Topic: Request: Disable merits in the Wall Observer thread (Read 2204 times)

Poll has finally ended. 38 for Yes and 59 No. Not completely surprising, but for the 38 people who voted Yes, well let me just say I am proud of you.

There's been a considerable dropoff in merit farming in the WO since I opened this thread (although it still exists to a certain degree). I reckon I will re-open and bump it if it picks back up again.

At least Duderino seems like he's considering being more selective with merits, so that's good.

Just a reminder to all merit sources, you don't need to give away all your source merits! Ideally you are giving them out for good posts that demonstrate the slightest inkling of original thought, and not just for copy/pasted tweets about number going up, or because somebody expresses admiration for you or agrees with you. I dunno, I guess the takeaway is don't let yourself be so easily fooled and manipulated. Its happened to me a few times, nobody's perfect, but let's not consistently reward low effort copy/paste posts. It just leads to a multiplication of such posts in what is arguably the best thread on the forum.

The forum already has the option to report. Restricting giving merit in one section will make these members move to other sections of the forum. So better option is report them so that their account is flagged red and becomes useless.

Nice data! Looks a healthy who's who of Wall Observer participants to me. Forgot there were so many, though enough of them are MIA these days.

Chart buddy otherwise didn't make the Top 50 cut, which is reassuring.

this is top 77 on the list:

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For the record the WO was being trashed by twitter quotes (About 120 days of it) and images that 3 or 4 of the top merit givers were giving merits.

It was an issue.

Do I think they were feeding bots and alts so they could have a dozen signature accounts nope.

Do I think they were being taken advantage of by sleazy  farmers maybe.

I still voted no.

And if you check me you will see I stopped giving the twitter/bots/alts/farmers merits around 90 days may 95 days ago.

Exactly! This ends up being in line with what I mentioned previously.
Out of more than 150k merits given, +20% of this value was given by @El duderino_. He, in turn, is one of the biggest merit givers on the entire forum. Let's say that he is not consistent in the merits he gives, just because he is in the WO? It certainly suits your criteria to the type of topic you are on.

Looks like a list of the Cool Kids to me.

And why the fuck did you make me trust Microshaft Javascript in order to fucking see this data?!?!?!?!

You have done a really great thing and now everyone can see that how many merits were sent and received by each user. I really appreciate your efforts on compiling that list because it will be really good to clear doubts. Based on that data I don't think that merit hunters are targeting WO thread that much. Most of the merits were sent to reputed members of the forum  and I don't think that anything is wrong with such meriting approach because someone can send his/her smerits to posts of the ones whose style they like.

The data clearly shows that most of the merits are given to reputed members of the WO thread and I was more than sure that @El duderino_ will be on top in the list, and he's actually on top in both merit sending as well as merit receiving list. All top merit senders and merit receivers on that list are the reputed members of the forum and a few of them spend most of their time on WO thread only. I guess other would also think similarly after going through that list, and I'm quite sure that it will help to clear some doubts.

As promised, here is the file, compiling the total number of merits received by each user, and the total number of merits that each user gave.
File: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AuWqcTrLK_TciKVm8Z0GKtmpF1rBpQ?e=qyx6gP

Based on this data, let's be honest: do you really think that merit hunting users are really managing to do this on WO?

Sometimes it seems like some WO posters don't have much time for merit distribution, as merit sources, and therefore use WO in order to re-distribute them to lower-merited users*, which I don't think is a bad thing. At least that's the impression that I get occasionally. For others the rest of the forum is simply too trashy to spend much time in, so much better off sticking to WO if you want some decent content at least.

*Ie meriting the user for their overall contribution to the forum as opposed to a specific post

That won't help IMO... Some of them are perfectly happy to write 10 posts there before getting a single merit. They are significantly motivated to spam by the prospects of receiving even just one merit. Thankfully they seem to have made a "group decision" to stop it for the time being... for the most part. We'll see how long it lasts for.

