Topic: [Merit] Legendary To Newbies Distribution Concern & Problem! - page 4. (Read 1116 times)

There are no rules that say Legendary ranks should send their merits to a certain rank, or what percentage of merits they should send to newbies. The only criterion for awarding merit should be a good and high-quality post, although each member of this forum has created his own criteria over time and quality is not something that is decisive in that decision.

Maybe the admin should have created the merit system in such a way that it prevented Legendary from getting merits from the same rank, or the max amount of merits should have been set to 1000, although that would have opened some other issues in the distribution of merits.

As for Altcoin boards, the forum long ago admitted defeat regarding spam and scams in that part of the forum, and I'm just one of many who don't want to participate in it, at least by rewarding newbies who hunt for bounty prizes there. I hope that we send the message so clearly, and some who understand it will be rewarded for it in other parts of the forum where they can actually learn something and become part of the community.

One small but relevant thing to consider about the data displayed on the Merit Dashboard, is something I probably pointed out within the Dashboard’s thread, but that is likely buried within the posts: Rank represents the current rank (disregarding the exact rank at the time of achieving the Merits). This is basically because I don’t have a precise log for Rank changes with exact date/times for all accounts.

The above means that, as soon as somebody ranks-up a level, his account will drag the merit data to his new Rank. In the cases being deal with here, Legendary ranks may receive a newcomer or two per week (Hero-> Legendary), but Newbie accounts subject to ranking up a level should be greater in volume and speed. The shorter the timeframe chosen, the more accurate the data since there are less people ranking-up than in a wider timeframe.

Even so, for the sake of seeing the magnitude of the effect:

The Merit Dashboard shows an all-time historical (more prone to Rank distortion) aggregate of:
Legendary-> Legendary: 538.953 (58,05%)
Legendary->Newbie: 33.230 (3,58%)

From the 01/07/2022 until the 08/07/2022 (small Rank distortion):
L-> L: 3042 (56,68%)
L->N: 223 (4,16%)

Percentages are more or less in the same magnitude.


In any case, I regularly roam B&H where one would say that Newbies would likely try to engage, but my perception is that there are not that many that post there (they may prefer Alt boards), and even less that do so with something slightly eye-catching, even if if using a lowish bar.

One additional thing to ponder is that there is often a lot of repetition and kumbaya yada yada on B&H, as opposed to (apparent) genuine newbie questions for example. The first of the kind may catch one’s interest, but over time, it may get more difficult to merit things that have been expressed time and time again.

I think part of the problem is that these boards which tend to be the most visited by newbies are so full of shitposts and spam that it becomes cumbersome to find decent posts worth meriting.  I'm not a merit source, but I spend my sMerits like a drunken sailor, and I do actively try to give merits to users who need them.  I keep the B&H board on my watchlist, but again it is infrequent that I find a newbie posts worth meriting.

There are sections of the forum that I've noticed newbies getting a significant amount of merit.  In the technical related boards it appears we have a few merit sources and many higher rank member who earn a significant amount do share their sMerits with newbies on a regular basis.


Welsh makes a really good point here.  Rather than just counting the distribution of merits to Legendries vs. Newbies, a better metric might be to graph the number merits per post within the two subsets of members.  LoyceV also made a good point; newbies who earn merit don't stay newbies for long.  That might make it hard to really get a good picture of the situation.

Recognising a newbie as a way to help them! Is that to say users looks at the ranks before dishing out merits? I greatly doubt that.
Despite the experience one might have from being involved on other platforms or in the crypto space, forum wise, the rank you bear being newbie places you as that. The posts gets the merit and not the account. Although, the rank might lead to some compromise as to standard but even intelligent questions gets merits too.

Your right about that and I wonder why!

Of course yes. There have been these likes and somehow, they tend to acquire a whole lot and are only activity stricken to the next phase.

You did not understand about history of merit system and what I meant.

In the past, very different context

• There are less merit sources than now and less total monthly smerit allocation for merit sources. Let's check.
  
  • Merit source observations
  • Currently, 33989 smerits allocate to 110 merit sources. That is much bigger than 11975 in March 2018 (3 months after the kick-off of merit system), according to merit sources page
• Rule of supply, as you have more, you distribute more and lowering your standard.
• As @Welsh mentioned, there are context and conditions, if you don't include them in your analysis, results will be distorted and readers will misunderstand your message (or even you write it not correctly) not correct enough.
  
  • Example: assume total merit distribution from Legendary members to Newbies members increases 50% in August. Do you conclude that Legendary members suddenly have more love for newbies.
  • It might be or might be not. If total smerit for merit sources increase 50%, that can be a real reason, not increase of love at all.

How about trading discussion? I notice very low merit distribution on the board as well.

I have reported several posts on beginners and help that supposed to belong to altcoin board and were moved to altcoin board. Also we can consider beginners and help as bitcoin board, but many merit sources do not visit the board unless such posts are reported to be given merit.

