Topic: Has the Merit faucet dried up? Solutions? (Read 819 times)

What I noticed many people on the forum still posting hoping one day merit system would be canceled or made easier. They create countless topics about how merit system is unfair firmly believing that their opinion counts. So, Mr.Newbie! This is not your democracy, if you don't like the system, please find yourself some better place to post!

Neither really. The only case where the sMerit supply is refilled is when you are a Merit Source (for the given quota). See here: question: re:Who can award merits.

As I understand it, (outside of receiving merit from others), i have to wait 30? days for my smerit to replenish? or is it 120 days?

See this is the biggest problem, most of the new members just joined this forum to make money and nothing else. And forgetting the fact merits are given if someone makes good posts what you did here is a community service. I report so many posts daily to mod but I never begged anyone to give me any merits for it. As long as people like you join this forum just to make money nothing's gonna change

And as I also said this isn't your fault as well theymos implemented a system without taking any measures to solve problems like these. This merit system is only made for legendary members, most merit sources merit their fellow here/legendary members for good quality posts they don't care for members like us.

One has to start somewhere. I do not mind the beginner questions, that is obvious.

What is hampering this forum is the spam caused by some people and I am sure they are not new to this platform. The embers who are doing this unintentionally because they are not aware of the rules are just a small portion of the problem. And member level has nothing to do with crypto knowledge in general.

That is something that needs to be addressed. I will admit though that I have not seen that many unique questions and most of them are just repeated questions that have been answered several times already.

Graduates dont find it easier theres several different studies which support this and only prestigious degrees actually allow you too. Engineering for example is much more sought after than a degree in history.

Yes, and according to the script, after the discussion, merit sources will favor + merit for those who answer, help (senior members) .... in the discussion, not for questioners (newbie, jr ...).

Although after the discussion, people who ask questions and learn what they need to know will understand everything (may not be understood at all). But that does not mean that they will be distributed merit for asking good questions!

It is the difference between having knowledge and having no knowledge. Just as in real life, people with good knowledge, graduates from big universities, etc... will find it easier to earn better jobs and salaries than those who only finish high school.

I have the same sentiments with you.
The intention of merit is to prevent spammers and encourage us to make quality posts.  However, what is happening now is instead of making posts to share your knowledge and learn from one another, the forum community is now posting for the sake of earning merits (especially the low rank members like me).

This is the link of my first thread : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.40069856

Moved the above thread twice (from altcoin discussion to service discussion (altcoins) to beginners and help).  I moved it because I noticed that the merit distribution on the altcoin discussion threads are fewer compare to other threads.

The fact that they have no knowledge is not a problem. Its their willingness to learn about it and ask the right questions and participate in discussions intellectually which will then be rewarded with merit points/

If everyone was as knowledgeable as the developers of bitcoin then there would be no worthy discussion on the forum.

I looked at your statistics, it's impressive  5 months - 436 merits, really proves that everything is possible)

I think at least 70% of the users of this forum have no or very little knowledge regarding Crypto in general. Their only purpose is to join Bounty, Airdrop and cheat those things to make money.
Those people have crushed the few who really admired Crypto. And a newbie, despite having a good post, a good idea, a high help response ... can answer questions or solve problems for those people ... but will not receive any merit.
This forum is also very classy, I can feel the contempt of senior members with newbie (though not the majority).
Therefore, do not expect the senior members to share their merit to the Newbie, Jr ... if there are also just a few rare exceptions like you for your great efforts.
Not everyone can do the same, because of the limited knowledge and ability as well as the rigidity of higher level members.

This would defeat  the purpose of having the merit system in the first place. Before the merit system this is how ranking worked through activity. It is suppose to be not easy to get merit as it is suppose to promote good quality posters and reward them for that.

No way! There are many crappy posters on the forum that just lurk around and post detritus all day long because they have nothing better to do. Activity, or the amount of time active in the forum (which is what I guess you mean) has nothing to do with posting by good standards, and therefore should not be rewarded as an automatism.

