Topic: Merit & new rank requirements - page 83. (Read 167726 times)

I explicitly pointed out in my post that I think that you are a good poster and many
of your posts are valuable contributions to this forum. I was rather praising you
than bashing you 


Ok, let me back up my claim with some data.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/analysis-merited-on-multiple-subsections-and-the-correlation-matrix-updated-4932684

This post is not an old statistic, this post from DdmrDdmr is from yesterday.

Take a look at the Subsection correlation matrix that he posted. You will see
that the Meta subsection is occupying one of the highlighted spots extremely
often.


Great comparison 

Think of it as a way to "game the merit system". You can post valuable contributions
to various Bitcoin subforums or Altcoin subforums and you hardly get a merit.
Alternatively, you could spend your time regurgitating the same kind of post about
merit or its ramifications over and over again (again I´m not personally referring to you
athanz88, this is more of a general observation) and be a Sr. Member in a month.


The merit discussions aren´t great for the most part, they are users regurgitating the same
kind of statements over and over again. Sure, there is the occasional quality post like the
one from DdmrDdmr that I linked above, but this is the absolute exception. My grudge
definitely isn´t directed towards contributions like this. Every single merit he earned
for this post is well deserved.

Apart from that, the problem is exactly what Branko was complaining about.

He started posting at Bitcointalk, because of a genuine interest in Altcoin Mining. Later
he also started contributing to the Croatian Local forum.
He genuinely enjoys posting in these subforums and obviously has a hard time ranking up
due to posting mainly in these two subforums.

You claimed:

I disagreed with this recommendation as I outlined in my previous post. You have earned only
a single merit in the last 120 days (!) that was not somehow related to merit.

Of course Branko could start rambling about merit all over the Meta subforum, but again I believe
that this is neither what this forum needs nor what Branko would enjoy.
My problem is not with your merit history @athanz88 (I actually find it great
that you ranked up), or your posts (they are valuable contributions for the most
part), but rather with the way that the merit system incentivizes users to post
about stuff like the merit system instead of the stuff they genuinely enjoy
or are knowledgeable about.

The merit system fucks up the incentives and therefore users like Branko (there are many other
users in the same situation) are faced with a quandary:

1. He could try to "game" the merit system by starting to make many merit-related posts
2. He can continue to make contributions to his favorite subforums and hardly gain any merit at all or
maybe earn merit at an extremely slow-rate in the best case

To sum up, I disagree with your suggestion that he should follow your example, because you
are precisely an example of why the merit system is not working as intended as evidenced
by your last 4 months of merit activity and as evidenced by the data provided
by DdmrDdmr.

Well then light me up. What is the problem if people giving merit to a merit discussion while the discussion itself is great, bring a new content, use a research to make, take a time to make, and has a lot of engagement with other members?

One question, did you open the link i gave? Well based on that statistic, off topic section gets merit too, why not making "off topic section getting merits" as a problem because it doesnt add anything at all to this forum and not on topic of cryptocurrency. The marketplace gets merit too, why not making "marketplace section getting a lot of merits" as a problem because why the hell people give merit to a buy and sale thread?

Please, enlighten me.

Ps. Why do people see the system is at fault while the one who is giving merit is the human? Human at some section just too stingy to give merits

@Branko
Well that is your problem. You think that your section is better than other section. It ia subjective. You can not force someone to like what you like or otherwise. If you follow your logic, then you should bash off topic and marketplace rather than people who talks about merit. Talking about merit still has a connection to this forum while off-topic is a big no connection and marketplace still have a little connection to thia forum main topic (cryptocurrency).

You totally misunderstood the point Branko and Samarkand were trying to make: namely, that there is a problem with the merit system itself if the most merited posts are on the subject of merit.

I've also received most of my merits from posts here on meta despite that they constitute a small fraction of my post history and just as with Branko, I find this somewhat disappointing. Unlike Branko, I don't care all that much, since my only motivation for achieving a higher rank is to finally be able to wear my favorite avatar, a thumbnail of Banksy's StarWarsPulpFiction.

