Topic: Merit giveaway: is it a good idear? (Read 1072 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.

And tbh mocacinno has nothing against you as well, it just happens that your thread was used as a reference to discuss the bigger issue on merit giveaways (everyone of them and the ones to be done in the future). It could prolly have been another giveaway thread used, but it doesn't change anything, the discussion is on what the community thinks about giveaways and not what it thinks about your giveaway.

To give my own two cents on the matter, we know it's impossible for merit giveaways to be stopped, it's not technically against the rules, but if it's necessary, is something to be debated on, I don't have to request a newbie to submit links to their post history before giving merits to them, if a user with smerits spots a newbie making good posts, you can simply just go through their post history and merit their good posts without starting any giveaway thread. Imo, it's pretty much better that way, and that being said, I think a newbie will appreciate a merit earned outside a giveaway thread, 'giveaway' sounds like you're getting it for free, with no work.

I started merit giveaway in the beginners section of the forum and I did not seek any specific area, topic or knowledge from newbies.
I just asked them to report their quality posts for merits that they wrote anywhere on the forum, provided that they are in English so I can understand them.
I did not want to give merit just for any application and I asked for at least some minimum quality standard or concrete contribution to the forum.

If there is a giveaway merit like this then newbies will look for topics that they are good at, well of course they don't have good knowledge about the topics that are sent in your thread so that it is not feasible and bad, yes, the average newbie just wants to merit with the report quality posts and can't judge which one is better. still understandable.

But it is also true that the future of this forum is if we continue to do this without finding extraordinary topics then it will be bad if you force it but it would be better if you find good topics then it deserves merit because of that you have found it.

That's Forum, here has 1000 different positive & negative thoughts.

someone never learn & succeed, if that person never make mistakes, the thread OP, will be a valuable lesson and experience for you, it will be better in this forum for the future.

I hope in your future, become the best member here, with what is happening today.

To be honest, I have nothing against anyone and especially @mocacinno, He helped me and guided me a good path.
I can see there are other users who think I did it to earn merit or to feed my Alt accounts with merit.
Those allegations are really negative and kinda impact.

Overall, I am happy that I learnt it quickly and you all helped me in this process.
Thank you so much for this.

Regards,
ImThour

I already visited the thread recently and the OP of the main thread has a good intention but in the other way, there is some lower ranks abuse that kind of merit giveaway because they can earn easily a merit without hassle.

Also, I would like to appeal that earlier because they can get merit just doing a copy-paste what rules they want and boom easy merit.

I think it's better to hold sMerit and give it to someone who deserves it than giving to members who just absolutely doing a spam.

I often find that the term "giveaway" creates a wrong impression in threads that are declared of that nature, and there do seem to be a fair sum of threads of the kind currently running concurrently.

Merits do not have to be announced explicitly, and you could still award them at your discretion to answers within the thread on the basis of any proposed topic. For example, you could propose the readers to read (thoroughly) through the rules, and comment on doubts and changes that could be fitting, stirring-up some debate in this manner.

Nevertheless, there’s absolutely no way that a subjective matter such as this can be delimited without falling short on other threads/posts by comparison,  whereby a single unmemorable post may harvest elsewhere more merits that those given ( 8 ) or even intended to be given on @ImThour’s thread.

Indeed your ideals are good, but here many members judge the behavior of other members, don't hold @mocacinno thinking badly for you.

@mocacinno just wants to give you directions and advice, it doesn't have to be like this in the future.

@mocacinno: say good things for you, for the future.


So it makes sense, also includes me thinking negative for you, most likely your Alt, but this is an estimate, not an accusation.

What you are doing is inappropriate, with members of your quote post saying "thank you". You immediately gave Merit.

example:: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.55205433

Very easy to get merit, without thinking about something meaningful.

This is where the allegations and negative things arise, it is not natural for you to do threads like that, but if their post is quality it may not be a problem for other members.

So, I take the advice, give something valuable to those who deserve it means: quality, other members will not judge you with negative things.

Yeah I remember your giveaway thread. Turnout was low, and average post quality bad. Beginners&Help section constantly has abundance of giveaway threads while good low rank members that apply in those are rare. Not a good thing, when you think about forum's future.


