Topic: Is The Purpose of The Merit System Defeated? (Read 718 times)

Believe me or not your write up lack thesis. Your logical reasoning is not substantial enough to prove that you know what you are writing. You just a junior member if I may say, looking for the same merits that you criticizing the aim of it creation and system.
You need merit If I may say but don't worry, you will get enough when the right time comes. Don't you think that writing sometimes with full liberty is entertaining and full of numerous opinions? Can you endure waiting for three months creating posts without earning a merit? Don't u think your opinion is really lacking comprehension?

I'm sorry for late reply, what I meant in the context by "save" is apart from. As "all other members apart from the newbies can post in the Beginners and Help.
Thanks!

If this idea of yours is to be adhere to; I don't think you will graduate from been a newbie to a junior member.
I think the forum have a way of encouraging the newbies than this way of discouraging them.

This format of scrutinizing the newbies, can't be accepted why because the protocol listed by you, is a process that indicate the following:
1: discriminating the newbies
2: subduing them to a lifetime handwork

If you were to isolate the newbies in a single board, you will make a jail and @theymos strongly disagrees with the idea and newbies won't be able to explore the forum if they are isolated plus not every users that gives merits are a frequent visitors on that board which lowers their chances of being rewarded with merit, also why worry about signature campaign? The manager is the first line of defense against spammers that tries to join the campaign.

Nobody's saying you can't be here. I'm not stopping you from asking away about anything. You don't seem to be interested in anything other than forum mechanics and telling people what they should do. And you're definitely not a newbie.


It can only be the result of one thing.

Yeah, that much seems to be obvious.  I'm wondering whether he's a previously banned member trying to start anew on the forum with a new account (and in violation of the rules).  The only other reason that makes sense is that it's an alt account being used to increase bounty earnings, though I don't see anything in his signature space.  Or....could be that he was lurking for a while before registering, like I did in 2015, but I think that's extremely rare nowadays. 

Most newbies don't join the forum because they're genuinely interested in bitcoin; they're referred here by their drippy-eyed brothers and cousins--and probably in some cases their parents--in order to strike it rich by shitting all over the forum in order to earn some worthless token that they might get screwed out of in the end anyway.

Oh shit, it's a triple "Sir" type member.  Well, at least we know he's an aspiring bounty hunter and probably has another account with which he's already earning turd tokens.  What he's doing with the KingsDen account, I have no idea.  His posts here make me want to put him on ignore, which I probably will after posting this.

Sir, the above sample topics you listed as what a newbie should post does not relate to me. I was not a newbie with zero crypto knowledge. So, I shouldn't on my first post begin to make topics that are not peculiar to me? If the above topics are what newbies should post, I am sorry I was not aware. Your statement however is in support of the proposal of the OP(Orientation for Newbies).
Assuming I was informed that that is how first posts look like, I would have started with a topic like "Hello House! Please help me, what is Bitcoin?"

Sir, I dedicated time to reading in different boards without contributing, especially as a newbie? That was how I got some information.
Sir, the forum is user friendly?. Such that at every board, there is a mini board or what I can call board description, which states the kinds of posts to be made in such a board. As a newbie I read the descriptions before posting.
I have no prior experience. Few weeks of knowing this forum has left me in total regret why I haven't known this forum since 2010 I started wasting my time on social media (especially Facebook)
However, sir I appreciate your directions and advice, but it rather demoralised me instead of encouraging me. I have many things in my mind to share and ask, but it seems I can be using PM to get some answers and directions, because I am unsure of the post to make that will fit without misunderstanding. Thank you!

Isn't it great that we have this leadership-charged generation of newbies  incoming to remind us of what we should or shouldn't be doing. 

I'm bleedingly late with work but this is too weird to just ignore. This is your first post.


Why would you do that? You weren't even a Newbie at that point as you hadn't posted yet. You were Brand New.  Not only is it highly unlikely as a Brand New user that you have advice to give "old members" of the forum, but you should realize that coming hot out of the gate with this approach

1) reflects a dismissal of the knowledge or competence of every single forum member with one or more posts
2) suggests you're not actually a Newbie.

