Topic: Merit sources should be increase in no. (Read 1142 times)

I want to be useful and help in cleaning up this forum and recently I started to report all instances of violation of the rules. I still learn to recognize posts so that I don't report hastily to not add unneeded work to moderators.

I often see posts that I call "universal" because they are written in such a way that they match different themes and different subforums but of course they are not entirely about and sometimes completely off topic. At first, I did not notice this, but as I read, I began to recognize these posts.

I spend much more time reading this forum than posting because although I am not a novice in crypto, I am a new member and would not want to make a mistake by neglecting or not knowing the rules here. The same goes for post reporting, a good tutorial would be useful.

My accuracy is 100% so far, but I am afraid to report these posts about which I mentioned earlier because the moderator may not recognize them as spam because sometimes they are well written only not on the subject. I would not want to expose myself to any problems.

You know what they say, doing too much is worse than doing just enough.

Many times, I think it's not one person responsible for that many accounts.  People have posted many times that they get office mates, friends, and family involved in signature campaigns, and my guess is that there are likely whole teams of people cranking out shitposts by the hundreds--daily. 

If you live in a 3rd world country where a week's earnings in a campaign can feed a family for a month, it makes sense that this is going to happen.  It's got to be the easiest job in the world to write idiotic nonsense posts about how bitcoin has a bright future, is increasing day by day, and we can earn big profits by investing.  I read that crap constantly. 

Even if my theory of campaign farms isn't correct, there are obviously individuals doing several campaigns/bounties with alt accounts and it happens very frequently.  They're the ones who get caught with alts in a single campaign and for plagiarizing content.  It's a huge problem on bitcointalk, and the longer you're here the more you'll see it.  Pay particular attention to how many posts sound very similar.  There's very little original thought happening in sections like Economics and Bitcoin Discussion.

Actually, I have noticed that my sMerit is refreshed a month after I use it.  So as long as I am spending it daily, I have new sMerit every day. 

It doesn't all come in one chunk at a certain time of the month.

Again, I think you get me wrong. I don't want to ignore your post at all. I just learned to snip posts if are not needed for further discussion. I thought that we have misunderstood and that is why I snipped part of your reply. This time I left all your answers visible.

I agree with you that I don't know how big farming accounts problem is on BTT and I think nobody knows exact figures, we can only guess. I have seen topic were a farmer was caught with 200 accounts. This is just hard to believe. How much time do you need to post on this accounts and manage them if you are in bounty campaigns? This can't be one person only a group of people.

By doing so you are ignoring my post which was a good advice for newbies. Shame that you people deny the inevitable and live in your own worlds of delusions.

You have no idea of how big the framing rig of accounts is. Still it has decreased with introduction of merit.

It might partially. It depends on how everything goes. I think we might need to give the merit system more time. Its been 3months (??) only?

Snipped your answers because I think you get me wrong. I mean 1 or 2 merits for jr. member and only to award others. If not this merits are gone after some time.

I have already discussed this in other thread because I thought it would be a great idea but high-rank members took me back on the ground when they explained how accounts farming flooded BTT. I didn't realized that scale of farming is so big.

This is a good idea but not for Bitcointalk in the actual state.

I think you percentage above are coming from assumption as the figures are rounded in 5%. Can you provide with actual data then it can be analyzed deeper and more accurate?
From your assumptions, I can not accept the conclusion even you think it is roughly but still better to have actual data.

I dont know if Merit sources should be increased, but certainly better distributed.
For example, in our local section (Portuguese) many users are already without or with few merits and I think in near future we will be stagnant.
Some local members applied to become a Merit source, but without success.

In 8000 post a day I think only 10% of this are meritorous and the rest are shit post. Let's take this one as the percentage of the 8000 posters.
Newbie           — 35%
Jr. Member     — 25%
Member.         — 20%
Sr. Member    — 10%
Hero.               —5%
Legendary      — 5%
Newbie has 35% it's because they're more likely making questions in order to know more on this forum.
And for the Boards this is What I guess for the counts of post per day in percent.
Bitcoin Discussion —20%
Economy                   —20%
Other.                        —15%
Alt Coins                  —30%
Local                         —15%
Why Alt Coins has the biggest percentage because there many bounty hunters and this results for a shit post. I just generalized the boards.  

