Topic: Is the merit system flawed? (Read 867 times)

I think that there is no perfect system that could eliminate farmers, spammers and abusers at the same time. But if I may say, merit system works great. The main idea of the merit system is to freeze accounts of such abusers which worked in my opinion. Users that only aimed to rank for greater benefits were reduced. Though spammers and shit posters are still present, I can say that some of them got tired already and this forum has less spammers since the merit system was implemented.
Lastly, farmers can be the least affected especially those who are having high-ranked accounts already but somehow the merit system can be a device or tool that can determine account farmers and abusers just to rank up.
In general, it works perfectly. I have no doubt that merit system helped this forum live for more years to come.

I've started quite a few projects, and i just dip into them when I see fit - this is my blog as a merit source - https://talkmerit.com/the-source/index.php - it's really only the walk that has got anything interesting in it. I'm also starting a site to discuss the urban mining of Bitcoin.

In the meantime I'm updating my domain name dealing business. I really don't want to try to force people to take part in my projects. If they aren't interested, then they are welcome to go their own way, and I'll see if I can pick up a bit of ad revenue to leave the project running in case it picks up again.

Don't give those cheaters extra ideas man, I'm sure they are already sniffing around for merit backdoor.
BTW why don't you put up a link in your sig to this Fit to Talk project?
Seems useful but a lot of ppl are unaware of it,definitely needs more popularity. My English is also a bit broken, so I'll trow an eye on it too if I get enough free time and you need to be in a mood for such things, right

Users spending money on merit is the best indicator for the merit system being a huge success and merit actually having a real value. If you want to discuss Bitcoin and the related topics, it is really hard to find a platform for it that isn't overloaded with bad ads. If you want to get your avatar up, your signature, you need to put your time in for quality posts. I would love to see how many people stopped using Bitcointalk because they can't simply come here and spamm their ref link in 20 channels.

Isn't it mad? You can make a post on your local board, submit it to the Fit to Talk translation promotion project, and receive at least 5 merits if it is approved - that's $200 according to your report. Also, everything is in public view, so you are not going to get red tagged for doing it. So far we have had no takers - it really makes me wonder about the new posters in the Bitcoin Talk underworld.

I read somewhere a month ago that 1 merit costs around 40$, if that's true I have given for free more then a few couple of thousands to the folks.
There will always be a way to cheat the system.
What disturbed me was a thing that someone mentioned a service where you can buy merit from the Hero or Leg, but he is writhing a quality post for you, which you get to post as your own and then he merits this post. Idk what is the price and how he is doing this but man, this is crazy...
Just rumors I read in some of the local broads...

It saddens me when I read posts like this. It sounds as if your opinions have been formed in the underworld here ( the bounty spammer boards ), and it makes me feel that if bounty spammers are abusing merits like this, then I should try to avoid giving them any merits to feed their system.

You can only focus on own profile. Many members who joined after you advanced to the next rank. You can see various threads here sharing data about how many members advanced to next level after the merit system. You can also do this if you focus on the correct things. Good luck.

I think that the merit system works fine, except that the transfer of merit to their own accounts also for profit or sale should be severely punished. To avoid a closed system.

as far as i do not wish to think about merit, but the merit thing is halting my advancement to be very very honest.

And I had to admit the rank could be most useful for signature bounties and it aint really fair if the old timers are the ones hogging to the pie only

You will always have these people everywhere. You have to design your system to protect from them accordingly. In my opinion, we may see more changes in future to the merit system in order to combat the techniques used by these abusers currently.

It is nice to see good posts here especially the ones concerning the improvement of this forum after the merit system.

It's true and is one of the most important advantages of merit system and new rank requirements.

I am not sure what you said have been actually happened in the forum after the launch of merit system or not. Nevertheless, merit farms, account farms will keep appearing in the forum. Personally, I strongly believe in the merit system because it has massive amazing impacts on farms by keeping farming accounts stucked at low ranks in the forum.

Every system has its flaws but I believe the pros of the merit system far outweighs the cons. People here have begun helping moderators to identify and cut out spammers, cheats and fraudsters. I don't people used to help the mods as often as they do now because they get merits for their efforts. In a way the forum is becoming "cleaner" daily as people are becoming more aware of account farming and other fraudulent activities. We'll also get there someday, gradually but surely.