Merit definitely improves the quality of the forum. But getting it task is not easy. Align this situation could be through regulation (Merit for the time of activity on the forum). What do you think?

Regarding to the cause of why merit was implemented, scammers go over around the forum looking for people to devour and as i have read some threads most complains about merit was/were. "it is unfair", "it is so difficult to have even just one" , "there are abusers"... etc. And most of the complainants are jr. Members, members,  full members, who does not have good english ( fluency.) Some are posters from a thread which has 10 pages and up.

Yes, you are correct, there are a lot of users and this would only emphasize that the number of merit sources is too low. We do need to start from somewhere as the current system is clearly not working as intended.

BTW, if I remember correctly I've seen those stats in one of your posts Good job!

I figure you mean missing only a "few merits", not merits in general, since that list would be long and ever increasing is size.

I just checked on the Merit Dashboard, to see how many would be on such a list. If I go to the Ranking-up Pipeline Tab, and select Sr. Members for example, there are 500 who could have ranked-up (they have enough activity), but have not due to lack of merit.
Out of those 500, 6 are in the [80%..100%) range of their merit goal to reach Hero Member, 39 are in the [60%..80% range) and 455 are in the [40%..60%) range.
The 6 should probably get there soon with no additional help, the 39 would need to be analysed to see how they are evolving, and the 455 have barely advanced since the initial airdrop.

If you go down a rank, there are 2.022 Full Members that have enough activity but not enough merit.

I can’t quite see how these lists would be managed in an even manner without favoring a subset such as "the least needed" or "the most needed". Regardless, the lists are easy to draw if needed.

Wow! I have read every single post in this thread and was not expecting such a high interest in it. Although I may not agree with some of you, I appreciate the time taken to comment and your thoughts. Thanks!

The initial idea when the Merit System was implemented, was that everyone who was creating decent posts (not spam - the thing merit was intended to fight) would get 1 merit per day, thus aligning with the 1 activity/day you were already receiving and not blocking you to rank up.  

Both of you guys don't have a clue on the amount of time needed to review hundreds of applicants and not only review their selected posts but also their post history.    I did all of this for FREE, to do my part in trying to stop the spam and making people read the forum rules.

Remember that review thread, as well as others I have created overtime, were not post & forget. They were constantly maintained and researched. Take a look at the mining guide or other threads I have created, these are months worth of work and research to provide a good research for people who enjoy mining like I do.

Nope. With the second solution the human factor would be in play and no one who isn't deserving to rank up would. The old system was automated and you would just rank-up automatically.

I think a good start to creating the lists of users that the merit sources would review would be people whom already got the activity but are missing the merits. I think I saw a list about that in some merit analysis thread.

We'll have a problem when people see that administration doesn't really care about everybody equally, if you see that nobody cares whether you are being abused by some people or not, you'll automatically stop caring yourself.

Personally I do still care about this forum and I still want to become a source in order to distribute them on many boards and not just one board like meta.
I'd like to suggest theymos to replace inactive merit sources with new ones. it doesn't matter if I have negative trust or not, I'll help if it is needed.
However what I want is more than 200 sMerits per month to distribute, this time I'm not going to resign though.
Now come on theymos make me a source again, note that if I become a source I'd have no other choice than canceling my services on service section because I don't want to be treated differently, if you notice people who are merit sources or DT members get special treatment from others, so I'll cancel my services to avoid receiving any special treatment from people.

@Puggy, you should also merit the posts you have included on your application, don't wait for theymos to give you source merits.(come on man merit my post number 5 in your application thread already. lol.)

I had made this tool indeed to respond to something similar: "knowing which people are more active distributing merits in a particular section of the forum" so ideal candidates to become merit sources:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/top-30-merit-givers-per-board-interactive-tool-to-spot-possible-merit-sources-4393868

In some cases is evident who could be appointed, hopefully somebody will have a look at the names showing up and consider if making them merit sources.