This is just forum being forum. People will share suspicions, decisions will be questioned etc, and not just for you, but any member. You didn't break any forum rules, so no reason to take criticism hard.

When I reached my 100th Merit, I held a giveaway thread but some members actually posted had good feedback which I took into consideration.

Rather than holding them, reward posts that are deemed Merit-worthy. That way, those participants won't feel compelled to come out with one (often redundant) topic or thread just for a measly Merit or two.

That's Life. Not everyone thinks the same as you, but there are still others who understands whatever it is, as for this giveaway nothing's wrong with it, Only the transaction has something to manage and to be taken care of just like what your client did (it's not that really bad IMO, just to avoid being accused, if you know what I mean)...
So don't feel bad, just go along with it,... Just do what you think is right but don't forget to take advises. Have a Good Day.

In my case it consumes too much time and effort, that's why I didn't continue doing that, and as for my Local they're already doing fine I guess. Only a few of us are still on the lower end, but I think they'll manage somehow,...

I learnt it that way aswell.

I am literally feeling like getting targeted, getting accused of having connections with these Altcoins and other negative aspects.
I just wanted to spread some help to new members. It kinda fucked my own for doing good.

Feeling so bad for doing something with a positive mind/aspect.

Regards,
ImThour

In the past I've had a few merit giveaways topics in beginners section in the forum.
I wanted to help newbies to receive their first merits but eventually gave up.
Most of the reported posts from the newbies were of very poor quality, and did not deserve merits.
Not only that, but after closing such topics, I would receive private messages from newbies begging me to give them merits.
I simply gave up on such a way of sharing merit and now I try to find myself quality and good posts that deserve merits.

I would like to talk on this.

1. I received 50 Merits today itself by one of the client for whom I made a website/contract.
2. I didn't waited for days to send it.

I hope this will clear any doubt of my connections to any of the accounts.

Regards,
ImThour

I was also surprised by such a generous distribution of merit. And, of course, I was wondering who got them. In my observation, someone who had alternative accounts was able to take advantage of this. I don't really believe in coincidence, but two alternative accounts took advantage of this.
Another point is interesting. Looking at the history of the distribution of merits to the OP, I realized that for some reason he kept them and did not give them out earlier. And then the day came, which was called the “action of generosity.”
I can't believe the Merit Holder hasn't found a single worthy post before. Therefore, I would like to wish everyone who keeps their merits,  that in the future there will be no such incidents, and the merits were distributed really for their intended purpose to those who are trying to create useful content for the forum.

There have been similar discussions before about whether such things should be done or avoided, and I know that at one point the B&H board was cleared of merit giveaway (most of them is moved to Off topic). At the time, it seemed to me that it was not disputable to distribute merit in this way, but that it was only disputable where such threads should be published.

I have a somewhat divided opinion on whether this way of rewarding merit is good or bad. On the one hand, it is good that someone who really deserves it will get a reward because they will draw attention to themselves, and the one who rewards will not waste time looking for good posts. It's not really controversial if someone wants to share their merits, but it's a little unusual for me to see someone open a thread to share 5 merits - and there are so many good posts that deserve to get merits, and I'm sure anyone can find them without spending too much time.

I made a post about such merit giveaways over a year ago (Random merit giveaway threads. What do you think about them?) and some members put in their thoughts there. You can read through

In away some of the merit giveaways don't make sense at all. If someone has 20 sMerits, What is so hard with looking for 5 merit worthy posts around the forum and hand them 4 merits each? Some of the members claim they are so active around the forum but can't even hover around the forum to spend just 20 sMerits.

I think some account farmers have used such merit giveways to their advantage as i suggested back then

As long as it's for an actual post (and not e.g. "you get a merit if your username starts with an 'm'") and the post isn't blatantly useless (not like e.g. "good project") then I think it's a waste of time to police it. I mean you can point it out to the person doing it, and in this case it worked, but generally speaking merits are not moderated and I've seen too many cases where this kind of thing resulted in red trust when it shouldn't. A certain number of merits will always be sent to users who seemingly don't deserve it. It just doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes plagiarizers get one. Or scammers. Or people who spell "idea" with an "r". Shit happens.