I think this is partly because cryptocurrency and blockchain technology which are the basics for the whole crypto environment are quite "new". I believe people struggled to understand and accept how the internet works in the early stages. Now, a very young boy or girl could lecture you on a topic about the internet. With time, most people here,including me will begin to understand the whole concept of crypto currency just as we have understood how the internet works. Blockchain and crypto lessons online would do a good job in this regard,then, we'd begin to raise good questions and give equally good answers. I believe merits would flow thenceforth.

I think most of the user want a merit especially to those who has lowest rank and they pay for the merit to get a higher rank. They pay for it even if it is on a high value. And others sell merit because they want money they use it as a alternative to get money for they finacial needs. They cheat to have merit and Cheating is a sin. But they want money so they do cheating .

The incentive is human nature like much of this forum to begin with, why are we even here discussing matters.   We could just go and do it I guess, but actually there is a process of discovery and merit is part of underlining good points made.  
Its a perfectly reasonable system, nothing too serious and hopefully reduces any benefit to posting without any concern for the reader of the post.  Its a simple premise, not really harsh or specially restrictive though it no doubt slows the progress through ranks for some a bit.  Activity was already quite slow to accumulate I thought so I'm not sure its worse for any normal poster.


I was just going to comment as far as negatives are concerned I accidentally typo'd a merit twice over.   Call it lag or something but I only meant to give 1 merit and it went through twice.   Not a big deal and I did like the information in the post, useful so I dont mind that much.   But hey theres a possible negative, the random mistake factor I guess.

I sometimes just merit because I wanted a kind of bookmark for that post, maybe its an index to other posts or whatever.  I rarely give more then 1 merit, not exactly super generous here but I try to be consistent :p


Everything you see or will ever do is slightly flawed, the world is flawed.  Humans are most definitely flawed in everything they do, this is reality.    If ever encountering perfection it should knock your socks because its very rare in my experience. Its a reasonable system that serves some purpose, I see no great reason to oppose its existence.   Possibly distribution could be improved but it cannot be made too lax either, so its unknown at what balance it will best operate yet I think.

With the current number of cheaters, farmers, and abusers... Yes, it is flawed. If only Merits that was given to the shitty accounts can be removed, I guess it will be necessary to call that the Merit System is a success.

Merit feature Is not flawed based on my own opinion, we can not 100% be sure that there are no negative sides about that new implementation and it is really difficult to get one, the very big reason to it is about the post no other than, and the best part is the positive side is you can check the merit points of a certain user if he really deserves that merit and distinguish that he/sher really contributed to the forum. however, i ain't saying all.

Stop trying to ass lick the merit system.

Shitposters like you who dont have a good grip over basic English would take time to write something constructive and get merits as well for that. You seem to be in a delusion about what the merit system is
Quality posts - according to me are those that remain on topic and say something constructive to add to the discussion.

Yeah you seriously need to poke your eyes till they become red and then clean your optic nerve because this has already been taken over by DT and such cases are being handled which you will fail to notice.

Only real new members (who are eagerly to learn) will be motivated by merit system. Account farmers hate it certainly ^^

Of course, merit system can not entirely changed the forum by itself. The system need cooperation of the forum members, campaign managers. As you saw, there are lots of topics on merit abusers and several campaigns ask merits to join.

It is clear that this advantage is not perfect and there are too many problems that many people have pointed out. Advantages should not be merely gifted, but should be obtained a little bit each month so that there are not too many advantages to being traded in secret. Newcomers also have long-term motivation to learn at the forum.

Even though the merit system was introduced, I always see repeated and redundant posts. I think the member of the forum are being more naughty because they cant have merit themselves. It is becoming more populated by shitposters or is it becoming polluted by new members.
Merit is good but i thini we should create section only for jr and newbie when they get enough merits to becoming a member that will be the time they can get access to all section around bct. Just my opinion.

These following two topics are the most important ones which you should read for your interests related to merit system.
TMAN's guide to getting merits
Full Member thanks to merit system (iasenko)
Especially, the topic which published by iasenko, who ranked up from lower ranks. You can learn lots of valuable lessons from that guy.

Furthermore, based on your last thread, I don't think you can earn merits by publishing such low-quality one like this. It is something like grammar-corrupted and by using Google translator (just my theory).

merit system says it is good. What I do not understand is quality Post? already everyone has written something on a topic. I think what I can do. but in the future it will be merit sale situations or other account opening and transfer cases. I hope the management will find a solution to this.

