Topic: MYTHBUSTERS: Only high ranked users are rewarded with merits (Read 1235 times)

While definitely merits isn't only given to high ranked members(everyone is aware of that), merits is definitely handed out based on quality contributions,and thus whoever such contributions come/is coming from ought to be rewarded with a merit of the sources/user feels so irrespective of ranks or what have you..

So many new/demoted users have ranked up quickly,and some have even ranked up quickee than the others(the OP is an example)
As of this moment I cannot really see anything wrong with the merit system,the merit sources are doing their possible best to fish out meritable posts,and it's definitely not an easy task in the forum this days

Although of course the statement

"Only high ranked users are rewarded with merits"  was always going to be domonstrated as incorrect due to the fact it was kind of an extreme statement.

It is quite a complex thing to really get to grips with but in broad strokes I would feel quite confident about saying if a new poster is posting on the alt board (alts are generally the thing most noobs gravitate to ) you are going to be a huge disadvantage compared to posting in the meta section and being an established member of a group that are familiar with each other and have previously supported their posts/ideas. Again that is quite normal and not really something I think is really a big issue.

However to try say that these things are not factors of varying weight could be misleading. I think noobs that make claims similar to merit goes to those legends and top merit holders already are not to be mislead into believing they are barking up the wrong tree and in the wrong forest.  I think that if I were a smart new user here though I could devise a way to accumulate merits rather quickly but then you may not be able to post freely and in a natural way that boards should really encourage.

If you do want merit certainly do not question or push against ideas or those that have it in abundance that is for sure.

I also strongly suspect that a significant and perhaps far too large  proportion of merits GIVEN out by the top 100/top 200 merit holders are retained within the top 100/200 top merit holders.

So although it is not true that only high ranked users are rewarded with merit, there are other statements one could create that could seem that things are not as far from that situation as would be ideal.

You have busted a myth based on a statement that I would say nobody would honest think was realistic and have provided some good data but on the other hand if i was a new poster here posting in the section that of most interest to most new users I would have to assume a lot of merits that could be coming my way will be going to a group of people in meta who don't really need them.

I have recently been wondering if this is a bad thing or not. It is certainly not a reason to end merits as they are fighting successfully one of the most board destorying trends.  I think that merit could be given a far greater power to make the board better but nobody seems to favour my previous proposals regarding them. Maybe because they are not great ideas or hard to implement but I didn't see any real argument that demonstrated that.

Merits were introduced with good intentions and I think they even in current form are of great use and benefit. Lets not though consider them as a perfect system and not tell people nothing to say here when they notice some issues.

Well it is not true that only high ranked users are rewarded with merits. I could even attest to it because I was once a demoted to newbie but see how I was able to comeback and even rank up to member. This because the merit source had helped me and seen that I could step up my posting skill and gave me some merits. I was motivated by them to participate actively in the discussions instead of spamming in those SMT.

Now, I am still looking back in this section because I can learn so many things here about the forum. I am going back to the basic first and learn some things here.

I began to be confused what should I do to get merit, what should be seen to get a merit? is that a good post or quality? but when I get 1 merit, I will be jr.member, but why should my posting criteria be like that? fullmember? senior member or hero?

And you could not dare to protest the high ranked member who raised this issue in this thread.  Either you did not read all the posts in thread or you just preferred to target soft target like me  . 
I do not like to repeat the words used for merit fishing  for you.  Best wishes friend.

It doesn`t work that way. Usually the history of posts is viewed in order to make a conclusion based on more information about a particular user. For example, a user has written a more or less normal post, but you aren`t sure whether to reward him with a merit. You open the post history and see how good is the work of the member as a whole. You may be able to find other decent-merit-posts and you`ll reward this member.

Another reason to view the post history is the useless, poor-quality, or even the rule breaking comment you encountered. Then you analyze the activity of the user as a whole, to decide whether to report this member to moderator. The history of his posts can both confirm that he`s a spammer (it`s here participation in various bounty, the writing of one-line-posts play the role), or else you can refute such guesses. In the latter case, you give him the opportunity to improve the quality of his work, perhaps even give advice on how to do it.

But noone doubts that good, high-quality posts deserve merits (regardless of previous activities). The history of posts comes to the rescue in a situation of doubts and hesitations.

There are different levels of spammers. Of course the big part were newbies and Jr. You can see the real impact of the new rule here :  


That was mostly the low quality of spam, now we have to focus on the higher levels.

I don’t think that removing signatures from Jr. Members will happen. It could make sense if there was more merit being awarded on a weekly basis, but currently I count 2.850 people that have ranked-up to Member or above starting as Newbies (and additional 8.370 have made it to Jr. Member).

The criteria proposed would mean that campaigns signatures would basically be only wearable by forum Members or above that made it to their rank prior to the Merit System, and as of today, would only allow for 2.850 newcomers to participate.

Theymos has in many occasions reiterated his desire to NOT make the forum unfavorable or unfriendly to the lower ranked members.
And your odds of member rank for signature campaign just seems to be fishing for approval and maybe merits from other members.

And the idea that newbies or Jr members are solely responsible for spam on the forum is wrong. A walk through some spam mega threads would burst that myth.

Suggestion to disqualify junior members from taking part in signature will definitely benefit not only Junior Members but also the forum itself.  Because to rank up for the purpose of taking part in signature campaigns every Junior Member will have to earn 10 merits and for this he will have to read more and more.  It will increase his knowledge and he will be able to post good posts. Initially it may not be welcomed by Jr Members but bitter tablets are always given for betterment of the people.  So it will do good in future. 

