Topic: sMerit participants – a worrying descending trend (!/?) (Read 1787 times)
The decision to remove those user who operate multiple accounts by system of merit is good idea but somewhere it also effect the number of people in the forum.
With each month to get the merit is becoming increasingly difficult. It's hard for me to understand how constructive and good a post should be to get at least 1 merit for it. I want to develop on the forum, but I don't know how to receive merit at the initial stage of existence? Few people will give me a merit, because I have a newbie's rank, and few will take my words seriously. Even staying 1-3 years on the forum is very difficult to get at least the rank of a full member, and it's scary. It would be desirable, that, users with an initial rank could receive a merit easier, than the skilled users who constantly receives it.
It is important for beginners to get a merit, because this motivates them to further develop on the forum.
It is important for beginners to get a merit, because this motivates them to further develop on the forum.
I think members of this forum either ignore or don't pay attention to merit someone's post even its worthy and informative.Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators or any famous manager who managing bounties.Its my observations only and it can be wrong too.
Yes, it's completely wrong. This lazy drive-by yapping about undermerited posts needs to stop. Go ahead and post your merit source application, show us those "worthy and informative" posts that deserve merit.
I see newbies get most merits from other newbies and juniors. That would tend to confirm the spambie promotions of alts and bots. This is another reason for being extra careful when awarding them with merits.
Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators
~Actually he is right, but the graph is infuenced by merit source (most of them are with very high rank), also last update I made was around 2 months ago
As we can see people tend to merit rank similar at their rank.
Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators
Actually, the opposite holds true to a certain extent.I tend to give less merit to a good post by a Legendary, especially when I'm low on sMerit.
Simply because he won't need it as much as an aspiring Newbie / Jr. / ... / Hero.
OTOH, many Legendaries tend to make more relevant, insightful, helpful posts.
Simply because they tend to be a lot more experienced and usually are well beyond the "chatter childhood" of new users.
I think members of this forum either ignore or don't pay attention to merit someone's post even its worthy and informative.Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators or any famous manager who managing bounties.Its my observations only and it can be wrong too.
I get so tired of reading this rubbish. Do your really think that I go through a thread reading the posters column, and only read a post if I see a certain rank in the poster profile? When I look through a thread, I read the replies, and I ignore everything else, including the signatures. If a post ticks my merit box, then I'll have a look at the poster details, and I might then check to see if any sMerits he picks up will get distributed in the underworld. That's really the only thing that will make me change my mind about awarding merits.
<...>
Not really:
The above is the overall sMerit sent from one rank (left) to another (top) (**). Look at it in detail and you’ll see that for example Sr. Members (38.244) have received more sMerit than Heroes (25.291), Full Member (42.830) than Sr. Member (38.244), and Members (51.601) more than any. Of course one has to remember that the number of people in each rank decreases the higher the rank, but even so, the assertion is not correct on aggregate terms.
It’s better to look at it on Merit Dashboard (Tab labelled From/To Ranks), where you can filter by dates and delimit the above data to recent months for example.
Note (**): Ranks are current ranks for each user, not ranks at the exact time the merit was awarded (not feasible with currently available data).
I think members of this forum either ignore or don't pay attention to merit someone's post even its worthy and informative.Mostly people here merit posts from legendary members/staff/Administrators/Moderators or any famous manager who managing bounties.Its my observations only and it can be wrong too.
Anyway, I decided against doing that. Sorry LoyceV, you're gonna have to make do with only 50 merits from me...
"only" 
Just a thought: if you were to send 40 Merit to userX, and then send 12 Merit to his known alt, you're exceeding 50 without getting an error warning.
People send you plenty, more than enough, don't they?
Not only are they halved, they are sitting in surplus..
I can't complain about a shortage of Merit indeed Not only are they halved, they are sitting in surplus..
I must admit hI've always had a hard time sending out more than I receive, but I'm working on tipping the scale.I've sent merits to perhaps 500+ different users
Make that 698 as of last Friday:Code:
1. 5412 Merit sent by suchmoon (#234771) to 698 unique users in 1609 transactions
See suchmoon's full Merit history.Quote
Merits are not scarce
This is indeed a common misconception. I think (but I'm not sure) this is what eddie13 means too. Merits are for good posts. If LoyceV makes good posts he gets merits. I've sent merits to perhaps 500+ different users, who in turn could distribute them to thousands more users if they wanted to, which I would not be able to do alone. That's the purpose.
