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Topic: Merit is the best thing that happened to new users - page 4. (Read 1867 times)

member
Activity: 254
Merit: 11
Call 811 before you dig
Considering that I'm also new here, I'm not sure whether I should be happy about letting the feedback of others hold me back from being a member.. Although I agree that this prevents everyone of us from posting nonsense, I'm just not confident enough in my posts that they are merit-worthy...

My (rather sparse) observations suggest that happiness with this change rests in why one is on the forum.

My hope that is I can click on "Show unread posts since your last visit" and not have 200 pages of spam to filter.

And now, back to my lair ... new mining hardware arrived!
full member
Activity: 1414
Merit: 106
Available for rent
Not sure about other new members but it appears to be the best thing that happened to you or sure.(Judging by merits you got). I hope other new members feel motivated by this.
If you look at the user stats closely , you will find that about more than 5000 new members join here daily and there are more than 10000 posts being made daily. Do you think that all the good posts will get spotted and merited ? It is not physically possible for 50 people to read all those 10000 posts every day. At such, most of the new members will be stuck at their current levels only. We can see improvement in post quality for sure and that is good for the forum (not for new users who want to gain ranks as well).
jr. member
Activity: 70
Merit: 2
Considering that I'm also new here, I'm not sure whether I should be happy about letting the feedback of others hold me back from being a member.. Although I agree that this prevents everyone of us from posting nonsense, I'm just not confident enough in my posts that they are merit-worthy...
member
Activity: 350
Merit: 11
Wow I gave the kid 5 to take him to 10 now he has 20... this is proof that the system works people...
Yeah!
It will make happy everyone who want to learn and improve his skils w\o spam

Any info about merit fairies and criteria for evaluating messages?
sr. member
Activity: 700
Merit: 254
This is the first post that I've seen so far that view the merit system positively. Well, I honestly view it in a different way, however, what you have said made a point. I really think that because of the lax community rules and regulations with regards to posting, activities, and ranking up, members of this forum abused it. Just imagine accounts ranking up by just posting registration forms, airdrop comments and shitposts. This community would die and will be flooded if this merit system didn't take place.

It's true that this would let new comers to learn faster and work harder compared to those who have started early. At some point it is a disadvantage, and somehow it's an advantage.
legendary
Activity: 1414
Merit: 1808
Exchange Bitcoin quickly-https://blockchain.com.do
Wow I gave the kid 5 to take him to 10 now he has 20... this is proof that the system works people...
hero member
Activity: 1246
Merit: 588
The reason I don't understand how this stops account farmers, is consider this:

Assume an account farmer with an extremely large number of accounts has roughly the same number of mean Merits per post as a normal user.
If he gets 100 Merits, he also gets 50 sMerits. He then redistributes these 50 sMerits amongst his accounts. Assuming he has planned this well, he should be discreet about it, and in the end he'll get 25 more sMerits to distribute.

Once you calculate the entire thing, you realize that for every Merit the account farmer receives, he gets close to a total of two Merits across his entire group of accounts, once you account for sMerits.

Counterargument:
Quote
Also it will be pretty easy to detect such collusion as everyone can see who you give your merit points to.

I think this might just be the Toupee Fallacy.
You only ever notice that bad colluders are performing collusion, so you assume that everyone who colludes will be readily noticeable.
When collusion goes well, and with the merit system, I think it might be easy to hide, you will not notice it... and hence assume that the only people who collude, are the ones who obviously collude.

So in the end, account farmers get twice the merit across their accounts for the same quality of posts.... which is an issue, but I guess it's not the worst.

It's a good point to discuss with. In some cases this merit sometimes can be abused of course. I am pretty sure that theymos and other admins have already discussed this type of issues. It will then eventually improves the merit feature by adding other functionalities. I guess it still goes back to the role of the moderator. Any proven circumstances of merit abuse shall be reported and investigated. I was just thinking tho if the main account of spammer can really abuse it since there are limitations in sending a merit and if you are not receiving one then you surely cant share it as well
member
Activity: 406
Merit: 20
Don't you think it's better if there are several persons asssigned to review one's account when they reached the number of activity required?
It's up them whether a certain account would rank up.
There are more than 5000 new registrations happening here every day now. A lot of resources would be required to review the accounts.

Even if you get enough people to do those reviews, it will be more biased and easier to cheat. Imagine if someone gets into an argument with some people who later will have to review his account. This will create a whole lot of new problems.

I think this new system also have that kind of problems, I've already seen some abusing this system.
Later on, there will be a buying and selling of merits.


Having people to review, will give unnoticed accounts a way to rank up.(An alternative way to rank up)
Provided, they have enough activity.
full member
Activity: 121
Merit: 123
Don't you think it's better if there are several persons asssigned to review one's account when they reached the number of activity required?
It's up them whether a certain account would rank up.
There are more than 5000 new registrations happening here every day now. A lot of resources would be required to review the accounts.

