Topic: Does inactive users deserve merits? (Read 816 times)

This suggestion is indeed good for merit sources so that there will be a circulation of merit through active user but for regular forum member that browsing the forum for the content that they want then being inactive or active of the poster doesn’t matter as long as the post is helpful for the user that will give merits.

We are not a regular sender of merit so that occasional 1 merit will not gonna hurt if send to inactive user because they deserve. Their contribution is still counted even if they are offline so there’s no way for their post to become invalid recipient of merit.

if the post helps other users, it's okay to give merit to them regardless of whether the user is active or no longer active. but i think it's better to pay more attention to other users who have quality posts and are also active in the forum, because that will help them to build their accounts and encourage them to make better contributions to the forum.

I will send Merit to posts that I consider very useful for myself when I read them. It doesn't matter if it's an old post and the user is no longer active. Because I'm just showing everyone that I appreciate the writing. And when the user wakes up from his long sleep, he will realize that his writing has been useful for many people. Well Merit can also be an indicator that a piece of writing is considered quality by the person giving the Merit. And it can be a motivation for beginners that if they have writing of the same quality then they will also get a Merit award for their posts.

But maybe other people can have a different opinion. But for me, appreciation must still be given to everything that is worthy of appreciation. It doesn't matter who he is and whether he is still active or not. Like we give Merit to the legendary posts in this forum. Like Satoshi and Hal Finney's posts. And also a post about pizza bought with bitcoin which is the history of the first purchase with bitcoin. and other.

Merit is to be issued to users of the forum who make contributions to the forum.

If we disect this statement then it is almost impossible to say that one is inactive cos he has his footprints in the forum, as long as he has activity or posts that contributes to the forum then he deserves to earn merits.

His activity is in the value of contribution not about activity, cos, you can only award merit to a post made and not just throw it into a profile.

Let merit be issued based on value and we wouldn't be talking about activity. If someone for some health reason or something decides to sign out of the forum for a week, month or even a year, it changes nothing in his ability to earn merit.

Its just like asking if we should be issuing "Post Humorous Awards" since the awardees aren't alive, should we then deny their inputs in the cause of humanity? NO.

I certainly agree with you and on a more reasonable note considerations need to be made as per how long the account has been inactive, the possibilities of the account to become active, if this can not be validated, then post of the user that has added so much to you shouldn't be forgotten in a hurry by making use of it in quote where necessary, well as for meritng the inactive user is totally your decision.

I quite agree with you though I know that awarding merit to quality posts of users regardless of whether they are active or inactive is a way of showing regards for their quality contributions to the forum but I think those profiles doesn't really need much merit anymore because each merit comes with a sendable merits that can be transferred to another quality post of a user in the forum so a situation whereby we keep meriting inactive or rather Banned profiles it's probably a kind of allowing those sendable merits those users have got decaying and becoming useless.

They've already said that it's about the quality of the post and the contribution or impact that it's got on the forum as a whole so it puzzles me that some posts of Satoshi's that's not technical or even that relevant (anymore) is getting merits like this one. I'm not hating on it though, other users that are active quality posters could've get that and used it to increase their merits but I guess I'm being unfair as giving merit to Satoshi's post is a pilgrimage of some sort for everyone here on the forum.

Merit is for post, so I'd suggest so.

Some people filter quality posts by looking at merit received by post, so you giving merit helps post with visibility, which it should get if it's helpful.

Aside from that, look at Laszlo's pizza post or Satoshi's posts, you could argue why their posts have merits despite the fact that they have been inactive for so long, it's so because those are historical posts and merit given is for their contributions to the Bitcoin ecosystem and forum.

It's not about being active or inactive because if the post is good then that deserves a merit even though the one who posted it is not active or inactive as you have said. There's no criteria for giving merits that an account must be active before you get merited and even an account that is already inactive even got an airdropped merits although it is different from the merits received through other forum members because it is received through posting good/high quality posts.

You are right there, mate. We don't check the inactiveness of the person who posted it but it's only the content of the post that matters. If it's a valuable post, then meriting it would be the best option, no if's and but's.
But if meriting for you would mean also the availability of the owner itself, I guess that's also your own perspective and we can't control you for that.

However for me, I'm fine meriting the post even if the user is not existing anymore. Merits should be given to those who deserve it and should not be only kept to myself.

Not just in active accounts even ban accounts are receiving merits for there good contribution in the forum, so if you have merit to give out you can gift any good post you fine around that’s the best you can do to appreciate those post.

