Topic: [Merit Source Application] bill gator (Read 513 times)

I sent merit to the posts you highlighted as being good posts that deserve merit that lack merit. I think some of them are a little old for a merit source application. I also noticed there has been a long period of inactivity while making very few posts.

I would support your application if you can show that you are consistently active over several months and can continue to send merit to good posts.

I don't know if getting that much support will influence their decision for you or not, but so far no new merit source have been added to it. I've seen a few appocation so far on the meta board but none have been confirmed to be accepted as a new merit source. However I think it would be great if some new merit source were added to replace the currently inactive source. I support your application and good luck with this application.

I am not a merit source, but i don't think Theymos would make a user a merit source without first asking them, so for users who never applied to be a merit source, i am pretty sure Theymos first of all sent a PM asking them if they would like to take up the voluntary 'job', then if they said yes, they became merit sources and if no, then they don't. Correct me if i am wrong The Pharmacist.
Happy you are back, and not planning to leave the forum for good, of course we can have a lot going on in real life to make us inactive for a while, i can only hope for quality users who have left the forum for such reasons, that they get to solve their problems and come back to the community and start contributing again, exactly where they left of.

Goodluck on your application bill.

bill gator, I really appreciate and respect your contribution to this forum.
Because of members like you this forum gets on its value and quality.
Therefore, I fully support your merit source application.
Obviously you have great support from the forum community as well and now it all depends on theymos.
It seems to me that he recently promoted a new merit sources, which means you will probably have to wait until theymos decide to promote a new merit sources on this forum.
I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Good luck! 

Just out of curiosity, did you just log in one day and notice that you were a merit source or was there some level of communication about it beforehand?


I don't spend my time doing anything that I don't want to be doing; Spending time on this forum again is an active decision I made, because I missed that part of my life and I've grown enough as a person that I believe I can avoid the same pitfalls.

Leaving the forum permanently was never my intention, but there was some lessons to learn and some life to live outside of the forum before I could feel confident in my ability to be a contributing member.


Thank you for your recognition and support.


I'm applying to become a merit source because meriting quality posts is something that has always been rewarding to me. That's why pugman and I started a Q&A thread/games to reward knowledgeable low-ranking members with merit that they deserve. This is the same reason I sponsored the "Signatureless Campaign", to help prevent spam and give incentive for users to contribute high-quality posts without a typical signature campaign and it is also why I gave out merit to dozens of threads in my "sMerit review" thread. I have been dedicated since the inception of merit to dishing it out to those that deserve it.  


There are plenty of creative ways to dish out merit, and I'm sure those will come into play - but I believe my most typical use for merit would be simply dishing it out to under merited posts during my normal usage of the forum. I may come up with some interesting games or productive ways to reward deserving users, but right now whenever I come across a thread/post that is deserving of merit I have none to give and I simply keep browsing. That situation happens regularly and it's coming at a cost to contributing members.

There is a BPIP Extension that can help you with that; you don't have to learn a new skill. 

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/beta-bpip-extension-user-info-add-on-extension-for-firefox-chrome-et-al-5224821

I really appreciate your courage in putting forward this application for merit source and I've seen alot of effort you've put on together to help merit deserving posts. I also appreciate your years of experience being on the forum since 2014 till date despite your absence for some time but still committed to make impact to  influence the forum till date. Sorry am of little experience once it comes to the forum affairs in general as am barely a year on bitcointalk. I will like to personally ask few questions that relate to your application for merit source.

1. What is your personal conviction that prompted your application for a merit source?

2. If your application is considered, what plan do you have in place towards an effective use of this opportunity?

Thank you.

I wish you good luck in your application.

Indeed he does; the changes/additions he makes to the forum often appear to be out of the blue to those who aren't in his inner circle (and I'm not even sure he has one of those).  Back in 2019 he made merit sources out of a bunch of members who hadn't even applied, me included--and though I'd said in posts prior to that that I didn't want to be a source, I'm glad he tapped me to be one.  The merit system has turned out to be extremely important as a spam-neutering tool as well as a deterrent to account farming.  And since its inception, I've certainly calmed down a lot.

And that was my one and only concern.  Also, in your defense the fact that you didn't abandon the forum altogether says something about what it means to you--and I know it does, because you've told me as much before. 

I'm wondering about the status and number of current merit sources.  I can't help but think that some may have gone inactive since Theymos added the last batch.  On the other hand, I haven't been seeing many threads in Meta complaining about not earning enough merits, so maybe the system is functioning fine.

I was unable to add the entirety of all 10 of my selected posts as quotes in my original post, but they're all there and properly linked; I was forced to learn a new skill: quoting posts from locked topics.

