Topic: Is the Merit System Generating Enough Merits? - page 3. (Read 812 times)

OK, let me add some calculations too then.

We stated with 35 Merit Sources (MS for short) on the first day of the Merit system.

On 26th Jan. were already 49 MS. /reference/
Today they are 57 MS.
So for one month from 35 till 57 this is 22 new sources, awesome but...

14 were added for 1 day, so we exclude them to be more realistic /see the reference link above/

Then there are minimum around 8 new MS added per Month!

Since this is the first and only month till now and the data is not enough, we need to give more time to the system to actually see how it is working.
Now it's just speculations.

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P.S. The image in the OP is not loading.

I calculated the number of members that rank up every month, but you're right it would have been better to calculate it your way because it gives a better understanding about the number of members the merit system can sustain. Because a Sr. member won't need those 250 merits in one month but he will need around 30 of them every month of the 8 months he need to get the activity.
Will edit the OP right away!
Thanks ^_^

OK, that makes a bit more sense. But taking a Sr. Member as an example you say in the OP:

"Sr. members get 14% x 24k = 3360 which is enough for 3360/250 = 13.44 members every month."

But it takes 8.5 months to get the extra 240 activity to become a Hero.

You're right.. but calculating that would be so hard to do and I will only get the amount they started with while not knowing how much they have left. On the other hand the current pool won't last forever and soon we'll need to depend on merit sources.



I didn't really understand what you're saying..
But if you look at the profiles of the couple of guys who replied above, each one of them posted 3 to 5 times more than his activity in order to get near the amount of merits needed to rank up.. Is that the right thing to do?


Of course my argument would be about ranking up, the merit system's point is about ranking up...
And yes ranking up will follow but after so many years of dedicating your self to this forum.

Because this is the first month in the new system and people started with sMerits to give away..
Once those merits end and we start depending only on merits generated by sources the amount of merits generated per month will be around 24k if the number of sources or the amount they generate doesn't increase.

Whether the math in the OP is correct or not, I'd offer this counterpoint:

If we had reset the boards completely and started everyone from newbie status and 0 activity at the moment merit was implemented on 24th Jan, there are plenty of users who would have received sufficient merit to be Members, or even Full Members, but it actually would be the Activity preventing them from attaining that rank.  This alone makes me think we've got the balance correct.

There are many High ranked members not aware of the merit system yet.
They are also holding sMerit, which can be distributed and generates more sMerit.

If you calculate how many members are in each rank category, above Jr. and take into account the initial sMerit for every rank, you can pretty much add those sMerits to the actual pool we have at the moment.

I have already given 30 merits, even still a member only.

There's something wrong with that calculation though: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat

That's a Good Thing. If users would rank up as quickly as before, then the merit system would have failed. But now merit seems to work as intended: people who don't post useful stuff won't rank up (which means that they won't make it into signature campaigns, which means they no longer have any incentive to shitpost). As for those who do post useful stuff, why would the time factor be a problem? I don't mind if it'll take me 20 years to become legendary, as I can read and post just fine as member. As I hinted, it's not a human right to become legendary with close to zero effort.

By the OP's numbers if I calculate correctly there have been almost 24,000 merits given out.

The OP's main argument is centered around Ranking Up.
This is only to earn crypto by posting a lot of meaningless posts in order to satisfy the bounty requirements,
This is why the Merit system was created to reduce or eliminate.
 
As bitperson states a persons rank does not prevent them from participating in the forum.
If people get involved in a positive and meaningful way ranking up will follow.

Ok for newbies it is difficult as presumably they are totally new to crypto but not always.
There are incentives for people to earn merit and get them on the "scoreboard" in the services section

sMerit for art - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/learn-from-arts-old-topic-name-was-smerit-for-art-2957836

Trade: merit for info - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/trade-smerit-for-info-2905371

sMerit post review - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/smerit-post-review-2819141

I have sMerits to offer - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--2985012

It's not "that particular person" it's the average member which means more than half the members of this forum have this problem and even if you are a better poster how much above average you think you'd be? will you get double the amount an average user gets? triple? it would still take you much more than it did in the old system.

I'm not complaining about the merit system I'm complaining about the very low amount of merits it produces..

If two years is what it takes someone to receive 125 merits, then yes, that's fair for that particular person. Particularly since merit and rank do not affect users' ability to participate on the forum. Ranking up is basically eye candy.

Why are so many users complaining like it would be some kind of basic human right to become legendary by posting stuff that no one but their own mother considers useful?

First of all I wanna thank zentdex for his great analysis about how many merits each rank - on average - gains a month. I used some of the data he provided in his post: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/3-merit-stat-after-a-month-of-merit-3015036

Now to my point:
I took my time to do the math and see how many members can the current merit system sustain and here are the results:


https://imgur.com/a/snYsn




First of all let me remind you of rank requirements:

Newbie:           1 activity                   and     0 merits
Jr. Member:      30 activity                 and     0 merits
Member:          60 activity                 and     10 merits         needs 2 months to get the activity
Full Member:    120 activity               and     100 merits       needs 4 months to get the activity
Sr. Member:      240 activity               and     250 merits      needs 8 months to get the activity
Hero Member:   480 activity               and     500 merits      who knows?    around 12 months
Legendary:       775 - 1030 activity     and     1000 merits




There are currently - at the time of this post - 57 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 11975 sMerit per 30 days. Those are the merits generated by sources only, and given that a member can send half the merits he receives and imagining the best case scenario where every member sends all the merits he receives, the total amount of merits generated by the system would double to 23950 sMerit per 30 days. So, roughly 24k sMerit per month.

Now to the boring math:

Based on Zentdex's analysis the 24k merits are distributed between ranks in the following manner:
Legendary: 8%
Hero: 8%
Sr. Member: 14%
Full Member: 16%
Member: 19%
Jr. Member and Newbie: 23 + 11 = 34%


So...
Legendary members get 8% x 24k = 1920 merits
Hero members get the same amount 1920 which is enough for 1920/500 = 3.84 members to rank up every month. The No. of Hero members the system can sustain: 3.84 x 12 = 46.08
Sr. members get 14% x 24k = 3360 which is enough for 3360/250 = 13.44 members every month. The No. of Sr. members the system can sustain: 13.44 x 8 = 107.52
Full Members get 16% x 24k = 3840 which is enough for 3840/150 = 25.6 members every month. The No. of Full members the system can sustain: 25.6 x 4 = 102.4
Members get 19% x 24k = 4560 which is enough for 4560/90 = 50.67 members every month. The No. of Members the system can sustain:  50.67 x 2 = 101.34
Jr. Members and Newbies get 34% x 24k = 8160 which is enough for 816 members every month.

The time needed to rank up is easily acquired by dividing the amount needed to rank up by the average merits gained per month.

Conclusion (my opinion):
The amount of merits produced by the system is too very low, as we've seen that it would take an average member 3 to 5 times the time it took him to rank up in the previous system, I know that the purpose of this system is to create a better forum with better members but just imagine yourself a full member needing almost 2 years to get to senior. Is that fair? How frustrated you'd be? Well, this is the case for half of the seniors members in the forums!
Not to mention that I described the best case scenario and didn't go into calculating all the sMerits that are horded and not used and the merits that are sold on black markets.