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80 Merit Source can handle it because not all post are good enough to be merited. Posts are commonly on Alt Coins because even a newbies are participating it. 10% meritorous post and 60% shit post and 20% for spamming.  

merit seems also an interesting topic to be discussed, well I do not know clearly about this merit but now I think it will be good also for me to know more about this merit. I've ever read there are some merit source, if see the data then the source will be nice to be increased for making sure the whole posts are reviewed and evaluated.

Receiving merits like that would mean those people wouuld rank up as well if we follow the same mechanics that sMerit for non-merit source members was given on creation.

It will technically make the system null and void because then merit awarding wold have lesser role.

The newbies are supposed to learn more and not act immediately.

Most people here dont think such. Except shitposter "Great project Sir" gang.

You are correct that his grammar isn't perfect (and neither is yours) but he is easily understood (and so are you), and that's the important point.

I will quite happily overlook some minor spelling and grammar mistakes if your post is worthwhile and I can read it at a normal speed and understand it first time. If, however, I have had to read the first line 4 times and still have no idea what you are trying to say, I'm not wasting any more of my time and you are probably going on ignore.

Excuse me Sir, English is like my 3rd language but how can you discuss about grammar errors when you use "dont" and "cant" "its"? (If i'm not wrong dont has no meaning and "cant" "its" can be used but have a different meaning without the apostrophe)




Anyway, can we find anywhere if some of the  sources are inactive? The projecton for this month is way lower than the sMerit sources cap (keep in mind, they maybe use all the rest of sMerit in this last week!)

I can hand a free tip to anyone wanting merit and thats to use chrome browser for this forum and select English as the primary language and allow it use a dictionary on all your posts.   Every time you post, click preview and it will highlight all the words that got mistakenly misspelt.  

I dont think a grammar check is as easy to do but just correcting the basic mistakes is a good start.    I cant really merit anything that isnt laid out properly or edited out mistakes.   I mean if your post is pure gold then sure it can be over looked some and my writing is definitely not perfect but usually poorly written equates to worthless content unfortunately, its quite simple.   People wont read it nevermind give merit.

Its good news that local boards will have merit sources, so long as its not exploited or has some oversight.

For being a newbie some of the source dont believe in our sudgestion or informations that we've share. Merit is the basis to get into a higher rank. So i just reading some information in this forum to practice and i want to share it for the people in need and also awarded me a merit.

The problem is not with merit sources, or with members holding sMerit to award. The problem is still the time it takes to wade through the rubbish repeated threads, and the unintelligible posts.How many of the people who are whingeing about no merits are on ignore with many of the merit awarders? I think the current system is pretty good and efficient, and posters should understand that the merit system was created to encourage members to create good posts.

I wonder if it would not be a good idea if everyone, depending on their rank, would receive several merits per month to give away. This would certainly increase the amount of merit distributed and everyone would feel fairer. For sure it would be good for new users who can't reward posts they like because they don't have merits. I think that these are lost merits and only wasted time because someone will have to dig up these posts again one time and evaluate them to award them with merits. Which could be already done if a newbie has few merits to give each month.

I agree with this especially in the "Bitcoin Discussion" almost all new threads are the same spam topics like "is bitcoin dead?" or "will bitcoin survive?" something like that. I am pretty sure this is one of the reasons they are cleaning or removing those shit and spam posts in every section of this forum.

Regarding about the OP's request, I don't think it will do any better if you add more number of merit sources. Even though it might look like it is hard for them to look for quality post and give merit to them what I think is hard for them is that they can only see just really few quality posts that deserves merits and we cannot blame them for that reason. These merit sources have undergone application and got accepted because of their capability of finding quality posts based on their own standards and besides they are not the only ones who can send smerits to other members but also us ordinary members.