That's not to say we should knowingly send merits to people who are perhaps attempting to farm accounts etc. But I also don't think we have to come to some sort of universal consensus as what's acceptable as a criteria for "good post" or what kind of rules giveaways should have etc. Sounds like an unenforceable drama-inducing setup.

I always feel the necessity of having more smerits to spend on posts which deserve merit. I have earned 314 merit which means 157 smerits which is far bigger than linked OP or some other merit giveaway thread starter but I have no smerits at the moment.
Moral of the story, if merit is used as per its purpose, no one will have hard time to spend their merit, then why we need to create a giveaway even? I think there should be no giveaway allowed regarding merit. There is a thread where people can post or posting quality posts which lack of merit. So, there should be no gap between quality posts and merit given. From that point too, there's no need of merit giveaway.
The purpose of most of the giveaway is simple though (give and take). Some people merit such giveaway threads which is the main reason of production of such giveaway threads.

You sound like you're both of those things, and I say that sincerely

but:
You're not going to offend anyone by putting them on ignore.  And I would suggest that if you see a member write an extremely low-quality post (and I'm talking about the typical bounty hunter/sig spammer "bitcoin has a bright future" shitpost, put that member on ignore with no hesitation.  You can check their post history, but it's almost a certainty that they're going to keep dropping shitposts until they get banned/bored/whatever.

And I don't know why ImThour created that thread--I don't usually take members at their word unless I trust them when they say things like they're trying to help newbies on their journey or whatever.  I think it was a pretty bad idea to do that, though.  The members who received merits didn't make quality posts, and that's what you're supposed to do to earn merits.  It makes me wonder if those members were his alts or friends or who knows what--I'm not accusing ImThour, just voicing my cynical thoughts.

At least he locked the thread, but he probably ran out of sMerits anyway.

Where? It would be ironic if i wanted to discuss stricter giveaway rules whilst at the same time giving my own merit to spammers... But...
I don't think i'm giving away my merits to people that don't deserve them. If anything, i should probably merit MORE newbies, but i think i might be a bit to strict when giving merits.


A quick search resulted in loads of merit giveaways... A small section (just the first page of search results):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5177856.20
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/anti-spam-merit-giveaway-for-junior-members-only-updated-2828412
https://https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5200267.0
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-giveaway-for-forum-contributions-5124596
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-giveaway-5177856
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-giveaway-good-quality-post-5239568
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/reaching-2000-merits-merit-giveaway-5271955
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-giveawayprovide-a-link-of-your-post-that-you-think-it-deserves-a-merit-5195943
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-giveaway-for-quality-post-5137880
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5215727.40

Now, don't get me wrong... I didn't look into these links, so i have no idear how high they set their bar... But with so many giveaways, do you think none of them are ranking up shitposters, scammers or account farmers? So, is it so bad to discuss this? If you think everything is fine and nothing should be discussed, i'm afraid this thread is not for you.. You're welcome to stay and discuss tough...


Everybody is free to do with their merits what they want to do...
However... I remember a time when account sales were pretty common. Sure, they were frowned upon a little bit, but no negative trust was given for them. There were some DT1 members that were specialised in account sales.
If nobody started discussing account trades, it would still be common practice...

But back to the subject matter... Yes, i want to prevent SOME newbies from ranking up... On the other hand, i'd like to see more newbies that actually want to be a member of our community ranking up. That's an other side to this discussion... On the one hand, i think there should be community guidelines (as there are for altcoin giveaways, account sales, doxxing) that outline expected behaviour in case of a merit giveaway. On the other hand, there should be more initiatives to filter out people that actually belong in this community and merit them.

But i get the feeling nobody else thinks this is worth discussing... So i might aswell close this topic in a couple of hours...
 

Why such irony? Even if such rules were to be made nor to be clarified for a pending new rule about such giveaways, like stompix have said, what would it do to the community? Maybe better try thinking of rules that regards with making merit giveaways, then have you think that it answers a problem? Or rather better ask first, is such problem do really exist? Other than ImThour's merit giveaway, what are other giveaways that you can say having a low bar to the standards of merit system?

