The intention is noble but i think the effect of the merit system is negative.
The effect of the merit system is very good for our community, I think this is about sMerit that is quite unfair.
1.Most of the scammers who adopted earlier in to the Bitcointalk forum now has higher ranked accounts. They are not being punished by the merit system. Now may be they use their higher rank accounts to farm more accounts by giving smerits.
Yes its true and I think admins know this before they work this system, they cant solve it easily so they create a thread to report those high rank spammer and abusers.
2.I have seen lot of useless posts of higher rank members, which have been received lot of merits. (I think all of you must have noticed that.) .
Most of the people who have smerits give their smerits only to higher rank members (with the hope of getting merits back) without considering the quality of the post.
If you don't believe, Please check past posts of members with many merit points, you will find some of them have received hundreds of merits without sending at least one constructive post.
Yes all of us notice this shits but we cant do anything about what other people wants to merit.
I think those people are not expecting to get some merits by doing that aside from (if it is their close friend).
As I said we cant control them we cant do anything about it.
3. I've seen many very good posts by Jr.members which haven't received merits. Most people doesn't care about newbies and Jr.members because they have no smerits to give merit back.
I strongly agree with this that there are many good post from lower ranks but I dont agree with that reason that they are expecting a merit back in return.
4. Even if someone post a very good post or a reply if it is not get noticed by a person who gives merits by considering the qulity of the post, the post is not rewarded. ( Some forums are not get noticed well)
Ive seen many good post that is not get merited or some of them get small amount of merits. I agree with this I can suggest that they must have better look on this posts to give merits.
5. There are telegram groups where people share their merits. If you don't believe please do some research.
Yes there are some group like this, just think that those people will not win at the end of the fight.
6. 2 merits = 1 smerit rule is fundamentally slowing down the merit system.
Yes your right the reason of this is to control the merit system, if not the merit system will be useless at the end.
Your solution will just remove all the purpose of merit system, remember that all of this farmers can also make a little good post and they will just spam accounts again and again just to upvote their post.
Also the merit system is already implemented, it not fair again to some people here that works hard for merit and you will just remove it that easy.
I think it is better to improve the merit system, Im good with this system the only thing I see that is unfair in this system is that sMerit system it can also cause a spam of accounts of high rank shitposter and farmers.