Topic: Request: Disable merits in the Wall Observer thread - page 3. (Read 2181 times)

But I saw it.

And the idea I had is that these sources of merit are giving merits on purpose, because they started to pick on them. The situation is like: "does this bother you? so I'll continue".

Is it nice to see? No... but, people have to calm down and move on. Let this phase pass for a while, so things can more or less return to normal on this topic.

We are talking about a topic with more than 32000 pages, and it has the same amount of time as I have on this forum.  The topic existed before merits, and has existed since the first day of merits. It has survived a lot on this forum, it will survive this phase.

No.


Yes. Not sure why you'd have doubts about that - read 10-20 pages of WO and it's quite obvious.

Merit sources are not infallible. And perhaps in this case they believe that Bitcoin-bullish posts (even low-effort ones) deserve merits. It all comes down to this: "do I want to see more posts like this in this forum/thread/etc". I don't. I guess nutildah doesn't either. Users who send merit for those posts apparently do.

I don't think anyone's credibility is being questioned here. It's just a difference of opinions. And as one of the WO "regulars" explained to us peasants, our opinions don't matter anyway.

But who gives merits?
Are each other's alts doing this? I repeat, for this you do not need the WO.

Now, are large forum merit sources distributing these merits to these spammers? I have serious doubts.

Unfortunately, what I saw, in a little analysis I did of this topic, is that it is used for users to attack each other. And halfway through, the guys distribute merits just to tease. In other words, because they start making accusations, many are making fun of the situation. Is this beautiful? No. But, when you start to question the credibility of those who give merits, and want to control how people give merits to each other, that's what happens.

I think it would be good for the main players in this situation to calm down and move on. 

I agree that PowerGlove suggestion does seem like it would be something that could be implemented for thread starters to be empowered in a kind of way that they are empowered with their decisions whether to have a open thread or a self-moderated thread, yet at the same time, the PG suggestion does seem to go a bit far to give that much power to individual thread starters to potentially undermine the likely advantages of having merit sending and receiving abilities across all threads.. and yeah the Ivory tower does seem to be an exception.. and I am doubtful that I have participated very much in those threads.. even though I don't always look which section I am in if someone (or a post) ends up referring me to a topic.  

---

By the way, I just made several changes to my earlier post in this thread (from about 12 hours ago), and I probably did end up getting a bit carried away with some of the at-first attempts at mere clarification that ended up being substantive... so if anyone might be interested in looking at that post again here's a link.

While that implentation looks convenient, I don't think that it would bring desired effect and those threads would probably end up like Serious Discussion/Ivory thread - basically ignored.

I don't think the argument is that those who deserve merit don't receive it, it's about those who don't deserve it (shitposters) receiving it.

Anyway, WO is where posting low-effort twitter copypasta can get you merits (especially if it's "bullish"), and shitposters are exploiting that. There aren't many, if any, other places on the forum like that. So your extrapolation here is incorrect.

Not exactly, it will depend on how the merits were created in the software. Signatures have been configured to be enabled or disabled.
I don't care about its merits, I don't know of any place on the forum where it is disabled. In other words, they may not have been developed with this function, which could involve redesigning everything.




The idea is not bad, the user can activate or deactivate it. But I repeat, I don't know to what extent, at a programming level, I would require rewriting this part. Impossible, isn't it! Necessary? I don't think so.

Now, the idea that I criticize is this: "more serious discussions, if there are no merits".
The idea of merit is to promote quality. Therefore, it should be the opposite, merits bring greater quality.

If this doesn't happen, it's not the merits' fault, but rather those who have a low quality criterion. But, as the forum has no rules for assigning merits, everyone gives the merits to whoever they want. I may not agree with that attribution of merits, but they weren't mine, each one gives to whoever he wants.

The point is that merit hunters don't need the WO topic for that. They can create topics themselves, and give merit to alts.
Saying that the sources of merits are not giving merits to those who deserve it in this topic is the same as saying that they do not have a good criteria for giving merits throughout the forum. And honestly I don't believe it!

No, we don't. Everyone has the right to express their opinion. They do not have the right for their opinion to be respected -- there's no such right.


Not really -- signatures are already turned off in WO, for the very reason why I think merits should be turned off there: they are conducive to spamming.