TBH, I don't found any problems with the current giveaways by other users. And I also see that the users that giveaways merits with their programs or any other activities they require would not violate nor contradict the main reason why the forum implied merit system.

Furthermore, I still understand why you wanted this discussion to be tackled, and I guess it is because to prevent further newbies to rank up still being not worthy at all. But still, consider thinking about my previous questions.

Not so sure about the different opinions 

OP probably has thought of doing something good, making newbies read the forum rules, but he indeed set the bar way to low.
The responses which got merited were just 2 extra seconds fo work from #proof of authentification, copy paste a text and get merited, he could have at least asked them to comment why they thing one rule is a net positive or why they disagree with another rule, force them to think at least for a few seconds and write something on their own.

But, I doubt it will cause anything significant, even if he wouldn't have stopped or a few others try to copy him, a few 10-20 users getting one merit is nothing, one rogue legendary could have made more damage with a single dormant account and his airdropped merit.



And what would the community be able to do with the set rules?
Tagging users for abusing merit would never work, theymos was against it, adding them to the distrust list means nothing, so...as long as you can't enforce them there is no point having them at all.

Well... I'm not looking for new rules per se... I'm just polling if there's community consensus on how to respond to such threads.

The thing is: we're batteling scammers and spammers and account farmers, but if we only focus on the accounts themselfs, we're doing nothing about their influx. But if we stop these people from ranking up, they'll never be able to wear a signature, sell their accounts, have less time between posts, have a rank that makes them more trustworthy in the eyes of their victims.

I'm not looking for a ban on merit giveaways, i'm defenatly not looking at attacking giveaway thread starters in any way... I'm looking at some community vetted ground rules, some guidelines on how to proceed if you want to give away your merits.

I wrote about this in my interview. I know some people might not like my opinion but it is mine and it will be a lie if I say different than what I thought.

In 2018, I struggled to earn my first merit and it is truly a big challenge to rank up to Full member rank. Things change (as it always changes in life), nowadays it is easier to earn merits especially if we're mentioning about newbies.

Merit sources are easier to dump their sMerits on posters. I'd not say what they are doing is wrong. Being a merit source is a non-salary work but "Do all receivers of such huge sMerit dumps deserve from their contributions?" Some do deserve whilst some don't for such over-give merit (theymos' words). I know what theymos said about his opinion on it but there are open gates for shady abuse and I expect to see some receivers will demote to low quality posters again. It destroys what merit system is created for.

There are some factors for this trend:

• Less total merit sources
• Higher monthly smerit allocation for each
• Less time to scan around the forum to find good posts that easily to be covered by shitposts
• Less observers on merit distributions (abuses)

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theymos

I don't think his way of giving Merits away was the best of ideas, but in the end, he deserved his sMerits in a fair way I suppose, so he can do whatever he feels like with them. Better than selling them or sending them to alt accounts.

We're already having a hard time enforcing the existing rules, so it would probably be a bad idea to add new ones...

Again, I'm not saying his idea was a splendid one, but let's get rid of spammers, scammers and shitposters first, and successfully enforce the existing rules first, before we start inventing even more rules.

While I think that merit giveaways based on newbies highlighting good are a positive thing; handing out merits for little to no effort just so brand new accounts can move up the ranks is rather detrimental and kinda runs against what merits are for.

As long as it's not turning into a trend I don't really see it as a problem though, since any outlier doing this will run out of smerits soon enough.

@Casdinyard: well, actually i'm trying to have a broader discussion... I merely listed the thread as an example, but i'd rather see if there is a community consensus on where to draw the line next time there's a giveaway.

Sure, this specific case has been sorted. IMHO there wasn't even a need for the OP of said thread to apologise... But what are we, as a community, going to do the next time a thread similar to this one pops up? Are we going to tell the thread starter his actions are frowned upon, are we going to ignore him, are we going to encourage him???

The link and the thread are already locked and even the subjected OP already had apologized for his actions.

But then you're right, Merit Giveaways are fine if and only if the people to be merited are really that worth it and not just because they've copy and pasted the rules then saying that it was their favorite one. Better if the OP of that giveaway made a challenge where as all newbies must read all of the forum's rules and explain it with either 500 words or point certain ideas and explain it thoroughly - that would be a giveaway with a much sense. Also, there are a lot of users out there that giveaways merit but if the users replies with their recent good topics or replies that they think are worth to be merited. Which is also a good and fine idea.