Post quality is dependent on the person who is in control of the account. Not by the manager and not by merit system.

Umm utopia?

no, merit system isn't bad at all, it was a needed thing to implement on the forum in conditions of bounties etc. the only thing that worries me is the enormous gap between ranks higher that member
and one more - it's hard for newbies and juniors to impress heroes and legendaries.
it's easier to share merits between highest ranks, you see? like in these messages i've quoted. it was easier to give merit to another legendary rank it's only my opinion though. oh, i've just generated the other idea in my mind - maybe it would be better if legendaries won't be able to receive merits because they'are already on top more sMerits would be given to lower ranks ^^

I'm not sure why anybody would do that. If you have a lot of merit, it would make sense to keep posting quality content. You wouldn't want to risk a ban with all the 'progress', would you?

Think of it from an account farmer's perspective: that's an incredibly valuable account. Why chance it by instigating the same shitty practices as the other generic spam accounts?

Do they have something especially against you ? Because some members were able to achieve 100 merit points after the merit system. So they were able to get merits from the same members who are being questioned by you.

You need just two things to achieve this, being regular and active here and posting to the point content.

Manager of campaigns are such small part of controlling spamming endemic task of the forum. All members should join, not only the admin, moderators, managers of campaigns.
So, let's join the big mission created by Theymos with one of the most helpful tools is merit system.

The post quality in sig campaigns is 100% controlled by the sig campaign managers,not by the merit system.
Someone could have lots of merit,received for 2-3 good posts,but after that,he could make 100 shitty posts,and his merit score won`t change.The sig campaigns have only a 10 or 20 minimal merit requirement.
I can see that ,most of the time,the merit has nothing to do with the post quality.Some users have received lots of merit,but they still make mediocre posts.

Signature Campaigns! - FTW

Would you prefer the first step ("member" rank) requiring 50 Merits so it's not so hard to rank up to 100?

I think it's good to have a relatively low merit requirement for "Members". I associate the Member rank with someone already fully being part of the community and no longer a "noob", but certainly not an "expert", "veteran" or "senior". (The rank "full member" deserves, in my opinion, another name - maybe "advanced member". Because a "member" in my opinion already is a full member.)

Can you link the Merit profile of an "elder" that only gives merit to other "elders"?

The new merit system can be tough for new members. Even though I have been on this forum for quite a while it is very hard for me to get a merit. But now I am trying to make my posts more interesting and hope that might help. Even though the new merit system is a little tough, I still think it is a good thing because it is a good way to control that members post only quality posts.

Getting 100 merits is extremely hard but certainly doable. I noticed that people here like all kind of stats and generously merit those who provide it. Right now my field of study is stats and reporting, this could be a very good subject to practice. I hope I will be useful for the forum soon. But I agree, from 10 to 100 is very tough, further it even harder. Sometimes I think elders don't want us to rank up 

Is this a bad thing? I think it should be this way. If you don't know what you're talking about, do you really need to be considered a "Senior Member" of Bitcointalk? If all the knowledge you have is the fact that bitcoin is volatile and that the price may increase/decrease because of "supply and demand" then that's not something which deserves a high rank.

Fine, newbies and jrs are getting less merit because they don't know enough to impress others, but this only gets us back to the same question: why do they need to advance in ranks then? They have all the time in the world. They can spend more time on the forum, read, learn and eventually earn some merit. What does it change if it takes 2 months or 6 months, even 12 months to get to member? I know that people used to advance faster but it lead to account farming and this is what the merit system is here to slow down.

You're actually not doing so bad--I've seen many hero members who haven't earned merit yet and probably even more Legendaries who haven't (though they don't need it to rank up).  It's supposed to be at least this difficult, because if it wasn't, the merit system would be pretty much impotent.  I gave you a merit for your post, as it was thoughtful and reasonably well-written. 

You'll get the merits you need eventually, and the same is true for anyone who's not a shitposter.  There are plenty of members with merit to give who will hand them out freely to people who deserve them.  I'd say the only people who won't do that are the campaign-ring shitposters who know they can sell them or use them to rank up alt accounts. 

