Topic: Merit System .. Some suggestions (Read 267 times)

I don’t believe there’s a “flaw” in this merit system. The only flaw is that people constantly refer to it as the system for “making more quality posts”. It is obvious that “quality” is not so easily defined and that you have to have a judge with his personal taste who makes decisions about what “quality” is in his own opinion. So, this system introduced “judges” in the form of “merit sources/Gods/sorcerers” or however people call them these days. They will have the right to anonymously decide what “quality” is and what is not. Common user will soon spend all their smerits because of the simple math:

They can create and give to the other common users only 197 percent (few merits up or down because of the uneven numbers) including the original number of smerits that they got in the first place (100 + 50 + 25 + 12 + 6 + 3 + 1 + few more in the best scenario), because smerits do not renew in their hands. Soon enough, the only people on this forum who can make it go further will become the “Judges”, and there will be a great demand for merits, with very limited supply.

I don’t know if that was the original intention, but what this system actually does is that it creates a classic currency, by any standard – Merits – with the “Government” (Judges) holding the total supply. It also has a value for people – money from the Signature and other campaigns. And it’s countable and easily exchangeable. So it was meant for barging and trading, right? Admins could do it in some other way if they wanted to “improve the quality of posts”: they could give themselves right to “derank” someone, give negative trust, manually lower the post count, or anything else, because they already have that kind of power. That would have the same effect as the Merit system, and put them in the power position as much as this system does.
So what is the only benefit of the Merit system comparing to, let’s say, some “Deranking power” system (in which they would also have the power to make decisions about what “quality” is in their own opinion)? Countability and exchangeability. So, talking about “the abuse of the system” because someone has traded the newly created currency, is at least cynical. You create currency, and you don’t want people to trade it? You create cookies, and you don’t want people to touch it?

Next thing that will happen, I believe, is that “Merit rich” people will begin to use their newly gained power to create some sort of seek “competitions”, sort of reality shows, in which they will watch merit-poor people bleed to death, trying to gain some merits they’re willing to toss them in the arena. People will start to work for merits, humiliate themselves, lick butts, or whatever else people are doing for any other currency.
Don’t get me wrong, I also think that the forum has lots of spam, “good sir when airdrop” posts, and that admins should take things into their own hands – but is the new currency (with a restriction to buy and sell attached???) really the best way to do that? You can make a “Merit ICO” as well then. I have only one account, this one, I’m a professor and translator in the real life, I don’t want any mercy merits (if I can’t work for them), so please don’t “merit” me, I will be offended .

Removed word "Flaw" in original post. Sorry if somebody find this word offending.

@HabBear  : I am not changing my Flaw2 , I am just saying if there is upper cap to send the number of merit to a person, 
                   then we should put upper cap of Merit that a post can accumulate.
                   As for giving merit to Alt accounts, I do not find any statement in forum that says you cannot give "Merit"
                   multiple time to same person.

                   Flaw4 was for pointing to the direction of "Trust" abuse and while thinking about solution, I got an idea of this
                   new Score. Staffs and Mods are free to choose anyone.
                   
                     

Well, now you're changing your "Flaw #2". Your flaw was related to the total earned from a post, not the total that can be given to a single person. But to answer your question, the limit on giving merit to a single person in a month most clearly prevents someone from giving all of their sMerits to their alt account.



Because Bitcointalk.org isn't a business, it's a community forum. Theymos and crew should be expected to employ the greatest level of technology or processes because they all have jobs and lives outside of this place. There's an appropriate balance that can be struck for all rules, concepts, or processes that are created for this community, which goes back to my original effort isn't worth the benefit explanation. If they did create an automated system, they'd probably have transparency about the rules of that system and then you and others would be crying about flaws.

@HabBear :(For Flaw 2)  Then why 50 max point set for an individual can give at a time, If it is  free market then individual
                                 should be  allowed freely to spend what he have. I think it is community and we are here to create a 
                                 strong community. Welcoming the individual of high potential does not mean that we should neglect
                                 other.   
                                   

                   (For Flaw 3) I agree this forum has plenty of good material. People who evolved with it, they understand but
                                     we always need to remind the things for new comers and believe me, I have to use "Google"   to
                                     search the things in this forum because internal search in this forum either do not work or too
                                      slow for me.

                    (For Flaw 4) Theymos suggested that new "Merit Source" need to be created in future, so why handpick them
                                      when system can  find automatically . At least  no body will get the chance to say that decision
                                        was not fair.

Alright. Why so critical, we're not even a week in to this thing? Here's my defense of the system...


This is literally what the system is meant to accomplish - rewarding the best contributions made to the forum.

If you or anyone else creates a post that has an incredibly valuable amount of information it should continue to reward the author with merit. Bitcoin is a free market idea, so is the merit system. If you don't like the free market you should go back to using fiat!



Theymos, Lauda, Lutpin, and many others have tried (literally) for YEARS to communicate what a good, constructive post looks like. And like drips from a faucet or the mindless drone of cicada bugs, new members keep creating shit posts. They don't even try to look for the answer to their question before creating a thread about it (e.g., what's a signature campaign? what wallet should I choose? how does bitcoin work?). It's exhausting to read through.

Why the need to impose restrictions on what someone can gift their sMerits on?

