Topic: Merit & new rank requirements - page 290. (Read 167717 times)

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/copper-member-2439743 - 7 merit points were received for the question "How much merit points newbie need to receive, before he can post in other section?"

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28896442 - 50 merits for "Right, yesterday he told, that he saved 9% of coins"

High quality posts, huh?

I have few thoughts regarding this. First of all, this could be implemented with purpose to raise the price on the accounts with senior ranks. Admin informed us, that moderators will not moderate merits, than why do we need this? I find it quite suspicious. Secondly, it will help hero/legendary members to save their profits in the bounty campaigns. Now it will be difficult to reach senior ranks, and new rivals will rarely appear. That's my point regarding this new system.

(This assumes the majority of the people participating behaves in a responsible way)

The new system is surely better than the previous one, even though it is over-rewarding "old members". I guess nobody who has joined Bitcointalk in the past six months will EVER manage to become Legendary Member, at least not in less than one or two decades. Fine, this could be a price to pay to avoid the forum getting even more trashy, I fully agree. But I think that the implementation of this new system could be done in a more fair way. The fact that initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for one's rank is not a big deal for Newbies or Juniors, but for higher ranked members, like Senior or Hero Members, it can create big inequalities. For example a freshly ranked Senior Member is now getting the same merit score as someone who has already been a Senior Member for almost half a year and is about to become a Hero. Even more dramatic would be the case of a Hero who has already the activity to be a Legendary but the random system did not grant him the rank yet. A more fair way to distribute the inital merit would be to calculate it proportionally to the actual activity. This would avoid that people like me (I don't want to make it personal but I'm the first example which comes to my mind) who is missing only 4 points of activity (and 5 days) to the rank of Hero Member, instead of getting, let's say 470-480 merits (instead of the 500 of people who already are Heroes), is getting only 250 merits like someone who has just ranked Senior Member 10 days ago, and instead of 5 days it may now suddenly take me years before I can become a Hero - how many very good posts has one to do before he gets 250 merits? If you receive one merit every 4 post you do (on average you are likely to get less IMO) it will take you 1000 more posts to rank up from Senior to Hero, and if you like me were only 4 points of activity from that target, and now suddenly you need another 1000 posts, to say that this is becoming extremely frustrating is a big understatement. On the other side, with a more proportional and balanced initial distribution of merits I think nobody would feel that the system is penalizing them more than it penalizes others - which means people would be more inclined to recognize its substantial fairness, or at least that every effort has been done to achieve the maximum possible fairness.

Agree 100% with this.  A new window, or maybe just code in a little box next to the post where you can type the Merit you want to give and then hit Give or something.

If someone is only concerned with sig campaigns and/or account trading then yes, there are probably ways to abuse the system. Hopefully the overall impact will reduce spam sufficiently to outweigh potential negatives but this may take a few weeks to settled down. Once the initial sMerit bonus is gone we'll start seeing how this actually works.

Oh, just great. More abuse of power. Let me guess; Lauda, The Pharmacist and actmyname.

Besides, why would anyone outside the happy few give away his merit points if he needs them himself to move up in ranking?


That's why I opted in the other thread, and here, for principal forum moderation. Everyone can understand principles. Nobody understands patched up constructions like this.

The forum is getting crazier and crazier. I wish there was an alternative. But alas, as long as Bitcointalk has the monopoly we'll have to deal with the power abuse over here...

I wish there was a way to know who sent merits to who, kinda like the blockchain.  That way, we could somehow know who's gaming the system...

I bet there are some concerned individuals in the forum having a meeting right now thru Skype...  'This is bad for business...  How can we beat Theymos' merit system with our spammer horde and make money from it?'  

Edit:  The spammers' first attempt to game the system is to become a 'merit source'.

If nothing else, seeing people have gotten hundreds of merits in the first few hours of this rollout should make it pretty clear who is abusing multiple accounts on this forum.

- if I know a member, think his quality is "OK" but not outstanding, can I send him 10 merits to any post as a reward for overall contribution (to help him rank up), or will this be seen as suspicious and potential merit-trading, for which I could get red-tagged?

From any signature-camp participant perspective: not sharing points benefits me, as I make it harder for new ones to rank up and become a competition for me, making it easier to get the spot in campaign and could keep payment rates higher. It also increases the value of my account.

I feel that this merit thing is introduced just to solve the problems of spam and shit posting done my users having ranks hero or below. So I would suggest you to add Demerits as well inorder to make legendary members do the same .

