Topic: Is the first Merit the hardest Merit to get? (Read 588 times)

You're right that once someone gains at least 100 merits he/she should stop thinking about merits a lot and continue to do their best to contribute helpful information on the forum. If someone creates good posts which are informative and could help others then that person will definitely get the deserving merits. But, the ones who are only here to accumulate merits and do not give much attention to the quality of their posts are the ones who don't get any merits.

Anyway congratulations on your achievement! Quick question, how did you became a merit source? Just wanted to know your story!

What does Theymos look for when he selects a merit source? What are the qualifications one need? I know you need to be knowledgeable, helpful, quality poster but apart from that that does one truly need?

I remember that I was here on the first day of creating the merit system, and it seemed confusing about how to obtain it, but it was easy from the first day, and I think that within about 4 months I was able to collect 150 merits, which was very difficult at that time, and after a week or month from that (~ 5/2018) became a merit source and then Merit became  a something that is not important to me.
I care how people feel about this, but other than wanting to increase your profits, you should stop treating merits as if they are something exciting or worth pursuing after the first 100, and then enjoy creating posts without Merit attention.

First merit is hardest one if someone is fully new to this forum and didn't know about merit system much. As a newbie one didn't know how to contribute in good Manner. Usually merit are given in the base of quality of post, helping others which is only possible with some sort of knowledge. some users are so lucky that they recieved their first merit in their first 10 posts. In beginners section I checked out that many newbie promoted to junior just answering some sample questions but many users with more than 100 posts still asking for one merit especially bounty hunters.

Talking about the first merit, it also depends upon luck too. Sometimes a newbie asks a simple question in the forum or responds well to any query and he will usually get a merit. Other people may not get a first merit even writing a lengthy post too. I think there is no way to know on which post you will get a merit or on which post you will not get merit.

A simple rule of thumb is that if anyone is active in the forum, responds and discusses the topics, he will get the merits sooner or later. Don't wait for merit, just keep posting naturally and the merits will come automatically.

When you say it is easy, it is quite understandable, but when you say it is very easy to earn merits and yet you don't have enough of it, it is purely ironical. Merit is not easy to earn to be honest. You cannot just type for people to applaud you. Among the three things that contribute to ranking in the forum which are;

•   Post
•   Activity
•   Merit

The easiest to get is post while the hardest is merit. Merit is never easy to earn and any day it becomes easy to earn, that day marks the collapse of the merit system.

I think it is very easy to get merits if you do quality and good quality and beautiful post to get merits not only first but at first it is actually a bit difficult I think.I am new in this world and when I got merit for the first post I realized that it is very easy to get merit if you post good quality and if not it is too late.In fact if you do good work, there is nothing new or old, if you have merit, you will get respect. This is what I saw when I came to this forum.In fact, it takes long time to understand what I saw myself eating, but it is easy if you try hard.

If everything is been equal it should be the first merits but some people have less advantage because they're not well advance on bitcoin knowledge like others so it becomes had to get their first merit (and that's fine because we're meant to grow on the forum). If two newbies joins the forum and one of them is well educated on Bitcoin and knows things that the average bitcoin users doesn't know then he has a higher possibility of getting merit before the other newbie and also rank up before them. Next thing you should know is the chances of your post been merited increases when you're participating in discussion on a board that has more meriters because they'll get to see your contribution more than others not writing on a well exposed board. I'm not saying you should start spamming boards that have more merit sources in search of merit (don't participate in discussion you don't have an idea on) or you'll end up getting yourself on ignored.


In summary, don't post to get merited but post to contribute your knowledge to the discussion that's ongoing on the thread, you shouldn't care more about your post getting merited or not. What's more important is when your post is adding to the value of the discussion and serve a purpose to someone that reads it. If that person has merit he'll merit your post. When all your attention is on getting merited, your post will be of less value as all you'll be doing is trying to impress or lick ass the merit sources when what you should be doing is contributing to the discussion that's ongoing.

Wow, how interesting to look at these data. It feels like it's some kind of flashback that allows you to analyze your past actions. I would not ever have remembered myself exactly which of my posts received the first merits, but now I looked at the spreadsheet and was a little surprised. After all, this was a post in which I simply shared my personal experience of getting to know this forum. Not a post where I analyzed some information or shared my impressions about the test of some service. But just my personal story. And it was posted in the Beginners&Help, which to me is another testament to why newbies need to visit this board.

Thanks for this data, it will really help a lot of people for both research purpose and other things, I used the search button and found my name so easily, the sheet is too long for me to scroll down..

I created a list that linked each profile to their first received sMerit TX some time ago on another post, so I’ve gone ahead and updated the list:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_I7WfxSnzOe7wvjE9dJ-aqH59PnfsMnKSVzycYljrx0/edit?usp=sharing

Your data is on row 14961, showing this (bounty related ) post to be your first merited post, received on the 2018-09-19 18:21:50.