Here's a couple secrets for not getting caught right away next time:

 - Don't start posting instructions on what the forum should be doing right out the gate, in your very first post. Usually a first post is something like "Titcoin to the moon!" or... "Why won't my Electrum wallet connect to the internet?" or even "Hey what the hell happened to my shipment of Black Arrow miners???"
 - Don't start posting in Meta right away or engage in obvious merit-seeking behavior. It means you have developed an understanding of where people post and what they post in order to get merits, in all likelihood due to prior experience with the forum.


OK KingsDen, I will take your message to heart. You sir, however, are no Newbie, sir.

Good Day.



Haha actually I'm not mad if you want to carry on, its entertaining. Couldn't quite find the GIF to express myself but close enough.

Thank you Pmalek, your post is a real definition of the word "discussion".
I like your method of discussion. If you agree, you agree with reasons. When you disagree you still outline your reasons rationally. This gesture would be welcoming to new users like us. It will not only give sense of belonging, but will foster knowledge acquisition.

Unlike some who will attack this way; "You must be crazy if you think the moderators have the time to check all the post" etc.

No, you weren't new then. You keep coming back under new accounts. The first thing you do is look for merit.

Your (new) first post is telling another member with 480 posts what they should be doing.

Your second post is telling people not to copy/paste.

You haven't spent enough time learning about Bitcoin or the forum to add anything of value here.

Try harder.

Don't you think copying other people work and posting them as your own is not right legally. Plagiarism is not forum specific but a universal rule.
I doubt if nutildah will remove it or make it neutral. If this happens, then everyone will come up with their applications.

I was new then, I could not get up after understanding the rules. Now I have fully understood the rules. Will you think a little about your trust? Can you see my profile again?
my profile: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/eycone-3332840

Full members are established members too already, that does not mean they do not have their own opinion to suggest on this forum, the opinion can even be welcomed, also do not get me wrong, even newbies and any other ranks can suggest their own opinion, if what is suggested is genuine and welcomed, I will not make such comment, but it is not welcomed as established members will see it, and this is common to newbies and junior members and normal member rank to make certain suggestions that won't be welcomed here. So, telling them in such thread to be a somewhat an established member will help them to know more and in which they will have different opinion at the time.

I don't think it's a good idea though, it kind of sounds like it invalidates the opinion of the other users below Senior Member like myself. But you are right that they should be familiar with the in and outs of this forum before saying anything.

Analyzing the performance of newbie after certain number of days is a bad idea. We are not here on the job or on the probation period where by our performance is judged after 90 days.
If you notice newbie is shit posting or not posting up to the standard, just report it. There are enough tools in the forum which won't let a shit poster rank up.

Newbie restrictions are fine as it is, 'analysing' performance of newbie is stupid idea and will just put extra work on relevant parties.

Let's break it down step by step:

No. Newbie restrictions and a newbie jail is not welcome. Everyone should be allowed to post anywhere they want if this forum is to keep its importance in the future.

The forum allows you to read its content even without being logged in, so the rank doesn't matter.

This is a discussion board. People are not applying for a visa or studying for their master's degree. Who would be interested in going through all that to become a member here? The moderators have enough to do without giving them the task to check the post quality of each and every newbie. All members (no matter their ranks) should get merits in the same way: Based on the quality of their posts. 

In other parts of the forum, yes, but it will increase in the B&H board.

Limiting newbies to the B&H board wont reduce the number of plagiarized posts, but it will make them easier to find. 

Such posts can be moved to the appropriate sub-boards. What if the newbie posts in a foreign language, starts a discussion about an altcoin/ICO, starts a scam thread, etc. All those would go in B&H as well?

Highly unlikely. 

It will increase off-topic posts because all threads by newbies will be posted in the same sub.

it will result in newbies no longer being interested in joining Bitcointalk and spending their time elsewhere. 

Newbies aren't the only ones that need to be moderated, all members do, including legendaries.

A higher rank does not equal greater competence and technical knowledge. Many high ranked members got their merits airdropped and didn't earned them by being merited by other forum members.

The admins don't care about the bounties and signature campaigns members participate in.

