Topic: Random merit giveaway threads. What do you think about them? - page 2. (Read 565 times)

Pretty much your first point.

Those merit giveaway threads became a trend simply because the first few users that made the first few merit giveaway threads received a good amount of merits from other users. Now, people are trying to do the same and it's getting pretty obvious and pretty annoying. A good number of those people creating those threads haven't even earned a single merit, instead, all their merits are from the airdrop. The merit system wasn't surely made for those giveaways. It's so bad that I'd even go as far as proposing that those newer threads should be deleted immediately by mods/admins.

QuestionAuthority got canned as a merit source for running a similar giveaway to Rambotnic. There is nothing wrong with asking to give away merit for substantial posts. However, giving away merit just because people ask for it goes against the spirit of giving merit. I think such threads that encourage people to just beg for merit and get it should be treated similar to altcoin giveaway threads. If a merit source is running one, they need to be canned as well.

There's nothing wrong on helping others, but we should take note If we always spoon feed them there will be no room left for them to improve their skills, seeing that there always someone here helping them to rank up, the challenge is no longer difficult to them. Let's just do our job to help this forum to be a better community whether there is a giveaway or not, let's just focus on sharing our precious knowledge and forget the giveaway.

Rambotnic is a deviant little troll, and I suspect he had some nefarious motive for making that thread above, but Your Point Is Invalid probably had decent intentions.  He's not that active anymore and may genuinely want to give out some of his sMerits for worthy posts without having to go looking for them.

I don't have a problem with merit giveaways in general, as long as the merits are being used for what they're intended to do, which is to reward good posts.  They shouldn't be offered for services or favors or whatever, except if it's for providing information in the form of a worthy post.  I've even started a thread like that.  It wasn't a straight-up merit giveaway, but I was trying to entice members to help me out with some information by implying that I'd give them some merits for their effort.  I didn't get a lot of good responses.

Anyway, merit giveaway threads rarely are successful from what I've seen.  Actmyname had one going for a while last year or so, and people would link to their own shitposts, and the whole thing was a mess.  The only good one going right now is LoyceV's, which I can't find right now and thus can't link to it.  The big advantage of that one is that people aren't reporting their own posts.  And even then, it's still not as popular as it probably should be, nor is it a true giveaway thread.  It's more a call to merit sources to look at threads in which some good posts have been overlooked.

Even someone try to create new topics to send merits to their alts, they will be not have enough merits to do this. Amount of airdroped merits are not too large, instead finite amount. So, they can not help their alts move to even Member rank, or Full Member rank. Nowadays, Junior Members have very limited chances to join campaigns, so I don't think it will be a huge problem. In addition, you are right about the potential abusements.
Moreover, I don't think you made a good title, "Random", I don't agree with the word, random. 
Because you made a good topic, that present current situation of the forum, not a serious one (in my opinion), I sent you 1 merit. Congrats!

I think this answer from thread quoted by you summarises everything.

These threads are not merited by anybody so you can clearly see the community knows how to recognize and correctly value good quality content and merit system will defend itself.
The only thing that will happen is that a few newbies in need will receive a few merits which is a good thing.
This threads will die naturally no need to do anything, especially if merits indeed were awarded.

I don't know why people merit people who start giveaway threads, it seems pointless to me but I don't think there is anything wrong with the threads themselves, If you have sMerits but you don't want to spend hours sifting through all the sludge and spam to find a few good posts then starting threads like that can help. The merit-worthy posts will be presented to you without much effort o your part. There is no use in hoarding smerits.



Regardless of if they merit their alts through these threads, its very difficult to find out. Some would say starting these threads would make it harder for you to merit your alt(s) without suspicion.
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I think the list of all merit sources is still private, that coupled with a very lose definition of "reputable forum members" will have this solution creating more issues than solving problems

As we have already noticed from time and time again, merit giveaway threads are being opened by anyone who wishes in the beginners board.
Spending merit and helping members ranks up is not bad, and I am not against it but I think something is wrong with this kind of approach.

It's understandable if a merit source or a very reputable and active member of the community opens up such a thread like this and this because besides their allocated monthly sMerits, they do have their personal sMerits to send out too which becomes quite tedious since they have to spend off before the next allocation.

But we are now seeing random members pooping out of nowhere and claiming that they are giving away merits to Newbies and Jr Members as it is the case here and here
Funny thing is that there isn't any strict criteria on what quality of post is being looked for and i don't know why such an act is not being heavily frowned by the community.
When I look at such threads, I think the merit system is getting played in the canny way.

1. Merit Farming: Starter of the thread expects members to support him and award him more merit for starting a merit giveaway thread which is pointless in my opinion. This is nothing to do with contributing to the forum. I mean someone just has only 7 sMerit but can't even make a few clicks on different boards to look for merit worthy posts and there they are that telling newbies to post their merit worthy links in their threads.

2. A way to Meriting Alts without getting detected: Very easy to do. Culprit starts a thread with his main accounts that has a few sMerits, maybe 10 and then posts different links from his alts and boom, all alts get merit. The process of account farming goes on an on

Quick Solutions
- At least Merit give away thread starters should be merit sources or very active reputable forum members and the number of merits to be spent has to be high, not just 10-15 sMerits
- Heavily frown merit giveaway threads started by random members who have very little sMerit to giveaway. In fact the threads should be deleted as soon as possible when cited.
- Not to encourage such fake giveaways by meriting the thread starter's post. Let them suffocate, until they start thinking it's not a good idea.

What are your thoughts?