I get that you're concerned people will gift their sMerits on posts that aren't worthy. But that's a problem that is solved naturally. Once the person has given away their sMerits, they are gone. The recipient benefits from the gain, but only once. And since both of these people likely aren't constructive posters they aren't likely to receive many more merits unless they up their game.



The trust system has been abused for a long time. People use negative trust as a weapon and will give it someone simply as a penalty for an argument in conversation (not having engaged in any actual transaction). It's a mostly meaningless system at this point.

Creating a third system (as you propose) just adds more management bureaucracy for the Moderators here and doesn't offer much more benefit. The goal isn't to reward how someone spends their sMerits, the goal is to provide an incentive for people to create great, meaningful posts if they want to enjoy the benefits of senior rank membership of this forum.


A great way to test your flaws and solutions is to put your account and activity through these tests. Have you given out more merit (than I or someone else believes you should have) for any single post? Have you made posts that meet the quality standards you state here? Have you given out merit "smartly"?

Hi Vod.

Below are the contents of Theymos post and I do not see any limit of 50 explained on it.

In addition to activity, everyone now has a merit score, and you need both a certain activity level and a certain merit score in order to reach higher member ranks. The required scores are:

Rank   Required activity   Required merit
Brand new   0   0
Newbie   1   0
Jr Member   30   0
Member   60   10
Full Member   120   100
Sr. Member   240   250
Hero Member   480   500
Legendary   Random in the range 775-1030   1000

You get merit points when someone sends you some for one of your posts. Additionally, when someone sends you merit points, half of those points can be sent by you to other people.

Certain users are designated as "merit sources". They can create new merit out of nothing, up to a limited number per month (which differs per source). I will not be posting a definitive list of merit sources (so that people don't bug them too much), though you'll soon figure out who they are if you pay attention.

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
 - Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
 - Highlighting good posts with the "Merited by" line.

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

Do not beg for merit excessively.

Useful infographics

Forum users have helpfully created some infographics to explain the merit system:
paxmao's infographic
ibminer's infographic
8Habits's infographic
JetSet11's infographic
zentdex's infographic
alia_armelle's infographic

If you want to be a merit source:

 1. Be a somewhat established member.
 2. Collect TEN posts written in the last couple of months by other people that have not received nearly enough merit for how good they are, and post quotes for them all in a new Meta thread. The point of this is to demonstrate your ability to give out merit usefully.
 3. We will take a look at your history and maybe make you a source.

I am especially eager to have merit sources in sub-communities such as the local sections.

Trivia:

For current members, your initial merit score is equal to the minimum required to your rank. Of that, a certain amount (less than the usual half) is spendable. The spendable amount was calculated based on your current rank and the number of activity points you earned in the last year. A Legendary member who hasn't posted in the last year would still be Legendary, but would not have any spendable merit.

If someone sends you 1 merit, the 0.5 sMerit is not wasted; it is just not shown until you get another merit point.

There are stats here, and you can find someone's merit summary by clicking the "merit" link on their profile.

First Flaw:  Not understanding the subject you are talking about.

There already is a limit to the number of merits that can be awarded.   50.

There is so much discussion going on about the Merit system , whether it is good or bad, creating rich or poor, preventing account farming or not etc .
But in my opinion there is no suggestion given how to further enhance this system ,make it hard to abuse and providing the merit to the people who are giving Merit for good post.

First problem : No limit on the number of point awarded by an individual to other in a single post
There is  no  limit on  "Merits"  that can be  awarded by an Individual in a single post. It is quite possible someone will spend all  his "Merit" balance on very first good post and will be left with nothing to award any "Merit" on second good post.

Second Problem: No limit how much merit  a good post can accumulate  
Let me give an example we have 2 person, legendary A and Junior member B, A and B  both are giving good post to forum but A's post are better/more liked in forum. So everybody will give Merit to A and nobody will give merit to B. Now In this situation nobody will be advancing. (Apart from Merit Source, Merits are finite).

Third Problem: No clear guidelines  on definition of a good/constructive post.  
This is the most tricky question because every individual will have different taste.  Let me take the example of the Dressing style, every body will have different style , that's why we never say to everybody to wear same clothes but some guidelines are issued on that what is ok/not ok to wear in professional world.

Fourth Problem : Negative Trust score for abusing Merits
I saw some people got negative trust for abusing the Merit system, I think "Trust" is for trade/transaction purpose. Giving negative points in Trust for abusing Merit do not fit well.


My Suggestion to fix these flaws.

First Solution We can decide what will be the maximum number of points can be given by an Individual to a
                                   post , let say 10.

Second Solution We can decide that how much Merit a single post can accumulate, let say 50

Third Solution  Below can be some parameter  to decide on a good post.
                                   a) Is the idea/content is really new.
                                   b) How many individual might be benefited with the post or is it benefiting the whole forum.
                                   c) Claims of post look genuine  

Fourth Solution A new score of "Merit Smartly Used" can be created, For abusing the Merit a negative score
                                      can be awarded, A positive score can be given if somebody is first to Merit a post and post
                                      accumulated the maximum Merit  (let say 50)
                                     The individual having a good score of  "Merit Smartly Used" can be made "Merit Source " in
                                      future
                                
                Edited after Vod Comment.