I sure I hope I did all of these inline quotes right. I’m not good at that. Well I finally got this to work, the spacing is horrible, but I'm posting it.
Looks correct to me.
Yes.. If you think that the matter is simple, then you are engaged in oversimplification.
It is a figure of speech. It’s a form of communication to get the person’s attention on the most important point which it what you say next. It is not meant to be taken literally as if this is a court of law.
Of course, if you say that the solution is simple, then that should be read at face value. If the solution is not simple, then you should not make that kind of assertion, otherwise you are merely exaggerating the essence of what you are attempting to describe.
If you have been "saying since almost day 1," then likely you are neither attempting to look at the matter objectively or to attempt to see how matters play out.
Well I address this already, but your conclusions are based on faulty assumptions. Try again.
I am not going to try again. Let's stick to the topic. You are the one that seems to be trying to assert that the merit system is broken or inadequate, so the burden is on you to prove your points. I don't have any burden here. I said what I was going to say on that particular point, and I have no further point to make... otherwise, we are just getting caught up in the weeds and off topic to some other irrelevant subject matter.
The concept is just fine but the implementation failed.
I will grant to you that the passage of 6 months does allow a greater ability to assess the situation, but concluding that the implementation failed seems to be both wishful thinking and failure/refusal to account for actual facts.
Wishful? Man, you are assuming the wrong sentiment. I’m concerned for Bitcointalk.
I am glad that you are "concerned for Bitcointalk," but the fact of the matter is that you seem to be creating a false emergency and even presuming that there is something broken or going in the wrong direction... so if you start with badly formulated presumptions, then you are likely to go down the wrong path.
If I were the one who recommended, designed, and implemented the Merit system…as a professional in my industry I would say I failed.
Again.. you are presuming what indicators matter, which is largely facts that are not in evidence. In other words, you cannot presume facts to be present and true, and then make your conclusion based on assumed facts. Makes little to no sense.
So yes, the Merit system appears to be a botched job from my perspective. Perhaps I have too high of standards, but I would give it a C- maybe a D+, not an F, but anything short of a B+ in my line of work I would call a failure because less than a B+ means you didn’t know what you were doing.
O.k. Again, you are grading something, but we are not even being presented by you what are the facts, exactly, merely the conclusion. In essence, the grade is based on your opinion only. What good is that going to do?
It's like they created BTC, set it to 18 decimals just in case and now boom, a few years later we are actually talking in SATs. If I'm not being clear, they brought 5 apples to a picnic of 10,000 people. Yes, bring food to a picnic, good idea. But 5? Who thought that was a good idea? I sure hope that person is not involved in any ICOs.
It is a fair enough assertion that there might not be enough distributed merits; however, the whole implementation of the merit system began with a front loading of merits - and what I mean is that active accounts received an initial distribution of merits that was based on activity level and then rank.
I didn’t know activity was factored in. Thanks for correcting me.
Well, if you look at theymos's op post, he describes factors that he considered when making the initial merit distribution which was in essence was current rank, activity level and activity within the year preceding the initial distribution. He subsequently modified his initial distribution to give a higher level of hero members (from 500 to 1000) who had reached at least 778 activity level at the time of the initial distribution.
Since the behavior of members after the implementation of the merit system was not completely known, there has been a dialectic process that would allow for the assessment of member behavior after the initial distribution and the behavior of merit sources, too.
What does this mean? “there has been a dialectic process.”
That could mean too many things for me to guess.
dialectic process just means that you do something and then you see what happens and attempt to learn from what happens to incorporate your learning into the process.
I don't doubt that theymos is continuing to assess the extent to which the actual behavior is playing out as a failure or a success, and likely the assessment is going to come out somewhere in the middle rather than your seeming presumption that the system has been a failure and that some goals have not been reached.
A bunch of assumptions there. But let me ask you to assume something real quick…do you believe they set metric based goals that they have been assessing all along and seeing how things are going? Meaning, they said We expect X% of Y Account will do Z 20% more often after the deployment of Merit? That’s how I would have managed this.
