Topic: 'Merit' System is a SLAP to the term 'Decentralisation' (Read 991 times)

As much as I can see those who received huge amount of Merit do post useless spammy post as well even if it written in good English and its just full of bullying, threatening, abusing lower rank members and suggesting mindless merit related rules that not only burden the admin with more work also impractical.

What need to be done is precisely just apply Merit system to the signature styling availability, so high grade writer can have better signature feature, those who want to do BTC trade relate activity don't have to suffer negative trust for basically talking about Merit and those who just want to discuss BTC still have their seniority ranked properly as usual.

Rank			Signature styling			Merit requirement
All			No styling (including links) allowed. Max 50 characters.			25
All			Max 150 characters.			50
All			Links allowed. Unlimited length.			100
All			Color allowed.			200
All			Size allowed			400
All			Background color allowed			800
All			Everything			1600

*Merit score is just suggestion
**merit sources, initial merit count, merit awarding rules is not discussed in detail here yet

The whole Bitcointalk.org is a centralised system. You have a central authority like the admin. The fact is for a forum post moderation can not be done pragmatically. May be in future we may be able to create an AI for such operation but for now it's really hard.

PS: Instead of criticising the merit system my advice is try to adopt with it. Every place has it's set of rules if you can not adopt then you can not survive. By the way merit is doing the right job for the forum. You need to open your eyes to see why actually it has been brought on the table.

Better complain to them then, but poor campaign managers can't solely be responsible. It's the user's fault for being greedy and lazy and just making terrible posts. Now they are going to be forced to put some effort in before they can even get on a campaign but as I've said before punishments still need to be given to ICOs who don't look after their userbase because all thew merit system does is slow people down until they can get the required merit.


I'm not sure what the difference is between a like and merit, but if he means everyone should be able to give out unlimited 'likes' as merit points then that defeats the purpose and will quickly be abused making it pointless.

A 'like' system like social media would be more appropriate than this crappy merit point system? Are you sure?  Then how about people who have 10-20 alt accounts? They will likely to get 'like' spammed across all of  their account without doing much thing. Post anything shit and spammy, then they will have likes from their alts. It can not be used to against spam and shitposting, it will just encourage them to do more. And nowadays 1 person can have multiple devices that can access internet like pc, notebook, smartphone, imagine how much 'like' will be spammed across their alt accounts.

The real issue was bounty campaign managers not properly screening and disqualifying shitposters from their campaigns. If they did that, none of this would have happened.

Account sales were already happening but does that mean we should get rid of member ranks and the system is broken? No. People will always try to bend or break rules and systems but that doesn't mean the process is futile and the people trying to do so should be punished appropriately. In the meantime you should concentrate on making worthwhile posts and you will achieve the required merit over time.

Maybe it is slap to the decentralized system, but at some point necessary processing needs to be done. Without that we cannot keep the community in a perfect going as people getting into the network keeps on increasing with more people adopting bitcoin. Possibly this is an effort to make people go good along with bitcoin.

I did not like the merit system. I'm active in the forum for 24 hours, but I will have to wait for compassion from others.

Merit sales have already begun. the forum is hurting.

the old system must be brought back.

I have to agree with one of the initial points the OP has made, namely that ranking up now depends on others. It's the truth. If you make a smart post and no one gets it, you'll get zero merits while someone might make an average post and get credited because people will get that. Not to mention the level of abuse this system can get. If you have many friends in here, you can just have your friends give each other points and you can all level up. Splendid! Let's all sign up our friends!

I do agree that the merit system might reduce spam posts, by the way. However, in doing so, it will promote another kind of rule abuse and in the end, I'm not sure it's worth it. I mean, the moderators have fewer spam posts to monitor (supposedly because we haven't observed the new system at work for a long period of time) but I think it could potentially harm the bitcointalk community in a different way.

I have already read all the posts in that thread and you should too before you brought that in. All the reply there is indeed can be processed by our brain. If there is someone who is sending 50 points to someone who is a lower rank member for a shit post, everyone will think that there is something fishy behind it like merits being sold or merits being given to alt accounts. And people has the right to judge it because it is an unusual move. To remove the negative trust, that person must give some proof to prove that he is innocent but i doubt he can give any kind of proof. But, lets check on to something before we go far, he is a legendary member, but when something new implemented, he didnt check the updates and rules about the system and decided to test it on his own? Do you think it is a great thing to do? Why are you always looking at the bad side?

