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Topic: Merit stat & all transactions more than 40 Merits - page 2. (Read 1571 times)

Vod
legendary
Activity: 3668
Merit: 3010
Licking my boob since 1970
To date 179 posts have been given 50 merits by one person at one time.

Interestingly, there was only an additional 40 posts when I dropped the threshold to 40 merit or higher - 219 people.
hero member
Activity: 536
Merit: 513
Although I agree that we need more Merit sources, it can't necessarily be concluded from this. Many users* distributed Merits to their alt-accounts, and this should end when their initial free Merits dry up.

* From the Top-merited users, recent merit, many users have red trust for Merit trading (from the first 10: 452: pitipawn, 283: RichDaniel, 251: saulzaents and 151: niknik1966), and many are suspected to have traded Merit (such as Chachacoin17).

Another suggestion as what to look for: Accounts that suddenly received the required amount of merit to rank up. Like this one that took only 13 days to get the 150 merit required to go from Full Member to Sr Member. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.31426338
It's even more suspicious if they stop getting new Merit right after they've reached the rank requirement.

Yes a certain percentage should be abuses, and I was trying to extract some rule to distinguish them.
In addition to focusing on the transaction with precisely necessary amount for rank up, and red trust, the pitipawn's merit history provides another rule; almost all the threads s/he was merited are "(Deleted/Off-limits/Ignored)".

I have no idea how easy that is to write a script to spot,

At this moment these rules are checked by human, maybe there is some nice way to code.
member
Activity: 350
Merit: 16
~bitcoin enthusiast~
Wow! Nice work, you must be one familiar with Data analysis. I didn't know that it is available for public access. That what I call quality post.
legendary
Activity: 3290
Merit: 16489
Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021
In total 85524 sMerits have been sent.
This number is much larger than 11975 sMerits, which are currently created by 57 merit sources per month.
The sMerits created by 57 merit sources are not sufficient and most of used sMerits were initially assigned ones.
This fact suggests that we need more merit sources and/or more sMerits per source.
Although I agree that we need more Merit sources, it can't necessarily be concluded from this. Many users* distributed Merits to their alt-accounts, and this should end when their initial free Merits dry up.

* From the Top-merited users, recent merit, many users have red trust for Merit trading (from the first 10: 452: pitipawn, 283: RichDaniel, 251: saulzaents and 151: niknik1966), and many are suspected to have traded Merit (such as Chachacoin17).

Another suggestion as what to look for: Accounts that suddenly received the required amount of merit to rank up. Like this one that took only 13 days to get the 150 merit required to go from Full Member to Sr Member. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.31426338
It's even more suspicious if they stop getting new Merit right after they've reached the rank requirement.
hero member
Activity: 2576
Merit: 883
Freebitco.in Support https://bit.ly/2I9BVS2
That is the one important thing to start creating a standard for merit reward so every member will be responsible for their reward to other member. There is a thread for beginning to create a standard posting : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merits-how-for-criteria-guidance-of-good-post-and-also-how-for-merits-pool-3010719

I think you failed your own criteria here. This is completely off-topic in this thread.
member
Activity: 294
Merit: 13
This approach, listing up all transactions of large amount of merits, should be regarded as the first step, as it omits cases such as multiple transactions with e.g. 20 merits between the same users.  
It is also helpful to check users who send merits back and forth among particular closed users, which are most likely merit farmers.  
To detect such abuses, we need more careful investigations by taking into account not only sent merit amount but also user data.

Another suggestion as what to look for: Accounts that suddenly received the required amount of merit to rank up. Like this one that took only 13 days to get the 150 merit required to go from Full Member to Sr Member. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.31426338

I have no idea how easy that is to write a script to spot, but it is an obvious giveaway.


