Topic: Merit is Not Earned By Luck, But Because of Your Efforts! (Read 494 times)

Highly agreed to this. For me, being helpful to other members of the community by giving them accurate suggestions or advice in specific subjects. It's a good thing for Bitcointalk to implement this system in order to make Bitcointalk forum a clean place for us to get quality questions, comments and opinions.

I have to be honest with you guys. My goal is not for the purpose of increasing rank and merits, but by simply giving value to the Bitcointalk community. They're just bonus for me, seriously. I don't pay attention to them, not even my number of posts.

I don't mind if I'll remain a Senior Member for a long time, I'm just happy to be here. I couldn't imagine my life without knowing this forum (especially the hidden gems that are airdrops/bounty programs that saved me from financial disaster).

Also there are those that kept moaning there are insufficient Merit providers/ sources when so far, there's no lack.

Just like some making their rounds to Merit quality/ helpful posts, such as Ddmr (thanks for your contributions )

Nothing is clockwork though, and one is not always in the same mood or spirit when meriting. There are days that I find it easier than others, and not necessarily because of the content you’re reading. The same content may deem merit deserving after seeing it around for a couple of days, even if it did not the first time round.

Nevertheless, often timing is an important factor (you know, the early bird gets the worm thingy). The first few seemingly accurate respondents are more likely to get merited, than the fifth post stating a variation of the same thing, or the tenth post within the thread denoting, through its content, that its author has not read the prior replies. Timing and accuracy beat luck.

There are a lot of lower ranks today wants to earn merit but the problem is they don't take any action this is the common misconceptions of them they think just comment and reply a thread does give them merit but no, this is very often if you are not a constructive poster you cannot get a large amount of merit like the others.

Sometimes you can get lucky if someone gives you.

Most of the time if you created a thread and this is a helpful and constructive post there is a higher chance that you will get merit, also most likely here on beginners and help there are a lot of good members giving merit to other users.

Maybe luck is when you make an "OKEY" content and still get some merit even if it is not good content like other members do. Or still, get 1 merit on a simple comment that you make.

For sure good topic that made in the forum sure get a lot of merits, but maybe there are times where good content do not receive merit or a lot of merit for some reason like if no one commented in your post, it is going to be in the last page of the section.

Also, there are some cases in a contest where you could easily get a lot of merits if you have a great thing to submit, we know that it gets a lot of merits compared to topics about cryptocurrency.

True, I was still relatively new member when I joined the anniversary contest, that was fun I must say, and I would like to see more of that. Sadly, some members even exploited that but that was kinda expected.

I was not a newbie though when it comes to cryptocurrencies when I registered on the forum, and prior registering I was lurking for some time and just quietly observing what's going on. Another thing that helped me is the fact that I was active (and I still am) on other forums  for many years, so environment was kinda familiar. As a matter of fact, forums even look similar (also old school type), except that it's not crypto related

But I was newbie when it comes to exposing scams ( my obsession with scammers comes from the bad experience few years ago when I lost approximately 90% of my portofolio) so I was looking up to more experienced members, and I didn't hesitate to send them PM and ask them questions every time I had some doubt how to proceed.

Pretending knowing more than they do is standard mistake, as newbies think that they have to know everything immediately in order to get merit so they plagiarize and do other dishonest stuff, while that's not really needed. All you have to do is to be active, genuinely curious and not hesitate to ask those that know more and merit will find your way.

That the biggest mistake doing by newbie, I have trapped in the same things in the past. Yes, a lot of member here thinking about money not just because he is a newbie, even legendary member we will found about that too. But to be knowledge-sharing its not to hard, newbie in forum doesn't mean in real life he/she doesn't have experience. This experience can bring them to get more merit,

see @rikafip i see him first time on Anniversary contest as new comers, and now he can be one of scam busters club members. He learn something analyze something and share what he know, now see how much his earned merit.

Same like you bro @aakzaki, when you are sharing your capability to make a TA, you get some merit. In other case, expert trader can came here within 2 days ago and will be shown as newbie, but
He can share his TA prediction to member and may he can get rank up faster than us because of his TA

, newbie just a rank in this forum, experience is a something that no needs a rank

Right, even i needs to learn on how to create quality opinions to get merit. 100% effort should be put otherwise i wont get anything. But the my problem is my knowlegde in speaking in english is limited.

Well, i didn't thought it's a commun mistake. Lol 
Last July i received 10 merits for this post, then by checking the merit history of the sender, i concluded that it was by mistake as he usually send 1-2 points. Yes i was lucky and didn't what to do as the sender didn't even reply to that topic where i posted the merited reply and i didn't ever accumulate that number of sMerits. I won't forget that user and wish i will be able to send him total of 20 points in many times so he can get the 10 sMerits back. Whatever, i don't think it's a big deal

No matter how hard you tried to post so well if no one will see it seems to be nothing. And I find out that some merit is just for fun, "I'll give you some merits because as I was entertained by your post". Often to happen TBH.

