Topic: Merit giveaway: is it a good idear? (Read 986 times)

in my humble opinion, if the giveaway creates quality, for example: write a manual to fight scams or scammers
it makes sense, keeps users engaged in something useful for the community, and creates value
if the giveaway is, write "hi" then it doesn't make much sense to me

I have an active merit giveaway thread since 2018. Although I hate that term "merit giveaway". The point of the thread was to award Newbies and Jr. members with merits, but looking at my own rules and the number of members I have turned down, it's more of a "no merit for you" thread. I am glad I could give at least 10-15 members a push. I hoped there would be more, but it's not my fault people can't read simple instructions. The non-ability to read and follow simple guidelines can lead to huge financial losses. I am getting a bit off-topic.

Anyways, I think my thread was the only one that survived the big cleaning of the forum from merit giveaway threads (there is that term again). Many other threads were deleted or moved to off-topic. I was against the idea of moving it to off-topic, even though it was suggested to me. I PMed theymos and asked him to make a judgement call and if I remember correctly he said it is different from the rest and can remain where it is.

It would be very hypocritical of me to be against this type of threads, but the one that mocacinno brought to our attention, is different in so many ways from mine. It basically rewards copy/pasting a sentence or two and giving your own thoughts about it. I don't find such threads valuable at all. But threads with clearly laid out rules have my support. I have one, (pretty dead right now, but still) there is one in the Croatian section, a great one for the Germans, and several others were created at different times in Beginner board.    

It is really easy to create a good posts once that newbies knew that there's a sure merit that they will get.

I don't think that have merit giveaways can make them become a good and quality user here. What if you give merits to those who really deserved it, there are a lots of users here who are doing their best just to give facts, state some points, and give information that will help other people learn towards a certain topic. I'm hoping that giving merits should be allocated to those who are working for it.

Thank you this piece brainboss, i feel like you took every word you typed here out of my brain.
But just to add to all youve said, I support the idea of merit giveaway as long as it doesn't go against the rules of the forum, and just like another user said, instead of the op in the linked thread giving merits aways in that form, he can try to make it a little more tasky, atleast to help the merit receivers make a better post.

I currently a Victim of people not noticing my posts, though I went off here shortly after merit was introduced due to some issues I had to deal with in my life, I got back fully this September, ive been posting and I've been my best to make sure my post are always helpful and not gabbage, but then, I've not been earning any merits, I've been in this senior member rank like forever and really wish to move to Hero, but good things don't come easy I know, so I will just keep working hard and hope I earn those merits to help me cross over soon.

During few days lots of merit giveaway threads have been popping up on the Beginners & Help section. I had replied on couples of thread to stop such as merit giveaway threads especially those only have a few smerits. I am.not getting the exact point why its necessary to open a merit giveaway thread only with 20/25 smerits? Spending 20/25 on a few good posts will take a half-hour for general users. It's fine to open a merit giveaway thread if someone has 200/300 merits and he doesn't have enough time to spend them or merit giveaway for some technical knowledge, I will encourage to open such as merit giveaway threads. But nowadays even member ranks user with 20/25 smerits have been opening merit giveaway thread. That means they aren't reading other's posts and that's the reason why are they creating merit giveaway threads, or simply they want to gain some merits for their own.

You sure? Here's one for example
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-giveaway-open-to-newbies-and-jr-members-5200267

Its all depends upon the intention of the person who start a merit giveaway thread. Also those who start a merit give away threads don't have much merits with them. Why is it so hard for them to distribute 10 - 15 merits on the go rather than creating a separate thread for it and seeking attention.

Probably they are not getting but the intention is here to make some merits right which is kind of bad behaviour for anyone to have in this forum, at least for me.

We need a childboard for merit giveaway threads.

Lets not discourage the concept of merit giveaway provided there are quality standard put in place that reduce the rate of abuse. I have personally benefited from merit giveaway on several occasion especially when my contribution were going unnoticed as well as created a thread to help reach out to users in section not getting much attention. On a larger scales, I think these merit giveaway threads have done more good than harm.

Users that were unable to recieve merit as a result of their contribution not getting enough exposure have benefited so have some users been able to rank up, all thanks to these giveaway threads. Understandable most meriters of this giveaway thread do so to provide the OP with additional smerits to send out but that shouldn't be the case instead if you have interest in a particular giveaway thread then you can volunteering join in meriting the participants.

