Topic: Icopress ' Merit Source Application 🚩 - page 4. (Read 5247 times)

According to the DdmrDdmr's Merit Dashboard, you were promoted to Legendary rank sometime in early December 2022:

I am surprised by this data, which I did not know, as I registered in 2020 and I would say I was legendary last year (is there any way to check?). Although I write better than a shitposter I am not among the most exceptional posters but according to that data I would be among a minority of the best posters who registered the same year as me. That said, with some exceptions, I usually write 7 days a week.

To become a Legendary w/ a 2021 registration date by now would mean posting just about every day (or at least 14 times per 2 weeks) since then, along with accumulating an average of ~1 merit every day... No easy feat really. It requires a lot of commitment to going beyond shitposting, which is a step most accounts here aren't willing to take. They are here because its "easy money"... once you have to put effort into it its no longer "easy" anymore. So they will never get beyond Sr. Member or Hero and they don't care.

I think it took me at least 4 years to get to Legendary based on the speed of my posting, which was intermittent. I don't think merits would have been a factor but who knows.

I'd argue the opposite: a campaign manager is supposed to read many of the posts made in his campaigns. That's a great opportunity to Merit the good ones (and remove the users with bad posts from the campaign). That's not Merit abuse, it's doing a good job.
It may mean the campaign manager sends more Merit to users in his campaigns, because he reads more of their posts. But that shouldn't matter much, as there are 100+ other Merit sources too.

To call it Merit abuse, there should be something in it for the campaign manager. Unless you're going to the extremes of Meriting his own alts to join his own campaigns, I don't see that happening. Most campaign managers have earned enough sMerit to be able to do that without being a source anyway.

This is highly subjective.

To me, a forum where tens of thousands of people are active posting very regularly like in here, should also be having an influx of new users that are able to contribute that is akin to its active userbase. That would be at least a few hundreds of new users becoming legendary every year. If we check https://bpip.org/Report?r=mostmerit there's only one legendary user in the top 1000 with a registration date of 2021 and 14 users from 2020. So in a little more than 3 years only 15 users reached the maximum rank. Also note that the bottom of the top 1000 have only a tiny bit merit above the required 1k to become legendary so I wouldn't guess that there's many more besides that.

I know this is an unorthodox way to check this but I can't find any better way to do so.

And in that case, I'd be more careful with how much I spend. Maybe I stopped sending 4 merits to newbies for just sharing an interesting thought, and so would other merit sources. The result would rather be that high quality posters would just rank up more slowly.

How do you know we lack new users with good posts? I believe we had quite a lot new users who made their entrance in 2022-23, and ranked up pretty fast, as they were worth it. Shitposters, on the other hand, still find it difficult to rank up, as they should.

Objectivity has nothing to do with forum age. A newbie can just arrive the forum, read the rules, understand them and be more objective than someone who is here for 4 years.

Most of his clients are project owners who does not make posts day in day out. Even if he sends just a merit to enable his clients upload images, that's not a problem.

If the posts he will send merits to are quality posts, there's no problem. Besides, those campaign participants are still members of BTT and deserve ranking up.

This is also not a problem, in as much as their posts are quality. The people that benefits from The Sceptical Chemist post review rank up than others, they are just lucky and it shouldn't bitter anyone.

I'm quite certain many people have the same approach now, but things work differently on a macro and on a micro level.
The macro level is that if everyone has less sMerits and there were far fewer merit sources, the result of having less merit to go around would be that the responsibility on spotting and rewarding good posts increases.

Precisely because there's a lack of new users with good posts I believe that we don't need new merit sources. At this point in my opinion new merit sources should only happen if less active ones are removed and their sMerits rescinded. When forum activity from new users goes down merit sources should ideally decrease, not increase.

I'll speak for myself. If I had less sMerits, I'd simply do what I had been doing before I become a merit source; merit the same posts, but with less merits. I don't feel like I have more pressure on meriting "good posts" now that I'm merit source. Whenever I find an interesting post, I simply merit it. That's all, and I'd say I'm biased to an extent to newbie posts, because I want to encourage them continue their journey and rank up.

The whole point of the merit system is mainly to discourage shitposts. Even with an oversupply of merits, it still fits that purpose. It's just that high-quality posters get merited more generously and/or regularly.

I certainly wouldn't rather to help a user who sees the forum as a milking cow instead of an Internet board, rank up. Why am I the one to blame and not them for being incapable to produce somewhat medium quality content?

But manager can already do that by choosing whoever they want in the campaign so I don't see how that would change with more managers being merit sources.


Yes there is.


theymos obviously doesn't think so and in the end he is the only one whose opinion matter in this case really.

I respectfully disagree. If merit sources had too many posts to pick from and less merit they'd be more pressure on them to focus on actually good posts by good members so they can reward their efforts by making them rank up. Now there's so much merit going around from merit sources that most of it ends up being not utilized at all. And at best, there's huge merit circlejerks in the absence of new posters. Merit is so abundant that nearly no one cares about it anymore. Even in cases of abuse. In an ideal world there would be more admins to be looking through this every few weeks or so to remove or add merit sources accordingly based on how many new users are coming in. But on the contrary, for the last few years we've had an oversupply of merit. But now that we have too much of it, nearly no one cares. New users just find hacked accounts to rank their own accounts through local boards and it gets lost in the merit circlejerks of users that have already reached legendary rank.