The following error occurred, which is why some were shortened: The message exceeds the maximum allowed length (64000 characters).

I will do some more research on the Husires thread and consider modifying a couple of my selected posts - good thing there's no rush, because this gives me the time to take into account what is being shared with me.

There was a recent update of the merit sources list in July of last year.


I do not know what the circumstances were at the time, but several new merit sources were added without them making an application. For example, LeGaulois:

Originally I had thought theymos' post said "within the last few months", but now that I'm rereading it I can see it says "within the last couple months". I was willing to look at threads up to 3 months old, but that may be a mistake.


Many people have mentioned this and now that I'm rereading theymos' post it does seem to be a requirement that is mentioned - I will update my post to reflect this.


I'll admit I'm rusty, because you make a good point, or a couple, that I've overlooked.


I was completely unaware of this thread's existence, I should have noticed that so many of my selected posts were from a single user and avoided that.
You bring up some valid points that are going to require me to go back to the drawing board and improve my strategy.

Looking at theymos post[1], there are few posts you chosen older than 2 months and you didn't quote any of selected posts. While i know there are some users who ignore that and become merit source, you might want to make some change.

The posts you chosen are good, although there's small concern you chose post which aimed to promote certain company[2]. I don't know how accurate the analysis of smart contract, but it contains some technical inaccuracy such as "decrypt YOUR blockchain activities". In fact, most cryptocurrency doesn't use encryption, but cryptography signature and hash.


Before someone falsely accuse you, you might want to read this thread, https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--5390179. Take note i only mention existence of that thread.

[1] https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28856522
[2] https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/tutorial-how-to-stealback-350-000-smart-contract-malware-analysis-5380640

Do you remember who was added without applying? I wonder what the circumstances would be for something like that to occur.


As I mentioned previously, I am in no rush for a decision and I won't be offended if I get ignored or denied entirely.
It's comforting that so many of you are willing to help me gauge my expectations an timeline.


I appreciate the support, thank you.

Well, you have done well. This is a good approach. When I crossed checked the links, they are well articulated and structured. They are well riched to be merited. Other merit source should also imitate you in another approach to merit active users in the forum.

But my concern is the specification of thread, it would been general so that newbies, Jr members, Members, full members and Hero members and others would have benefited. But that is not withstanding to your decision to merit the listed threads. As for me the application is very good. But I don't think we are the final say on this issue. The admin will give his final judgement but before then, we have given our public opinion. You are good to go with the application.

OP I Think you will wait some days, weeks, months or a year for this application has been handle by theymos. as we all know here many application of merit source last year but did not accepted or rejected by admins. But for now we will wait for the judge if they will accept.
Good luck to your application OP keep up the good work.

Even though majority do quote posts, that's not mandatory as  several members just shared links in their applications like @bill gator did and they were latter approved so all good there.

If I recall correctly it was at the beginning of July 2021, like July 5th or 6th so its been a while. And some of them not even applied for the merit source role but were instead just added.

From what I noticed, theymos usually approves merit source applications in batches and after merit shared drops significantly so good luck @bill gator and arm yourself with patience as it might take some time.

Theymos works in mysterious ways and he has surprised me in the past, so I'm hopeful.


Something tells me a wild LoyceV might appear with that information, maybe if we say his name three times he'll appear.


This is a valid concern, but if it's any consolation I don't plan on going anywhere.
My time away his given me time to reflect and grow as a person, and returning isn't something that I'm doing flippantly or with a short-term goal; I genuinely enjoy spending time on the forum and discussing things that I'm passionate about with (somewhat) like-minded people.

Taking a sabbatical from the forum was a special circumstance that will not be replicated.




I appreciate the support from everyone that has expressed it, that means a lot.

That's good to hear, because I'm not sure Theymos has any plans to add more merit sources anytime soon.  It'd be nice to know when the last time he accepted an application was, aside from what BlackHatCoiner mentioned (and if anyone knows, please share that info).

I've been friendly with you for quite a while, and I have no doubt that you can tell good posts from the typical shitpost written by someone posting for their bounty or whatever.  The only question I have is whether you plan on sticking around and being active enough to be an effective merit source.  You were gone for quite a while if I'm not mistaken. 

Eh?  Not sure what that has to do with someone's ability to discern post quality, but whatever.  You've got my support, Mr. gator.

Welcome back!
I think theymos wants to quote the posts you collect for your source application. I could be wrong.

If I am not wrong then it's been a long time theymos did not make any new merit source. You would be a good one. Hope the man agree with me too. Good luck brother.