That is the one important thing to start creating a standard for merit reward so every member will be responsible for their reward to other member. There is a thread for beginning to create a standard posting : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merits-how-for-criteria-guidance-of-good-post-and-also-how-for-merits-pool-3010719
member
Activity: 294
Merit: 13
This is good data to go for further step, creating standardized high posting. I need to explore further these data to classify standardized posting to sharpen a real high quality posting and the objectivity. If this standard available, at least below can be served :
1. Increasing the objectivity of merit sending
2. Build and increase the accountability and responsibility to send merit
3. Help newbie particularly and also some member to train good and high quality posting, so this is some kind of training and lesson for this forum.

hero member
Activity: 2576
Merit: 883
Freebitco.in Support https://bit.ly/2I9BVS2
This approach, listing up all transactions of large amount of merits, should be regarded as the first step, as it omits cases such as multiple transactions with e.g. 20 merits between the same users.  
It is also helpful to check users who send merits back and forth among particular closed users, which are most likely merit farmers.  
To detect such abuses, we need more careful investigations by taking into account not only sent merit amount but also user data.

Another suggestion as what to look for: Accounts that suddenly received the required amount of merit to rank up. Like this one that took only 13 days to get the 150 merit required to go from Full Member to Sr Member. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.31426338

I have no idea how easy that is to write a script to spot, but it is an obvious giveaway.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 13
1. would-be exchange between alt accounts
2. transaction at early stage of her/his sMerit history when s/he did not know how merits are rare / how many merits are reasonable to send for each good post
3. merit for very old posts e.g. by satoshi

1. That is about 70-80 % of these cases and should be strictly dealt with. I think those members have already spent their merit points (50 merit points are maximum I guess which one got by default).

2) There can be few of such cases but we need to carefully examine them as well. For instance, observing the login times of both accounts can give some idea whether it was intentional or just for testing the feature on a random account.

3) I do not think any one gave 50 merits points for his posts. If you are talking about those posts getting 50 points in total, that is allowed in my opinion.
hero member
Activity: 536
Merit: 513
This approach, listing up all transactions of large amount of merits, should be regarded as the first step, as it omits cases such as multiple transactions with e.g. 20 merits between the same users.  
It is also helpful to check users who send merits back and forth among particular closed users, which are most likely merit farmers.  
To detect such abuses, we need more careful investigations by taking into account not only sent merit amount but also user data.
hero member
Activity: 536
Merit: 513
It shows that everyone is preserved about giving merit points. And some of them getting good merit points as they probably making A++ posts.
But if you can give us the link of 50 merited posts as you have researched. It will be helpful for us, we will learn from that posts. Thus improving ourselves for the good posts. May be we will be listed in that 50 merited points next time.
But in a nutshell its a great research.
I wanted to agree with you and to be optimistic about these transactions, but after checking some part of the 50 merited posts listed above, it seems to me that most of them are questionable ones, namely either of

1. would-be exchange between alt accounts
2. transaction at early stage of her/his sMerit history when s/he did not know how merits are rare / how many merits are reasonable to send for each good post
3. merit for very old posts e.g. by satoshi

As people get used to the system, I expect at least type 2 transaction should decrease.
 
To draw some lesson for good quality posts, it would be more helpful to look at posts received many merits but not too many, e.g. 20 or 25, which can be easily tractable from the data, as well as posts received small amount of merits from many users, which requires some work with the data to identify.
While they should still include the above three types, I presume their percentages are lower than those for 50 merited posts.
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 12
The users didn't give 50 merit because it might be questionable in the sight of many.
That's the problem: it shouldn't be the case. If people find that suspicious, so why continue to allow it? Why not simply forbid giving more than X Merit at once (X being whatever value you want, but less than 40 or 30)?

Following can be the reason behind this:

1) Admin wants all members to spend their default merit points before introducing further changes. He may be interested in finding some alt accounts through this merit system. Those members giving 50 merit points for a single post can be easily identified. The particular merit spending can then be analyzed and members involved with merit abuse can be punished.

