Topic: sMerit participants – A quick follow-up after the changes – 20181021 - page 2. (Read 976 times)

There is some additional stuff I’ll try to add today (specifically, complete section 5). As to the whole week’s data (Monday .. Sunday, with the pending weekend), that cannot be completed until a week from now, since the merit.txt official file is released on Fridays.
In relation to passing the merits down the chain, I think it is not feasible in general terms. What I did do some days ago is go the other way round that question: see how many merited users have not merited anyone else. Extract from Re: sMerit participants – a worrying descending trend (!/?):
We’d have to define the conditions for each of these classes. I guess the number of posts would serve to categorize (i.e. Merited Newbies/Jr. Members with up between a and b posts,  between c and d posts and so on. The thing is, to get a good idea it would have to be done in relation to the non-merited users for the same categorization (to see the share), but I don’t download those.

Are you serious? There are so many threads on the matter, that the forum provides you more readable content than all of Shakespeare’s writings put together. Just read around.


Yes, this week will likely be a hilltop maximum on the graphs, just as when the Merit System rolled-out.

Interesting idea, although the problem to calculate it is multiple: The first is that we do not know the aggregate of how much the Merit Sources effectively inject into the system (only the total max. potential). The second issue is that a forum member may have received sMerit from another forum member (regular sMerit TX), or from the initial airdrop. Additionally, since sMerit does not have a unique identifier, determining how far a set of sent sMerit has been halved is probably impossible.

What we do know is that there is a lot of hoarded sMerit that was originated in the initial 600K airdrop (around >=400K roughly unspent). Multiple reasons behind for sure, probably the “don’t care for the system” being one of the top reasons for those that still have not awarded any from the airdrop, but this is just my guess. That is a potential large black market though that I’m not personally too keen on.

Thanks to OP, the merit system was improved: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.45721025

After seeing that, theymos decided to make some changes. I don't know if there are too many but I know that among all the threads I see, some of them are very good ones and they are very well researched. Some even like in this case lead to changes that improve the forum.

So, I welcome as many threads about improving bitcointalk as necessary, because among all of them some will be good enough and will lead to changes being implemented.

Thanks for your effort. I hope the reason is really a genuinely growing distribution and not simply that newbies now desperately buy/exchange merits (or farmers meriting their newbie alts) ... So I think to draw a conclusion we would have to wait some more weeks.

Another stat I would like to see is the relation of the total number of merits produced by all merit sources to the effectively distributed sMerits. In theory, each "originally produced sMerit" should lead to a production of approximately one sMerit more, considering that in each level of the "merit pyramid" the sMerit amount is halved. This should show how effective the distribution is, e.g. if "merit hoarding" is a problem or not.

It's not about having something against merit threads, it's just that they are WAY TOO MANY threads related to that.

That's because you go to the wrong board. Bitcointalk is much more than the meta section. Go to the Development and Technical Discussion or the alts boards.

That's the second time I see a similar opinion. If you don't like threads about the merit system, don't come to meta. That's like going to the beach every day and complaining about the sand.

As I stated a few posts ago, I am a reader more than a poster but all I can see lately is posts, graphs, ass licking for merits/smerits. As a reader, I must point out that, when I open the forum to read interesting stuff about bitcoin and it's evolution, ETH and other altcoins, most posts are about the merit system how good it is or how much it sucks. It seems to me that all the attention is directed towards the merit system. What is next? Merit MEMEs? Bitcointalk statues with the Moto: "Merit is my bitcointalklife"?

Why is everyone so desperate to make posts just to get merit? It's a forum, you can post with most of the ranks, almost the same way. Except for the signatures... well ... just make the sigs same size/chars limit for everyone and problem is solved.

Ohh well and then there are the shitposters to bump threads in first page... but those didn't stop posting shit because of their rank, did they?

There are now two classes of "newbie" - "spambies" and new members. I'd be interested in seeing if there is a difference in merit awards to these two categories.

Very interested to see the pending results later this week. I do think these changes will have a postive effect on the quality of the forum posts. Would also be interesting to see how much of the merits received will be past through again by the smerit receivers.

1.   Introduction

Edit 21/10/2018: I've updated the data shown on the post with this week's data, and archived the previous versions for reference:

28/09/2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20181021125505/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5034149.msg45969883
21/09/2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20180928165212/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5034149.msg45969883

We now have a complete month of data after the changes made to the ranking rules and the increase in Merit Sources (17/09/2018), and @TomCrypto asked me to update this post.

Bear in mind that this week’s data is partial, since it covers up to early hours of the 19/10/2018 (with the entire weekend ahead still to go), so interpreting the data has to be done with caution for the current week (marked in yellow).

We also need to consider that the newly appointed Merit Sources got their initial batch of sMerit on the 17/09/2018. The sMerit batch for each Merit Source is not fully topped-up every 30 days since the Merit Source was appointed (i.e. 17/09/2018 -> 17/10/2018), but rather 30 days from the moment each sMerit was sent from the allowance. So for example, if a Merit Source sent 3 sMerits every day from the 17th of September onwards at 10 am, he will get a daily refill of 3 sMerits from the 17th of October onwards at 10 am. The pattern a Merit Source used upon distribution is mirrored a month later in the refill.

2.   Awarded sMerit

The total weekly merit awarded spiked during the week of the change of rules, only to fall back sharply to the 4,0-4,5K area since then, following patterns similar to June 2018.
There are likely a few factors involved such as Merit Sources running out of sMerits soon (Merits Sources have different initial allowances, which may or may not be increased over time), and quite a bit of farm Alt account merit awarding to bring demoted accounts back to their Jr. Rank (both me and @LoyceV created lists on re-ranked Jr. Members during the first days).


3.   Senders

Senders are progressively settling in the  lower 700 area, following a similar pattern seen in July 2018. New Senders shows a similar trend.

4.   Receivers

Receivers dropped drastically from one week to another after the change of rules, but numbers here are a bit better in comparison than the drop in the other ratios (total sent Merits and Receivers). Specifically, the New Receivers is now in the 350 area, a bit better than other weeks with an equivalent number of sent sMerits, but also with a trend that seems will bring it soon to pre-change of rules week’s values.

I’ve still got my doubts on how the Merit Source refills are going to play out, and we won´t really be able to compare properly until next Friday, but it does look like the charts will not spike anywhere near what occurred on the week of the 17th of September 2018. We’ll see, but there may have been more influence on the farm Alt meriting side than one would hope for, and less on the impact of the newly appointed Merit Sources.


5.   Receiver’s rank comparison



This is the Receivers rank distribution, comparing the first 4 days of the week of the change of rules, to the first four days of this week. As we can see above:

-   Jr. Member Receivers have lost half of their weight in terms of percentage (dropped six fold in terms of absolute values), whilst still being the rank where most distinct people have received sMerit.

-   New Receivers that get merited for the first time is still under the Jr. Member’s spell, although they have lost a lot of presence on the whole.

In summary, with the still unknown effect that Merit Source refills may have over the coming days, numbers seem to now be what they were three months ago, with a slightly better look in terms of new Receivers that get merited for the first time.