Even if you get enough people to do those reviews, it will be more biased and easier to cheat. Imagine if someone gets into an argument with some people who later will have to review his account. This will create a whole lot of new problems.
member
Activity: 93
Merit: 15
Don't you think it's better if there are several persons asssigned to review one's account when they reached the number of activity required?
It's up them whether a certain account would rank up.
There are more than 5000 new registrations happening here every day now. A lot of resources would be required to review the accounts.
copper member
Activity: 1876
Merit: 533
My first 2 sMerits are for you man.
member
Activity: 406
Merit: 20
Don't you think it's better if there are several persons asssigned to review one's account when they reached the number of activity required?
It's up them whether a certain account would rank up.
I think that many people won't get much attention in their posts. If your post isn't visible enough, though the quality is there, you won't still get a merit.
For sure, many repititive post will be seen since everybody wants to get an attention.
But overall, the idea of the merit system is great.
member
Activity: 93
Merit: 15
Overall I am also happy with the new merit system. As more and more people start to learn about the new rules, they will think twice before making useless posts.
full member
Activity: 121
Merit: 123
The reason I don't understand how this stops account farmers, is consider this:

Assume an account farmer with an extremely large number of accounts has roughly the same number of mean Merits per post as a normal user.
If he gets 100 Merits, he also gets 50 sMerits. He then redistributes these 50 sMerits amongst his accounts. Assuming he has planned this well, he should be discreet about it, and in the end he'll get 25 more sMerits to distribute.

Once you calculate the entire thing, you realize that for every Merit the account farmer receives, he gets close to a total of two Merits across his entire group of accounts, once you account for sMerits.

I never said it's goana stop account farming entirely, but I hope you do agree that it makes it way more harder and time consuming now. If before all you had to do is post once a day per user to get your activity up, now you have to post some good posts too. You say that a person with a large number of accounts has roughly the same number of average merits per post as the normal user. I have to disagree with you. Even if he is a great poster, he will run out of ideas for good posts if he has too many accounts. Even if he doesn't it will be much more time consuming than to just spam a 10 word post. Lets say someone is brilliant and manages to do this consistently. That means that his already good posts will get twice as many merits than the average. This is not such a big advantage considering the amount of time he will have to spend on this collusion.

For the most part I happen to agree with your long term conclusions.  If I had any Smerit I would give it to you.  The implementation was a bit faulty cause many members got screwed during the switch.  Some were 2 activities away from a new rank that has been here 6 months and is now the equivalent of someone who just got the same rank yesterday.  My personal feeling is that for something this drastic just give everyone the next rank and I think most people would have been fine with the change.  Doing it this way feels like a kick to the teeth to the people who played by the previous rules.

I agree that this could have been implemented more smoothly. I myself was a few days away from becoming member. Anyway, this issue is more relevant to senior and hero members as the gap is huge between the next rank. This has been brought up already and we might see some tweaks in the future.
member
Activity: 127
Merit: 11
For the most part I happen to agree with your long term conclusions.  If I had any Smerit I would give it to you.  The implementation was a bit faulty cause many members got screwed during the switch.  Some were 2 activities away from a new rank that has been here 6 months and is now the equivalent of someone who just got the same rank yesterday.  My personal feeling is that for something this drastic just give everyone the next rank and I think most people would have been fine with the change.  Doing it this way feels like a kick to the teeth to the people who played by the previous rules.

 
legendary
Activity: 1414
Merit: 1808
Exchange Bitcoin quickly-https://blockchain.com.do
Great post, great attitude... level up fella
legendary
Activity: 1120
Merit: 1038
The reason I don't understand how this stops account farmers, is consider this:

Assume an account farmer with an extremely large number of accounts has roughly the same number of mean Merits per post as a normal user.
If he gets 100 Merits, he also gets 50 sMerits. He then redistributes these 50 sMerits amongst his accounts. Assuming he has planned this well, he should be discreet about it, and in the end he'll get 25 more sMerits to distribute.

Once you calculate the entire thing, you realize that for every Merit the account farmer receives, he gets close to a total of two Merits across his entire group of accounts, once you account for sMerits.

Counterargument:
Quote
Also it will be pretty easy to detect such collusion as everyone can see who you give your merit points to.

I think this might just be the Toupee Fallacy.
You only ever notice that bad colluders are performing collusion, so you assume that everyone who colludes will be readily noticeable.
When collusion goes well, and with the merit system, I think it might be easy to hide, you will not notice it... and hence assume that the only people who collude, are the ones who obviously collude.