But anyway, that's their choice and it is not the case for me. To be honest, I'm not a good poster, not just like you and many other members here. A single merit that I receive is very encouraging to see that I was LUCKY to have someone got caught on my post (at least). And this also motivates me to improve my posting habit and to contribute more to the forum.

EFFORT + LUCK= MERIT

That's right, I think merit is the result of an effort to create quality opinions...
I have noticed that those who get a lot of merits have quality or above-average opinions. I personally still have to learn to improve the quality of my posts so that I can attract more merit givers.

This is hard to do. For beginners, heard if  on bitcointalk they can make money. But they don't know the process, they just aim at the results. But since this reward system was founded I have seen the effect is tremendous, this forum is getting better, many newbies are trying to be good writers and useful to others.

Just notified that I have been mentioned and come here. Yeah, I was using phone that time and wanted to send 1 merit but unfortunately, I sent the user 11 instead of 1. when I noticed it I just make a comment their that it was a mistake. Because generally I send 1-2 merits. But I never guessed that the user will sent back the merits.
In this case what I send the user is called actually luck. But it also related to efforts. If the man don't give any effort to make the art I never try to send any merit to that posts. So always we have to make some good effort to earn merit.

I remembered a story that could be called luck.
During the "10th anniversary art contest" one participant randomly sent 11 merits instead of 1 merit.
This happens when the page refreshes unexpectedly.
But subsequently, all the merit sent was returned, as the recipient realized that this was a mistake.

Therefore, you should not count on luck in obtaining merit. It is much easier to understand that the person who sent you the merit did so on purpose because they rated your post correctly.

Merit is awarded whenever some members of this forum find your post(s) helpful. But that's not limited to any helpful posts, some merits are also awarded when the post makes the reader who has sMerits that can be send laugh, or something else, they liked it or they appreciated your post. But mostly, the merited posts are those that has a meaningful idea. If you are seeking for merits, then change yourself and make more meaningful and helpful contents, someone will surely appreciate your posts if they find them good.

If not for merit I would be a hero member now sad to say that I was a trying hard to become a full member. I did nkt regret and just make a way to rank up to full member with people users around that are generous in rewarding merits. Probably they see a user trying to give quality post then it is really possible to earn merit. The essence is not actually how to earn merit but by becoming a good user being helpful and contributed in the forum in such many way like creating quality and worth it to be shared posts for the common interest of the users here in the forum.

Why would someone give a merit if they dont deserve it.  Deserving members will be awarded with merit which they can use to rank up thier account. A member should not base on pure luck  to get merit but rather they must work for it.

Posting is a must, and no one can argue with that. And it's true what you say, I once got a message via PM asking me just one merit to go up in rank, when I tried to see the contents of the post he made was a social media bounty report from pages 1 - 8,

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If indeed merit abuse for non-merit source users is not a matter for mods, of course we can still report via meta, at least the abuser gets a warning from the member who might make them stop doing this.

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Yes, we have to distinguish between that, the luck when a good post is found, unlike the luck said by those who try to get merit but don't have a but posts that are made less worthy of being said to be deserving of merit. I agree with you some luck are happens, but from the perspective I've found in some of the posts from people who say that merit comes from luck, most of them are doesn't have a good posts as you mentioned. do they will get merit from luck if their posts habbit as @mk4 mentioned above "mostly in bounty report" except maybe as @Ddmrddmr case

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Yup, it's a general factor, but I'm also give an additional after that points

I just don't get it when some users are making post that is not direct to the point and it is hard to understand.

Meaningless and not straightforward post really make people unable to read it much clearer. It doesn't matter if you posts with too much words, but the important thing is if it is easy to understand, you stated some facts, it is informative, and direct to the point. We should work for it and not rely on those people who are giving easy merits. Hoping that newbies will take time to read posts regarding earning merits, so that they know what to do in this forum.

In counter part, I hope that merit source will consider too the content of the post itself and not just the length of the post. In my case as merit sender, I sometimes feels like long post is too boring to read that's why I like the post that direct to the point without any sugar coating on there statement. If all post that worthy of receiving merit are only those who construct an essay type post then the majority or maybe half of the forum user here will never rank up because not all user here are good on creating an essay like statement especially on creating thread and replying on a very simple question which can be answer by a single statement. 

There’s probably a clash of platform cultures here to factor in: The forum is more verbose prone, with posts that tend to be longer than a short one-liner, and this requires therefore more thought, than say, social network platforms such as Twitter and Telegram, where short dynamic answers are the grounds for communication. Those heavily into the latter may find it harder to earn merit here, unless they adapt their style.