But IMO not rewarding with merit to good post  just because the person could not post quality post in the past or taking part in some bounty;  is not good decision,.  Every good work done at any stage should be rewarded if it is really reward-able.  And if every merit source is of such view and not sending merit to the quality post ; then how can we expect a newbie to rank up. 

Newbies, bounty hunters, will never be discouraged from trying to create more relevant content to gain merit by receiving such criticisms. Because of money.

To get more money, it is necessary to think a little more and create new strategies. Instead of behaving like machines. The need for merits will eventually cause a shortage of those users that only create ghost accounts to join these bounties. This can lead to an increase in the price paid by each real participant and those who strive can receive more.

But your argument neglects one thing, and that is the hierarchy of ranking.  There is a reason why we need different number of merits per rank.  If that member deserves that one merit, then he deserves it.  If he will get another merit from other posts from him, then that will depend upon his future posts.

Merit system is introduced to reduce spammers (and it is really working).  More than that, it is to prevent spammers from ranking up.  If that spammer only deserves to be in jr member (because he only made one good post that deserve only 1 merit, then go for it), and merit system already doing its job of letting that spammer stay in jr member forever (member needs 10 merit).

Or you just want all the spammers to stay in newbie forever? I think you are fighting a losing battle in this part.  You will never able to completely eradicate them, but at the very least the current merit system is preventing them to grow in numbers and rank up at the very least beyond jr. member or member.

How about this analogy?

Let us say that for each day a person accomplishes something good or performs wonderful then he will get a chocolate. Then there is this :

"Let's say you have a colleague at work. This colleague has been there for a while - say twelve months. They aren't a good worker. They don't pull their weight and in meetings they generally just repeat the same meaningless nonsense over and over again, getting in the way of actual conversation and progress. They are rude, abrasive and obnoxious. Every time that they've spoken to you it has been to either bad mouth another colleague or try to sell you some bath bomb from the multi-level marketing scam they are involved in."

So that person did not earn a single chocolate for the past twelve months (just because he/she did not deserve it).

Then "Suddenly and out of the blue, after a year or more of being lazy and rude, one morning this colleague starts being really friendly with you and offering to do some of your workload."

Are you going to give him/her a chocolate for performing good for that day? or still withhold that chocolate because of his/her poor performance for the past year?

There are 120 merit sources and thousands of other users who can merit this newbie, as evidenced by bones261. Everyone has their own criteria and that's what makes the system work. Otherwise theymos could just grant merits based on how many times you said "sir" and "please".

So how about you find those unmerited "high-quality" newbie posts instead of whining about meaningless hypotheticals. I'm quite certain these unicorn posts don't exist.

Think of it this way:

Let's say you have a colleague at work. This colleague has been there for a while - say twelve months. They aren't a good worker. They don't pull their weight and in meetings they generally just repeat the same meaningless nonsense over and over again, getting in the way of actual conversation and progress. They are rude, abrasive and obnoxious. Every time that they've spoken to you it has been to either bad mouth another colleague or try to sell you some bath bomb from the multi-level marketing scam they are involved in.

Suddenly and out of the blue, after a year or more of being lazy and rude, one morning this colleague starts being really friendly with you and offering to do some of your workload. What is your initial thought? "Wow, they are a better person now - I know, I'll go buy them a coffee and some doughnuts"? Of course not. You would be immediately suspicious and wonder what thing or favor they want from you.

Now, lets say that person is friendly to everyone and works hard all day and asks for nothing in return. And then does it again the next day. And for the rest of the week. And for the rest of the month. After a while you think "Finally this person has turned over a new leaf", and you start inviting them along to your Friday evening post-work drinks.

Merit is the same. One good post is not enough to erase months and months of shitposting, especially when it is obvious that as soon as the newbie gets that one merit they are desperate for, they will just go back to shitposting again. If you show a sustained change over weeks and months, then as has been pointed out already, merit will come your way.

Oh, my bad. I saw it was posted 10th of October, so I assumed that the data was from around that time. So everything is correct then.

I've used data stored on https://albertoit.github.io/Merit-Explorer-SQL/ to make my calcullations.
The data was downloaded at the beginning of October (maybe last days of September) so probably dataset wasn't updated with data form last week of September. According to my dataset you had 499 Merits "earned" (509 including airdrop) - so only a bit under the 501 edge...

Some corrections in the table in the OP.
I don't know where the OP got the data for the table but seems that some things are incorrect.
I had a 10 initial merit ( I was a member when the merit system came) Now I have earned 535 merit.
I don't know how old the data was when the OP used if for this statistics, but I'm over 500 earned from the end of September.

I am guilty of that as well. The problem comes from rewarding posters in the Bitcoin Talk underworld. Merits generate sMerits, and I try to keep them away from their potential abuse in the spamming underworld. Also, keeping merits away from active spammers may encourage them to leave, as you have pointed out, and I believe this is why the merit system was introduced.

But it really isn't hard. People shouldn't have to just make one good post and then they're good to go. Any idiot can do that, and once they have it they then don't have to bother making any more good posts because Christmas has come early for them. They can just go back to shitposting again, so that's why they should have to demonstrate they're not a one-hit wonder and can make a handful of decent posts. This is why I would argue we should make the requirement ten merit, and I actually think it will make things easier for everyone. People will be more liberal with their merits and so users are more likely to get merited, and shitposters won't be able to abuse the system as easy. When one merit is all you need to earn here people become weary about giving that user a license to get paid, and making one solitary good post really isn't enough to measure their capability especially when you can just beg, buy or trade the merit quite easily.