So in the end, account farmers get twice the merit across their accounts for the same quality of posts.... which is an issue, but I guess it's not the worst.
full member
Activity: 121
Merit: 123
I have seen countless of threads about how bad the new merit system is, especially for beginners. Although it does have it's problems, I think it will be a very good thing for newcomers. Since other threads are mostly criticism, I thought I would share my different point of view on the benefits of the system for newbies. Some of the following has been pointed out by others already, but usually it was by Hero and Legendary members who have been accused of not being objective. I am a Jr. member so I think I am pretty objective about this. So why do I think the system is actually a good thing for newcomers?

1. They will learn quicker.
Although I joined only recently, I am a long time reader here. I used to go to the Bitcoin board and just randomly pick a few threads that looked interesting. In most cases there was a good discussion which taught me new things. Lately however, it's almost impossible to find good threads anymore. Even if there is a good discussion it's usually ruined by tons of meaningless posts. Merit will encourage people to make helpful and meaningful posts which will help beginners set their first steps in this world.

2. They will become better posters.
Before the merit system, there was no incentive for new members to try and make good posts. Even if they tried, their posts usually got buried under all the spam. There are always exceptions but usually the skills required to write a good post come with experience. When people will actually try to improve the quality of their posts, they will eventually improve their overall expression skills which are quite important for many other things in life.

3. It will be easier for them to integrate into the community.
When there is less spam there are more discussions. Having a good discussion with someone makes you want to discuss with him more. This creates friendships and respect among the members of the forum. New members will be able to join good discussions and acquire friends. This will surely make the forum a warmer place for them.

4. They will be able to earn more from bounty campaigns.
At first it looks exactly the opposite. Low ranked members who participated in bounties will have harder time to do so now. While this is true at the beginning, in the long run they will actually benefit from this. Instead of sharing the rewards with spammers and account farmers, once they advance in ranks they will enjoy larger shares of the prize. Before the change, it still took time and effort to go up in ranks. Now, instead of creating armies of accounts to get better shares, people will be focused on posting good quality posts. Atleast in my opinion this takes much less effort.


I would also like to answer some of the popular arguments I have seen raised by criticizers:

Quote
Newbies are affected of all. They are not yet knowledgeable enough to have quality posts thus have low chance of being given merit points.
Nobody said newbies will have to post quality posts from the very beginning. Of course they will make bad posts, and this is totally fine as they are newbies. It takes 2 months before merit stops you from advancing in ranks. This is enough time to be able to make atleast a few good posts. Only 10 merit points are needed to become a member.

Quote
I'm almost sure that high ranks will not often try to like posts of newbie, but will pour glasses on each other
I understand where the concern comes from but I think it's kind of a chicken and egg situation. Higher ranked members post better posts in average. That's why it might seem like only high ranks are getting merits. I'm pretty sure most people give merit based on the quality of the post not the rank of the poster.

Quote
So, now my rank depends on others??  Some one else needs to give me merit if they think my post is merit worthy??? What happen if a post is good but no one gives merit???
Is this concept really that revolutionary? Employees are promoted based on the opinions of their bosses. CEO's are appointed based on the opinions of the managing board. Presidents are elected based on the opinions of the people. That's how most things work in life.
While good posts might be missed and receive no merit, if you continue posting good posts you'll get merit eventually. If you don't, your posts are probably not as good as you think they are.

Quote
"Rich people maintain rich, poor people will be poor forever."
I really don't see why high ranked members won't give merit to lower ranks, but if that will be the case I'm sure the system will be modified.

Quote
Are you sure after this system come out, spam post won't appear?
No this won't eliminate spam entirely but it will definitely reduce it dramatically. Antibiotics does not always work, does that mean people should stop taking it.

Quote
A group of people, friends, teammates, they can spam merit score to each other's post.
Unless they have a source among them they will quickly run out of merits. Also it will be pretty easy to detect such collusion as everyone can see who you give your merit points to.

Quote
if you was in bitcointalk forum a few years ago, you posted a lot of under-quality posts and you earned Legendary Rank, so it is unfair with new people joining this forum now.
While such members definitely exist they are not the majority. Most Legendary members have posted quite many good posts in the past. It would not be fair for them if their contribution to the forum was simply ignored. Anyway by your argument no problem will ever be fixed as there will always be people who abused the system before the issue was fixed.

Quote
Admin and moderators may not be able to prevent selling of merits especially outside this forum.
They may not be able to prevent it, but it's not going to be easy. Suspicious activity will be spotted pretty easily and people can be banned or lose trust.



Overall, I think most criticizers pretty much ignore all the advantages of this system and choose to focus on the negative aspects of it. Of course it's not fair for everyone. It has disadvantages and people will be able to manipulate it. However, spamming will be less incentivized, and cheating the system will be much harder now. If you have any thoughts I would love to discuss them here.
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