The higher-ranked members who actually care about the forum and are invested in the merit system won't do that.  They'll give them out to members who make good posts.  Just be patient and keep making good posts.

Yes, it's obviously flawed. For example, there is a huge gap between member and full member, from 10 to 100 merits. C'mon! After full member it's even more. I've earned myself 13 by doing fantastic (he-he, i'm joking, but still) translation form eng to native language of joint economic report of USA 2018. Ten great translations more? Dunno...  
The other thing is - there is a little amount of sMerig generated, and usually highest ranks don't seem to give away their sMerits to newbies...
The final thing is - newbies are newbies, usually they don't know much about cryptonomics and unable to do deep analysis, researches, articles on these topics, etc - what potentially can bring them wanted merits.

And I wish all spammers were banned, all scammers, all trust abusers... I could go on and on.
What can you do? It's only a system and people have to actively monitor it. Every now and then somebody slips through the cracks, just like people who were farming campaigns with alts. No system is perfect, especially the one that is managed by people. The human factor

IMO the system is good and should stay. It reduces spam and account farming.

How would merits be "withdrawn"? The ones who have been awarded some merit would always retain the merit - otherwise they will lose their rank and that is bad for the forum.

It will never reduce the abuse. Like I have said - no system is immune to abuse.

Then again the same thing is happening for merit system here. Favouring someone is subjective and that creates a friendly atmosphere in the fourm - something that is lacking since the storm of shitposters that appeared in the last year.

Sorry to say but its a dumb idea.

Merit is a good idea, its just like a reward system like a child. Giving a child what he/she wants in return for his/her good manners and right conduct. Just like in forum, the more your post is helping others and have a good quality the more merits you gets. Just simply as that.

It's not true. Merit system changed the forum to be a better one. It's simple fact everyone can see, including spammers, but unfortunately they tend to feel hard to accept the fact.

Some of them were banned and will be banned (you can search for yourself, there are topics on reporting merit abusers and a massive merit farmer (more than 200 accounts banned several months ago, I remembered I read it somewhere in the Meta section).

Why did you ask for decaying all ranks of all members in the forum to Newbie and start from zero for all to make the forum as a perfect fair place.
However, in the case it happen, you know what? There will be other people join the forum later than that point, and will keep asking for such non-sense, unreasonable decaying change like you.

By independent accessors I mean all merits should be withdrawn from members and given to a selected group who's duty it is to award merits based on laid down parameters.

This will eliminate the abuse of the merit system by members. Because those selected will not have vested interest therefore they will not favor anyone neither will anyone bribe them for merit points. It will be very easy to identify any of them who is abusing the trust giving.

This is what I have in mind.

It is flawed, same as the democracy. But as the humanity haven't yet come up with a better system, as forum administration and members don't have a better alternative. I was lurking Meta for a while and most of the proposals imo doing the system worse, not better. I only wish all merit exchangers (including so-called "friends") are banned and initial merits decayed.

Thank you very much for the informative thread, d5000.
I have not joined the forum too long to have personal experience of the all three period of the forum. Honestly, the first day I joined the forum, the only reason I did it is for joining campaigns. I don't feel ashamed of this!  
Over time, I realised that the forum can bring lots of more interesting things for me, including knowledge, experience, and more free opportunity (which I have to find them myself during my time spent in the forum).
There are lots of members (higher-ranked ones) reveal great tips by chances (of course, for free). If users are experienced enough to understand such free, valuable tips, they can earn money by themselves.
That's the way the forum works (and should be like this, just my hope, lol). The forum should be for serious discussions, and a place for sharing knowledge, experience, skills, not for continuously (and most terrible by bots) spamming to earn money from campaigns.

You can distinguish three periods:
1.) the "serious discussion" period which lasted until 2013 approximately, where most thread were "serious" and on-topic, even the altcoin section was interesting as experimental concepts were discussed. Spam was very limited (mostly related to the first altcoin announcements and giveaways).
2.) a transition period, where the first signature campaigns emerged (2013-2016). Spam was growing, but a good part of the threads were still on-topic and valuable information. Most spam was found in the altcoin section, which evolved into a kind of "trashcan".
3.) the spam period - which begun approximately with the upswing in late 2016 and got worse during 2017. Entire sub-forums like "Bitcoin Discussion" and "Altcoin Discussion" were dominated (at least 90%) by spam.