Besides, all of your proposes doesn't actually reduce spam, well to a certain degree it might. However, what it is most likely to do is concentrate the spam in one section, which means that the section becomes a rather annoying section to read, which would probably reduce the amount of users actually contributing to the section. I actually quite like B&H current state. There is spam, and wrongly posted threads there, but it isn't too big of an issue. We could probably do with a bit more reports in that section, but currently there does seem to be a big emphasis on helping newbies out in that section, and I would prefer us to be more welcoming to new users, than too hostile by limiting their actions based on the few bad users we get.

I used to quite like the idea of a modified newbie jail, instead I would probably opt for a shadow ban system, where new users posts are manually approved by moderators. This could potentially be implemented with merit, and once they have earned 1 merit, or whatever amount that would be acceptable, they would no longer need to be approved.

It creates a little extra work for moderators, and staff users, but the overall improvement to the rest of the forum should be worth it. The only unfortunate side of that is, some newbies will be confused by it, and would likely try posting the same reply/thread several times or create threads asking why their post isn't visible. However, if we treat it as; a shadow ban, which the logged in user sees their post then there shouldn't be too many issues. If we have enough activity between moderators, and can cover all time zones, then there shouldn't be too much of a delay that effects new accounts negatively.

Your right, because newbies are not limited to post to any board, because going different location of the community for conversations will enable them to have versatile knowledge, even i could remember when i was a newbie, i devoted my time to read across the boards in order to understand the concept of the community fully, and when this happens i started earning merit, so in summary a  new user are meant to penetrate to any board  and acclimatize with their subjects so that when making a topic he/ her will know the exact board to Post it.

Imagine going to a mall for the first time and the next day you start advising the manager to restrict selling candies to teenagers isn't that ridiculous? You want to reduce newbies posting right just because you want merit to be allocated to y'all while spamming the B&H, and for your information not all newbies are crypto amateur and not all legendary are crypto expert. If you want merit work hard and earned it and stop wasting your time trying to change the forum rules

Gross. You're in the exact same boat as OP, and you've been plagiarizing since your first post.


Your list looks familiar. Oh, that's because you copied straight down the list from the table of contents for the Wikipedia History of Bitcoin article.



Why didn't you include Arbitrary blockchain content? Lol.

So actually you're in a worse boat than OP. There's no reason for you to be here. Please don't come back under a new account.

I think you have posted for some merit. I am also new here. You are also new. We have to understand the forum issue first. Did the application you made have the rules of your application? No, because your ID is less than 90 days, you have got a lot of merit. You have posted many. Everyone wants a new day just like you want to enjoy your talent for a few days. So the forum does not want to follow these rules or your application is not successful.

Your post wasn't really egocentric so much as--and I don't mean this as an insult--ignorant.  And by that I mean that your suggestions were made without knowing that many of them have been made and rejected previously, and from what you wrote it's obvious you don't understand what the moderators here do and don't do (and will never do). 

When you register on a forum and start making recommendations without having all of the facts, it does come off as being a bit egotistical and presumptuous, but I don't fault you for seeing where some of the problems on the forum are and your willingness to speak up in order to fix them.  The problem is that the community doesn't have much of a say in how the forum is run.  It's pretty much all up to Theymos, and he's decided not to bring back the newbie jail and not to restrict them any more than the merit system currently does. 

In other words, the merit system was Theymos's solution to the plague of newbie BS that was at its peak in December 2017.  I think things have improved significantly since then--you weren't here in 2017, so you don't really have a sense of how bad things had gotten and how much the merit system cleaned up the forum.  Things certainly aren't perfect now, but it's better than it used to be.

In two weeks since you created this account, you managed to make 12 threads. This has to be some kind of record.



He clearly said what's his goal in this forum in his first post here. He came for merit, and consequently spot in the signature campaign. As I told him in that first topic he created, he is simply fishing too hard for merit, and that will bite him in the ass.

Then why are you already posting in Meta? If you're not the slightest bit interested in learning about or discussing Bitcoin, you should probably leave.

The merit system does defeat itself when it leads to the formation of threads like this one, threads that serve no purpose other than to get merit.

Your very first post is about what newbies should do to get merit.  

The jokes people play to get back into this forum...


There's only one account who has ever made this particular spelling error on the forum. This better not be who I think it is.  

This is the point. You can post anywhere, it will help to grow and learn.
Because many who are experienced, don't always go to the beginners' tab. So if you have a mining question, go to the mining tab, and so on. In these places you will find what you need.