Its not about speaking in meta, its about speaking about merit.

I'd compare it with a general becoming general by speaking about military ranks, instead been on battlefields

@Branko and @Samarkand

If you guys want to bash me about my merit that is received in Meta Section, then it is okay for me, i get it with my style and my work, so i hope you guys dont mind it like this.Well, To make it clear too, there is nothing wrong in getting merits in meta section. The main purpose of merit is to make a quality post, and i am 100% believe that you 2 guys only know quality as it is a "good" or even "great" post, well you are wrong. In a forum (note this is a forum, okay?) besides a "good" or "great" content, you need the engagement and other things. Whats the point of making a good post if you are posting in a mega-thread, or if you dont even try to talk to other members?

And please read this link https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/where-the-merit-pours-3093768, this is and old statistics, but you know, meta is not the only section that is getting merits a lot. You guys should stop talking merits received in meta section is not well deserved without a data. You didnt received merits in your favorite section doesnt mean people dont get merits there, or the fault is at other section. The demography is different so if you want to blame then blame people in your section that doesnt want to give you guys merit.

O ya, have you 2 ever made a post like this link i am talking about? I bet you have because you re getting merit, but really you cant compare things like that. You re looking at your neighborhood's grass and comparing them while the types of the grass you have is different, until judgement time come you still cant make an on point comparison.

You beat my by few seconds, I wrote almost same reply, then forum warned me someone wrote something meantime 

Yes, kind of beat the purpose to get most merit by writing about merit...since I came to BTT my main point of interest

was altcoins mining, and at start 90% my posts were there, until I started posting in Croatian subforum too. I feel

most of my "good" posts are in altcoins/mining, but I got majority of my merit in Croatian subforum, and when I checked

around, it seems that many people got most in either meta or BTC subforums, or in their local boards

It is great that you managed to rank up since the introduction
of the merit system. However, I´m not sure if this is really a viable
recommendation for Branko´s problem.

Just take a look at the merit that you have received in the last 120 days:

I have bolded every merit that was awarded for a post that was somehow related to the
merit system or its ramifications.

Does anyone notice a pattern here?!

To sum up, you have earned exactly a single merit for a post that was not somehow related to the
merit system in the last 4 months. And you, athanz88, are definitely one of the better posters on Bitcointalk.
If this is the result of 4 months of posting activity for a good poster, then the merit system is
definitely an utter failure   not working as intended.

We don´t really need Branko (or any other user) to start making tons of posts in the Meta subforum
just for the purpose of gaining merit in order to rank up. It is a well-known fact that
merits are awarded quite freely in the Meta subforum. It is much harder to earn merit in other parts of the forum,
which is kind of sad. This leads to hilarious results like the fact that a user like TMAN, who constantly
berates newbies in the Meta subforum, has earned more merit than
guys like gmaxwell, HeRetiK or DannyHamilton.

One of the possible solutions to improve the merit system would be the complete
removal of the ability to award or receive merit in the Meta subforum at all.

I am in the brink time of making my way to a full member when the Merit is introduced, yet now i am a Senior Member. Look on how i post and my made topic, or look to some of top merit receiver, and compare it to your post. Learn from that and i believe you can rank up even in this sytem. You dont need to look on your friend's account and remembering your chance to be a Senior Member in the old system. Move on !


What TryNinja has been saying is true, if you really think this is a forum, then why the hell rank is matters with you? Last time I checked, this is the definition of a forum

You can do what the definition says, without being a Legendary rank or Hero Rank.

I've been thinking about this, I didn't really want to make a new thread about it, but commenting on a post already discussing about merit in detail is fine

The merit system introduced into the forum is good and lovely and my thoughts is there could be a time where merit would translate to a BTT token and could be withdrawable as crypto coin, and if that happens then those that thought that writing just a spam post on the forum is good would then start struggling to earn token or buy with their BTC.

This is crypto community and a top one at that... Just my thoughts though, I may be wrong.

