Topic: Request: Disable merits in the Wall Observer thread - page 6. (Read 2182 times)

Imho, even us non merit sources should have some standard because if I tend to merit certain type of shitposts, that can only encourage more members to do more of those as that's what those lemmings tend to do.

I find it interesting that 24 members voted "Yes" (31 voted "No", myself included) while (afaik) no one said so in this thread.

I meant I sent most of merits in the WO regardless earned or source…
But my reasoning is ok? Of sending bigger chunks to members I believe re sending higher quality postings etc…?
Especially when i’m out of Belgium like right now (EPT occupation @barcelona) so little time … but still distributing merits … but On especially these occasions I chose to sent them for quality re-sent value instead of hoarding.
Meh it’s just about avoiding Alt and scam accounts and I think I mostly avoid them

If that's the case and these people are abusing merit in WO, or farming, maybe it's the sources who should be reviewed?

Elaborated:
If the posts are good and merit worthy, whether it be comedic, reasonable, or whatever has some form of clear value to someone - then that's not a problem. If it's rewarding spam, or shitposting, then maybe individual merit sources should either rethink what they're meritting or be reviewed as to whether they should be a source or not; if they are obviously distributing merit irresponsibly.

My 2 cents.

Not really distinguishable for a receiver of merits or for an outside observer, but a merit source can see how many source smerits and earned smerits they have and the source smerits get sent first. So the merit source knows which ones are being used on a particular post... not sure if that really matters though (in this context). I think a merit source should uphold a higher standard regardless of which smerits they use. As opposed to non-source merit senders who can do almost whatever they please with their earned smerits.

many merit sources hang out in the WO, so running out of merits doesnt really apply.


generally, moderators dont do anything in the WO; it has special "dont moderate" status.

I don't believe source merits are distinguishable.. are they?  .. and then.. should they be?  o_0  (hmm..)

PowerGlove's idea seems interesting as a thread-based setting, I just don't like the restriction in general.. it would be painful to see accounts under those levels making a great post and not being able to get any merit for them because of a thread setting.

And could this help scammers?  Unrelated to WO, but posts from lower ranked victims may not be able to get the attention/merit on a thread they deserve because their accounts are under the level the scammer set on the thread, probably while at the same time the scammer merit's his (likely bought) legendary account(s) supporting the scam.

I'd lean towards being more aggravated with the merit giver.. but both can be annoying. Merit can't be undone. I'm just not one to judge another person's merit giving, assuming it isn't somehow being used to abuse the forum and its members. Source merit might be another story entirely which IMO inherently comes with judgement.. but again, how would one distinguish what merit is being handed out as source merit, or just the merit received from other members for their posts?

IF there is freedom of speech , let there be freedom of speech to and for everyone regardless of Rank or any kind of BS.

I voted NO for the reason that I think there are other ways that could solve that "problem" without going to a complete ban on merits in that thread. I personally like how the rules are set in Serious discussion, which means that you only need to limit which ranks can participate in that thread, and if that rule were set to Senior + rank in WO, I believe that such discussions would not be necessary.

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For those of us who are not merit sources and are not very popular on the forum, such a source of merits really means a lot, because be sure that every sMerits I received from you and other members of WO ends up as a reward for what I consider a useful and quality posts.

I do agree and disagree for some reasons

Like I actually do send merits and some big numbers too regular OG accounts…
Reason … they are contributing accounts for first and for years.
For myself I have some out the forum occupancy and there fore I always empty my source on Good forum user as I know they will resend on quality posts… and Theymos said send merits are better than merits not send.

I try to skip sending to merit farming alt accounts….

I also joined the few who voted. No, I have visited the WO street a few times, but I can't remember dropping any posts there yet, as I find it difficult to flow with things happening there most of the time.
The way merit is distributed there to me is part of the things that encourage the kind of conversation that goes on there and have made that place very active.

Disabling the merit on WO doesn't look like the best solution to me, but those who are not actually putting in some real effort to make quality contributions that are worth meriting should be avoided. If those merit farmers post 3 to 5 times without receiving any single merit, then they will realize that what they are doing is really not adding up, and as such, they will either put more effort into being organic with their post or better yet, copy and paste with a link to somewhere else.

Hmmm…. I do merit the WO mostly from my source merits
But I think mainly sending merits to OG accounts who have been contributing the WO for years and the rest of the forum. But also I see a lot of new accounts every day almost begging for merits… But we cannot be to harsh for them who write some good content in that topic.
I hope most of my merits end up well with some honest posters over there.

Maybe limited sending merits to legendary accounts or members who are posting in that topic for like few years or something ….

Sure you can:
And for Merit sources:
I like the last part: it's not a big deal.