Well, I would imagine that there is an attempted measurement of account farming and shit posting, so these kinds of measures might not be precise to verify whether the merit system implementation is causing movement in the preferred direction. Furthermore, there could be issues with merit sources not spending their smerits or engaging in borderline abusive use of their source merits that might need to be measured to decide whether to change merit source incentives. Some behaviors are going to be easier measured than others, and there could even be some considerations about changing the measurement tools based on kinds of behaviors that are detected.
Solutions:
1) Drop the rank up requirements to something more reasonable, like 2 Merit points.
First of all if ranking up seems too difficult based on the playing out of this new merit system (and that is a BIG "if"), then perhaps tweaking the ranking up requirements could be a path forward, yet I highly doubt that something like 2 merits is even within the realm of realistic (unless we are considering the matter in terms of comedy).
Well, as hard as Merit is to get, for the people without it, 2 is pretty reasonable and these current target are the real comedy. Again. Botched job.
You repeated yourself without any further justification of your position (that recommends 2 merits to rank up .. oh my, I have a hard time keeping a straight face, here...
).
2) Distribute sMerit, at least sometimes randomly (it's called liquidity people)
You could be correct that either merit sources need to be increased and/or their receipt of smerits. There could be some advantages to random distribution, but I am thinking that theymos would not want to go anywhere near "random" distribution because "random" distribution would likely bring back some account farming and shilling problems that were intended to be addressed and reduced by the merit system that was adopted and implemented.
Good point, but realize that random distributions on small amounts would be so widely spread out that companies could not reliably bank on randomly getting Merit. But I failed to say something like 5% random distribution. Such a small amount would not be something business could trust to make money but would add liquidity to the system and be a small hedge against the current system potential (is that better?) failure.
O.k. fine. You provided some further specifications regarding levels to which you consider some random smerit distribution to be put into practice. It could be possible that theymos could implement such a system by either algorith or manually from time to time. I don't see anything stopping him from doing it, besides the fact about whether he believes such a distribution (or system of distribution) would help to achieve any objective or to seem to come with a cost that is greater than any benefit that it could expect to achieve. I tentatively believe that he would conclude that such a randomness would be counter-productive in terms of various goals and measures that he is attempting to achieve through the direction of the merit system that he has already chosen to implement.
3) Distribute Merit to some active (not just old) accounts (who says tenure is the only way to find people who should be have enough Merit points to give away?)
I think that activity level was always part of the consideration for which members would receive merit source status, but a central aspect of the whole new system is to move away from pure activity level for ranking up, so it is difficult to figure out what you are getting at exactly, Forward_Thinking, with regard to your suggestion here.
I was not aware activity was considered. I didn’t see that in the explanation documents. But if that was the case, than great.
In OP and perhaps in one or two other subsequent posts by theymos that came soon after January 24.
I help organizations design interventions like this Merit system and the designers here failed and the result is that this system is are chocking off an institution.
Good for you. But merely because you have experience in the field does not mean that you are the smartest person in the room,
Really?
Yes, really. Appeals to status and/or authority tend to NOT be very convincing assertions, as I already attempted to explain in my earlier response related to this matter.
nor does it mean that you have presented ideas that are compelling for someone like theymos... even though in the end, it is possible that theymos might recognize some value in some of your suggestions - but seems that you got some of the presumptions wrong too, which seems to undermine a degree of any value that may have been present in some of your suggestions.
Can you be more specific about which presumptions I’ve gotten wrong?
I think that I have said enough. It is up to you to fix your arguments and your presentation, if you want to continue this argument or just keep your arguments and justifications the same.
I don’t see those pointed out, just a bunch of finger pointing about my word choice and your guessing about what I’m thinking and BTW, you are now guessing at what theymos is thinking – I’m seeing a pattern.