The new system is surely better than the previous one, even though it is over-rewarding "old members". I guess nobody who has joined Bitcointalk in the past six months will EVER manage to become Legendary Member, at least not in less than one or two decades. Fine, this could be a price to pay to avoid the forum getting even more trashy, I fully agree. But I think that the implementation of this new system could be done in a more fair way. The fact that initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for one's rank is not a big deal for Newbies or Juniors, but for higher ranked members, like Senior or Hero Members, it can create big inequalities. For example a freshly ranked Senior Member is now getting the same merit score as someone who has already been a Senior Member for almost half a year and is about to become a Hero. Even more dramatic would be the case of a Hero who has already the activity to be a Legendary but the random system did not grant him the rank yet. A more fair way to distribute the inital merit would be to calculate it proportionally to the actual activity. This would avoid that people like me (I don't want to make it personal but I'm the first example which comes to my mind) who is missing only 4 points of activity (and 5 days) to the rank of Hero Member, instead of getting, let's say 470-480 merits (instead of the 500 of people who already are Heroes), is getting only 250 merits like someone who has just ranked Senior Member 10 days ago, and instead of 5 days it may now suddenly take me years before I can become a Hero - how many very good posts has one to do before he gets 250 merits? If you receive one merit every 4 post you do (on average you are likely to get less IMO) it will take you 1000 more posts to rank up from Senior to Hero, and if you like me were only 4 points of activity from that target, and now suddenly you need another 1000 posts, to say that this is becoming extremely frustrating is a big understatement. On the other side, with a more proportional and balanced initial distribution of merits I think nobody would feel that the system is penalizing them more than it penalizes others - which means people would be more inclined to recognize its substantial fairness, or at least that every effort has been done to achieve the maximum possible fairness.

all these people will run out of merits pretty soon! Ive chucked 10 about for a laugh.. the rest I will be serious with

there will always be a bedding in period.. this will take months, then the positive results will be seen.

Certain users are designated as "merit sources". They can create new merit out of nothing, up to a limited number per month (which differs per source). I will not be posting a definitive list of merit sources (so that people don't bug them too much), though you'll soon figure out who they are if you pay attention.

The forum ranking system is a bit complicated now...

Totally agree with most of the ideas. The current merit system will tie up the opportunities to be Members, Full Members and Senior Members. Those old accounts dont worry about that, but the new ones have to face harshly with those new rules, with merit ranking.
Personally, I think admin and moderators of the forum should focus on how to release new, more strictly screening system for investigating spamming accounts, which post non-sense, shit posts most of the time. After that, banning those accounts permanently. That's rule might be better than the current merit system.

Please consider about the idea. Tie up spamming discovering system, and more strict banning rules (permanently bans)

Not only mine but can we see other users' merit stats? I tried adding different uids but I can't see anything change. It still mentions my merits sent and received.

The new system is surely better than the previous one, even though it is over-rewarding "old members". I guess nobody who has joined Bitcointalk in the past six months will EVER manage to become Legendary Member, at least not in less than one or two decades. Fine, this could be a price to pay to avoid the forum getting even more trashy, I fully agree. But I think that the implementation of this new system could be done in a more fair way. The fact that initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for one's rank is not a big deal for Newbies or Juniors, but for higher ranked members, like Senior or Hero Members, it can create big inequalities. For example a freshly ranked Senior Member is now getting the same merit score as someone who has already been a Senior Member for almost half a year and is about to become a Hero. Even more dramatic would be the case of a Hero who has already the activity to be a Legendary but the random system did not grant him the rank yet. A more fair way to distribute the inital merit would be to calculate it proportionally to the actual activity. This would avoid that people like me (I don't want to make it personal but I'm the first example which comes to my mind) who is missing only 4 points of activity (and 5 days) to the rank of Hero Member, instead of getting, let's say 470-480 merits (instead of the 500 of people who already are Heroes), is getting only 250 merits like someone who has just ranked Senior Member 10 days ago, and instead of 5 days it may now suddenly take me years before I can become a Hero - how many very good posts has one to do before he gets 250 merits? If you receive one merit every 4 post you do (on average you are likely to get less IMO) it will take you 1000 more posts to rank up from Senior to Hero, and if you like me were only 4 points of activity from that target, and now suddenly you need another 1000 posts, to say that this is becoming extremely frustrating is a big understatement. On the other side, with a more proportional and balanced initial distribution of merits I think nobody would feel that the system is penalizing them more than it penalizes others - which means people would be more inclined to recognize its substantial fairness, or at least that every effort has been done to achieve the maximum possible fairness.

It probably is. It is essentially freezing the rankings.