The third period is where it became dangerous for the forum's existence and status in the community, as many veterans left the board or only posted in relatively "clean" local subforums like German and Spanish. It became really hard to find interesting topics. Merit is an attempt to revert this situation.

These abusers can be simply banned, or can get red trust by DT members, so they'll not be accepted anymore in campaigns. Merit doesn't directly combat spam, but it does making account farming much more difficult. Without merit we would see a growing hoard of Heroes and Legendaries without any serious contribution. With merit, at least the "army of Heroes/Legendaries" has stabilized, with mostly those who write good content getting rewarded with a high rank.

Old-timers, tell us how it was before the introduction of merit? Wasn't it created lots of useful posts and topics, serious and detailed discussions? I do not think that before the introduction of the merit system you were fooling around and did not help each other in solving complex issues. In any case, the merit system has become an incentive for writing quality posts and comments. But as a means to combat spam, it is useless. After looking at the high minimum threshold for a new rank, most spammers will continue to write low-quality comments, because in their minds such thresholds are simply unattainable. Hence the purchase of merit points (which is kind of like forbidden or at least condemn) and accounts (which, paradoxically, is not prohibited).

Shitposting turned into shittopic creation, that's only result of merit system. Thought with merites is not bad, but very far from perfect. Not to mention the fact that the system has protected those multiacc users, because of whom it was created. Because they managed to pump their accounts. It was necessary to nullify the ranks, and then create merit system. Or make a KYC for oldschool guys, who want to keep the rank. I would suggest a downgrade of activiti ​​and, accordingly, the title, as a solution to the problem of spam. Or\and, if it is possible, that activity was counted not on the account, but on the ip, evenly distributed between the accounts which are enter from this ip. If someone comes through the proxy just do not count the activity. I do not know if this is possible.

The problem more come from people who don't give merit we all see there are some of the well known members of this forum who will more than likely receive merit over someone with relatively no notoriety.
We can all see that since implementing the merit system the forums are not as full of shit posts and people trying to contribute positively however some of these do slip thru without merit being given.

Gaining merit should not be a problem for those who actually make quality posts and add to the discussion. Moreover even if you make a good quality post you are still in the shadow of not getting merited simply because merit sources may have ignored you altogether or they have already run out of merits. But there is no need to lament about this rather make sure to continue to post well written quality posts that add to the discussion.

What advantage would they get if they dont circulate the merit? There is no point in hoarding merit. They are willing to "use" the new in order to adapt to it and only those who are shitposters are complaining.

Why are you in a hurry? And seriously how can you even compare this forum to a video game? Totally unrelated context. And for those who all are finding it hard to get merits,you're thinking in the short run. Merit system is not exactly flawed. The users are. Just post some shit that has some thought into it and you shall be just fine.

Of course. That's the goal of the merit system, to shut off shitposters and let those quality posters prosper. Gaining merit is indeed a problem, specially nowadays but merit supply is not the problem but the circulation itself is. That's why i think members that are not trying to circulate the merit is indeed one of the flaws.

There's no incentive for people to send trust. There's no incentive to enter serious discussion topics.

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Getting a "decent account"? Is the purpose of BCT to facilitate signature-based payments? I don't think so.

However, if we want to take that stance, then we can argue this: only the best posters should be given the privilege of getting payments for their posts. I do understand that there exist many "high-rank" accounts that are spammers. They'll eventually be funneled out, either through moderation of the forum directly or of the campaigns. Though, in the case of bounties, the latter is unlikely to happen.

It's not easy to create something where you are rewarded for sending sMerit. That brings an undesirable advantage to people with alts and account farmers.

I've had an incredibly hard time getting merit. This doesn't effect me very much since my account is already hero rank, though. I think the real problem is that sMerit doesn't have an incentive for people to send it. This whole system is very incomplete, and while it may cut down on spam in a small way, there's a HUGE barrier to entry into the forum now.

Why make getting a decent account so grindy with no payoff? It's like a video game where you'll spend 100 hours to get .0001% stronger. We need some game theory to make a new system that's rewarding and also fair to all users. This current system is heavily flawed.