This is true, you and a couple of other members, award and search for posts. It is simply not enough for 2 million members forum. Majority of posts are not rewarded and that's why people complain. I think merit system should be introduced differently. You have to write quality content, do your best for the forum, to earn merits and rank up but there is no guarantee that you will be finally rewarded. In the future, more merits sources will be available, members learn how to use merit system and the situation should improve.

I don't think every member understands this system properly. They think that every well-written post should earn them merits and after few attempts without an award, they open merit topic because something feels not right to them. With time situation should improve and more posts would be merited. You can try to help your luck and post in different forum sections, in the best time, on the first topic page, add a funny photo, etc. This can help in getting merit but it still depends on luck.

Sometimes the revolution hurts its own children and that's why, we simple users of this forum, have to pay such a high price for getting rid of spam and abusers.

I dont agree with this one, the minimum sendable merit should be 1 and not else. If someone find a post worth more than 1 merit, then they can send more. 1 is more neutral than 2, because there are many posts that deserve 1 merit but not 2 merits in my opinion.

This can be true, maybe than the number of sources is not the problem even if some areas of forum are very low "merited". What do you think than to set the min sMerit sendable up to 2 from 1? (for abuser noting will change, it will help the avarege poster.

No one said that there must be reviewed single post. 80 source is more than enough.
Now look that statistics in reality: From 467 average registration, 465 is potential spammer/unusable for forum. From 8572 post, 8300 is spam. And from 345 topic, 320 is spam too. Just look titles of threads, you'll believe my words.

Yes, I agree. It's like finding good ICO to invest. 

I've found one just a couple of hour ago, it's a very interesting post, very helpful and I think worthy of receiving merits. I'd like to merit it but I have 0 sendable merits. Here's the post, Where the Merit Pours?

You must be joking. The number of shitposts in this forum is so huge that merit sources would actually have to be ninjas to actually be able to merit all worthy posts and not overlook any.

I have no idea what you mean by "scale-able" in this context though.


Merit sources are increasing. There is a method to apply as merit source as well. Also theymos has advised local board posters to apply as merit sources so that people who post in the local threads will also have a chance to earn some merits.

True the distribution of merit sources patrolling is having a lower "exposure" - but only time can tell how it will go.

I think you have a valid point from the point of view that 80 people will be tasked to view that number of posts per day. Not considering the fact that they also have other commitments on the forum to attend to. I for myself know that I believe that I have some number very merit worthy posts, since the merit system was implemented, however my merits gained so far was when I directly and deliberately  applied/posted into one of those threads that were awarding merits for quality posts. Other than that, I would still be overlooked.

of course, looking at what you have in your profile sending the merit is never an issue, is quite a huge task as you said to locate quality post within the Bitcoin forum, the community is quite a large one and is very much scalable.

Crypto society is not another uptopian or cyberpunk society. It is the same as the normal society that you have grown up in. If you mean to say that because of signature campaigns and bounties in this forum - there is an increase in price of crypto then my friend you are grossly mistaken. This would be a good topic of disucussion but this is not the place nor time for that.

Bounty "politics" will not change - and even changing then will bring up a lot of uproar from the shitposter mobs in the forum. So get used to it and stop complaining.

The "bounty hunting" (lol) scumbag merit-hunters dont deserve a single merit on any of their posts. Let them make half-English vomit posts and be a cry-baby if then cant accept and move on.

It doesn't mean that the forum should lessen their rules to allow spammers ranking up and spreading their shits around the forum, getting money from campaigns and get out, eventually leaving the forum as a open-landfill.

come on my friend. almost everyone here want crypto society to grow. because without growing society the price of bitcoin will not grow. the only chance to reduce the number of posts is changing bounty program politics on the forum.

It doesn't matter to increase merit sources or not if those sources perform well. Saying perform well, by which I mean those sources keep rewarding merits to only deserved threads, not shitty ones. If they keep doing their good Quality Assessment Tasks, only constructive users can rank up, regardless of how many sources existed in the forum.
It doesn't matter with them.

Dont consider the merit sources alone, also there is a secondary source from those they give merit to.    So its an ongoing economy with only slight inflation in the merit but so long as the forum is gaining more members actually the merit source only needs to stay in line with that population growth in order to be balanced.