In my opinion, merit is great, because it will hard people that is incapable of upgrading theirself (mostly like you). And last, this forum is owned by someone and it is centralized, it just happen that this forum talk mainly about cryptocurrency, you don't pay the owner and you do not have the shares of the forum, and then why the hell do you think it is a decentralized forum?

"   
Merit broke my life
Today at 05:08:33 AM
Reply with quote  +Merit  #1
Hello everyone!

When only merit entered on the forum, I started testing - I sent various amounts to different people (I tested the functionality). The next day, comrade actmyname lowered me to the trust with the words:
"Gave max merit to a post that clearly did not deserve it.
Likely alt. ".
I maintain my account from 2015 persistently. My account is my work and life. I wrote actmyname, but he ignores me.
Can tell me how to proceed? Yes, I am guilty, but not so much :-(
I sended PM theymos too, but he is silent too.  Embarrassed
why this attitude towards people has become on the forum?"

This is a comment about merit from a legendary user. This explains very well why this 'Merit' is the worst things happened to this forum!  Whoever is supporting this crap system are the same kind of people who backs government decision to control the citizens!!

'merit' is a shitty system harming the forum so get rid of this crap!!  Don't just hold on to your ego admins!

A Like system will be more appropriate rather then this crappy 'merit' system where new users will need to look for the mercy of the high ranked users

First of all get it clear fella! This is not a decentralized forum! There is owners/founders of the forum and still taking control of it.
And then..
For this example there is a BIG concern about it. Neg-Trust can be easily abused and some member can become a victim of it.
What Reypinioco mentioning is right and clear that some of the members can easily make a person become Redtrusted member by giving them merit to their post that was only replay topics or not really needed to be his/her quality posts on some section.
Are you sure joniboini that if someone giving you merits in your normal post like a replay only will not counted as Neg-Trust by DTs?
Don't be nagging when it happened to you :3. (but of course it is absolutly not me that doing it.. but maybe some people that mad about it :3.)
Lol Holmes~ The problem is a suggestion from us is 99% being ignored and only 0.9% chance that your suggestion will reach them. 0.1% they agree with it. Take example this threads that I make Suggestion 1 and Suggestion 2
Those both suggestion is made when I was NEWBIE! You can check the date :3.
Oh wait! You are already legendary.. Yeah of course then :3.

---

---

Okay how about this simple suggestions.. All ranked perished to Newbie again and start from 0 again?
Or at least demoted one rank to All legendary and Hero members or all the ranks so they must earn the title by the merits they should have?
With that.. I think the fairness and the chaos will become clearer :3.
What will happened by this merit system is..
- Farmer will become rich for the opportunity that has been given to them.
Selling merits is easy as shit!
- DTs gonna be ruined by this system and farmer can overwhelm it by giving merits wrongly but intentionally..
- OP's Gonna flooded on all thread sections, especially the region section! Actually my region is already a shit poster place! (of course not all of them)
- FINALLY! IF what I suggested before happened then..
ALL OF YOU WILL NAGGING HERE!! LMFAOOS!

I understand your disappointment, but there's one thing to consider. You are confusing bitcointalk from Bitcoin. Bitcoin is decentralized (as well as many other cryptocoins) while this forum has never been decentralized. Like almost any other forum, it has its own rules set by the admin.
This new merit system is something similar to what happens on facebook, youtube, etc. where people like or dislike your content.

Actually, Bitcointalk was never decentralized like Bitcoin .

Earlier also members with high default trust had more power. But centralization is not that bad.
We need some people that can be trusted by most of us that have more power.

With this update, we are preventing spammers (unless spammers find way to cheat this mechanism) but at the same time, we are making it difficult for a person with deep interest in cryptocurrency (or bitcoin) to gain higher rank.
It may be argued that he will level up if he posts good content. But I don't think that will be fast enough.

Every decision has positive and negative aspects. It may be good for some and bad for others. Now that merit system is implemented, we need to cope up with it.