2) Admin might not be expecting members to make such foolish mistakes. I really sometimes laugh at members doing this even after many such similar abuse cases had been recognized.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 13
The users didn't give 50 merit because it might be questionable in the sight of many. Merit so far is always the issue to the concern participants but not to those who aren't.

We have to consider a lot of aspects before punishing those members. First is the members who did it one or two days after the merit system might be testing this function. They might not have understood that merits are limited and thus one should not give more than 5 merits per post. Another thing to consider here is that some genuine posts might be deserving. For instance, the official thread regarding merit system received a lot of merits from different members. But it deserves those merits as all members are affected by that decision.
F2b
hero member
Activity: 2135
Merit: 926
The users didn't give 50 merit because it might be questionable in the sight of many.

That's the problem: it shouldn't be the case. If people find that suspicious, so why continue to allow it? Why not simply forbid giving more than X Merit at once (X being whatever value you want, but less than 40 or 30)?

In the other hand, people find this suspicious mainly because there are very few sMerit in circulation, so people are not supposed to give 50 Merit at once, since it is an incredibly high value for any member. In fact, the people that gived dozens of Merit like that are mainly high-ranked members that were given a lot of sMerit at the beginning ; they didn't know Merit would be so rare so they spent it like it should be: generously.
There is currently around 15000 sMerits given to the merit sources each month. Maybe giving 50 Merit to someone would be far less souspicious if the number of Merit given to the Merit sources (that give them to members other than legendaries, obviously) was 20 or 30 times bigger.
full member
Activity: 364
Merit: 127
Interesting, but please tell me how to get those raw data from the forum. Thank you.

If you just read carefully you can find it on the OP, but since you ask for it rather than looking here you go.

Here you go: https://bitcointalk.org/merit.txt.xz
It will show only the last 120 days of data; someone else should archive the old ones if you want them.


Im pretty sure that a lot people have been downloading that file for the sole purpose of an in depth investigation. Goodluck to the ones investigating.



You cant escape the eye of Sauron
newbie
Activity: 57
Merit: 0
Interesting, but please tell me how to get those raw data from the forum. Thank you.
jr. member
Activity: 308
Merit: 5
The users didn't give 50 merit because it might be questionable in the sight of many. Merit so far is always the issue to the concern participants but not to those who aren't.
legendary
Activity: 2534
Merit: 1517
#1 VIP Crypto Casino
I was looking for this to check sMerit sellers/sent to alts, is easier to track now as you can see there is no reason at all why some posts are rewarded with 50 point.

This one is an example

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=166677

Received in the last 120 days

    January 25, 2018, 12:30:50 PM: 43 from thresher for (Deleted/Off-limits/Ignored)
    January 25, 2018, 12:25:58 PM: 41 from trollercoaster for (Deleted/Off-limits/Ignored)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=221867

Sent in the last 120 days
    January 25, 2018, 02:15:51 PM: 50 to gruve_p for [ANN][GRS] Groestlcoin | Segwit activated | Adding Segwit to all our platforms
Received in the last 120 days
    January 25, 2018, 02:17:17 PM: 26 from gruve_p for Re: [ANN][GRS] Groestlcoin | Segwit activated | Adding Segwit to all our platforms

Well with this 3d, we can report a ton of this things.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=990983
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=822485
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=511933

proabalbly alts
full member
Activity: 1442
Merit: 108
Posts getting  more than 20 merit points from a single member need to be checked. This will involve a lot of work though. First we will have to consider that some of the threads might be exceptional and those merits points are justified for them. Secondly, very few members will be able to understand the content in local sections. Thus, members should observe such posts in their respective local board and report it in threads like : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/list-suspected-users-that-are-abusing-merit-30-2896910.
member
Activity: 714
Merit: 11
It shows that everyone is preserved about giving merit points. And some of them getting good merit points as they probably making A++ posts.
But if you can give us the link of 50 merited posts as you have researched. It will be helpful for us, we will learn from that posts. Thus improving ourselves for the good posts. May be we will be listed in that 50 merited points next time.
But in a nutshell its a great research.
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