We don't have AI yet, so removing human judgment allows the bots to win.  :/

I'm more interested in the last April Mop system
There should be more than just two factors (i.e. merit and post) to level up
But other factors should not rely on human judgment like merit does

Just my two cents, i have 999 merits anyway

Doing such things is useless. Once you get caught you will marked with red. The reason why people want to rank up quick and easy is signature campaigns. But then if they are being tagged then they would stop such practices.


What do you mean by the bolded part? I would like to know what you have in mind and what you actually mean to say by that term and how it will help the abuse to "vanish"

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Any system is vulnerable to abuse. Any system.

The merit system flaw is only that of issuance. The responsibility of the rewarding of merit is left in the hands of forum members who have vested interest in the merit system itself. This is the reason for the abuse. The merit reward should come from independent accessors and all abuse will vanish.

Not system but human ERROR !
Constructive Post -> Merit: Yes = System Support
Constructive Post -> Merit: No = Human Error
Unconstructive Post -> Merit: Yes = Human Error
Unconstructive Post -> Merit: No = System Support

Much appreciated. So yeah, to reiterate, the system needs some fine tuning. An idea would be to somehow incentivize the sending of sMerits as well. As of now, many people either don't know about the system - it's not exactly in your face - or don't really care about sending someone merits. Another idea would be to at least make it easier to sMerit someone, maybe something similar to upvotes on reddit. It's somewhat cumbersome to give out merits, imo. Anyways, I'm sure if we try to maintain the level of discussion as high as possible, we'll be able to recognize those that constantly contribute in a significant way. 

I gave you a merit for this post - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29707887

I wouldn't have seen it if I had not looked through your profile. It's in the frog pond (serious discussion), and I don't bother to look there. It's an unfortunate fact that you have to go where the awarders go, if you want to pick up some merits. This won't change until new and junior members are restricted ti their own boards, and this will reduce the rubbish on the main boards in my opinion.

Yes they can beg for merits and pay for merits however its frowned upon by the community, they might even get a negative trust for that. Can they still farm accounts? The system will allow you to generate a new account but whats the use of account farming if its hard to even get a merit for 1 account. Its not that people don't want to hand out sMerits, people have different standards so don't expect anyone with sMerits to give to those you think deserves it.

I'm pretty much stuck at being a full member, never been handed out any merits, although I always strive to post as best I can, so I guess in that regard the system is working. I was sick of the "nice project sir", "when moon sir" people spamming across the board and being financially incentivized to do so. However, I think the sMerit distribution is a little too strict. For example, I had 4 sMerits the day the system was implemented. Sent'em out that very day. Haven't gotten any since. I guess that should be fine tuned so we could hand out more to those really deserving. If they're too scarce, they can be a tool of coercion and corruption.

You certainly need to be above avg Joe to rank up, so 90% of this forum is quite locked in rank progression. Or you need to be a good friend of someone with lots of initial merits. Then you can progress very very quickly

That's why I sometime back suggested to Decay Default Merits so that people remain motivated.
But  awarding Merit is totally subjective and there is no well defined guidelines.
Only thing I guess it is containing people in  rank, busting account farmers (as account farmers tried to give merit to their alts and busted) and broke some people life.

Main Flaw in merit is somewhat its Binary nature (either you get merit or will not get merit) and due to this nature of merit ,Average Joe and Shitposter now share the same stand (same rank as both are not able to progress).

No idea if  Theymos started this system to stop the rank progression of Average Joe and shitposters or shitposters only.
If shitposters only then system is flawed but if it is for both then system is 100% working fine.

Actually I'm gonna go ahead and side with the OP over your "rephrasing"

I want to be legendary and I assume OP would like to also.
It's the final step! The last Horah! The golden cup... and now I need 495 merit to go. Which will take forever.

Sure... Not all my posts are epic or worthy of merit, but some are. Yet I rarely, (like finding a legendary in your fav. MMorpg) receive any.
Which leads me to believe I will never make to that last step.

Which, ultimately leads me to Not care about merit at all - Which trully hurts the whole system because us higher ups have the most smerit to give away.

(Even though I am being dramatic and I probably wont lose any sleep over it)
I also think the system is flawed - Some sort of incentive should be developed for users to "give" merit also.

But it is still better than the before system

Apparently I don't have a solution, just a couple pennies to throw around

The incentive is that it allows me to incentivise other people into not shitposting, which directly benefits me and everyone else who wants to use the forum for serious discussion. Or it would if it actually worked to stop shitposters.