What? It's like you didn't actually read anything that was being said here at all. Oh, you didn't:


Personally I like the idea floated by PowerGlove about the option to turn merits off in a topic by its creator. Seems like a straight-forward implementation and would assist those who want discussion in their thread to be more serious.

Don't we have to respect the opinions of others, even when we don't share the same opinion?
I think that in a free forum like this, respecting different opinions is essential, so that everything continues to work well, as has happened over the last 15 years.

When I say respect, I don't say accept. Now, since there are no rules about how each person distributes their merits, each person chooses their criteria. And I, even though I don't agree with your criteria, respect your freedom to have them.

Who am I, to question your freedom of choice/decision?
Because there is this respect, we can be here to debate this subject. 




You're just helping me!

Which makes it even more difficult, technically speaking, to make a topic not capable of receiving merit. I don't know if you know programming, but the way the software works would require major changes for this to be done. It's one thing to configure a board for this limitation, another is a specific topic.

Furthermore, this could set a dangerous precedent where whenever the subject of a topic was bothersome, the merits would be disabled. Someone is very dangerous that line of reasoning.

We absolutely do not.


Its one thread -- one thread in one child board of one subsection of the entire forum.

Regarding your use of the term "credible," there is not even a standard (requirement) that a merit source needs to be credible.. but if there is any requirement it would be something like the merit source ONLY need not be abusive in exercising his/her merit sending discretion, and mostly in the arena of not selling the merit.... or perhaps not engaging in quid pro quo behaviors (or I suppose the appearance of quid pro quo behavior could be problematic, too).  

Any other standards that merit sources "need" to follow would likely merely be something like NOT promoting the breaking of forum rules or engaging in some kinds of conduct that might end up bothering theymos.. since as far as I understand, theymos continues to exercise his own discretion regarding who to appoint as merit sources and also he can remove any merit source at any time for any reason or for no reason at all.

Nutildah suggest that since there is already a practice that disallows signatures to be displayed in the WO thread, therefore merits should also be disallowed, since in this case, some of the smerits that are being received in the WO thread are being used to allow members to participate in signature campaigns. .and really these various Nutildah arguments seem to be convoluted, slippery slope, strained and even seemingly contradictory kinds of arguments that are really difficult to make sense of when you really figure out the impacts of implementing anything he is suggesting, which and would end up in merit restrictions imposed on newbie members or even more senior members or even disabling this one particular (WO) location on the forum in which historically the vast majority of the smerits have been already been circulated (and circulating).

I am pretty sure that the smerit sending/receiving statistics have been pretty consistent on the fact that heads and tails above any other thread(s), the WO thread circulates the most merits for the past 5.5 years (since the merit system went into effect).. so Nutildah's proposal (in and of itself) that is also getting a certain level of support (from seemingly jaded folks or otherwise receptive to being jaded in ways that I had already described in my earlier posts - namely being dumb, being spiteful and being elitists.. just to clarify that I am ad hominem attack anyone who supports Nutildah/Bob's pursuit of this matter hahahahahaha.. ).


I doubt that there is as much truth to the needs for bullish bitcoin related posts in order to be merited.. but it probably does not even matter.. we're in a bitcoin forum.. have you ever heard of investing in something and then cheering against it?  Well if you are participating in a forum that is about that investment (ie bitcoin) that you are bashing, you better back up your arguments with, at minimum, some facts and logic.

If someone is making some kind of bearish arguments, I likely will be disinclined to merit such a post if it is not backed up... but I might not require as much backing up from some bullish arguments... that's true.. that's true.

SO FUCKING WHAT?

Members are allowed to merit for any reason that they like - as long as there is no quid pro quo types of elements.

You also might be insinuating that merit sources are biased towards pro-bitcoin ideas.. or even that such pro-bitcoin ideas of the merit sources (and even the merit senders) are even worse in the WO thread.

SO FUCKING WHAT?

You are a lame little turd.  #nohomo.  Do you even know where you are at?  

Maybe you should restart your computer, and then conscietiously and manually re-log into each of your webpages so that you can clarify that you are not mistakeningly believing that you are in the NFT pumping thread... with your daddy dildah^** promotional pieces rather than a bitcoin forum.. and even a bitcoin specific part of the forum.. namely the WO thread?