Ok, explain to me how am I going to get richer out of it. I don't really care about becoming a legendary member. Even if merit will limit my ability to rank up it's not my priority and it shouldn't be for any poster on this forum, including you.
Now how are you getting poorer? It's much harder for a hero member to become a legendary than it is for a member to become a sr. The proportions are there, you have the same chances as someone like me.

Everybody was able to rank up before the merit system. Now some people never will. Do you really believe everybody who deserves merit will get it? Seeing what kind of posts get merited now I doubt that the actually useful posts will get as much merit as them.

Would be easier if the Merit requirements are lowered a bit.

How decentralized was the forum? Before the merit system?

The 2nd option is the VERY reason why BITCOIN is created and that is to go against centralised robbery. the bitcoin community refused to be salve of the system where some elite will decide the future of others. 

I think BCT users will do the same and make the admins bound to abolish this shi**y Merit system, where some elite high ranked users will give merits to low ranked users.

If yall really think that everybody who makes helpful HQ posts will get merited - yall wrong!

Don't you think it will be easier with a Like system? Lets say only higher rank members can Like posts - Full Member or SR Member and up. It's still gonna be public and people will still be able to filter out account farmers.
Also the requirements are way too high, IMO they should be a bit lower.



Do I have to remind you that if people didn't want to fight the system you woldn't have Bitcoin today? Your whole idea is against the idea of Bitcoin.

With that attitude you will be one of the losers who never level up..

Fight the system or embrace it.. the second option is a lot easier and a lot more fulfilling

I never said "Mitchell didn't earn his rank".  Off course all veteran users earned their rank via whichever rule was in place at that time and we have utmost respect for their valuable contribution.

 I said they didn't earn the 'Merit' and I have doubt they would achieve their current rank via the current merit system. Because the current 'Merit' system is useless crap system.  Only handful of people wont mind giving merit. Many of users wont just bother to spend their time to click another button, go to another page and give merit. Just wait and see this sh**y 'Merit' system collapse.

Don't worry about Lauda or lutpin do your own thing and they will do theirs.

no im asking as I wasn't sure... Im not sure what lauda allows me to do or not! lutpin might be able to answer for me.

Sorry tired...long day 

and what was I being?? take a wild guess fella

Lmao.   Lauda loves catnip. She is a crazy catlady 

I have valid proof TMAN is neither able to detect sarcasm, nor allowed to use it themselves.
In fact, I suspect Lauda has restricted TMAN to never use sarcasm, because she is afraid mr T could take away her catnip.

Pretty sure Mitchell was being sarcastic with his answer on that one. The user claimed people like Mitchell didn't earn his rank.

did a fairy just make you a staff member? was it like the merit system and I missed out?

Tbh I'm also quite disturbed by this new Merit system.
That said, I completely understand the moderator's will that want to make an end to the unceasing spamming of last months.
I'm aware that it will be hard to gain 90 more merits to become a Full Member, but I'm not giving up and will continue to write quality posts to forum 

Agreed. They are worthless to me also but i think it's a great fun system. I have been looking for lower Ranks posts in hopes to REWARD them with a merit or two. New users now have to actually try harder with their posts to earn merits and when they get them they will actually appreciate it.

It's a Win win system for all i think. 

I didn't have to do anything to get where I am right now? Man, I wonder what I have been doing the last 5 years then.

Why would this happen as merits have no financial value at all to higher up accounts? They're worthless to users like me. I would probably rather give them out more liberally to newer users making great posts and give them out minimally and sparingly to more established members just as a worthless 'tip' or token of appreciation and that I acknowledge their post.

This whole Merit system is built with exact same recipe of current capitalist society " Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer" .

when Government introduces new tax or something similar only rich people keeps on praising that.   Exact same way, I am seeing users with default merits are praising this system. 

There is no way a newbie will rank up with this crapy system.  Not every one reads every post. So the chance of a useful post getting buried in a thread is very likely!

The users with merits will keep on merit each other or same as the rich people do charity, they will merit some newbie every now and then to show their generosity and supremacy.

This is exactly same reasoning of government when they say 'BITCOIN needs to be banned because it is used in Crime'  So let's introduce this shitty 'Merit' system because there are spam posters.. well done...