Afterall, merit must only been given to newbies that one would think are worthy.


You've had a great point. But I think the issue is closed after the accused merit giveaway maker locked his thread. If the ideas and opinions have already met your queries, better lock this as well.

Hey,

I am the thread creator and I literally didn't realized at first that this is going more in a negative way rather than positive for the community.
When I understood point made by mocacinno, I locked the thread and I am sure there is no way I can take back the 6 sMerit I gave to the users.

This is my mistake and I am sure everyone of you might have done something like this in past, so I would request to forgive this time and I will make sure to not create any stupid Merit giveaway thread.
Thank you so much for explaining and helping me understand this whole system and I completely agree that this would have lowered the bar and the whole purpose of Merit.

Also, thanks to @Timelord2067 for helping me find posts and threads where people actually deserves Merit. I will be looking in them and helping the community in a positive way.

Regards,
ImThour

I hadn't seen that post (yet), and it does show how Theymos looks at the "issue".
That being said, I do think there's a big difference between reviewer threads and thread that give away merits for completing menial tasks.

Personally, i think even reviewer threads are a grey area... I feel like they increase the odds of ranking up for shitposters that made only a handfull of usefull posts in a sea of "garbage".


I actually PM'd the OP of said thread... And i'm 100% sure he had the best intentions and just didn't think his giveaway trough completely (something we all do from time to time). I was listing his thread as an example tough

I agree. The thread starter may have had good intentions with the giveaway, but the rules used allows it to be exploited easily. An extra point like; going through the post history of applicants to find merit worthy posts would help give a idea of the users being ranked up.

Merits should be reserved for quality content imo. Knowledge of the rules and application of it is great, but shouldn't be a criteria to rank up. A member should not need an incentive to read the rules of a forum they have been in for a couple of months or years.

Except a user has large lumps of smerits to dump or wants to generate interest for an activity, I would rather they give out merits naturally as they come across deserving threads/replies.

In general, I think users who aren't Merit sources shouldn't have a hard time finding good enough posts on their own. Merit giveaway threads often receive Merit, so that might be a reason to start one.

See theymos' post on the subject

I'm writing this topic after responding in this thread:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-helping-new-users-must-read-forum-rules-to-earn-5276103

The OP of this thread is giving away merit to newbies that promise to abide by the forum rules and copy/paste their favorite rule in said thread. I can only imagine it takes a newbie less than 30 seconds to rank up this way, 0 effort needed. I quickly noticed two of the recipients were on my ignorelist. These 2 ignored members have now ranked up, and can add a signature and have more lenient posting restrictions in general.

This means they now have an opportunity to partake in sigspamming, or they can now make money by selling the ranked-up account. Neither of these options is very appealing to me.

People that know me a little bit probably know i'm not a big fan of ignoring people. I always try to stay friendly and helpfull. I don't ignore people all that often. I value opinions and try to stay away from drama as much as possible (sure, we're on bitcointalk... 100% drama avoidance is very, very, very hard... If not, impossible). As a matter of fact, i basically have to notice a certain username multiple times when they're actively posting crap before i'm tempted to read their post history. And only if their posthistory shows they continuously post utter garbage they'll end up on my ignorelist. Just to say that today, 2 crapposters got ranked up...

This topic is NOT pointed towards the OP in the linked thread, but merely to discuss the general stance of other members towards merit giveaways. AFAIK, the OP in above thread is trying to do some good for newbies, and others have done merit giveaways long before he started his thread.

I think there's a fine line between merit giveaways that are beneficial, and merit giveaways that are toxic.

I've seen OgNasty give away merit to people that have mastered the technical details of signing a message. I've seen people that allow newbies to highlight merit-worthy posts... I think these forms of merit-giveaway are fine, since they at least require a minimum amount of effort of the participant.
But on the other hand, any giveaway that can be claimed with less than 15 minutes of work might do more harm than good (IMHO).

I'm sure we'll see a lot of different opinions on this subject tough