In this case, in the long run, there would be no signature campaigns anymore. No company would want to pay money for a campaign in a forum where sh*tposting dominates. Or they would pay almost nothing, just like for most "click-working" jobs.

It could be even worse: Google could blacklist the forum for "bad quality content" and lower its search engine rank. That would drive out even more users, lower the rates companies would like to pay for signature campaigns, etc. etc..

The alternative is clear: Signature campaigns could be banned entirely.

So everyone earning money with signatures should love the Merit system. It is, at least, an attempt to preserve the status of Bitcointalk as a leading web site in the cryptocurrency community, encouraging users to write quality content. That status has been earned in almost ten years, and it is constantly in danger - Facebook and Twitter would love to dominate the crypto community even more  . But only if this status is preserved, companies will continue to pay money to people in signature campaigns.

Now to the flaws: The only flaw is, maybe, the low liquidity of sMerits. Maybe we need more merit sources. Or a +1 button.

Hasn't this been discussed to death already?

Most things on bitcointalk are flawed.  The trust system, signature campaigns, scams being unmoderated, are all flawed IMO, but there are also arguments for, and benefits of, those things--and people find ways to abuse everything here, including the merit system.  The only reason people call it "flawed" is because it's difficult to get merits without resorting to buying them and, as actmyname has said, the main reason why people want them is so that they can squeeze more money out of signature campaigns with a higher rank.  

They used to be able to do this with only a time element.  Now that there's a quality-of-post element, the shitposters are up in arms because they have to actually get their posts merited, and they're finding out that their posts really, really suck.  It's a hard truth to face but an unavoidable one.

There is no incentive to me at all, that's true.  I gain nothing from giving out merts.  But I've seen what this forum was like before the merit system was introduced, and I'm grateful that it's now in place--that's what keeps me meriting posts when I have the sMerit to give.  Other people, who don't give a shit about the forum or anyone other than themselves, may try to sell merit or not give it out at all.  That's probably true of a lot of "shitposting villages" in Asia, where friends, coworkers, entire families, and even entire neighborhoods have built careers in shitposting.  Why would they give out their precious merit to anyone but someone they're in a campaign farm with?  The answer is that they wouldn't.

Flawed? Yes.
Should it be removed? No.

There is no benefit to ranking up apart from reducing post times if you intend to use the forum for useful discussion. Unfortunately, most users are seeking rank-ups to earn more in signature campaigns.

So why don't we rephrase these questions about the merit system?

"Can we make signature campaigns easier to enter?"
"Can I get paid more in signature campaigns with shitty posts?"

Merit system is cool! It drives people crazy. They want to buy merits. How much more of ridiculousness can one expect. This is intact the proof of the system working. People are trying to fine loopholes and what not for it. So come to think of it in the long run,it is not flawed.

There are no perfect system and every system can be gamed by people. One thing you dont see about merit system is it pushes people to be better forum-wise. It makes people contribute, engage, doing a good deeds like challenge, etc. You just dont see the bigger picture here.

It's good there since the establishment of merit to level up / rank. Because it increases the healthy competition and prevents multiple accounts ...

the purpose of theymos is very good, even worth the appreciation
just imagine if there is no merit system, surely everyone will invade this forum to spam, and of course signature campaign will be crowded with cheaters with multiple accounts,
although I myself have trouble getting merit, but I am still happy, because it's not just me who is difficult to get merit, you too 

I think merit system is just an experiment and the real thing is still not announced, honestly I always feel that this made system is incomplete, it was made so hi experienced people can share merits with new uses but the opposite is happening higher rank people are getting extra merits because of their experience. And many newbies are receiving any merit. No offence, have seen that some new users are getting merits but most of the users are getting nothing.

I think they just want to make sure that members will only make quality posts. I do not have any problem with that. But gaining merit is really a problem for me. I don't want to beg for merits, but I also haven't received any merit. So I really have no chance to be a Sr Member.
I think some members won't waste their time giving others merit coz it won't affect theirs.

I personally am not a big fan of the merit system for ranks on here, I think it pushes for people to simply beg for merit, account farm, or pay people to give them merit. As there is no incentive at all, for people to give away their smerit to others -- which doesn't make sense to me as people don't want to hand them out.

What do others see in regard to the flaws for the merit system? I'd love to see what some others think.