Well, I think about merit as similar to Reddit's upvote except that it's scarce and comments such as ours in this thread are already visible unlike in Reddit, you have to click to see the comments.

So basically if you want to "bring your post to the top", it will need a lot of merits. In Bitcointalk's case, the author gets the privilege of ranking up.

That is correct as it is here to stay. So get on board, be positive and upbeat. Make some quality posts and you will get merit.

Or moan about it, be a prick, moan about Hero and legendary members getting merit when you don't... then you will just piss people off and get nothing for it.

Your choice fella. Entirely up to you

This is the way it works currently and if you want to get merits and rank up, you will have to do the same. Otherwise, just keep complaining and increasing the activity. Another option is to focus on other sections ( technical discussion, Bitcoin discussion). There is already so much rant about the merit system from other members and did they achieve anything from it ? Isn't it wise to learn from this and move on ?

My favorite thing about merit is that you can start a great thread that gets lots of discussion from high ranking members, but you will NEVER get any merit for it. The same people get all the merit because they tow the party line.

Having an opinion and expressing it won't get you merit, you need to learn to have the RIGHT opinion. The right opinion now is that the merit system is great! Just ask all the people with merit, lol.

Exactly what I was going to say. I wouldn't be against everyone starting from zero points, but you could argue that the older users have already earned their merit and maybe it wouldn't be fair to make all the old timers with thousands of quality posts and contributions start from zero either. I would juts suck it up and get busy contributing something constructive as opposed to just futilely complaining about something that was created to try benefit the overall quality of the community.

I was not bothered about merits but when I saw this post, it got me thinking a little. And why consider it a slap and say you are at the mercy of your mate just because of merits? I think its an option or a choice left to everyone. Why would you give a price or reward on something you think you dont like giving. Now if you are really after for more merits, maybe try to be more relevant or interesting to people reading. But again its your choice if you will rely what the others think of your posts.

It's also pretty interesting to see how all the shitposters are starting to rise and come to the meta to complain about this "crap" system. I see this as a good way for people to start posting constructively, at least and not just spam for the sake of farming accounts.
No shit sherlock. Those who genuinely care about the wellbeing of the forum is obviously praising the merit system. If you can, go on and suggest a better system to eliminate those spammers. The merit system doesn't necessarily make it impossible for people to rank up, I personally would merit someone if I find that their post is genuinely useful and not just something that has been repeated thousands of times.

It's very interesting to see most of the members praising this so called 'Merit' systems are the users who already got lot of 'Merit's by default. They did NOT have to earn it like all new users will have to now!!  Because you guys already got the merits by default ( as per your current rank)  it's easy for you to praise this crap system!!

I can guarantee most of the users who are blindly praising this crap system would not praise if they did not get the merit by default!!  if for some reasons this 'merit' system is abolished then these same members will start praising that decision also...

Anyway, let's see how long this crappy merit 'system' can last long..

This is a centralized, privately owned, forum. If you do not like it here, you are most welcome to go somewhere else. However, the new merit system is not centralized in my opinion since anyone can give everyone merit. Yes, there is one central source of authority (theymos), but someone, somewhere has to start the chain.

Its not a policy at all, its the mandatory protocol which you should follow or otherwise you yourself will get slapped in the long wrong and you will be the one responsible for that.

Please! Its not just in the name of quality, its about the self-improvement and self-establishment in the forum itself. If you do your job best you get recognised surely and if you don't then there is another slap waiting for you!



Its called as mutual growth and not the mercy my mate! You have no idea how crap you are thinking about the system itself, and you yourself making it corrupted. If you keep thinking like this then believe me you are out of merit.

There is thing called "self-awarness", if you know what are you thinking then you can achieve it in easy way.


No mate that will work perfectly!
I am sure people will start meriting each other once they find themselves behind the race of quality poster and when they won't be able to get into different campaigns, reward programs just because of their Low Merit!

They do come here for sharing info, but if its shit info then its useless anyway.


Um, wait I can choose whom to give the merits?
Oh! Perfect that is decentralised system, I can control my merits publicly and so do they can :-)

I suppose you are referring to this thread? -> https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/list-users-that-are-abusing-merit-system-2823221

What I see there is not a simple giving a lot of merits resulted in neg-trust, but about whether giving a lot of merits is understandable or not.

