Hope I can throw a few suggestions, as you already have mentioned most of the members are just random posters, I got to thinking, what if you could actually set out weekly tasks for those who know things and are capable technically to help the forum members especially those with limited knowledge about a lot of stuff.
There are very useful and educative topics presenting new tools, scripts, new methods on how to do variety of so many constructive content.
I'm not going deep and try to keep it short, currently on project/ technical/ development boards there are at least 20 good developers, many of which with low merits, however they do work hard and spend time, but when a developer releases a new tool, they just provide a generic guide thinking their audience is already a nerd, that decreases the number of users, and definitely scares the non technical away, which they consist a large amount of userbase BTW.
I was thinkinh, maybe you could be so kind, as always and incentivize those developers with merits asking them to create thorough and easy to uderstand tutorials on how any member with no knowledge of programing could watch, learn and implement what they need simply from one source which would be the OP of a project topic.
You know If I had 500 smerits per 30 days I would transform at least a few boards of the forum in 3 month, going to their topic suggesting them to dedicate their reserved second post only to provide step by step guidance on how to properly and efficiently work around the problems to reach a satisfactory result for the members.
If you go to project developent where the new and interestig stuff happens, posts in a topic are a mess, everyone other than OP comes to discussion and tries to push and advertise their own product, not that's a bad thing, but they could each open their own topic to provide their services, and since most of the project are open source, there is actullay a no thanks job, but they contribute to the community this way, however if someone with a decent supply of smerits could constantly observe and even demand as a forum member, suggesting them to provide detailed information for all kinds of operating system, things like how to set this set that ect. And have them organized if not on OP but under the OP where they could reserve and update from to time.
I know this will take a lot of time to do for them, but they are here to do the hard work, so adding a few hourse or days to help the newbies in a specific field. As they are the devepolers, going a few miles to help 20 members won't do any damage, but on the other hand people with limited knowledg find their source, their go to for answers instead of wondering around the net while the answer is here and just needs a bit push to motivate the useful content creators to actually care and help others.
If no one would have helped me as a newbie I could never become what I am, and there has been so many lost opportunities where I lost my chance to learn more and not just stay idle.
This forum could become a reliable source of information for many people, imagine every newcomer and their dozens of questions, if they can get all their answers from a reliable source in one place, why not heh?
They could show codes, post videos uplaod images live share screen, etc and at the end you as a merit sourse go to their topic, check the content they have provided, read the feed back from users and based of the gathered information then decide to send merits to them, remember recognition is extremely important for young developers, it motivates them provides inspiration, and at the end of the day you used the smerits on people who actually deserve them and not many merit sources see their work.
Remember a meritable post is not a 10 page essay about a subject, sometimes 6 line of codes is what it takes to have the post worth giving 10 merits while it looks something ordinary and simple, but there has been days of working and testing behind the scenes to make that happen.
I know they won't make me even a teporary source, but that't fine, I don't have a huge ego, my intention is to help, whether I can do it by myself or simply plead to the currently merit sources, both results are satisfactory.
Sadly developers see everyone as if they are technicaly inclined, so they post generic guidance either on github or on this forum, and what is better for them to provide a detailed guide to help a certain member and receive dozens of merits in return, other people see this and it encourage them to come forward and ask the questions to then leave the topic satisfied with their answer.
Doing this frequently will also incentivize others to improve and up their game if they see sources are giving their smerits to actuall real world solution helping people, they would up their game and the competition begins, IMO this is a way for a community to grow and thrive at the same time for starters 50 smerits per month is enough, Im around for a 2 years God willing, and am more than happy to help, if not then I hope this post count at least as my 2 satoshi contribution for the forum.
❤😗 missed you chymist, I miss your tantrum for annoying members, I wish you the best which you don't even know what they are, but they will come to your life God willing.