Its probably true that if you are around at the time merit came into existence you actually had a much easier time then people who come later after many people have nearly exhausted their supply.   I'll probably apply to be a merit source at some point because I do look out for original interesting or informative comments, especially from the lower ranks.    I might give merit to high rank but probably only if they really make me laugh or something, where as if a very new member distinguishes themselves I would certainly reach across to make sure they get merit.
   I usually only give 1 merit because really it has to be many posts or at least a good poster should be noticed by many people.

It's not the number of merits. Increasing the number of sMerits won't do a thing if there's no meritorious post to be merited or if the threads are filled with spam posts. What OP may have been trying to say is that the current number of Merit sources may not be able to cover the threads and grant merit to the posts which deserve it since there are numerous posts in a day. If there were more merit sources, then it may be possible to find more posts to be merited among the threads.

So how does that matter? If they dont make quality posts then are not going to be awarded merits - thus they wont rank up. Having a high activity but zero merits is what is going to render their shitposting farming attempts useless. One of the reasons why merit system is Successful

Irrelevant because BUMPs are definitely not meritable. Also new bumps, if done, then previous bumps need to be deleted and there are restrictions about bumping a thread - once per 24hours.
So how does that matter at all to Merit system?

Because of people like you who make comments without having a basic understanding. Your post would be a shit-post and worth getting a demerit (if it existed) if you ask me.

Hello Kim Ji Won,

Which user did you want to discuss with?
If the user is diagran, I recommend you to snip all unused contents after clicking quote button, except the contents of diagran you wanted to discuss. Or you can snip all the contents like I did in my thread.
It is simple tip, but will help you to make your thread a little bit user-friendly, and help to protect my fingers (with your old thread, my finger hurted a bit when scrolling my computer mouse up and down to read).

Notes: The thread like yours are very popular, abundant in altcoin boards, but I don't think you should publish sort of annoying threads in Meta section, which is one of the most interesting, serious boards in bitcointalk forum.

Unfortunately merit system has failed at this part because:

1) Some people are not spamming for signature campaigns. They are increasing post count to reach junior members so that the limits regarding interval between posting and those related to Pms allowed per day could be removed. They still do not care about quality of the posts.

2) Another category is of people who are here to bump their own projects and thread and they drop some shit posts in between to remain safe.

No doubt, we see some good posts because of merit system but number of shit posts has not reduced.

Thanks for your opinion about my posts. I am visiting Altcoins section when I need info about projects I am already invested in to check the latest news and sometimes discuss with people about latest updates or development. What I don't understand is that people are quoting me very often and engage in discussion with me but nobody awards this posts. If you quote and ask questions then you found my content valuable and worth your reply so why not merit such post?

You are right that I stuck to meta section because from the time I have registered merits are the most discussed topic on the forum and I just fill obligated to follow these topics. I thought that this will be not easy to get 250 merits for Senior member rank but now this seems to be not possible at all when I think about this. Thanks to you I have my first merit and let's hope that I will see a snowball effect. I have to be a dreamer to not lose my faith totally.


Merit is for sure fighting spam especially all newbies and junior member accounts because we have to post quality answers to even dream to rank up some day. I am not so sure if merit stops higher rank users from spamming because they are comfortable with their high rank like full member and when they join a bounty and there is a time frame to post so many posts nothing can stop them from posting burst answers just to fulfill requirements of bounty campaign. Ranking up doesn't matter in such a situation so much. Burst posting for bounty and quality posting later on with no bounty requirements pressure for ranking up.

I think we are still in an experimental phase, give to the forum another 3-6 months and probably the merit sources will be increased.

I'm running out of sMerit so that's all I can give for now. I hope you accumulate more merit so that you can help other low ranking members who are having a hard time ranking up but really deserves it instead of those shitposters who only rank up because of merit farming. I always encounter you to most of the threads that I post in so I can say that you're an active member/merit source and given the chance that you can have more sMerit, you will surely help those deserving members.