If you check out Satoshi account in this forum which have been inactive over the years it still receives merit for the old posts which was made before he left the forum, so there is no harm in trying to appreciate a post just gift them if they are worth your merit.

I know merits are rewards for good post as others have said but it's solely a personal decision, if you think you have smerits that you feel it's good to reward any post whether they are inactive or active accounts it's totally your decision.

But from perspective it's probably not wise to merit an account that has been inactive for decades as you said because they clearly do not need it. So why waste your sendables on those accounts while there are so many people out there trying their best with good post too that deserves merit.

Once again its your personal decision, you should do what you like.

As far as I know merits can be given to anyone regardless of them being active or not.  It is up to the person whether he will give the post merit or not and nothing can contest it.  So if you think the post deserve a merit then why not give it a merit?  After all it is your own smerit that you are giving and not others.

Remember people don't just give merit because it is a quality post, other gives merit because the post align with their belief and/or happy about the post, reason why sometimes we see some people meriting applications.

In my opinion, it has nothing to do with whether he is active or not, a reader will definitely be rewarded if the reader gets new knowledge from his posts. I also find a lot of old posts from accounts that are no longer active but still get Merits from other members because the quality of the posts or Theared is very useful for readers.

This is the same as the saying "A tiger dies leaving behind stripes, an elephant dies leaving behind tusks, a human dies leaving behind a name." The meaning of this saying is that every member who is no longer active will definitely be remembered according to his posts on this forum. If he leaves this forum with posts that provide benefits to readers, the account can still get Merits.

If the account is inactive but it is not ban then it needs to be merited but if the account is banned and the post is good, I don't think it is good to merit that account because it is just like waste of merits. And normally merits have to be circulated and those accounts can not send back the smerits to other people people who need merits. And Merit should be given to active account and not inactive accounts. And as I said again if the account is not ban and you like the information then you can merit it.

Merits are given to those deserving posts, regardless if those posts were made long time ago, even if those posters are inactive already at the time of meriting. This is from my own point of view. However, you are the one to give merits so you should be the one to decide if you stick to the post itself or just find another post wherein it’s poster is still active until present.

Merits are vital for a position to level up, so it might only be a waste if you give it to those who are no longer active in posting, while those who are still doing their part in the forum sharing their own insights are patiently waiting for their posts to receive merits.

I think the whole essence of the merit implementation on the forum was to give quality posts a thumps up(merits) so even if the user has been inactive for some time it really doesn't matter because it's the post you are meriting not the users although given out of merit have turn out to be someone sentimental IMO. I have also seen some quality posts of individual that have been barred due to one or two errors that they refuse to take to correction but I always wonder of it will be good to merits these posts base on the fact that they have been ban but on later the mentality changed because the merit is actually given for Worthy posts .

There are no standard rules regarding awarding merit to which members are currently active or inactive. Only merit goes to posts that really deserve to get merit. and once again how someone assesses other people's posts and gives them marriage may vary. So, for example, if you think the post deserves to get merit and you are sure that the post is informative, high quality, and most importantly, it really deserves to get merit, then in the end there is no problem giving it regardless of whether the account is still active or not.

Unfortunately, perhaps there are still many people who view the relationship of being married as just to increase their rank. Maybe there are still many people chasing them just to increase their rank so this will also have an impact on the goals of making future posts. even though as you said, merit is given to posts that really deserve it, not because of rank but indeed the post is informative, adds to the experience of understanding and is indeed contributive to other members.

It's your merit, you're free to do with it what you want provided you're not abusing the merit. If you see a post that you feel adds value to the forum then it should be awarded the merits irrespective of how old the post is or the status of the posters. Accounts with red tags that have contributed something meaningful to the forum deserved merits. You're not meriting the person but the post so being inactive shouldn't deny a quality post of been highlighted with merits.

Haven't you noticed some of the old topics that were posted before the merit system was introduced are been merited for their quality. What should be merited are quality contributions and this should be done irrespective of the person that made the posts or the status of the account.


Why did you have to look through the account to know it was banned before deciding to merit the account. There's no waste of merit when you're meriting a quality post. Satoshi posts has been receiving merits for his quality contributions to the forum and the account hasn't been active for years. Merits are for quality not account reputation or status (been active or inactive).

What if the account is a ban account ? Because I think there are many active users that deserves merit and they need it more. and given to an inactive users whom have stayed Upto 6-7 year who might likely come online or not or a ban account, is like a waste of merit in my own view. But if the system permit it then no problem.

You are meriting the post itself, not the poster or user, so for me even if you see the user is not active anymore but the post deserves a merit, then I guess meriting the post is not an issue. Newbies might come to read it, and see it as a concrete example for a quality post, so it’s still helping.

