For example provide me this factual information.
Your current received merit score minus merit from the top 300 and any merit awarded in the meta section. Please provide me the current received merit and the merit you would have after making the adjustments??
All Merit data is publicly available, you're free to do this (I'm going to watch a movie
).
But more importantly: why would it matter how much came from other users with good posts? It would be much more surprising if most of my Merit came from spammers!
2. people in meta since I have been here are helpful at providing stats I ask for and some say things I agree with.
I could probably provide it, just not now
And since "my" webhosting is currently unavailable, I can't provide you the latest version of full raw Merit data (theymos only provides the last 120 days).
The point is many are recognising they can make great posts on other boards and not get anywhere near the merit they should get based on the level of post you would need to make here in the meta section if you were one of the inner circle.
This is true totally.
You mean the "inner circle" of people who aren't spammers and make decent posts? Using the term "inner circle" makes it sound as if that's a bad thing.
I have said this is not a big deal because merit stops lots of negative behaviour and is a nice way to award others who do things you ask or for you to tip your hat to others that express views you share.
And yet, you keep bringing it up. I'm still not sure what you're trying to prove though.
People are wrongly believing that merit = valuable objective post and further more people are wrongly suggesting their high merit scores mean their posts are more valuable or hold more weight that low merit score holders. This is not the case.
I can't help what people believe. I consider Merit as: "this post is worth reading", or in some cases even: "at least it's not spam". Very good posts receive more Merit, and in the end it's the total from all users that counts.
The merit system is fine we just have to explain to people who wonder why they are not getting much merit for good posts it is not because their posts are not good it is due to other factors.
Lol, I've almost exclusively seen shitposters wonder why they don't get Merit, not good posters.