Again, I have no burden to prove my points. You are the one making assertions about the merit system being inadequate or broken, so you have the burden of production of evidence and persuasion by logic. If you think that my criticisms of your previous assertions are inadequate, then just continue to make them.. that is your choice, and I am just telling you that I am not convinced... but who the fuck cares what I think because I am neither theymos or anyone who has his ear. I am merely another member responding to what I perceive to be your mostly nonsubstantiated points.
I literally run into almost NO ONE who uses BitcoinTalk anymore unless I find those people on here directly. Wow. That's sad.
The place is dying on the vine? Do you have some actual statistics for this rather than your supposed anecdotal life experiences?
Yes. I am Al Gore. I both invented and own the Internet. Let me just look that up for you real quick and I will report back. Oh here it is…it says…why do you think I would have access to that data. Hmmm. Does that answer your question?
Yes. You sufficiently responded to my assertion, which was that you are making claims and spouting out opinions without data.... so you can say any fucking thing that you want, but it is not going to carry much weight if it is not based on facts, merely opinion. Furthermore, you are trying to make light of the idea with your dumbass "Al Gore" proclamation and suggest that it is not possible to provide evidence, when it is within your grasp to provide at least some evidence for your claims... rather than just meandering out there with "pie in the sky" fantastical claims.
Don't judge me based on this account. I lost access to my 2013 account one because I hid from the market in 2014 and for some reason that means I'm not allowed to use that account anymore (another great decision fellas), but for the record, I've been in crypto since 2013 and this place is the best archive of what is now the history of crypto.
O.k. Fair enough that you have additional experiences beyond your Forward_Thinking account, but again seems to be an unnecessary appeal to status, when your presented ideas remain lacking. No?
You are confusing the word “status” with “credibility.”
I don't think so. I understand the difference between the two words, and I am purposefully choosing which words to use. In other words, there is no accident with my word choice, even though you seem inclined to want to get caught up in the weeds and to get off topic by suggesting that I don't understand my own word choice? Go figure? In essence, I am merely using different words to explain a concept. Have you ever heard of the fallacy "appealing to authority" or "appealing to status?" In part, you have been engaging in such a fallacy to pump up your own skills and experiences in order to commit a logical fallacy to expect that we should give you a break because you are a supposed expert.
Evidence of years of experience is a perfectly reasonable way to determine one’s credibility.
Who gives a ratt's ass? If you are such an expert, then show it with substance rather than describing your supposed resume and then failing to deliver actual evidence to support your assertions.
This Merit system is turning Bitcointalk from a university into a library. This should be a place of knowledge exchange, not the National Archives. But my voice doesn't count because I only have like 15 Merit and some artificially low "rank."
Again, you are making an anecdotal assessment regarding what bitcoin talk is becoming, so if you have some more convincing statistic or links then that might be helpful to support your point. I will agree with you that your voice does not count for too much if you are not generating many merits and you retain low rank; however, if you make really good points backed by evidence, then that could help you to become more convincing and perhaps even cause some members to send some merits in your direction.
As I’ve said in many other posts, data will clearly answer these questions. If you happen to have this data that you somehow believe is easy to come by…send it my way.
Yes. You have admitted several times that you are assuming data that you do not have, and you are not really providing any substitute data to support your arguments either. Sometimes when there is not enough data, then you can take data that you know and make reasonable inferences from the data, and you are not even doing that... admittedly, you have nothing but pure opinion and speculation.
“then that could help you to become more convincing and perhaps even cause some members to send some merits in your direction.” … thank you. You have given me hope in a dark dark world that one day I too can have Merit points. Look…this is not about me. This is not about you. This is about a system that impacts thousands of people day. And although you don’t value my education, years of experience, doesn’t matter. People are people. You build a barrier and people go away. That’s what the masses do. They act like water and erosion. They find the path of least resistance.
O.k. fair enough if you are merely referring to the merit system in general and without personal motivations. So, yeah, perhaps I was off topic to suggest that you could focus yourself a bit better and perhaps earn some merits.