They're a outlier, so it's not fair to compare them to the average user. I mean, even if they posted in the Altcoin section, at the same quality they'd get a decent amount of merits, albeit not as much as they have, but they would've been recognised for sure.  

However, the Altcoin section doesn't have that. Honestly, I think chopping up the section a little more, i.e having a technical discussion area for Altcoins, would really help the section. It would allow to sift through some of the junk, but also for those that are only interested in emerging technology, and technical discussions could just go there.

I'd like to see us moderators getting on top of the spam problem a little bit more, and better categorisation of the whole section.

This thread reminds me that over time I learned the meaning of "cycling merits".

I am one of those who hardly gives merits to lower ranked members and I have sent and received many from higher ranked ones.

Mind you, when I was a lower ranked member I did receive many merits from higher ranked ones.

I simply believe that there are few newbies and lower ranked members that stand out but when there are they receive a lot of merits, look at the case of n0nce for example.

So, this does not worry me nor do I see it as a problem unless we start from the socialist assumption of trying to equalize everyone, which is precisely the opposite of what the merit system intends, which is to recognize those who deserve it the most.

Maybe the newbies that deserve it are rare nowadays. Imagine new people getting into the forum every day. Do they automatically "post" super real stuff that would be considered "meritable" by those who have a lot? I don't think so. There are rare cases for sure, but it's hard to distinguish those who are fishing for merits or genuine because of the "bias" look on the accounts.

I think being able to recognize newbies would be the easiest way to help them.

The only issue with that is the Altcoin section has a bad reputation, and that's not unwarranted. Even today, where I think things are a little more under control, since 2017/2018 was absolutely crazy, the section is still full of poor quality discussion. I reckon if I sat down, and dedicated an hour a day to reporting there, I could report north of 100 posts. That's just under two a minute, which speaks volumes to the amount of discussion that's poor there.

However, there's genuinely good discussion to be had there too. However, a merit source would have to sift through the crap, to be able to get to the good. I guess, the titles of the threads can be an indicator of the crap, but not always.

I'm of the opinion that the Altcoin Discussion is a breeding zone for account farmers. We moderators need to spend a little more time cleaning that area up before good quality discussion gets exposed there. I've been planning to start reporting there for a while now.

Genuine and quality newbie members have no issues advancing through rank but problem is that that every year there are fewer of those. Hell, there is so much merit being thrown around that all you have to do is write semi-decent posts and you will earn merit at faster pace than you earn activity.  


Standard is already pretty low (especially after theymos promoted bunch of new merit sources year ago) and if some newbie still has issue ranking up it means that he is either a shitposter or he writes in boards with low amount of merits shared.


I don't know why you got impression that merit sources ignore Beginners & Help section when in fact its one of the boards with the highest merit/post ratio. You are right about Altcoin section though.


Apply for a merit source status so you can focus on Newbies. Or even better, focus on Newbies in Altcoin section.

The problem was most merit source don’t post much on Altcoin Discussion and Gambling Board, Most of them focus on Bitcoin Boards which is understandable because this is Bitcointalk forum. This merit distribution will be solved if there will be a merit source that will apply on each boards with there expertise to make sure that all boards will have new merits to be distribute.

What’s happening now was, You can’t get a enough merit if your field of expertise is not about Bitcoin technicalities or in Meta which most of the merits distributes.

Lowering some standards doesn't necessarily entail meriting bad posts; rather, it just means that you shouldn't evaluate new posts in the same manner as legendary ones. Various knowledge levels are present.


Yes, it hurts, and I believe this is one of the main reasons some established members have grown impatient at times. However, as you pointed out, this shouldn't prevent someone from meriting a newbie-worthy post; what happens to them after that is their problem, not ours. Ratimov found himself in a circumstance where a significant portion of the newcomers he ranked up were banned.

He's been inactive on this thread for some time now.
Help newbies and those who have a little left to the next rank


Tagging a newbies posts as merit fishing attempts is another problem 

Show me Newbies with good posts and I'll Merit them!

There's a flaw in these statistics: Newbies with Merit don't stay Newbie for long.

No new member is a merit source, that can never happen. People like to send merit to who is sending them merit, almost all merit sources are legendary and they see the posts of old members on this forum more useful, obviously the reason old members send merits most to themselves.

Not all merits sources are cheerful giver like DdmrDdmr that stringently focus on boards like Bitcoin Discussion and Beginners and help that newbies mostly focus on. I always respect DdmrDdmr for that, he is a very good merit source that distribute the merit appropriately as he always sends to all ranks.

But about this merit issue, newbies should wake up, most merit they will receive will be from the merit sources, this is because most merits distributed by merit source will be sent back to them (the merit sources) because they are good posters and because people that are not merit sources like sending back to them. I may be wrong but this has been what I noticed.

It is not false that some merit sources are of high standard, some do not care about the newbies, that is not a lie, but newbies that are good posters still rankup even as they are not really sent merits. Bitcointalk still retain being good forum with quality posters to have the most merits. This can not make this to change. Merit system is not perfect but helps against spammers and poor posters. So nothing may change.