I don't think negative merit will be nice here again since the system is already using negative trust to reduce spam and scam like posting, but if a - veMerit can be made to deduct someone's earned merit or remain -veMerit until the person earns +veMerit to balance the - ve then it will be OK.

I was wondering for a long time that was I the only one have that concept about "quality" in mind. According to my observation, most of the merits are given in Meta board. Those merit-received posts only meet "constructive" criteria and I don't see many really "high quality" ones. Sometimes, to match the "constructive" criteria, people deliberately lengthen posts & topics. This confuses their readers.

I'm not a regular visitor of Development & Technical or Project Development and I think either are merit sources. Btw, Bitcoin Discussion is becoming as trashy as Altcoin Discussion so we shouldn't expect from it. Serious Discussion should be instead.

The problem is, the ratio in which spam is created exponentially takes over the spam being deleted. We need to limit that ratio. More moderators must be assigned to handle reports instantly. At times my reports take too much time to be handled even for obvious spam posts.

*Higher post quality in the important boards like Development & Technical Discussions/ Bitcoin Discussions/ Project Development. Right now, what we call as "High-Quality Posters" can't afford to post outside of Meta/Reputation sections.

What's the difference between Hero and Legendary that makes this such a big deal? Sure Legendary is not easy to earn but it was already a gimmick/novelty rank even before merits, given the random activity and (as far as I know) no extra forum privileges or shitposting earnings compared to Hero.

Most, not all. All can be simply disproved by Ethereum's ICO. There's a lot of meaningful steps occurring, while Bitcoin's potential is limited. BTC just remains at the forefront of all cryptos, because it's the father and the standard for trades. Nothing will change that in the foreseeable future.

Altcoins have shy'd away from Satoshi's philosophy entirely, and just entering the real-world tech spaces, catering to mass adoption. (the few that have any worth and legit)

I agree with most of the rest of your points though. This forum was meant for Bitcoin discussions, and i have no issue with that. And yes, the majority of any meaningful discussions happen in the Bitcoin and related sections.



When you enter altcoins, you have to have a fundamental understanding of what's really occurring, or you're going to get taken.

Just wanted to express my view on merit, which i believe is a failed system, it will become more evident a few years from now.

I still do not quite have a handle on merit points and such. I get their usefulness and value and that they are a relatively recent addition to the forum - implemented to combat spam which would render these forums virtually useless and impossible to navigate without the merit system. Having been in other forums overrun with spam, I have no problem believing that some implementation of merit was obviously necessary here to avoid that same fate.

As a newbie to Bitcointalk, I feel slightly disadvantaged at coming in after the merit system was implemented rather than before, but that is just my own bad luck and poor timing. But begging for merit points and pointing out the 'unfairness' of how the current merit system negatively impacts newbies is kind of like buying Bitcoin now at ~$6500 and then claiming it is unfair that some people were able to get Bitcoin at 30¢ back in the year 20-whatever.

Those who are established forum members with high ranks achieved that status by being early adopters with a passion or strong interest in the technology and philosophy behind cryptocurrency.  Whether fueled by flaunting their early adoption gains or their superior knowledge of the system's inner workings or just a desire to help other people understand it all better - they constructively contribute to the discussion.  Those who are crying about the merit bias against newbies are those johnny-come-lately's who are really only in this to make a buck.

I was motivated to buy my first Bitcoin to try to make a buck. I like to browse this forum for answers to questions that I have - which results in hours and hours of passively reading (or lurking) - but often weeks or more at a time without actively posting. With limited financial resources, I am still spending most of my crypto time bouncing around on different faucets and so a good chunk of my time here is spent in the "Micro Earnings" threads.  Probably not the best strategy for leveling up... but it's my choice of how to spend my limited time. My point is this - rather than whine about the unfairness of the system, I am trying to educate myself on the system. It's not about skyrocketing rank so to get a bigger bundle of sticks as soon as possible. It's about slowly learning how to gather up that bigger bundle of sticks and make good use of them.