Is this suggestion going to gain any traction or will it be dismissed entirely? If not limiting the number to "1" but limiting to a number that is accepted by consensus, is it an option? Another option is to cap the number of merits a member is allowed to give in a/that particular board.

If all those (and other) options are not feasible then there is another option: to do nothing and allow the status quo to continue in the Wall Observer thread.

Yes, you should definitely do that when you have free time. I think a step like that will help to reduce the numbers of account farmers on WO thread and whenever a newbie or someone that's low in rank gets most of his/her merits from WO thread then that user should be reported in that thread where such cases are reported. The reported accounts in that reporting thread should be sent to the managers of the forum that actively manage signature campaigns. The managers will then decide that whether they'll consider such participants in their campaigns or not.

I'm sure that such step will be helpful for all those members who want to have a proper solution to tackle the issue of WO thread. I personally don't have any issue with the members who are getting their merits from WO thread because I'm sure that they are also trying their best to gain those merits, but I also agree with the concern of those members who say that such kind of merit gaining will increase the number of users who will mostly post low quality stuff on the forum.

I can try to take a snapshot of that information.
Maybe we'll even be surprised by the positive.

If I can get some time, maybe can do that this week. I'll try, I don't promise.

You are surely doing god's work daddy dildah.

Well the discussion will continue to get longer and there won't be an end to it. I'm sure that WO thread has been a merit house for many years and it will continue to be that way no matter whatever solution we purpose. I'm sure that @OP's concerns are valid about those members who took advantage of WO merit sources and earned those merits to rank up their accounts and a reputed member like @Nutildah would never accept such kind of activity on the forum and I believe that's the sole reason behind creation of this thread. But, I must say that the whole blame should be on the ones who took advantage of the merit sources or reputed members of the WO thread for the purpose of account farming. The simple solution is to find all of the users who ranked up their accounts using WO thread only and then create a thread to report those members. I know that my solution isn't a perfect one but it can at least send the message to those account farmers that ranking up their accounts through that thread isn't acceptable and they may stop their account farming activities after getting that message.

I think it's better to purpose a solution that would be beneficial for everyone because disabling of merits won't be an acceptable solution for the members who are mostly active on that thread and it can dishearten most of the members of that thread. I know that some spammers have used that twitter meme post spamming on that thread, but we can't ignore the activity of the reputed members that have been active on that thread for many years. The one with highest posts on the forum is also part of that thread and I can say that there are many such reputed members who spend most of their time on that thread. The presence of those members make that thread useful for the forum and that's why any decision regarding that thread should be handled with care because any wrong decision may hurt the feelings of the members who have given a lot to the forum.

I don't think that creating any limits on that thread would be any helpful because limits can really discourage the members who are actively participating in that thread. Everyone has purposed their solutions and I think every member of the forum has right to share their opinion regarding an issue. I know that the main intention of @OP behind creation of this thread was to stop account farming and that's a valid concern but still disabling of merits on that thread isn't the best solution. I think we all have to find a solution to solve the issue of meriting on that particular thread but the solution should be something that should be acceptable by the reputed members of that thread as well. The purposed solutions from the members on this thread are truly awesome but I think the best solution is still going to be the one that's supported by majority and also by the members of the WO thread.

But I give credit, not because of the username. I give credit for what the user has written or accomplished.

Logically, over time we begin to identify more with some users than with others, and this can influence the merits given.

But as a rule the merits should be given by what is done and not by being done by a particular user. This in my opinion, of course.

With all the striving to be the first to reach the level of one and a half hundred thousand merites per day in one topic, it will be possible only with hyperinflation of merites. Of course, the presence of merit sources makes merit an inflationary asset, but not to the same extent!

that original 150472 merits (per day?) number.. you know of course that is now the new target to hit right? WO peeps are nothing if not competitive.

Great. Thanks to the this statistic being on public display, we're gonna get a new round of accounts shitposting for merits again, I can feel it. This is how they respond when you ask merit farmers if newbies are their alt accounts:



Here's an account farm at work: