Topic: [POLL] Top 5 boards deserve most merits (Read 349 times)

I voted in this order:
Politics & Society
Beginners and Help
Bitcoin Discussion
Meta
Trading Discussion

My reason for picking Politics & Society ahead of others is because whatever we do in life revolves around politics and society. Whether we want to admit it or not, it's politics that has kept Bitcoin away from mass adoption till date. It's because some countries still find it difficult supporting Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies that makes the skepticism towards it elaborate. For instance, if all the governments of the world should toe the line of El Salvador on Bitcoin, we know what Bitcoin will become over night. It will be a mad rush for cryptocurrencies. I think those posting there and keeping the thread alive should be encouraged with merits.

That's a good point in technical boards because if you are going off topic and posting irrelevant knowledge which have no link with the ongoing discussions then the post is reported directly but on other board this thing is less frequent and many members spam fill the thread with such posts and giving up the same replies just to increase their post count.But in technical discussion if electrum wallet seed phrase or any other technical discussion is going then you cannot say business doing this or that and other philosophical things which don't add up to that discussion.

I don't disagree, but I'm suggesting the merits don't add a lot of value not already present by other factors I mentioned.
One instance where it would help is a newbie software developper trying to get a foot in the door. Newbie software is usually
avoided, but merits from respected senior members can help relieve some of the apprehension. The attitude of a newbie
offering technical advice should reveal something about their credentials. Are they suggesting a magic "pill" with outrageous
claims or are they providing the technical reasoning for their advice.

It's just my subjective point of view, you may disagree, but I haven't typically looked at merit when assessing the quality of
a post or user. I've just seen it as a way to give a thumbs up to a particularly interesting or insightful post without replying
with a low value post like "Well said!!!". Perhaps I'm just playing devil's advocate in a way to explain a possible reason for the
central issue of this thread.

I disagree, and think this is a misconception of sorts. I think it's reasonable to say that the longer you've been here, and the more experience you have with Bitcoin, the more knowledgeable you are likely going to be about Bitcoin. Also, due to your longevity here, you'll likely be somewhat respected or hold some sort of higher rank here. So, it's far more likely that a seasoned user here is going to be talking about technical things, than a newbie is. At least, with any sort of accuracy. However, there have been examples of a new user or a newer user than expected does come, and talk quite in detail about the technical aspects of Bitcoin, and they usually get showered in merits.

There's also quite a few users that frequent the technical sections that have more merit than activity/posts.

Altcoin technical discussions tend to get more clueless lazy newbies, often punted over from the bitcoin section.
I'm not suggesting all newbies are clueless and lazy but I am referring to a subset of newbies who are.
Posting an altcoin question in the bitcoin section is an example.

Entering a technical discussion usually involves some technical interest. I am reminded of a sign a coleague
had posted at his desk: "if you want a better answer ask a better question". Altcoin gets all the "I know nothing
technically, don't want to learn, and just want to start mining, help me" questions.

My point is I don't think this has to do with merits. It's just the natural order of things that altcoins are second
class. A few may not deserve it based on markets, and for technical mining discussions SHA256D altcoin
mining has more in common with Bitcoin than with "alt-algos". But that's the way it is.

I spend most of my time on the altcoin mining board, for obvious reasons, so I don't see all the financial scams.
They get deleted for being off topic on the mining board. It doesn't get all the shitcoin spam either. But there's no
shortage of malware spam. There are a lot of new phish in the pond and it's attracting a lot of phishing.

I don't think merit helps much with that either. Most malware is posted by newbie accounts. If that's not a big
enough red flag for the "best mining software in the world" the presence of lack of merit won't make a difference.

Senority and reputation play a bigger role in technical discussions. It's less about the post and more about the user
who posted it.

Just my 2 Sats.

I'd say the reason behind the merit circulation in the Altcoin section being less than the main Bitcoin sections is most merit sources seem to be concentrated on the Bitcoin sections, and there is some sort of stigma towards the Altcoin section, I know there's several users who have that section on ignore, and I'm not really blaming them for doing it. However, I've been saying it for years; the Altcoin section despite having more spam than the Bitcoin sections, still has some very good discussion. It would be brilliant if some merit sources could concentrate on these sections a little bit more.

Although, aside from that I don't think there's anything particularly surprising about the circulation of merit. Generally, the more technical oriented sections tend to encourage more in depth conversations, and therefore the merit flows there a lot more. Altcoin sections are probably considered a lot less technical than the main Bitcoin sections. I must admit that the Development section is one of the best places on the internet, when it comes to discussion about the technical aspects of Bitcoin.

At least on the tech boards, shitposts don't receive Merit and are quickly removed after reporting them. Some try, but it doesn't earn them anything.

I probably don't visit 90% of this forum if you include every local board in that statistic, and I even have most of the English-section boards on ignore as well--including all of the altcoin ones. 

I don't have a top-8 in my head as far as which sections do or should earn the most merits, because that's not how I organize things in my mind.  Some sections are better than others.  Altcoin Discussion and the rest of the child boards are, in general, pure crap.  Basically, they're where bounty hunters go to shitpost.  Now and then there are some really good posts made by dedicated members, but if you look at the rest of the posts in the thread, you'll see stupid one-liners that have no value whatsoever--and yes, I used to visit the altcoin sections, so I'm familiar with them. 

Unfortunately, Bitcoin Discussion is another popular dump site for the trash from bounty hunters/campaign shitposters, and you'd think it'd be the section where a lot of merits are earned--but it's not.  Meta is populated by a lot of older members who actually care about the forum and/or participate in the drama between the personalities they're familiar with.  Not surprisingly, a lot of merit sources also post there, too, so that's probably why a lot of merit gets distributed in that section.  Too bad that many members with nothing to say have figured that out and create threads just to earn merits.  That's been happening since the beginning of the merit system, by the way.