I have also addressed your contention that you are striving to have a better forum, and some of those goals seem to be whatever is articulated by theymos to be a better forum, which is to cut down on farmed accounts and shit posts, which seems to be helped by the merit system. Your assertion that the masses of the public is scared away seems to be a feature rather than a bug, and there is insufficient evidence in your claim that "good people" are being excessively screened out.
See my other posts on this topic...
I don't even feel any kind of need to look at any of your other posts, because you have presented enough not backed up points within this one post.
Because you don’t actually care what I have to say. That much is clear.
I care about what you have to say, but you have not really said much, it seems.
You just didn’t like me poking at some system that granted you and your friends all this new power. I get it.
Maybe this is the essence of your claim that somehow I am personally biased, so I am expending so much energy to respond to you in order to defend this system? But again you are attempting to assert biaseness from me, and I have no burden to defend the system... all I am doing is responding to your ongoing lack of criticism and failures/refusals to meet your own evidentiary and logical burdens as the one who is proposing that the merit system is inadequate.
People love power and they fear the loss of it.
your devolving further and further down the rabbit hole of nonsense with this remark.
you guys have walled in the castle. Why not just create a super fancy private section for your buddies instead of killing this place for the public?
You could be correct that there is a bit of a move towards weeding out some of the nonsense of the public while retaining value of already good members and allowing new members from the public to rank up. Such a move towards screening members or causing more requirements does not completely remove the public aspect of the forum because regular peeps and even low ranking members are completely free to read posts and to post in a large majority of the forum. Of course, the more access that you want to higher ranking members and the greater credibility that you want, then you need to figure out ways to contribute sufficient value that causes inspiration from other members to send you merit(s).
Yes…but how did the higher ranking member get there? They started out with no rank.
Get a fucking grip!!! The merit system has changed. The previous standards caused peeps to rank up under the old standards. The new system sets new standards. Your assertion that you wished that the old system were in place is water under the bridge. I doubt that theymos is going to throw the whole new merit system out and go back to the old system, so you are wishing for a matter that seems highly unlikely and it does not even matter very much about what we say about it... what matters is evidence of whether the new system is moving the forum closer or further away from its objectives, and you have not provided any evidence beyond nearly pure complaining... complaining in and of itself is not evidence.
So, by slamming the door to new people, this system has effectively stop accepting immigrant. It’s a walled off country. A VERY extreme solution to the spam problem. Just turn off email from anyone without a pre-approved account. I’ve done that. I got so much spam to one address I flipped the switch. It’s all spam unless I whitelist it. I’ve missed some important emails that way on that account.
more argument that does not have evidence in support of it, no?
You are not a lost cause, yet, Forward_Thinking. If you figure out ways to improve your post quality, and maybe not to harp so much on negative forum administrative things and go out into the forum and perhaps talk about bitcoin or some other topic that is of interest to you and contribute some value, then maybe after the passage of some time, other members will begin to recognize your various contributions to the forum and to send merits into your direction. Good luck.
It’s not about me. I didn’t write a letter to the BitcoinTalk Elders saying “please grant me Merit” I’m just saying what I’m seeing because I care.
Great!
Regarding this merit system matter, I am sure that theymos is going to continue to assess how it is playing out and to figure out the extent to which he believes it needs to be tweaked here and there. It is likely that tweaks need to be made, as you suggest, but they are likely not either obvious nor simple as your post seems to argue.
You are still assuming a lot. The real problem is unlike your assumption that a viable option is to just wait and see, I am sure that people are filling finding answer to their questions in Telegram, on Twitter, on Reddit, and Medium and all the other sources because that’s what the barrier has done. It’s given more power to the alternative information sources. Time is not on BitcoinTalk’s side with this issue. But I guess we will just have to wait and see – fine by you, not fine by me.
Any of us is free to go to those other places if we want, so does not seem to be a problem if some members of the public chose to go to those other places. It seems to me that there was some issues with the forum regarding too many peeps coming here, but maybe since the price of bitcoin and other cryptos have gone down, then perhaps that influx of new members has gone down too, merely based on BTC and crypto price dynamics?