This also doesn't look at the whole picture. How many newbies are there, compared to legendaries? How many are posting 20,30 or 50 posts a week? Legendaries get more merit, since there's some pretty significant users here which happen to be legendaries.

While, I do get your point, I do think you'd need to collect additional data, as right now it looks bad, but when you factor in the amount of newbies signing up, and remaining active it's a different story. For example, a lot of the legendaries have more posts than merit per month. Therefore, that suggests you might have to be posting quite often to receive merit, not because merit sources consider that as a factor of distributing, but because there's more exposure to their posts.

Plus, the section matters. Technical discussion is always going to get more merit, as people generally learn a little more or have interesting discussions, and debates. Gambling discussion doesn't get nearly as much, which a lot of newbies tend to gravitate towards. The altcoin section in general has been boycotted by a lot of users, on its reputation alone.

Like I said, I understand the point being made, and I'd probably agree standards should be allowed to drop a little bit or at the very least, increasing the amount of merit given marginally to those that are good.

I also believe the merit system is doing its job, and I wouldn't want to see it not doing it, if you get what I mean. Plus, we've got threads dedicated to only lower ranks, for merit sources to merit them. So, I don't think this issue is being ignored completely.

Haven't been here for quite some time, I'll agree with you that it's never easy for a newbie to grow through the ranks. The pressure is always there as to reasons why, thy don't have to create posts just for the sake of seeking out merits but still, somehow needs to make quality posts enough which are subject to individual judgements to earn merits.

The issue then becomes, how do they do this (quality posts that could earn them merits) and avoid doing the other (posting for merits). Let's not forget, the are newbies and presumably, doesn't know much except for those that were on some other platform or have been in crypto fa before they joined up on the forum.

For this, the answers is still simply SUBJECT TO JUDGEMENT.
1. That you are a newbie doesn't mean one shouldn't seek out for some quality or points that nails it in your post. You've got to try and emulate those ahead of you. It's left for a meriter to see your effort in trying and let loose his or her standard a little bit to do the needful.

2. It's no doubt the beginners and help is one of the boards you can commonly find newbies and as much as ignoring the board seems out of place because one isn't doing much of the help for which the board is about although, that's not just about merits, some users have pushed for a more newbie educative and earn first merit threads. Like:
I [Merit] Help newbies and those who have a little left to the next rank By Ratimov
II. [Merit] Hey Bitcoiners! Can You Send Encrypted Messages? By OgNasty
III. [Merit] Hey Newbies! Can You Sign A Message? By OgNasty.

This is to mention only but a few and having a pattern to this would promote laziness and create a trend that would bring results such as in II & III above (posts that follows a pattern) although idea behind this one is clear and they teach a clear lesson of privacy and proving of ownership to an address and in turn account. While in the case of I, its just a helping hand to motivate that, its possible to rank up.
In my opinion, they are doing just fine and the fact remains that, the ranked users knows the ways to be themselves and get merits even when they don't need them.

The bottom line is, you might need to grow but still, you've got to be yourself, do the most you can and hope to get noticed for them.

Merit discussions never gets old 🤣
A brand new account or lower rank account is creating some very high quality posts. You are impressed. Sent out some merit. After few days you discovered the account is banned for plagiarism. This is one of the many scenario. But that does not mean that we should not send merit to lower rank member, we all do.

When a good post is coming from a higher rank member, you know that he is not fishing for merit or at least some part of the posts are genuine. 

Don't make it boring.

I have a topic like this in the past, actually 2 years ago.

• Where receivers received merits from, and meriters sents merits to
• Personally, I don't expect to see any big change with such things. Even nowadays, it is more easily for lower rank members to rank up with softer behavior to send merit to posts like "like, love, etc.". It is actually kind of issue because more spammers will be able to rank up faster than they should.
• Generally, the overall distribution of merit between members and member ranks won't change much
• I stopped making topics about merits when I see people feel overwhelming with it and personally I don't have more time to play with stats.

How Legendary members share so many merits among themselves is a little strange, but it raises interesting questions.

Concern

What became of "helping newbies grow"? The truth is that not all Legendary members began writing quality posts when they were newbies. It's a learning process, and the longer you stay here, the better poster you become. I know the justification has been that newbies are shit and legendary members are great posters. C'mon lower some standard while meriting newbies.


What might the issue be? Still, using the "poor quality post" defense?

Problem

What about the merits source, which ignores B&H and Altcoin discussion boards? This is one of the issues, isn't it? Too well aware that those are the only boards with a higher proportion of newbies.

What are your suggestions/Excuse?

Legendary To Legendary Distributions


Total : 76355k merits distribution among Legendary members since this year. 2022.


Legendary To Newbies Distributions


Total: 5591k merits from Legendary to Newbies since this year. 2022.

* current month.
Data source: DdmrDdmr merit dashboard