Merits are not scarce, theymos can produce any number of them at any time, which he did just recently.
People send you plenty, more than enough, don't they?
Not only are they halved, they are sitting in surplus..
I don't mean at all to say you don't "deserve" them, because you posts and work are awesome..
Just pointing out the deflation aspect, and this particular case is just an example..
My interpretation was that suchmoon would merit a post that deserves it.
That was the reason for my question, yes. What if I see a good post made by LoyceMobile - should I refrain from meriting it because the person already got 50 merits from me?
This is further complicated by the fact that I actually negged one user for using alts to bypass the 50-merit limit, although that was a slightly different scenario - multiple alt senders.
Anyway, I decided against doing that. Sorry LoyceV, you're gonna have to make do with only 50 merits from me...
Damn, LoyceV broke my nice streak of 4s...
Sorry 
I only saw this now. Since you've hit the limit, you should/could make your own version of the Vulpine Order of Merit. But wait until I no longer qualify, I don't want to suggest this so that I'm the first to reach it.
Which brings up an interesting dilemma - is it ok to send merits to LoyceMobile after this?
I don't think so.You might forget that you already merited him for a specific post and thereby give him double the credit he deserves
<…>Work in Progress?
Not sure what your question refers to. If it’s related to the Merit System, it has recently evolved as I’m sure you are aware of, with actions taken on two fronts:Yes I know it has recently evolved and I would like to think that these changes will mean more people getting noticed for posts that offer some level of contribution, but what I mean by work in Progress if it has evolved then it clearly needed tweaking. We won't know if the tweak will be the last until it's efficacy has played itself out so in that respect it is still in development.
Ideally, Merit System should not exist, and it does kind of bring on a cognitive dissonance, where by one believes the system should and shouldn’t exist as contradictory simultaneous believes, albeit one being on the theoretical plane and the other on the practical one.
Two words:- Shrodinger's cat!
<…>Work in Progress?
Not sure what your question refers to. If it’s related to the Merit System, it has recently evolved as I’m sure you are aware of, with actions taken on two fronts:- Increase the amount of Merit Sources (thereby more eyes on the field). Collaterally, since more people should be merited, we should get more meriters, and thus increase those figures shown in the OP (as has already happened this week as can be seen here: sMerit participants – A quick follow-up after the changes – Good so far ).
- Increase the requirement to become a Jr. Member (+ demote non-compliant accounts).
The merit system is certainly not perfect, and plays out better in theory than in practice. It could be much tougher, but it normally leans towards being rather benevolent in an environment that is delicate to manage, and where the attraction to campaigns for many is viviously interpreted as a free pass to spam your way through the day, with minimum effort and engagement.
Ideally, Merit System should not exist, and it does kind of bring on a cognitive dissonance, where by one believes the system should and shouldn’t exist as contradictory simultaneous believes, albeit one being on the theoretical plane and the other on the practical one.
The ability to distribute smerit is in very few hands
I do wish people wouldn't keep saying this. Half of the sMerits to be awarded are in the hands of the community, and most of the abuses seem to be as a result of this. If this abuse continues, I can see Theymos blocking the generation of sMerits, and leaving everything up to the merit sources.
I think the trends you have highlighted in the graphs of the OP show that what is a potentially great system aimed to promote sensible and constructive participation amongst the members is not really performing as expected. I can fully appreciate you want to cut out inane comments such as "Great project", "this will moon", etc etc and the concept is one that we should all embrace but the practical application of the merit system does not seem to be working.
The ability to distribute smerit is in very few hands and at the end of the day I am sure those people can often feel over-obligated to be awarding merit, it's not unlike a foreigner visiting America for the first time and feeling often pressured with the expectation to tip the right amount to his bartender, or waitress or cab driver. I support the idea that a sensible system of encouraging quality posts is required but am not sure that this one has ticked all the boxes so far.
Work in Progress?
The ability to distribute smerit is in very few hands and at the end of the day I am sure those people can often feel over-obligated to be awarding merit, it's not unlike a foreigner visiting America for the first time and feeling often pressured with the expectation to tip the right amount to his bartender, or waitress or cab driver. I support the idea that a sensible system of encouraging quality posts is required but am not sure that this one has ticked all the boxes so far.
Work in Progress?
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