It’s quite interesting to see some of the first posts linked on the list.

Of course first merit are the hardest one, as a newbie often does not have enough experience or knowledge to share to get rewarded, in addition he is not familiar well with forum rules, traditions and etc. Of course there are exception, but for me first 10 or even 100 merits were most complicated to get. Imo, the path from Member (10 merit) to Full Member (100 merit) was more difficult than getting 500 merit to rank-up from Hero to Legendary.

When user has already a solid amount of merit, he already know what to post, where to post, what is value and demanded. When you are new on the forum, you simply search and ask, than make a post worth meriting. I am glad that we have users who reward questions and topic from new forums members, because a lot of high ranked users often dont even pay attention to new users.

I can’t actually remember the merit which have me the hardest time, but after I earned my first merit which I can’t even remember how long that was and how I did it, I just realized that it was a motivation to my beginning, which in turns made me push harder to see if I can earn more, but it was all a struggle to me, until I earned my first 10 merit then i believed that I can be able to earn more as it was just a matter of how much time I’m willing to spend on the forum and how much useful information I can be able to pass to others which could help them in one way or the other, from then i just started earning little by little until I reached the level that I am today, someone first merit and first anything usually have a different kind of feelings that it gives to the person, the feelings of that new beginning is always different.

 I'd say yes too. The first one's looks hard to get to me because when I started it looked as if I was just creating threads fit for only replies and nothing more. I got frustrated to an extent when I'd create threads, someone else gets merited for it. Back then I hadn't understood how merit giving worked. In my mind, it was supposed to be like this; create a nice informative post, drop a link if the work's not yours and then watch how the merits will drop like rain. How I was so disappointed.
Determination and continuous good posts will direct merits your way and if you're able to solve a problem from those posts as well, it helps hasten the process.
 The first merit seems difficult to get because in my own view, that's the time you're trying to prove yourself on how much good and quality posts you can deliver and some merit sources/givers will just be looking to see how regular you'd remain at quality posting.

Of course - many account farmers have proven it, right?
Beginners' knowledge is very limited – in fact they tend to have difficulty posting something in the correct and good writing format. However, if they are able to write something in a good and correct writing format and are able to utilize some merit thread - then you can be sure they are an alt account that is being built.

In fact - beginners find it difficult to get their first merit without proper guidance. They mostly write something that is confusing and even tend to be considered spam when quoting other user's posts - but if they have good knowledge and the posts tend to be of high quality then they are merit farmers who hides behind beginner accounts.

You have spoken well and it seems you know many things about the merit system which is very fine. When someone, especially a newbie has the mindset to earn merits in whichever way, it is always difficult for them to earn the merit.
But immediately you stopped making merit a priority and start learning and making posts that will help the forum and impact you as well, that is when merits will start coming naturally. But at a point when you are above the rank of a fully member, you need to step up your post quality in order to get fresh merits flow.
When I was a newbie, I started receiving merits from the first topic I created. Although not on the topic but during conversations.

This is true, at least that is how it should happen. If a newbie posts something that is appreciated by the community then that should be spotted immediately and would probably result in merits but in many cases that does not happen. What can also happen is that far too many debatable or (what one could consider subjectively) unworthy posts from established/non-established members receive a disproportional number of merits but that is the way of the forum. Democracy is expressed in various manners.

In my opinion, it will be different for different people. Cause not everyone knows all the things from the beginning.  But if he was a hard worker then it could be possible that getting first merit is easy.  

If he was a lazy cat then never gonna happen to his anything like that. I have see many people around they like to get money without any hardwork  so those kind of people will face hard to getting merit.

Even then there was some more factor that exploring skills. Here I remember that my first merit was on a simple question to know. In the past time my thought kinda like that the getting merit was very difficult. But after knowing the some factors it kind of different now. So now I wanna say one thing that  in the beginning level you will get easily made it if you have the patient explore and also have some skills  on using devices and browsing  internet.

Getting first merit is not the hardest but still this depends on the person, if the person focus on getting merit, it will be hard to get, when someone is desperate to get merit that is when the person will be rating any of post he/she made and that is when he/she we look frustrating. For someone to find it easy is when the person concentrate on learning and like to reading, this is when merit will be coming unexpectedly. Getting merit is easier for who is not desperate and difficult for who is egger to get it.

yes, getting first 1-10 merits are the hardest of all, I received my first merit after 3months of registering on this forum on this post.
and it is hard for users who are also new to this forum and new to bitcoin because they know very less about bitcoin to contribute in this forum,
if a user is newbie but have in depth knowledge of bitcoin and working of bitcoin then community will identify him and will give merits according to contribution and value he is providing,