That's going to be a difference that we have, but I respect your opinion and appreciate you for sharing it.


You're right about that. Hopefully that doesn't work against me too badly.
I sincerely didn't realize I had chosen multiple posts from a single user, but I should have been more diligent about it.


It's not going to devastate me if I'm unable to become a merit source, but I do appreciate you giving me the heads up about that so I can be prepared if I'm ignored.

Sure, that's what you should have done either way, but I'd prefer including 1-2 if they were objectively better than one that just wasn't merited as much as it should. It's not only Welsh's by the way.

I don't want to be misunderstood; Husires isn't a spammer nor a merit beggar. They're somewhat established and do contribute to the forum. All I'm saying is that if I had to pick 10 posts that deserve merit and have none, I wouldn't have picked more than one of Husires'.

---

In mid-2021, theymos added lots of merit sources, so I doubt you'll get the required attention.

If you'd like a better picture of my merit evaluation, I have included a few topics that have a lot of examples and discussion for exactly that. I generally seek to merit posts that are helpful/informative or contribute something and are under merited.

For convenience, here is a list of posts that were presented to me for review before they had any merit and I decided they were deserving of some -

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/overview-of-bitcointalk-designerssignatureavataretc-last-update-15-aug-2018-1610428 +1 bL4nkcode (Hero Member)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2165225.20 +1 legendster (Hero Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.27916515 +1 0t3p0t (Sr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28760615 +1 Greenkarki (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28938566 +1 Tubsie (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28973074 +1 aoihs00 (Sr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-new-rank-requirements-2818350 +1 purenarcotic (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/storage-advice-for-a-rookie-altcoin-gatherer-2637321 +1 purenarcotic (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/please-help-transaction-stuck-ether-2761821 +1 purenarcotic (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/what-is-an-nep5-address-and-where-do-i-get-one-2490505 +1 purenarcotic (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28928353 +1 Minnie1928 (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28971105 +1 krishnaverma (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.26598119 +1 Heyyyrenz (Sr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--2661881 +1 Heyyyrenz (Sr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28277898 +1 mithrim (Full Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.24498455 +1 mithrim (Full Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28857493 +1 yojodojo21 (Full Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29113042 +1 Canis Majoris (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.23347376 +1 khufuking (Sr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29046618 +1 Minnie 1928 (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29028319 +1 Minnie 1928 (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.27552778 +1 Wolfman15 (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28741220 +1 Heisenberg_Hunter (Newbie)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28221621 +1 Coins4Days (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29166442 +1 reck1ess (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29119051 +1 WiPro (Hero Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--2838308 +1 WiPro (Hero Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29194693 +1 kryptorian (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/comprehensive-guide-to-bitcointalk-newbie-friendly-calculator-and-infographic-2534500 +1 iasenko (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29239681 +1 Canis Majoris (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29364337 +1 Canis Majoris (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29372033 +1 Canis Majoris (Jr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29032142 +1 Alone055 (Newbie)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29212397 +1 supermine (Hero Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29315091 +1 supermine (Hero Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28982933 +1 supermine (Hero Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.27494714 +1 Pan Troglodytes (Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29347865 +1 walterw (Sr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29357320 +1 siddartha1492 (Sr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29120096 +1 siddartha1492 (Sr. Member)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.29353838 +1 junoreactor (Full Member)

Stats from this thread -
Total Posts Reviewed: 461
Total Posts Merited: 59
Total sMerit Given: 59
Total Users Merited: 34

Granted, these were all evaluated years ago and we have all grown and matured in our usage of the merit system.


I agree with you that there are posts in that thread that are more deserving of merit, but those posts (like Welsh's) have already received an abundance of merit. I am interested in awarding merit to posts that I believe to be woefully under merited; a post with 0 merit that deserves 1 merit is endlessly more under merited than a post with 10 that deserves 15, but maybe that is a perspective born out of merit-scarcity.


I was not aware that I had done that, to be honest - I was mostly concerned about the quality of the post and how under merited I deemed it to be when finalizing my list.

Husires is a good contributing member of our forum, from what I can tell, and is likely on the fast-track to ranking up to Legendary.

Don't teach me how to make decisions

I SAID. Bill Gator is good guy. And I am support this "Merit Source Application" because he is not troll like naim027

We could have a better picture of what you evaluate if you didn't just select topics, solely. For example, in topic=5386927 there have been more merit-worthy posts than the OP, as far as I can judge.

Your choices aren't bad (although I disagree with Husires being selected 6 times), but neither good as a whole.

This is not how you vote people - in general.

I have not seen a single bad word from you, so I vote for you