However, if you are hesitant to give away your merit since the poster itself will no longer see it anymore, that doesn’t matter. Regardless if it’s an old post that deserves a merit, you should decide it for yourself since you are the one responsible to merit someone or something that is worth to share.

In theory, one should merit posts based on their content (1), so there’s no conceptual restriction to refrain from meriting posts from accounts that have not been active for a long time, or that are not actively participating in the Merit System for that matter. Some may refrain from doing so, and that is their prerogative really.

In the big picture of things, lets call being inactive for a very long time an arbitrary number of 3 years or above. Going over my Merit data (as of last Friday), it seems that:

-   Overall, 1.704.769 Merits have been awarded to date (total sent sMerits since inception).

-   Out of those, 15.538 Merits have been awarded to accounts that have been inactive for > 1095 days (2), in 2.791 TXs, from 513 accounts, to 968 receiving accounts.

It may seem a like a lot, but it really only represents 0,91% of all awarded Merits.

-   Without detailing who sent how much to whom, which is really not the point here, we can see that the core recipients are satoshi (6028 receive Merits), Hal (2699), Laszlo (1584). Them three alone account for 66,36% of merits awarded to inactive accounts as per the 3 year criteria established above.

-   Going over the top 20 Senders of these sMerit TXs, they aggregate sending 11.337 (72,96% of merits awarded to inactive accounts as per the 3 year criteria). They are obviously essentially Merit Sources, which more often than not may find themselves with some sMerits surplus they wish to spend on older posts/homages or whatnot.

All in all, the way I see it, the amount sent to these inactive accounts is close to a drop in the ocean (0,91% of all sent sMerits), and the top recipients are key historical contributors to bitcoin.


(1)   Obviously, other factors come into play at times, but that’s another debate.

(2)   Date difference in days between the sMerit TX and the recipients current last active date. Accounts that have become active afterwards are therefore not accounted for.

You nailed it, direct to the point.

If you think the post helps you and you've agreed with it, that deserves to be merited, it doesn't matter the user account status. (inactive, having a red tag, or even a banned account).

Look out for this user account, which has been inactive since December 13, 2010, but until now year 2024 received merits.

The Merit system is not moderated directly by the forum, you are free to give merit to any post, even posts made by users who have not been active for a long time. As long as you consider it appropriate to give merit based on the quality of the post, there is no prohibition on giving merit to users who have not been active for a long time. Merit is awarded to worthy posts, not to posts you like.

Merit is for good posts. The user shouldn't matter.

Inactive user deserve to be merited.
Negative tagged user deserve to be merited.
Banned user deserve to be merited.
Scammer deserve to be merited.
Cheater deserve to be merited.
Abuser deserve to be merited.
Troll deserve to be merited.

Only an account who never post don't deserved to be merited because there's no way for someone to merit him.

Good quality posts definitely deserve merit but if the member has been in the forum for a long time and is unlikely to return to the forum then it is better not to spend merit there. If you search, you may find many more such members who are regularly posting from active in the forum, you can send merit to those posts if you want. This will increase his enthusiasm towards his work and help him in his rankup. 
It is completely up to a user to send merit to another user's post and which post to not send merit to that user. But you have definitely raised a good point here that will give those members who are in doubt whether to merit cents for inactive members a chance to comment.

Even those active who don't deserve merits still getting one. Why do you ask?
Sending merit is based on the feeling of the user towards the post. If he feels that the post is constructive, he will give merit to that post.

You don't believe? Just look at Satoshi and the amount of merits the account has. Satoshi wasn't even active when the merit system was implemented, and yet Satoshi surpassed most of the users here in terms of the number of merits, so don't look at whether the user is inactive or not. If you feel that the post needs to be merited, just send merits on it.

Since merit system is not moderated, everyone has the right to choose whom to merit, but let's consider these two reasons for meriting an inactive users, maybe he has contributed a lot prior to the time that he left or became inactive, secondly, secondly if the inactive user has done nothing to deserve receiving merits then it all means that one shouldn't do such except on a quality post that everyone could reason along with being of a merit standard, if you're giving merits, do it with the conviction that you're giving to appreciated the quality effort contributed and not for being inactive just like that.

"Does inactive users deserve merits?" - this is determined only by the merit holder who is ready to press the “+Merit” button and send it to an inactive user. I want to say that this is a personal choice of everyone who is ready to reward the posts of inactive forum members.