 

**by the way, it just struck me that daddy dildah is a much better name than uncle dildah.. it rolls off the tongue much better, and you will thank my later, perhaps?


Doesn't it seem like you might be exaggerating a wee bit, here?  Playing into your own hatred of newbies?.. and even patronizingly believing that you are a better person to be making judgements in regards to human interaction intentions..


I almost fell of my seat when I read this part.


I doubt that joker_josue is saying exactly what you consider him to be saying.. You seem to be suggesting that he believes that there is some kind of inconsistency with my behavior that needs to be resolved - but instead he seems to be suggesting that there is some kind of inconsistency in the accusations that are being made or even the resolutions being proposed..  and sure he can choose to clarify this matter (objective observation as you suggested it to be) more, if needed.^**

**So, I see that it seems that joker_josue did clarify this point in his post responding to this post.


In regards to your implications that I might be employing different standards in different threads, there could be some truth to that.  If you had not noticed, different threads have different topics, and their topics could affect the extent to which any forum member (including but not limited to yours truly) might consider a post within such different forum threads to be merit worthy - and sure it likely is true that I am way more liberal in regards to considering almost any topic to be potentially merit worthy in the WO thread - in part because, if you might not have noticed, almost any topic goes within that thread - except pumping shitcoins.. or perhaps some somewhat obvious breaches of forum rules?  

Have you ever tried to report a WO post? You will receive a dialogue box that specifically reminds you that the rules of the WO thread are different than the rest of the forum.  

We should feel lucky that the forum has a place like the WO thread that is almost like a troll box and free to throw around almost any topic related or maybe even not as much related to bitcoin.. even though many of those of us participating in that thread are not very tolerant towards shitcoin pumping even though from time to time some active participants still do engage in such shitcoin coin pumping things in that thread.. but it seems to be way (I mean way) the fuck less than it was in 2015, 2016, 2017.. at least it seems to me that the WO thread has gotten better in several ways over the years - but of course, there are always going to be some dynamics that exist that might not even result in as much participation from some elements of the bitcoin community, so we may well be reliant on other members (even seemingly troll-like members and new members or even seemingly bad intentioned members) to post some of the happenings that are taking place in other places around the interwebs.

Seems to me that we are quite lucky to have a place like the WO thread on the forum, and some members are complaining and trying to ruin a good thing.. and maybe that's why we cannot have nice things?   have you ever thought of that daddy dildah?  

Edited:  about 12 hours after the original post, I made several clarification edits.... and some of them might have changed my tone or even bolstered some of my earlier substantive content.

You are write. But the problem here is how can you prohibit the creation of alt account? Corruption is inevitable. It's like a virus to the system, you can cure some but all can't be cured. What you are talking about has been here for years. Many people commenting on your post, saying "it must stop" are the propeller or the master minder's of it. Some account you see as the original account of some person are even the second or third of it. Most alt account has been grown to legendary an you can never know.


If you identify these set of people what about the smart one's. The unsmart once will be victimized while the smart one's gets away freely. This thread will affect the innocent ones because the grases has grow with the crops and if care is not taken the crop will be weeded in replacement of the gras. If this continues the newly created account will be suspected to be an alt account. Even when reasonable post is made it will look as if it's coming from a legendary in disgace of a newbie.


All what you have said is true but is this the only way?

This is not entirely true. If you look at the warning, you can see that the topic is not moderated for some simple violations, but gross violations can be reported to the moderators.



And, as I see it, the point is, on the one hand, to preserve the special atmosphere of communication in the topic, but on the other hand, not to make it so that some spammers start using it.

I think that is the point mentioned by nutildah. The criteria should not be merit givers giving merits for any reason other than the receiver deserving it. The definition of what posts deserve merits should not even be discussed because it will vary immensely from member to member. There is simply far too much reasoning and rationale (as well as politics, cliques, revenge, grudges etc) involved per individual member thought processes to ever find anything close to consensus therefore it should not be discussed here.

Keeping that aside, disabling merits in one thread could start an avalanche of requests for other threads but there is a problem and it has not been tackled. I am glad the OP started the thread to invite discussion.