Or, as a BOFH solution: don't count the Merit received in certain threads, just like posts in Off-topic aren't included in your total post count.

As much as I would like more features like this, it would be very bad. It gives users power over other users. There have been requests before to make it impossible for certain Ranks to post in your thread, but that too was never implemented. Disabling Merit for the users who need it the most to earn their place in this forum would strongly discourage real users. May I remind you: proxybans have collateral damage too. Denying Newbies from earning Merit even when their posts are good is not fair.
Merit requirements per rank are already very high. In 5.5 years, 300+ users have earned enough Merit to be self-made Legendary. A couple (hundred) Merits more or less doesn't matter much.

Disabling the merit system in the WO thread might not be a wise decision, it's too harsh for anyone who isn't abusing the system for the purpose of farming an account. I agree with most that tightening distribution is a wiser choice, but of course each user is still free to share his merits in his own way. Some users there don't really care about merit so there's a chance they're just having fun with it on some funny post or something.

If the people at the WO thread won't give merits to these " News / Tweets" posts, they will automatically be discouraged and won't be posting there for merits. However, those who give them merits aren't wrong either because they may find these tweets / news informative/entertaining.

Last time when this topic was discussed here, some of those people said that they weren't active on Twitter and they found reading these tweets as informative.

Finally, i will also say that Merit should not be disabled in the WO thread, After all, there are many good posts there that deserve to be merited and we can't take these rights from the posters only because a handful of users are using it for other purposes.

I just mercilessly Ignore merit farmers.

Zero tolerance.

Most of them are... but there's a couple who don't care and it appears they enjoy having their buttocks smooched upon, which is another tactic frequently employed by the farmers.


This is a good question. The loose merit givers are at least limited in number whereas the shitposters are amassing an infinitely large zombie army. Yet their growth could be stopped (at least in the WO thread) if the loose merit givers tightened up... which for whatever reason they refuse to do. I dunno, I guess the zombies aggravate me more.


The whole point is to stop rewarding them for shitposting in the WO thread where moderation is basically non-existent. I don't care if they move to another thread -- if they try what they're doing elsewhere their posts are likely to be deleted as spam, anyway.


   I had also noticed that but am trying to be willing to forgive for past mistakes and all that.


This is brilliant BTW. You're really good at coming up with this kind of stuff (novel, implementable solutions to forum problems).

Well said buddy, but I must let you know that I'm part of signature campaign that doesn't have any special post quota requirement from previous week. I really don't post to meet the campaign quota because whenever I like a thread and I know that I can provide my opinion in those topics then I try to present my ideas in those threads. I don't think that sharing one's opinion and knowledge in a thread is a form of shit-posting and if it is then almost everyone is doing it to a certain level.

I don't know about the thread that you're trying to referring to where I posted a comment without reading the thread because I always read the threads fully and I also try to read as many comments as possible in those threads before sharing my opinion in those threads. I spend most of my day's time on this forum to learn about different things and also to share my opinion and knowledge with others. I won't claim that I'm better than you or anyone else because my main focus is to improve myself rather than comparing myself with others. I'm truly sorry if I hurt you unintentionally but I don't think that my presence could be harmful to you or anyone else.

I believe that everyone has their own set of skills and each human can contribute to a site or forum with his/her ideas and sometimes those with less knowledge can also provide helpful suggestions to the ones who are more knowledgeable than them. I don't really know that in your eyes what is considered as a good post, but I would like to share my knowledge in a  genuine way and that's what I have been doing. I know that I post a lot on this forum and some people may consider members like me as shit-posters, but I believe that the more I can contribute to the forum the better it is. I still thank you for letting me know the weaknesses that I have and I'll most probably try my best to improve those weaknesses in future.

I respect you a lot because you're a very reputed member of the forum and I'll most probably try to improve my posts quality even further from now on. I know that there are some days when we can't really post good quality comments, but still hoping for better always takes us to better levels, and we can learn from our mistakes. Thanks once again for all of your words.

It's not my responsibility to tailor criticism to some made-up criteria, it is your responsibility to not post for the sake of your campaign quota and/or merits.

To be clear, these days I don't give much of a shit anymore about shitposters - it's easy enough to ignore them and/or avoid threads where they congregate. However when I notice someone like you stepping into a thread without reading it, and posting a couple of paragraphs of generic tripe - I may point that out. Most of the time said shitposters are happy to respond with more padding to their post count so it's not like I'm hurting the primary reason of your presence here, am I?

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As for WO - at least the thread is somewhat about Bitcoin. Even if someone gets a merit for a copypasta meme from twitter (or whatever it's called today) that's probably not as bad as getting merits e.g. on altcoin or bounty boards. So if we were to disable merits somewhere (which we almost certainly won't) I'd start there.