It is not about the number of merits that has been sent to some users, but to what post that merit is sent.
Do you think it is believable if a post like "good project", "joining you" and etc has 1 merit on them?
If you said no, I guess you can understand why DT users are tagging those users with neg-trust because their abuse on the merit system is quite clear.

You can always leave or find another forum.


Keep making quality contributions and you'll likely get noticed. It may not be easy or quick to get there but that's partly the point.


What do you suggest instead?


No, it's about bitcoin. Or at least it was, as it has now been taken over by shitposters and crapcoins which this merit system is now trying to curb the abuse of.


This is not a decentralised forum, as has been stated numerous times before. I really hope someone does create a decentralised forum at some point though just to show what an absolute mess and headache it would be to use when everyone is responsible for their own moderating.

That is  a genuine concern that I saw some others raising as well and there was no answer from an authority here about it. It is very much possible and hard to spot. May be they need to check in other aspects like past interactions in accounts before giving that negative trust.

So far as the selling of merit points is concerned even if they sell they will get exhausted of Smerits very soon. These will be mainly in hands of merit sources and i hope that the admin selects them carefully.

I agree with you and plenty here already said about the forum not being decentralize which is like opposite of the ideaa we support with the cryptocurrency and its decentralization. But you have to understand that we are joining a forum with admins & moderators. We have to respect the rules and the system they implement which I agree that it's like being controlled by government. I personally do not like it and want the way it was before. But I want to be a member here and engage more in the community so i will try my best to stay and embrace the system. You actually have the option to stay and try your best to post that contributes to the community or just walk away. You do not need to be high ranked to support the idea behind cryptocurrency and you also do not need to be a member here to learn and share about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Now if you are here to rank up I think it is just right to follow the rules no one forces as to be here. Do not worry about your merit, there's already a lot of ways on how to earn merits. Few of the high ranked members already made threads that gives chances to us to get merits and there's also contests if you just read and search you'll find there's plenty out there.

These merits are shareable but some of the DTs are giving redtrusts because of another abuse created by the new merit system.

how are you going to rank up?if someone intended to give you a lot of merits,would it be called abuse?for example i have 10 hero accounts and i want you to get red trust i can simply give you 50merits at once and report you to these DTs,isnt that funny?

"So you want your rank to depend on the number the shit posts a member makes every month. It was leading us nowhere. "--> This is the best forum running for years and you think for all these years we didn't go any where and all on a sudden this 'merit' system is the magic key?? 

The issue is not about getting ignored with good posts. The issue is people don't bother to give merit.  Instead they will sell merit..  Just wait and see what happens...  I can tell for sure this 'merit' system is a crap, shi** system.

Let's sum up the two main points you have:

• Your rank depends on ratings given by the general public/many other people.
• Your rank is given by a centralized source.

Don't you think those two stand in contrast to each other?

This is how the way things work and this is not some kind of democracy. This is a forum owned privately by someone and as a member you have to follow the rules of the forum.


So you want your rank to depend on the number the shit posts a member makes every month. It was leading us nowhere.


Sure some quality posts might get ignored but it is not possible that if you post 50 good posts all will get ignored. If you post good quality content, there are high chnaces people will read your other posts as well.

What do you suggest in place of merit system ?

Hello Friends,

First of all, this is just my Opinion.  I think this new 'merit' system is just a new policy same as the capitalist government/bankers do in the name of quality, security bla bla.

Now my rank in the forum depends on others! If some one thinks my post is merit worthy then they will give me merit.  My rank now has to look for the mercy of others! absolutely Crap idea.

Whats happens if a post is good and still no one gives merit??  I am sure this what will happens. I believe many of users here do not bother about giving merit etc.  They come here to learn, share information.

Yes there are spam posters, but you can't impose such as bad system as 'merit' to tackle the spam!  This forum is about cryptocurrency whose main characteristic is 'decentralisation' . But this new 'Merit' system is a 'centralised' system which depends on the mercy of others and that is a BIG SLAP  to the face of 'Decentralisation'