All you had to do is read some content before opening
another thread.
So what are you proposing that be done against shady behavior regarding the merit system? Nothing? Or are you simply saying that *we could/should* tag them, but that some of the tag's by actmyname were unwarranted?
I think that tagging may be appropriate in particularly obvious cases, or particularly egregious cases involving hundreds of merit points and several posts. But generally you should start out by assuming good faith, and only change that opinion as the evidence really piles up. Tagging someone immediately after an instance of apparently-inexplicable meriting is too trigger-happy IMO. Even if it is a case of illegitimate merit, even
hundreds of illegitimate merit points are not much of a problem IMO, so you have to ask whether it's worthwhile to
possibly make a mistake by tagging someone who is merely suspicious.
Alright. So it is clear that we should tag people similarly how we tag people for trust abuse (e.g. leaving positive trust to your own alt). I do think that
hundreds of merit points are quite a big problem, in fact. Sure, the fool will likely end up with nothing eventually. However(!), hundreds of points being spent on your own army of shitposting accounts can have a significant impact (multiplied by the number of people doing it) for quite some time (until they run out/get caught).
Now, I'm not 100% sure that actmyname's ratings are outside of what I would consider appropriate, which is why I didn't take action to immediately remove him. But from what I've seen, it does seem likely that he is too trigger-happy.
It's probably due to him being a newcomer to the DT system. I'm sure he learn and act accordingly.
Suppose a new member gets 5-10 merit points for some of his posts in total. Now he gives these points to a enemy here for a short post. This may raise suspicion among the senior members and both members may be given negative trust. Isn't is unjustified for the later member ? How is the staff going to tackle this ?
If there is evidence that the intent is malicious, then
the new member will get tagged. This happened to me a few days ago with someone giving me 50 merit points and insinuating that I might have bought it from them. They have subsequently received a negative rating from me.