I have an idea which will operate in similar terms to the current trust system possibly implementing flags for making things easier. This being a Bitcoin forum I think we should encouraging decentralized approaches as much as we possibly can. The current trust system has its flaws but I think at heart it has a good foundation and isn't bias. How would we feel about introducing a similar system to determining who is merit sources? At the moment we are relying on theymos who has a million other responsibilities to review and appoint merit sources. The primary concern here is members who have showed that they are a valuable asset to the forum and are both good posters and good at rewarding others for good posts are not being appointed merit sources or are being appointed long after they have made an application.
Just a few examples:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/1miau-merit-source-application-5158075
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/heisenbergs-merit-source-application-for-the-indian-board-5156799
Both of these members I would say fit the criteria for a merit source but at the moment we are waiting for the approval of theymos which could take a long time. To counter this I would suggest implementing a system similar to the trust system. Basically members can put people who they deem good quality posters into their list. The more people who have you on their list the more weighting you have. Anyone in the top 5%/10% or whatever we deem suitable for the size of the forum would then become a merit source. We could have several tiers like depth 1/2/3 which members in the higher tiers give their custom lists more weighting and thus anyone on their list more weighting to becoming a merit source. To avoid abuse we could implement this right away by allowing current merit sources to have more weighting and prevent account farmers from having an impact by reducing their weighting to almost nothing. I know that this is a semi decentralized way of implementing the system but I think this would be the most effective. This way we can have a continuous flow of merit sources and remove inactive merit sources quite easily without waiting for review from theymos and a more community driven effort. I understand with the current system there isn't much room for abuse when appointing merit sources and this new solution might introduce some sort of abuse but by allowing merit sources to have more weighting hopefully this abuse would be minimal because after all the first generation of merit sources would have already been appointed by theymos.