Decision like this will help better the idea and probably reduce the rate of users hoping to use this concept to hurt for merit.

I think merit giveaways are a good idea if they consist in the giver giving a look at the post history and finding some quality posts to give merit to. Also, if newbies post in the thread giveaway the posts they believe deserve merit. That way some worthy posts that has been unnoticed can receive merit.

I think it's not a yes or no question. Some giveaways are a good idea, others not.

These days opening a merit giveaway thread with the hope of getting merits for the OP is useless because no one give merits to the ones who open such thread. In the past, those who opened such threads got a lot of merits but not these days.

But sadly they are desperate about getting merits so they are trying to find their ways or earning merits.I do see merit giveaway threads were created just because OP is getting some merit for such action and first of all it should be in off topic and in the past they were moved to off topic but now these reports are going unhandled.

The objective of the OP is in good intention but its looks like giving a free merit without any rules or consideration, all you need is to put what rule you would really like and by just simply copy pasting it from our Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ without hassle as a member easy rank.

We are trying to help other members too but our aim is to support them into the technical way, help them to earn knowledge too. Most of the mindset of the lower ranks is they must need to earn merit just to rank up and join to different bounties and signature campaign to earn  by that mind set they are becoming a low quality poster.


Mostly I saw some members who is already rank up, are doing this kind of giveaway merit because its looks like they are celebrating their journey, right now even member rank are getting into a merit giveaway but most of the our member (in higher rank) told to keep your merit and give it to the deserve one.

Honestly, this goes a long way to show that the merit thing is highly subjective. What makes a worthy or quality post to one may not make to another. It's different strokes for different folks. Perhaps the OP who merited the two "supposed spam" posters didn't see them as such. It's the same way a guy fancies a lady other guys despise.

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Well said, and aptly carved out.

This is an interesting point. If we stop giving merits to giveaway threads, will we see less members below Legendary creating them?

Beginners & Help is one of my favorite boards to visit but I'm a bit disappointed seeing more of these merit giveaways and even redundant forum guides how to rank up. There is already a pinned topic for that.

I will answer shortly to this, they do that because they see that giveaway topics get merited, simple as that. Not saying that this was only factor that lead to this, but it is one of the factors for sure and it is becoming a trend it seems.There are not many people that start a giveaway while they are only member rank. I certainly was not one of them and will never be, unless I become a merit source one day or if someone dumps 250 merits on me suddenly so I don't have a way to spend them naturally as I go, which is not likely.

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I agree with you, there are already rules for merits and there is no need to start making more additional rules especially if ti will be hard to enforce it and if people would have to police it even more. It would create more problems then few giveaways over few merits.

I don't say I consider those giveaways as something productive, especially if the person that is giving the merits away, gives them almost randomly for low effort posts, to alts or something similar, but sometimes there are  some giveaways that turn out just fine.

Also if people stop giving merits to that kind of low effort giveaway treads, I'm pretty sure we would see much less of those popping up.

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I saw your thread and I agree with you, your giveaway is a good example of a good merit giveaway. Makes people learn something that is useful and could push them to learn on from there.

What I wanted to add too is that some threads that reward good posts with merits are very useful like one @LoyceV has made and some others. Some posts do get neglected or overlooked, some boards have few merit sources with low merit allocations and can't give enough merits to certain posts or can't give merit at all sometimes as they simply don't have enough. In those type of situations merit threads like the one I mention can be used to help other members. I regularly use those threads to direct merit to posts that were overlooked or merit sources were out of merit on those boards.

I figured encouraging users to use Bitcoin software as opposed to spam until they make it into a signature program would be a great step in the right direction for this forum.  It is my opinion that more users should value those who do things that involve Bitcoin software and the blockchain. 

My Merit giveaway thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-hey-newbies-can-you-sign-a-message-5275043

I'm translate it and reading my Own language.and i like it.good talk about newbies.

I agreed with you because those users who give out merits to newbie in order for them to rank up deserved merit from merit source.
I believe that majority of merit source don't misused their merit.

Merit giveaway thread can often be like double edged sword.
I created one some time ago only for Junior members, but I inspect their accounts and all previous posts, and I also gave some simple task for people to complete, but I still found people don't read rules I posted and they try to cheat and post crap.
My intention was to share extra merit I got and to experiment and see if people even read the rules before they apply to something like this.