There we have the answer to reporting low-quality posts and spamming in the Wall Observer thread. Moderators are not going to take action therefore what could be a solution that is acceptable to those concerned about the level of spamming and merit begging without those that are giving the merits feeling they are being censored?

They are everywhere, and they know how to take advantage of every place. But not all those who voted No here are Shi** posters, many members think that Merit should not be disabled in WO thread for a member to freely use merit for this purpose. So they voted No here. On the other hand, many members abstained from voting. So it expressed their personal opinion by voting, while many members abstained from voting and took a neutral position.

Yes, I think that WO is moderator free and I think theymos allowed it to be that way for some reason. If someone reports the posts of that thread then the moderators won't be able to delete those reported posts because none of them have the authority to delete any posts at that thread. I may be wrong but that's what I have noticed so far, and I also believe that the merit sources that are meriting the posts at that thread are well aware of their responsibilities and theymos  knows about that thing.

I'm more than sure that theymos won't disable merits on that thread because some of the most reputable members of the forum only post in that thread and if merits are disabled from that thread than those members may not get merited for their contribution. I also believe that if newbies get merited in that thread than there is noting wrong with that because if a newbie is active in that thread and is participating in that thread then he/she will most probably get some merits.

I know that merits farmers may find that thread an easy one to get merited, but I'm more than sure that those farmers will have to put a lot of effort to receive those merits that they're trying to farm, and yes the merit farmers will always find other boards or threads to get those merits. We really can't stop all of those merit farmers and that's a bitter truth.

aside from @infofront's light touch, WO is a more or less a moderator free zone per theymos

Exactly. Those who have to be aware of which posts should receive merits are the merits giver. He is the one who must assess the situation and understand what kind of user he is dealing with.

It would be completely unfair to block an area of the forum from merits, harming users who make a clear effort to write good content for the community.
I already commented on this in another topic, but even in the "Gambling discussion" area, there are topics that deserve merit. Despite noting that few merits are distributed in this area. This is a good example that the solution does not involve depriving an area of the forum of merits.

When there is a lot of spam in an area of the forum, what we should do is report it and ask the moderators to delete it. It shouldn't be asking to end merits.

One of the issues account farmers face (and there are too many account farmers in the forum) is the manner in which they will try to receive merits. If they use the higher ranking (Full Member/Snr Member/Hero/Legendary) accounts they already operate to give out merits they will end up getting connected with their alt-accounts. The safest way for them to receive merits would be try to get other members to send them.

Not entirely but much activity in the Wall Observer thread has morphed in to an educational session for newbies and account farmers on how to spam and hope for merits.

The notion they will eventually receive merits for flooding copy/paste from Twitter/X has enabled the culture to thrive. Ranking-up threads used to mean something back in the day, now they mean nothing more than an attempt to get more merits rather than a mechanism for recognition for the contributions they have made in the community.

The threads created to give out merits for worthy posts that are reported to them are a force for good if they are used properly. There are several threads like that but when they are flooded with members who are operating as part of account farms, it simply does not bring the benefit the merit sources had intended.

Just look at the state of the thread here: Save your nice merit records here - LAST UPDATE: 12/07/2023

It was a nice idea to have that thread for reasons it was created for but lately it has been flooded by a huge number of relatively new members seeking merits for posting about other members merits and activity. In many cases there were no nice merits to save but some members used (and still do use it) to post anything they can hold of but ultimately they are seeking merits. It is for that reason many low ranking members started posting non-memorable records usually of much higher ranking members rather than Jnr Member or Member accounts because they hoped to get merits.

Not just the merit givers but as a collective we have to stop teaching them that spamming, sucking up and kissing ass pays otherwise we are sending out the wrong message of encouragement.

Okay, I believe there is spam.
But, whoever gives merits is the one who has to evaluate what is or is not, it is legitimate to give merit. And at the same time avoid giving merit to "merit hunters". The person who has to meet this criterion is the merit giver.

So I say that if we say that sources of merits are credible throughout the forum, this board has no criteria. So it's the same as saying that they have no criteria in the entire forum.

Rules were never created for how to give merits. Each of us is free to use our own criteria for the distribution of our smerits. Creating this type of lock is an indirect way of creating rules.

Those who give merits have their attribution criteria, we may not agree, but we have to respect them. For each of us gives our smerits to whoever and wherever he wants.