It's true. However, the newest merit tide has not lead to outliers at all.
All intraday merits over the last two weeks have not been in the range of potentially extreme outliers, from 123 to 1163.
(1) Potential outliers are days that have intraday total merits beyond 123 or 1163;
There is only one day almost hit the threshold, at 1161, with id #351 in the dataset below.
Update:Intraday meritsConverted dataset (since 1st Jan. 2019)
. list id merit date day month2 year week month dofw if year == 2019
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| id merit date day month2 year week month dofw |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
343. | 343 603 01jan2019 1 1 2019 2019w1 2019m1 Tuesday |
344. | 344 526 02jan2019 2 1 2019 2019w1 2019m1 Wednesday |
345. | 345 394 03jan2019 3 1 2019 2019w1 2019m1 Thursday |
346. | 346 1082 04jan2019 4 1 2019 2019w1 2019m1 Friday |
347. | 347 835 05jan2019 5 1 2019 2019w1 2019m1 Saturday |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
348. | 348 783 06jan2019 6 1 2019 2019w1 2019m1 Sunday |
349. | 349 570 07jan2019 7 1 2019 2019w1 2019m1 Monday |
350. | 350 782 08jan2019 8 1 2019 2019w2 2019m1 Tuesday |
351. | 351 1161 09jan2019 9 1 2019 2019w2 2019m1 Wednesday |
352. | 352 987 10jan2019 10 1 2019 2019w2 2019m1 Thursday |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
353. | 353 878 11jan2019 11 1 2019 2019w2 2019m1 Friday |
354. | 354 711 12jan2019 12 1 2019 2019w2 2019m1 Saturday |
355. | 355 978 13jan2019 13 1 2019 2019w2 2019m1 Sunday |
356. | 356 1127 14jan2019 14 1 2019 2019w2 2019m1 Monday |
357. | 357 813 15jan2019 15 1 2019 2019w3 2019m1 Tuesday |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
358. | 358 880 16jan2019 16 1 2019 2019w3 2019m1 Wednesday |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
sMerit distribution has risen a fair share over the past two weeks. Specifically, the last complete week (Monday to Sunday – 07/01/2019 .. 13/01/2019) shows a total of 5.859 awarded sMerits. That is 37,15% more than the previous week, and we need to go back to April 2018 to see such high figures (with the exception of the September week where the number of Merit Sources were incremented, and the 1 Merit requirement was added for Jr. Members).
It is just an assumption, no one knows but I agreed with the assumption.
This is likely due to three facts, although I do not venture which bears the most weight of them (I’d say "b" if I had to, seeing that the previous week rose likely for the same motive (*)):
a) End of xMas holidays.
b) Additional Merit Sources and, specially, Merit Source allowance resizing (that I believe resets the counter so for those resized it meant both a different allowance and a fresh start for the 30 day period to distribute them in) -> 05/01/2019.
c) DT struggles for representation (since earned merits allow for more voting power, perhaps merits were awarded to members to get their vote to count).
List of intra-week merits:
. list week merit
+-----------------+
| week merit |
|-----------------|
1. | 2018w4 30949 |
2. | 2018w5 19958 |
3. | 2018w6 13304 |
4. | 2018w7 11722 |
5. | 2018w8 8758 |
|-----------------|
6. | 2018w9 8806 |
7. | 2018w10 7253 |
8. | 2018w11 7309 |
9. | 2018w12 6941 |
10. | 2018w13 6707 |
|-----------------|
11. | 2018w14 6415 |
12. | 2018w15 5487 |
13. | 2018w16 4631 |
14. | 2018w17 4585 |
15. | 2018w18 4953 |
|-----------------|
16. | 2018w19 4753 |
17. | 2018w20 4346 |
18. | 2018w21 3854 |
19. | 2018w22 4183 |
20. | 2018w23 4527 |
|-----------------|
21. | 2018w24 3818 |
22. | 2018w25 4921 |
23. | 2018w26 4457 |
24. | 2018w27 4253 |
25. | 2018w28 4239 |
|-----------------|
26. | 2018w29 4159 |
27. | 2018w30 3652 |
28. | 2018w31 3798 |
29. | 2018w32 3994 |
30. | 2018w33 3618 |
|-----------------|
31. | 2018w34 3789 |
32. | 2018w35 3065 |
33. | 2018w36 3574 |
34. | 2018w37 5630 |
35. | 2018w38 7825 |
|-----------------|
36. | 2018w39 4388 |
37. | 2018w40 4271 |
38. | 2018w41 3800 |
39. | 2018w42 4821 |
40. | 2018w43 3945 |
|-----------------|
41. | 2018w44 3339 |
42. | 2018w45 4513 |
43. | 2018w46 3722 |
44. | 2018w47 4558 |
45. | 2018w48 3750 |
|-----------------|
46. | 2018w49 3560 |
47. | 2018w50 3782 |
48. | 2018w51 3753 |
49. | 2018w52 3278 |
50. | 2019w1 4793 |
|-----------------|
51. | 2019w2 6624 |
+-----------------+
- The 2019w1 has increased nearly 46% than the figure of last week of 2018 (2018w52). 4793 compared to 3278
- The 2019w2 has increased nearly 38% than the figure of the week 2019w1. 6624 compared to 4793.
Details:
. di (6624-4793)*100/4793
38.201544
. di (4793-3278)*100/3278
46.217206
Time-series plot of intraweek merits.