Posting with such care is also a must for every signature bearers. We should admit that majority of sig users with good pay will probably always wanted beating up the quota of post. Well no one can denied that. But the best part there is the ability of those users to contribute something useful or important.

I ranked up to hero member due to effort but of course I could say there are some luck in play during the time when art contest was held submitted few entries and earned merits. Though you could say thats effort but the timing of the contest luckily favors mine.

I think that's pretty obvious. I mean, merits don't come out of nowhere. You receive them for a reason -- the content of your post. You don't necessarily have to be super technical or lengthy to say that you put in efforts. Just by simply saying what you really feel or what you know about a topic with the intention of sharing is already an effort. And other forum members who agrees with or liked your statement will surely give you a merit for that. Just don't rely on luck so that you can receive merit. Work for it.

I totally agree.

What is the difference in shitposting and making qouta for signature campaign?

Shitposting -  refers to copy and paste post or post that is intended only to increase post without reading the threads content to reply on. Most of considered shit posts are posts that are made generic and applicable to all threads. Not only that, there are many posts we can consider as shitposts like trolling, the intention is to destroy others dignity, questioning the system (merit and trust system), scammers start threads, website links especially it could be malware, bounty reports and more.

Post to increase activity for signature bounty qouta
It is only effort being exerted to the user to increase activity by posting in which it could be consider as active participation in discussion. A user could increase activity or post without compromising its quality of the posts. Anyway, quality posting will be determine or discretion of the users who will going to read posts.

That is true, earning merits is not about luck, that is a big NO, you will receive merits once you are doing a great job in this forum when you are sharing good and useful information about the crypto world. There are many members here who are willing to give merits for that member who created good content. Actually, it can also be considered in real life, there is no luck if the person gets rich, it is all because of his hard work and knowledge that he used in order for him to be a successful one. Just remember this quote that I have read before. When you see a successful person, do not say that he/she is a lucky one when you are sleeping while he/she is working.

Some of the best posters here are participants of the highest signature campaigns, they earned a lot of merits and they get the highest cashout this is two one of the motivations why you need to contribute and be part of the healthy discussions if your merit is not moving or not adding up, only two things either you are only focussing in campaign reporting in bounty campaign or you are spamming the forum.

Somewhat it depends on luck, honestly to say. 

• Good posts need to have luck to be caught by the others (include merit sources). Bad posts are overwhelming good posts on the forum.
• After a good post is caught by the others, how many merit it will be rewarded in turn depends on luck again. If the others have more sMerits in their accounts, they can send more. If they have limited or dry out of sMerits, they might send less or zero merit for that post. For merit sources, they usually send more when their balance are topped up.

As said, there is a factor of luck BUT with luck, one poster can not get hundreds or thousands of merit. To receive such amount, that one needs to be a truly good poster. I agree with you but disagree with you if you totally eliminate the luck factor.

True talk, effort alongside consistency is the part way to merit earning than thinking about be a lucky meritee. Many have forgotten that; there is always a reward for those who put on their best when contributing to a conversation, though  some also quickly condemn their contribution towards discussion because they felt not be accepted into the society. Such individuals need courage inself and push harder for leaning. Some with this effort give-up because of them not earning merits as they want but rather step backwards to conspired against members with positive zeal towards discussion.

Don't give up on yourself, your effort can make you a reputable forum member if not now but in future. Never accept defeat when your argument aren't seen as constructive, put into play your inbuilt latent energy. Focus on leaning the digital technology among others and you will be notice with your contribution.

Remember, it take time, energy and consistency to build a career, this is liken unto this forum.

This can easily be misinterpreted by newbies, since this statement is too general. It's just a wrong perspective to look at merit, and it causes people to try to fish for merit with creating useless and misinformed guides. If you look at top merit earners, excluding Wall Observers, this is simply users with a lot of experience who can consistently make good contributions to any discussions. They don't create "how Bitcoin works" and "motivation for newbies" threads, they simply comment on existing threads and earn a few merits, which adds up to hundreds and thousands of merits in the long run.

Effort is one of the important factors that helps improve a user's post quality and with an increase in quality of discussions a user can impact more users positively and increase their chances of earning merits. Other factors, like where one posts and language barrier can influence positively or negatively, but users who deliberately try to help other members emphasize the purpose of merit creation and would benefit from the system.

I should point out that admins would interfere if one who was appointed (sources) to fairly distribute merits abuse the system. There has been cases where users have been removed from their merit source position and some were the merit transactions were revoked.
Theymos also interferes if it's a calculated abuse to cheat the system. Since the trust system was modified, "votes" from users who have earned certain amounts of merits counts to members eligibility and is an incentive for abuse.
Some users have been blacklisted from the trust selection process due to merit abuse.

I personally do not like the idea of users being given negative feedbacks for suspected merit abuse. It is not a wide spread practice from my observation, so most DT members agree with this.