In this past week I got some merited post and it was march 22 2018 post " https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.32905492" see that post, I don't expect this one of my post was merited, and yeah I am trying to post some constructive post also but when I see many users didn't give some attention about their post. It was sad because if no one can merit them the circulation of merit will be low or going to stuck in one user and also lack of sendable merit is another problem.

And can I ask about the merit thing, what happen if the sendable merit were not use? Some other users are ignoring this system.

Why don’t new members qualify for receiving merit? Your argument is invalid. A lot of my merits have been spent on Members and lower ranks.

For the record, I also merit posts that I feel took a lot of time and effort to create, even if I don’t agree with what is being said. Whatever I find as being contributive overall is usually where I spend my merits.

Most of your posts seem to be in Meta, Off Topic (and some cheesy "Bitcoin Discussion" topics), and Altcoin boards. I think Altcoin boards are quite lacking in merits compared to the amount of posts in them and I don't know if there is a good solution to that. I loathe visiting those boards because most of the content seems to be spammy or scammy. I also don't want to advise you to post in other boards because you should do that only if you have something to contribute, not to hunt for merits.

I merited this post as it seems to be a reasonable observation. Other than that I think you just need to keep reading, learning, don't think about merits and ranks and number of letters, post when you have something new and meaningful to say. There is no magic formula.

I am a member of Bitcointalk from the last day of January which is exactly 3 months so I think this is a good time for the summary which will present a viewpoint of the new member of this forum. I have registered exactly when merit system was introduced so this topic caught my attention. I have read many merit threads and I realised one thing, that I have to write high-quality posts and give my best to achieve a higher rank in a reasonable time frame. From the beginning, I tried to write posts with minimum 100 letters in the text, wrote 30 posts (3 per week), never spammed, etc. I was quoted, people asked me questions, answered questions, tried to be helpful but still, I haven't received even one merit. I have seen in merit topic many times that high-rank members advise to newbies like me not to spam and write quality posts to get merits. My example shows clearly that this is not enough. I invite you to view my profile and evaluate my posts. I will accept criticism with understanding.

Well, after applying Newton's First Law of Laziness it's going to be like 12000 I think...

Let's not forget that the 18000 merit is actually 36000 merit once you factor in complete distribution and sMerit generation.

There is no need to review every single post. When I see something like this:



I can skip the other 8 posts while being quite certain that I didn't miss much.

And theymos is adding new sources so your thread is quite redundant.

If I am not wrong you will get the charge back after 1 month, not on the same day but when you spent it. For example if you spend 5 smerit on 05/04/2018 and 10 on 15/04/2018 you will get 15 sMerit but not on 1st May 2018, you will get 5 on 05/05/2018 and 10 on 15/05/2018

It's only my opinion and reaction to a certain post you can actually have a look why did I write such things like that
Thanks for reviewing. And yes, there's still no post of me that deserves a Merit (Just Being Honest)

One possibility is that you have been using up your initial sMerits which also (unfortunately) count against your source merit. If you were actually caught misusing your source merits, I don't think the punishment would be a reduction in source merits.

Let us not adjust on the basis of new members registering on the forum, for all we know some if not most of those accounts are alt accounts of some users. If we increase Merit Sources in order to give more sMerits to the new users I don't think it will be a good idea as the quality of post would be lower because the chances of as having merits is bigger once we increase the number of Merit Sources.

Also the process of being a Merit Source is a tough one we cannot rush the process as the admins need to see the applications one by one, they need to see that the member is worthy of becoming one of the forum's merit sources. Members need to be screened and we cannot give the power of regenerating merits into the wrong hands.

I just glanced over your recent posts to see if I could leave you merit for something.  Here's what stuck out to me. 

Guess you're right. The common problem here is that the new members can't achieve those requirements. They don't qualify on getting Merit, but as we can also see that some people can do this right but they've been put onto ignore in their past days by some Merit Givers. If only there are some people who are willing to spend their precious time on finding those quality posts and give it to the Merit Sources then the distribution of Merits would be easy.

Like me, I still am not a quality poster but I'll just keep on posting until someone can finally realize that I've been trying my best here. So I think no need for whining, spamming or even creating such a foolish thread. Just enjoy on posting and have it their way of they give you some Merit or not.