The OP did not say anyone should be prevented from reading. It says newbies would be allowed to read in every board for learning purposes and allowed to post only in Beginners and Help.

Some other users also threw this allegation at me. But I don't understand why it should be. Is it that my post is egocentric or above what a newbie should post.
If the later is valid, that means the OP is validated. Maybe because I didn't undergo the proposed orientation to know the kind of post to make as a newbie.
Please sir, I am just few weeks old in this platform, help me to grow. Thank you sir.

I think there is no need to do this. Because every board has rules. Every new member is advised to read the rules well. Almost everywhere. Those who do not follow the rules are punished. Many spam, copy and paste people are banned. So every person must read the rules and then post them.

Note: as soon as each new member joins, he is given a message. The rules should be introduced.

All of the rest of your suggestion would never come to pass, but the above is the true deal-killer, since that's not what moderators do.  \

Mods on bitcointalk basically put out fires, because there aren't enough of them to deal with all of the garbage posts and other rule violations that happen every day--if I understand it correctly, they basically rely on reports from members in order for them to see what's going wrong.  And even if that's not entirely true, it's mostly true, and there's no way in hell Theymos is going to put the burden of monitoring all of the newbies on the forum (which increases daily) to make sure they're "progressing".

Besides, most of this has been suggested before anyway, well before you registered here.  As was pointed out, Theymos isn't bringing back the newbie jail system.  I also think the merit system is doing just fine, as long as merit sources keep doing their jobs and as long as non-merit sources keep meriting posts they like.

I liked points 2 and 4.
Tell me, how can we prevent someone from reading something?
The forum is available without registration.
And point 4 is generally a masterpiece.
Just take a look at how many newbies come to the forum and then the moderators have to check each one? Lol
Well, on merits, this is generally brilliant, especially if we assume that some accounts cannot receive one merit within 5 years


Two accounts supporting this idea have already been identified as alternative accounts that like to talk to themselves. But the OP needs to be checked again, he probably also belongs to this gang.

We are now getting this on a daily basis, newbie accounts with very limited bitcointalk forum experience, suggesting changes that were asked numerous times before. How crazy is that, to think that you can give some solid advice to forum staff after few weeks of being active on the forum. Meh...

I bet if you were a newbie who had just registered and found such restrictions, chances are very high that you would have given up contributing to the forum. Hell, I almost gave up on the forum due to the merit restrictions that were new to me at the time.

If you have noticed, a good number of new accounts are created to ask questions about certain things like Trading, mining, Bitcoin wallets, transactions etc. and open up scam accusations. Now all that is supposed to be posted in specific boards. Imagine all that clutter in Beginners and Help board.

How do you expect to determine some's performance if they are going to post in Beginners and help only?

From themos Post I found a fact that the forum aren't really happy over any decision that will demand mod of post or topic or account banning. Forum mission is to encourage everyone to be in the ecosystem.

---

The thought and idea people has towards merit is just too adamant that got me thinking like what do users really think is the purpose of existence in the forum? Merit is not a title but an encouragement to user with a helpful and quality post. But many users misunderstood this fact and begins to abuse the forum simply because the needed merits.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Members who participate in the forum as newbies can probably be legendary members on other forums. Probably they are not newbies in cryptocurrency too.

Additionally, Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ presents board descriptions. If you read the section Guideline for threads, you will understand the restrictions you suggested is non-sense.

this is a FREE forum and not a company. why make it so hard for newbies to participate in a discussion they are interested in? the reason why there are some restrictions to newbies is to at least lessen the spam and such, without actually heavily affecting newbies who are genuinely interested in bitcoin, cryptocurrency, or the forum. your suggestion will make it hard for them to participate in different discussions on different boards and will make their experience here in the forum unpleasant.

META is created for the purpose of suggestions or anything that has something to do with the forum itself and this topic doesn't fit in beginners and help.

There's too many newbies and not enough mods to monitor them all (there's only a dozen or so staff) and although it's a paid job, moderators don't want to work all day examining newbies' posts since that won't leave them time for their work/personal lives, so this proposal will likely be rejected for this reason alone.

I understand, but whichever way, I would stil have made the post in Beginners and Help which still fits in.

If that rule was in effect, you couldn't have posted it here!
In other words, you are already breaking your own rule.