**Opens thread**

‘Moan, moan, fucking moan’ (about it being too hard to gain Merit).

**Rolls Eyes & leaves thread**

I think you're going at this the wrong way: you're mainly posting in Altcoin discussion, and if you like that, that's great! But those boards suffer from massive spam, which means your posts don't get noticed much, even though you don't look like a spammer to me.
Now, If Merit and other measures could reduce the spam, the altcoin boards could become quality boards again instead of Spam Megathreads, and many good posts will get noticed again.
Unfortunately, that won't happen overnight. I don't know if you do it already, but you can help clean up the forum by clicking "Report to moderator" on bad posts. Get them deleted or banned!

Aren't all altcoins, ICOs and Forkcoins money-grab schemes? I don't think Merit is supposed to stop that, otherwise it would be much easier to just close all altcoin boards. And I do think tk808's posts are much better than the spammers for which Merit was introduced, which is why I merited him.

---

It depends how you look at it. When it comes to Rank you're right, a 250 Merit airdrop beats your 177 Merit. But when it comes to contribution and recognition on the forum, earning Merits the hard way makes your posts look much better. And if you keep this up, you'll pass 250 in a few months.

You continue to invalidate yourself by taking stuff out of context to validate yourself, I'm not going to get into a discussion about cherry picking posts and contributions, because we are now off-topic.

The only worthwhile thing talking with you about is how much merit can be acquired, but again you failed to actually read what i was talking about, taking things out of context to suit your world-view, appears what you do best.  

Edit: I will ultimately say this in regards to altcoins, while the majority are yes shit, and scams; altcoins have progressed and helped the entire crypto scene more than bitcoin itself in the past 4 years. I have the upmost respect for btc, and satoshi's vision, but alternative coins are the only way blockchain tech will be adopted. Crypto reflects what the dotcom boom was, a lot of bad apples, but the few 1% that succeeded, changed the world forever. It wasn't the internet that drove the internet, it was the companies building their businesses and pouring money based on the internet. Building a system on-top of a revolutionary system. The parallel can be drawn with altcoins and bitcoin.

Most Bitcoin supporters (if there are any exclusive ones left), are the most ignorant crypto-individuals in this respect. Ultimately, i recommend anyone view my profile, and you'll see why Ninja is ultimately incorrect in his attacks, invalidating his entire defense in regards to the failed system, merit.  

I'm glad you noticed that. So, you don't actually need any merit since you can post and have a discussion regardless of your rank, right?

Because the altcoin board is a shitshow. 90% of the threads are either shitcoin ANN threads, bounties or redundant and useless discussions which easily turn into Spam Mega Threads. It's been a few months since I visited the altcoin board for the last time.

"If we sum up all the user accounts with last activity within this year from Jr.Member to Legendary + Copper members, we get 90993 users". 90993 users out of 2 million registered accounts. If we remove all the Jr. Members and Members spammers who only care about doing bounties, there are only 25544 active users. From DdmrDdmr's merit dashboard, 312 users already received at least 100 merits.

Yes, I did check your post history. Congratulations on your work of shilling/working on shitcoins who are nothing more than a money-grab scheme or doesn't have any real world utility. I hope you enjoyed the 3% of your now dead "Nevra" shitcoin.

P.S: I actually received "227 merit 164 times, from 91 profiles" - according to BPIP; A good number of tits indeed.

---

Sources:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/2-million-users-and-their-stats-4901670
https://public.tableau.com/profile/ddmrddmr/vizhome/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/GlobalSummary#!/

It seems that many people have their personal reasons to be unhappy with current system, and here is mine:

friend who made his account week before me is Sr Member from start of new system, and has 250 merit, same as on day one
of new system introduction

I have 177, as you can see

Mere fact that he started week earlier, with no contributing at all (if we equal merit = contribution, I got 77 meanwhile, he got zero)
outweighs all my efforts

How about when system was introduced we all got merit based on our activity back then
(in my case, I get 249 or 248 instead 100)?


I can only imagine how someone who was on the brink of attaining legendary feels