I sometimes spend hours trying to find posts to leave merit.  Trying to find intelligent, helpful posts around here isn't the easiest thing to do.  I don't think lack of merit is the issue, at least for me.

No Digaran, I don't want to say that you are stupid or insult you in any other way. I just asked if you are sure because I thought that each merit source should be informed about everything that is needed to work as merit source and about merit system.  

This is:
-how much merits you get,
-how to award members,
-etc.  

You were not sure why you get not as many merits as other sources that let me think that maybe you are a random member who thinks that he is a merit source and in reality, he gets few merits together with his high rank when merit system was introduced.

That is why I asked my question and from what user TheUltraElite says every merit source was fully informed.


Once again never wanted to insult anybody and I never said that you are stupid Digaran.

Peace.

very good discussion.
I also strongly agree with your opinion. but to solve this problem, we must study deeply so as not to blame and mislead others.
and together looking for a solution

Are you sure that you are not farming accounts or an alt of somebody else? because you seem sure that I'm not sure if I'm a merit source or not. why should we care what you think about the merit source selection process? have I benefited by being a source other than making don and his birdies as my enemies? should I be the one to blame if you are the one who is not sure what he is talking about?

From what you see, what is it that you can see in my post above indicating of my ignorance about merit sources? you didn't check my merit stats to see that I have sent out more than my initial 86 sMerits and my own 36 sMerits. you just wanted to say that I'm stupid and don't know what I'm talking about.

LOL, Merit sources get their sMerits refilled every month so that they can distribute them for that month.

A stupid question indeed. In fact you need to learn more about the merit system first. The Merit sources are in the forum among us and those who are merit sources were, when selected during initial implementation were informed by theymos. Others who apply as merit sources wait for their applications to be responded to by theymos. While digaran themselves publicly said about being a merit source, you can cross check this by looking at the merit stats here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats

and this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat

I don't know how much merits as a source you should get but are you sure that you are a merit source?

Sorry maybe this is a stupid question but from what I see you don't know too much about merit sources so how could you be one of them?

I think there should be invitation via PM or something with an explanation when you are chosen as merit source and you seem to have no idea about this.

I have only received 50 sMerits to distribute from the day one as a merit source. fella now so far I have received 2 sMerits in April. not all sources get equal amounts of sMerit. some humble members like BTCforJoe distributed more than me. merit source is just a name, I'm not really helping. I don't know if I have misused my source merits for not getting more or I'm just not trusted. I don't merit my friends like other sources.

I don't know if we need more merit sources depends how numbers will go this month (on March we got -30% sMerit from start to end) but for sure we need a better distrubition, some source use merit only on one topic or few topics.

I agree with TMAN. As most of the posts are shitposts, some merit sources can do the job.

But I think in local sessions we still have a problem.

I was taking a look at zentdex's Where the Merit Pours? and found this image


There are clearly local board with lack of sources. My local board for example, Portuguese, has zero merit sources. Turkish, Russian and Indonesian has plenty merit sources, much more than the other boards.

I will try to make some better analysis of my local board merit with the merit.txt data in future.

80 sources/8000 posts = 100 posts a day.. give it a chance to work before suggesting any changes as a thinly veiled way of asking for merits

I am also agree with your opinion,but how can we decide without seeing them.Atleast we have enough resource ,so we can atleast review all of them properly.After that we can decide ,it is good post or not.

I agree with TMAN - don't increase the merits, but reduce the number of posts. After all, this is why the merit system was introduced.

of the 8000 posts 90% of them will be shit, so I think its fine as it is fella.

Hello everyone,

Average registrations per day:    466.93
Average posts per day:    8571.87
Average topics per day:    345.21
Link to source:https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats


There are only 80 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 17800 sMerit per 30 day,
here is link:https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources


Hence,It is not feasible for 80 people(merit sources) to review such(8571) no. post on a daily basis,
So, this is my humble request to the moderator/administrator of the forum that there is need to increase the no. Of merit sources.