The reason is the number of posts on those boards, for example, Mining board was very strict and it was not easy to participate in it, and many people do not publish in the technical boards and therefore you will find many merits, but the lack of participation makes the total points on those boards less.

Merits are often related to the activity of merit sources and the quality of the participations. For example, the Russian board contains two merit sources with high activity, and therefore, if those sources distribute their points, you will find that the points that the rest of the members can distribute are higher, and so on.

I barely read a post or open the thread of the boards you quite mentioned, apart from beginners and help. Am only consistent with every other board due to I do understand the posts and comments been made there. Which I guess,
the majority of us do the same.
Concerning the low merits been given out is base on how informative and educative the post can be and how people interact with it

I only voted for two sub-boards because I can't make up my mind how to rank the rest:

• Development & Technical Discussion
• Bitcoin Technical Support

These two boards are the places where you go when you have problems with Bitcoin and when you need advice. Everything else is of less importance if you ask me. The amount of technical knowledge displayed there is just crazy.

I would love to have been able to vote for Bitcoin Discussion as well, but due to the state of that section and the amount of spam it generates, it's sometimes hard to take it seriously. The Russian local should probably not be in the poll at all. If you aren't Russian, you aren't visiting that local board, so you don't know what is going on there. It's the same with all other local boards. If you don't speak the particular language, you don't belong there and you don't know the situation.

@Little Mouse
Without looking at any of the stats, my vote goes to both "Mining" and "Mining (Altcoins)" boards and sub-boards.
^{- Just to be clear, I voted those due to suffering from poor merit distributions, as opposed to the overall quality of the boards that deserve more merits!}

Amen to that!

Well,am pretty sure that we have a couple of merit source that have taken it upon themselves to distribute merit to QUALITY post.
With all due respect,Sometimes,i just feel maybe our legendary and merit source should get sober and merit any post when due.
Remember,this was created as a means of appreciation and accolades for updating the forum each and everytime anyone did.
Most newbies are software programmers and sometimes post nice articles But end up getting one or no merit at all😿

Let's improvise for the consolidation of the forum🙏
Trojane🙂

I didn't understand the question as intended by the OP. Are you asking the boards that deserve much merit due to the quality of posts going on in the board or you are asking the boards that deserve merit because of poor distribution of merits in such board. It's a two different thing.

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However, I think the right thing should be to assign merit sources to every board if possible and mandate them to spend at least 70% of their merits in such boards. With this there can be even distribution of merits across all the boards.

Giving this some thought and knowing that my votes don't match my activity makes me want to dedicate more merit to different sections.  It's tough sometimes because some of the folks here, especially in the Bitcoin Technical Support section have some pretty high level advice that isn't understood by the majority.  That would also be the type of place you tend to only visit when you have a problem or are looking something up.  I'll have to do a better job about taking some time to get in there and give out some 'rits.

LittleMouse asked a question to which I statistically responded, and from my statistical standpoints, it appears that there has been a significant drop in merits on the Altcoin mining sub board, so I was only curious as to why the drop occurred, not that I'm asking merits sources to start dropping merits on shit posts.

I hope we do not have an influx of new threads in the selected boards from members after this poll, in an attempt to grab a little from the merit spree.
As other users have said above, merit should ba available wherever there can be quality posts, a user should not have to adjust their interest to rank up, one who is interested in aktcun discussion should not have to make threads in B&H or Meta to get merits.

Irrespective of the board, all boards deserve active distribution of merits to active but quality posts, even including off-topics, provided if there are quality posts and constructive discussions that make posts and threads in such boards to be constructive.

I think there is nothing bad for a active reputed member posting frequently on altcoin boards like mining (altcoins) to request for merit source so merit can be distributed and redistributed in such boards to quality posts, I mean altcoin boards generally, I noticed merits distribution in altcoin boards are not much like bitcoin boards. I do not know what could have caused this, I wish to be active in altcoin boards before but most useful information for me are mainly on bitcoin boards to be sincere.

There's a flaw in your reasoning: boards don't deserve Merit, posts do. If it's up to the subject, I'd say the tech boards deserve to get most Merit. But those aren't the most visited boards, and if less people read it, less people can Merit it.
The top-Merited boards list is basically a combination of 2 factors: many posts and many users with sMerit to give. The WO-thread has both, so no surprise it's #1.

This graph looks like the Merit came from the initial Merit airdrop: many altcoin users must have had sMerit to give, but without active Merit source the board runs out of sMerit eventually.

I’d take a more granular look at data shown in tabs such as these:

Altcoin Mining Merits per month:
https://public.tableau.com/shared/72ZH4FKWM?:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link

Altcoin Mining Top sMerit Senders (hover over the lines to see data readings):
https://public.tableau.com/shared/SXWTWJNKT?:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link

Altcoin Mining Merits, TXs, Senders, Receivers per month:
https://public.tableau.com/shared/3F9KSWNYB?:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link

Merit per post (essentially 2019 onwards - I didn't track data until then):
https://public.tableau.com/shared/JZFSGXB29?:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link
(good enough, providing board is not heavily moderated)

2018 is more of an exception, and possibly the clearer reading is provided on the second link above (I’ll leave you to explore it). If we just look at the information from 2019 onwards, the charts and distributions become way flatter.

Regardless, data does not show unmerited content worthy of it, as that needs to be provided by summarizing or listing cases there to display the volumes we’re talking about.