From the point of view of the merit system that has formed on the forum, it is not advisable to give merit to an inactive user, because the idea of merit is to circulate in the forum community. It will be better if merit is given to an active user who will help his ranking.

But as always there are nuances. What if an inactive user eventually returns to the forum? Then he deserves the same merit as the active ones.

There are merit sources on the forum in which merits are constantly generated from time to time, that is, there can't be a shortage of merits, therefore, there is no need to save merit and even inactive users can be safely rewarded.

I believe that a post (whether from an active or inactive user), if deserved, should be rewarded with merit. Personally, I regard merit on other people’s posts as a “sign of quality” and if one of the forum users left a merit, then this post contains some useful or interesting idea that can't be ignored.

Well yes, there are some useful post that are being noticed late or became relevant at the current time. Imagine the post of satoshi are still receiving merits up to this date, this proves how useful his/her invention to our current time. This forum is also created without the merit feature, it was later introduced and surely play significant role in this forum. Those who are inactive but made good post surely deserves to be rewarded with merits. Inactive accounts might comeback to this forum with full of merits, it would be a great surprise for them seing their account full of merits because of their past contribution.

Let me ask you a question, what do you think is the purpose of merits? Is it because you see it as a way of ranking; or is it because you admire and view the post as knowledgeable?

Personally, a post deserves a merit if it is knowledgeable that it definitely helped or supported someone in their problem or query. Additionally, merits are also rewarded to posts that I feel they deserve it because it provided a good insight or discussion on a certain topic.

Bearing that in mind, ask yourself that question- even if the person is inactive but he/she created a thread or a post that helped hundreds of users, do you think he/she still deserves it?

Every merit deserving post ought to be merited irrespective of whether their posters are active or now. As the posts are not deleted and are seen by everyone who joined the forum, the standard of meriting a post should be visible in every post made on the forum. Newbies will also be able to see how the merit system is applied, in a way that posts that deserve merits are given merits.

Merit is not only something that helps a user rank up, it also helps to identify how important/effective a topic/post is. So from this point of view, inactive users/topics also deserve merits.

And this is also possible that the user can come back anytime.

If merit is supposed to be given to a meritable Post without minding if the user is inactive I also assume that merit should be given to a ban account because even its a ban account it has also contributed meaningfuly to someone else. Because if you said a ban account should not be given merit, that is to say you are not given a fair judgment.

Provided that the post is quality enough then you can give them merits, I have came across a post that has spent many years and the user in question has not been around (active) for about 3 to 4 years but yet i still find people giving that post merits. Although if you don't have merits you can report them to merits source those that says report any post you find quality to merit them, except that user is ban and i don't see any reason to waste merits on their profile while they already been ban here.

There is no sticky rule, but yesterday I gave @aantonop some merits even though I know he may not return, but he may come back one day and see that some people sent him some merits and decide to continue posting here.
If you are not a merit source, try to be wise in distributing your merits, especially if your local board needs them, but no one prevents you from spending them however you want.

Given out merits is not regulated in the forum or any rules being laid down or who you’ll give merit or who not to give merit. Meriting a post is about your personal opinion on how the post have influenced you, by either gaining knowledge or how constructive the user might be in sharing the knowledge to the general public. You can merit any post as long as you feel the need to after finding the content of the post informative enough for it. Some post might look not good to others but if you think it is good and worth it, you can go ahead and merit the user.

Depend on the post, If the post left by those inactive users is good one which totally help a lot of people to know something technical that hard to understand by some newbie then it still deserve to get a merit even if the user is inactive since its like you are appreciating their efforts here in forum when they are active.

But if the post is just totally nonsense then its no brainer that it doesn't deserve to get merit since we can't get any helpful things with that and those people will give a merit will question on why he give a merit to that post while there's no good thing we can see there.

So overall regarding on your question it all matter depend on the contribution so hopefully a lot of users answer your questions here.

Of course, they deserve merits for their quality contribution. Even though people earn merits to rank up and participate in signature campaigns these days, merit was introduced to reduce spam. You could always appreciate it if you see worthy posts. Satoshi had already disappeared when this forum moved to this current domain. Merit systems were introduced way after this. Still, Satoshi's account has earned a lot of merits because of his valuable contribution to the community, to Bitcoin, and its development. This should be an example answer to your question and this thread.

That’s simply because you are not acknowledging the said person but actually the post. Merit is sent to a post you found that helped you it doesn’t matter if the account is inactive, you aren’t sure if they must have lost their password. Smerits are not even money that we will say you are wasting it, although one can limits the amount they send to inactive accounts.