Precisely. I do not have a problem with that because if there is no reason to scrutinise the manner in which merits are given by merit sources there is no reason to scrutinise the manner in which merits are given by non-merit source members too. I think if there is merit abuse between farmed accounts that should be addressed but other than that members are free to merit any post they like regardless of them being merit source or non-merit source.

Other than that I am not a huge fan of the merit system as it currently stands but that is a matter for a different time. Right now, I can see no reason why icopress is not a good candidate for merit source and hope theymos will keep him in mind the next time he selects a merit source.

Better have an oversupply than an undersupply. I think we have less merit sources comparably to last year, so if someone's going to replace this lack, be it icopress.

It doesn't make sense to grant the merit source position randomly, but as far as my experience goes, icopress wouldn't merit uninteresting / minimum value posts.

I'm a merit source. And the Greek board is quite dead, I hope we all acknowledge that. I agree that it needs moderation, but this is another discussion.

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Merit sources are supposed to merit whatever they like. Be it a high quality post, a joke, or a newbie question. That's why we have more than a hundred merit sources; simply because there's no "universal unbiased standard".

this aspect i hadnt really thought of. as the cm would (i would think) prioritize reading the campaign posts (thats their job after all) those campaign posts may get a disproportionate amount of merits simply because they were read 1st before the cm "spends down" their merits.

so basically anyone joining a campaign where a cm is also a ms looks to have a better chance of earning merits in that campaign than other campaigns.

does this gives the a cm whose a ms an advantage over other cms?



 

I believe those possibilities you described could happen even if a campaign manager is not a merit source. Campaign managers often get a lot of merits, simply because they are always in plain sight, and their posts are followed by a large number of users, so they will not go unnoticed. That means they already have lost of sMerits and could do what you suggested. I mean, if there is an intention to abuse merit system, there are plenty of opportunities for campaign managers to do so.

But we don't see such a behaviour from behalf of icopress. That is why I personally don't see any reason why he shouldn't be a merit source and what potential conflicts of interest could occur because of that.

Each merit source gets additional power, I guess the administrators should evaluate who will not abuse it. For example, Ratimov was not a manager, but certain manipulations with his distribution of merits were recognized. The matter is quite individual, and it can't be generalized.
One more example, LoyceV managed the campaign a long time ago, and as far as I know he is still open to such offers. Do you doubt that he would abuse his merit source status by running a campaign?


To repeat, merit source status certainly gives a certain power here on the forum. But the example of the conflict you mention is probably not the best.
If the manager himself decides who to accept in the campaign, why would he force anyone by giving him an unrealistic number of merits? He can accept them even if he earns only one merit in 120 days.

Campaign managers today generally have their hands free over management. So, for example, they can always make a custom deal with a user, regardless of their (rank) merit count. there is no need to build someone's rank, it is enough just to accept him in a higher-tier position in the campaign.

I don't think any intelligent manager would risk his reputation for merit abuse. As far as I know, most of their clients come from outside the forum and don't know much about things like merit, sources etc... Certainly, the label "abuser" reduces the chances of someone being hired.

Merit sources have a responsibility to give merits in an unbiased manner but can we really state as a matter of fact that has been the case throughout? We all have seen merit sources give over the top merits (excessive merits) to posts others would find not worthy of any attention and likewise, we all have seen quality or deserving posts being ignored by merit sources whereas others have picked up on them.

None of this means anything because merit sources are not held to account in order to justify their merit distribution, they give merits just as you and I non-merit sources do and they/others could also view some of our merit distribution as dubious/deserving/non-deserving therefore the concept of conflict of interest does not really stand up.

Hypothetical scenarios about manufactured conflicts of interest that do not exist is a topic in itself which should have a thread created by those wanting to discuss it.

Time to let this thread be about either supporting icopress because of historical statistical data proving he is an asset to the community or to post here with historical statistical data proving he is not a good candidate.

Are you suggesting icopress has a history of favoring certain clients or participants? If so, can you point to specific examples? If not, what do you think prevented him from doing it already? What specific changes do you predict if he becomes a merit source?



Why are you adding campaign participants to the mix now? Are you suggesting that merit sources should not even participate in campaigns, let alone manage them?

I agree with philipma1957. I have been thinking about this thought for a long time, but maybe my opinion could make me not accepted in the campaign managed by icopress, but this thought bothers me enough that I want to convey it here.

Honestly, I don't doubt Icopress's objectivity because he is an old member who has contributed a lot to this forum, but with him as a merit source there is the possibility:

~ As a selling point and perhaps sending more merit to the client's account
~ Send merit more often to campaign participants because he see their campaign participants' posts every week

If I look at campaigns that have merit source participants, usually those client accounts get more merit and rank up faster compared to campaigns that are not participated in by merit sources.

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This is just my brief assumption, maybe I will revise my opinion if it turns out that my opinion is wrong. Sorry for icopress, I don't have a special intention, I just said what was on my mind

I've said many times here that the merit system is not as people think of it, and I've sided with those who claimed some impartial sharing is going on. Seeing you now again saying a similar thing, I conclude that unbiased people can think beyond the bracket and those who are favoured by the impartiality will always look away.

Well, I am not against the campaign managers becoming a merit source, but it might be biased towards the people in their campaigns. They have enough work to do already, and for this, they can't move around like those who are not CMs.