But luckily this rule doesn't exist, and it allowed you to share other ideas to the community. Do you see the advantage of not having these limitations?

You do realize this would mean 75% of the topics you've created wouldn't exist if you had your way, right? Including the one I'm reading now.

You forget the real Bitcoin users who run into a real problem, and post on Bitcointalk for a solution. They won't find that solution on the "Beginners" board, they find it on the tech boards. Those real users shouldn't be restricted in any way, as they're the future of Bitcointalk.
The users who join for "campaigns" will keep doing so, with as many accounts as they can. The real user won't wait for 90 days before he can ask a question.

This is so bad to propose something like things because if there is one place for newbies to write freely that is Beginners and Help section, especially coming from someone who registered in Bitcointalk forum on 28 May 2021  

You must be crazy if you think moderators have enough time to investigate all posts from newbies, and btw you are also a newbie who is trying to write some suggestion bs posts just to earn some merit.
So fake and lame... one more goes on Ignore list.

Only this first suggestion would create big problems for the forum, as this board is just meant for beginners to ask some basic questions - but specific questions and discussions still need to take place in their assigned boards. I think that such a restriction would discourage many beginners, especially those who want to offer or seek a service. Even if your proposal were implemented, 90 days is simply too much to limit someone to just one board - and moderators are not the ones to decide who qualifies to be a member of the forum or share merits with them.

The Merit system is very well-thought-out and for me personally it has done a lot of positives for the forum, although there will always be those who will not approve of it for some of their own reasons.


Anyone who wants to plagiarize will do so anywhere on the forum, I don't think the B&H board would be an exception. The only thing that would make sense is to forgive beginners the first such offense - but that would again require some kind of record and a lot of work for the moderators who are not too many anyway.

Someone might be a newbie in the forum but his/her knowledge can't be. They can be good knowledged in cryptocurrency than most of the senior/hero/legendary members of the forum. Wouldn’t that hurt the newbie if they are restricted?
Spam isn’t only done by newbie. Most campaigns require x amount of posts which indirectly are responsible for the spam.
I think current system is good but being a little more harsh on moderating or increasing the stuff would be good idea to prevent the spam.
Also, see what theymos think about newbie jail.

The wrong assumption here that just because one person has a "Newbie" rank, that it automatically means that he/she is a noob concerning Bitcoin. Always remember that every single Bitcoiner didn't gain their knowledge through Bitcointalk, because there are other huge Bitcoin communities online as well. Namely: Reddit and Twitter.

Try to be an established member (senior, hero or legendary) before making this kind of post, you will be differently oriented at that time.

What you propose is a modified newbie jail... Here's what Theymos said about this concept:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.40849533


So, the odds of this proposal being implemented are small...

I understood that the major purposes of the merit system is to ensure quality, uphold standard and standardize ranking.
If the above hold true, I have a proposal.

I propose that;
1. The newbies should be restricted to posting only in Beginners and Help Board.
2. However, newbies should be allowed to read in all boards for learning purposes.
3. All other members save newbies can post in the Beginners and Help.
4. Every newbie should remain in this status for a period of 90days. After the expiration of 90days, the forum moderators shall examine the performance of every newbie, then immediately award a certain number of merits(Let's say 10, 20, 50 etc) according to the performance of the newbie in this 90days orientation period. Also place the user in any rank other than newbie according to the performance aswell.

Pros:
If this is implemented, we could have the following results
1. The rate of spamming will reduce drastically
2. The rate of plagiarism will reduce aswell.
3. This will curtail stagnation or abandonment of an account
4. This will help guide users on which boards to post, most often you will see a newbie posting a Beginners and help post in meta.
5. This will reduce the amount of none quality posts
6. It will also reduce off topic posts.
7. It will encourage the newbie to research and have good knowledge of the forum and Cryptocurrencies at large in order to be awarded higher merits and promoted to a good rank after the orientation period.
8. It will ease the moderation of the forum.
9. The discusions in the rest of the  boards would be interesting, technical and quality .
10. It will ensure the introduction of users with ample knowledge of the norms of the forum into the forum.

Cons:
1. It will limit the chances of a user in a campaign to complete his/her weekly task. However, I don't know if newbies involves in campaigns or not.

Thank you!