine merit abuse with delete post and you are good to go (Read 312 times)