The fact is, even if you were to be lucky in receiving some merits, that still won't be able to rank you up to higher ranks compared to the others that did put in effort into contributing to the progress of the forum either through quality contributions or selfless acts like spam hurting or scam bursting. For those thinking they can be lucky like others in the aspect that their desire to ranked up get full filled by some generous merit giver or merit source, they should know that previous beneficiaries account were reviewed and been found to be worthy of those new rank or merit they recieved.

Few months back I did a related topic titled, Advantages of engaging in quality contributions on the forum. just like this topic, mind was focusing on informing the readers what they were to benefit if they can actually put in effort into bettering themselves on the forum. It's no rocket science, we have users you can use as example that their success on the forum has be attributed to their efforts.

I can go on and on if I decide to mention names but that won't be necessary since their presence are felt all over the forum. The mentality of thinking others were just lucky and you would be someday should be dropped. Success doesn't come from been lucky. Even if you were to be lucky per se, you still have to be prepared for that opportunity as if that chance was to come the way of an unprepared users, it'll still pass him/her by.

One fellow got lucky yesterday because I was messing around with code and added the wrong message Id to my meriting experimental code (missed a digit when manually typing the message id in the code):

A screw-up on my side, with a stroke of luck on the other end (although the receiver seems to be an abandoned account).

Joke’s aside, it’s rather more a question of having enough time and will to post than anything else. Of course, there is a complementary bag of goodies that contribute (expressiveness, non-repetitiveness, promptness, arguments, and so forth). By "will" I mean actually trying to get the post to be averagely meaningful.

Note: Mods have little to no saying in cases of Merit abuse per se, since sMerit awarding is not moderated. Historically, DTs have tagged accounts on either end for actions of the kind, but it’s rather controversial and subjective, and not strictly in line with the Trust core spirit (commerce related).

It's not a gamble that relies on luck, lol. Still in this forum we need an effort to get merit which means providing more knowledge or guidance which according to them provides insight and its usefulness in contributing to this forum is very good and must be used as best as possible because our comments will be valued by many people and everyone is different responding to it we will still have to be relevant to what we post here so merit requires effort and skill to get it.

Funnily enough, I don't think most plebs don't actually believe that it's because of luck. I think most of them actually knows that it needed effort. But not the good kind of effort though, the bad kind— that all they needed to do was to post and post and post in the hopes that someone would give them merit for their bland and uninformative posts; or worse, some even complain that they don't receive any merits but then you check their posts and all they do is post on bounty threads. 🤷‍♂️

That'a the purpose of giving your effort in makinh great post to help other people. As what I said right now is one of the points you mentioned (Knowledge-sharing member) in your op. No wonder why some member did not rank up because they think earning merit is base on luck. It is not a gambling so luck is not needed in earning merits but effort and willing to share.

Newbie or higher member rank without earned merit feels that those who get merit from the members because of a coincidence and luck. Is that true? No, that's wrong!

If we talk about merit, there are actually lot of user who have already discussed it, maybe it has become a discussion that is no longer interesting to discuss. However, newbies and stuck member, often say "maybe just lucky if I get merit and can rankup", in fact, there is no luck when getting merit, lucky is when the user wants to give 1 merit, because the incident becomes 11, or any higher amount given by accidentally.

Merit can be obtained because of:
1. Your efforts in making comments/posts
2. Your willingness to be a knowledge-sharing member
3. Want to change the habit of using forums

Of the three points above (there a lot of factor, but I think this three is enough), is there an element of luck? Of course not. All points can be happen because of your efforts and willingness. Member who give you a merit, seeing of your posts quality not quantity. You want to pursue merit? It's okay, no problem. But that doesn't mean you have to chase the number of posts. The more posts you make, the more likely you will be considered as spamming. You don't need to imitate suchmoon, loycev or other members who are able and have a capability to making lots of posts in a day. What they write is not limited to pursuing the number of posts they make. But what they write is to support an opinion or provide information that really needs to be shared.

If you are still thinking merit is something to do with luck, perhaps you should try to change your mindset to "trying to improve" perspective. Maybe from here you will begin to understand and stop asking "how to get merit for newbies and stuck member" or more extreme they are accuse about merit exchange, they say if "merit only for certain groups", where those who thinking like that, are members who don't want to change their habits and posts activity. , as simple as that.

The most earned merits are also chasing posts for the campaign!
Yes, the signature on our profile does require us to post, it doesn't mean that we are forget the main rules in this forum. At least, even though we are required to meet the post quota of the campaign, we are still  try to make this forum a worthy place to share knowledge. So, when your rank is stuck (on any rank), that means you need to change yourself, do not blame the merit source or accuse without evidence, if there a merit exchange to increase the rank for some people. In case there are come true, just report them as merit abuse to the mod.