That still doesn’t change anything you were actually meriting the post and not the person. If the account gets sold later the difference will certainly be clear because the post quality will reduce drastically and if substantial informations are found although it is not against the forum rule the account will get tagged by some members and that actually defeats the purpose why the buyer bought it and also the merit earn will be useless. So nothing much in it.

This is actually a good question to bring up, I believe there is nothing wrong in giving merit to a post or thread that is actually giving good impact for the community, even if the Original Poster has been inactive. But there will be a problem when they decided to sell their account, I know it seems out of topic, but I think an inactive have more possibility to sell their account than the active user. And I believe there are some cases where a very reputable member of this forum that has been inactive for sometimes and keep getting merit from their post in those period, and one day they just sell their account.

I don't see why not. Users who posted helpful information in the past should still be credited for their contributions, even if they haven't been active recently.  Just 'cause someone takes a break doesn't negate the fact that what they shared before was useful and  people might still be getting good info from their old posts.  Makes sense to me to keep showing them appreciation with merits - keeps things fair for users who gave their time to contribute good stuff here.

It is better to send all your merits to the quality post of an inactive account than to send merit to the post of an active account with useless or spam posts.

Example is the founder of this forum. His is not active since 2010. https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/satoshi-3

But you can see how people continue to send his posts merits: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=3

There are other members like that.

Giving merit to quality posts, regardless to active or inactive poster, gives other users an indication of worthy content, either to read or as a template of what makes up a quality post. If a user cares to earn merit other merited posts serve as sort of a role model. Therefore it shouldn't matter if the poster is active or inactive.

Ofcourse the essence of merit is to reward quality posts, it doesn't matter how long the post have existed, it'll probably be the first time that you're coming across it. Although you don't need to focus your worry about rewarding merit to inactive posts because there are many active quality posts that are under merited, I think that those are the more deserving, however it's your prerogative to decide who you give merit to.

I think I'm very much comfortable with the highlighted statement, that is a kind of showing recognition to them for their past contributions to the Bitcointalk forum. I like this so much as anyone who has done well deserves appreciation. So in this forum, our appreciation and commendation is the merit we send to valuable posts by users who made good impact towards the well being and development of the forum regardless of whether they're active or inactive, I'm now very much pleased to hear this.

It doesn't actually matters, you can be active and also be merited especially when the post is impacting something really important most people in this forum still gain merit without being active, like satoshi Nakamoto his in active though some users still decide to merit his previous post, so doesn't matter as long you like the post and you see as something that really impact on you so you can merit it.

I dont think the period of hybernation is important or matter when someone posted a good one. The readers dont often check first whether he is active or not but just actually reading the post they wanna merit. Am I right with the assumption? Of course we cant deny that some are probably bought account that suddenly become alive but who knows they just rest for a while and come back now.

Of course, if a user makes a good post and becomes inactive, that post will definitely get merit. In this case if you can learn something based on that post and give merit as good post then surely you will have no problem.

It is how you show your recognition for their past contributions. You send merit if you see their contributions are important for you and Bitcoin.

You don't lose anything if you send your sendable merit away to a good post. Don't hoard your sendable merit because it is created to be spent (spendable). You also won't lose your merit or your rank won't be deranked by sending your sendable merit.

You almost have same reasoning with me because sometimes I use to wonder why giving a merit to a good and quality posts of a user who have been inactive for a long time like close to or over a decade now, like whats the need for? When we know truly well that such a user may have either lost access to the account or may be dead? Like what's the essence

yeah, it's okay, I mean, you are meriting the post they made, the person being inactive does not matter, but if you are worried about the merit being wasted on someone inactive(despite you think their post deserves merit) you can always just save your merit and give it to someone who you think made a quality post and is active. in the end, everything is up to you.

Absolutely, buddy! If you find a post or reply helpful and you've learned something from it, you can give some smerits as a way of showing appreciation. Even if users are inactive or have been away for a while, they still deserve recognition. Merits are never wasted(I think that's a taught running through your mind)

They and their posts deserved to receive merit if post quality, thread quality are excellent.

Merit is for quality contributions. Sending your sendable merit to quality posts if you see them.

Active or inactive users is not a concern because forum has unlimited merit and monthly theymos dumps more sendable merit to merit sources. You don't have concern that if you and other members send smerit to inactive users, total sendable merit in the forum will dry out.

There have been some good and quality posts that I've come across why navigating through the forum and I found out that some of the users have been inactive for a very long time but the posts they've made deserved merit, so is it advisable to merit the post(s) of a user(s) that have been inactive for a long interval of time considering the fact that they made Meritable posts?