Topic: So I've Become a Merit Source... Need Some Advice (Read 1112 times)

Based on my experience (not as merit source though), i just waste my time looking for good/constructive post made by lower ranked member. So, now i give merit purely based on post's quality and ignoring their rank, whether it's newbie or other rank who already hundred thousand merit.

Also, is OP really a merit source? His sent merit history is too short & even me have larger sent merit history.

So get your ass up and do something for it and dont beg !

Lazy dude lol 

Man I need some merit. Ive got 0.

Hello friends my self dev from India state haryana so i am create a little sms If your Merits keep increasing every 30 days then you are a merit source,if that was same as when the airdropped merit given at the time of merit system implemented you are not but it doesn't meant that you dn't have to merit anyone,just merit the posts if you think the posts are worthy to merit because airdropped merits may decay at any time.

The length does not matter the post must contain quality not quantity and it should  not be coped from any other source.

I think a merit source, you don't need to bother yourself much, a good idea to merit members, is to check out your favorite section, everyone has a particular section they always visit when they enters the forum, So always go to your favorite section and merit some topics and reply of some members.

You truely are lazy but its really good you want to spread some love. Well being a merit source is quite responsible work as there are a number of peoples here who are looking for some merits to rank up. (Including me )

Also i don't think that you can find plenty other merit sources as theymos once stated:-
You can still get in touch of some merit sources.

I would prefer you to look for some boards on your own to really find some intresting posts as the forum itself has a lot of intresting posts as well. If you are not that interested in finding some usefull post, you can also find some of the funniest post and try giving them merits because each user here owns the right to rankup i guess.

It's up to you how you'll use it. Make your own settings where to start, maybe on your local board will be nice. There are a lot of posts out there waiting to get merit but don't push yourself too much to find them, it might affect your sense of appreciation when you got stressed. There is always another day.

And now for the best / worst part. Be prepared, now you declared that you're a merit source, newbies might nuke you with PMs or someone will judge your way of giving merit, just ignore them. 

I see you have no Merits, but I still find you spamming and shitposting in about every single thread that provides you the opportunity to do so. So, what about no Merits for the likes of you, who are desperately looking for this 'One' Merit these days so that they can continue to do what the new changes are supposed to stop?

Its the mentality or the quality within a person that doesn't let him write useless things somewhere. The amount of appreciation he gets would make no difference in that, in any way. So it is not giving less Merits that can stop the spam, but it is giving them to the right people that would do it in the long run.

It might sound simple but ain't going to be an easy task. However, giving out merit is subjective and varies amongst individual. Some have standards and other are based on feelings. You have to do what best suits you. All the best of luck

Been a Merit source comes with so much responsibility. You will need to be devoting maybe 2hrs daily  5days a week to reading post. I think you doing it for humanity and it's worth it. Also asking newbie to sending their post for reviews will help a deal. Wish you the best in your new assignment.

Oh boy! This where the real challenge starts . I hope you can still be able to find someone.

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What if you try some kind of deduction. You can pick only boards where a good quality conversations are occurring (e.g. Meta, Serious Discussion, Technical Dicussions) and give merits to those newbies who are participating because it is very rare to see a newbie having the guts to lure on boards with high-quality discussions. Or try to avoid every single megathread because it is usually the den of spammers, only focus on fresh and meaningful threads and try to find for a deserving newbie. By doing these, you will be able to minimize the scope of your work which results to less fatigue feeling and connsume of time.

(Edited)

I would recommend giving out merits to newbies that don't have an extensive history of either bounty spamming or shitposting. If you really want to find merit worthy newbies, try looking through the signature campaign spreadsheets of several bounties and see who deserves a boost.

Here's one of mine to start you off;

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mHRId-ZxQQXQAjKZtTeqCTMorDFeL2QOp2kk4Lol9OM/edit#gid=1237293161

You can see my comments to help direct your attention.

It's really a hard time to be a merit source since it will be your full responsibility because sustaining and giving inspiration to those newbie takes time. There's a lot of newbies here and I don't think those accounts can post quality threads unless they're good at composing statements or they're existing here long time ago.


A part of it was a good idea to let @tokenweed see those are deserving but It'll just attract merit abusers like for example;
I saw that this person(merit source) gives merits to newbie good posters, and I'll create a new one then abuse the system since I'm good at posting.

Perhaps this is the right decision.
There are excellent newcomers who write good posts in personal councils, and accordingly they need to be rewarded with merits too. For them it is both motivation and stimulation for receiving merits.
I repeat once again that I am ready to create such a flow and moderate it.

Not today buddy. Better to interact more and build a healthy discussion.

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As what others said, create a dedicated thread for merit and members can quote their best post that they think deserve a merit. Ideally, some posts that deserve to be merited is somehow needed to dig since spam posts flooded the threads. Somehow, we can see their effort to construct a post even it seems that they're struggling.

Make sense. And by narrowing the choices it will be more easier than scanning the whole forum.

which country are you from
i think u can check on your own country local board
as i know, many local board lack of merit source now
there are a numbers of people can write a lot of quality post but they can write in English well
so they only post in local post
they need your help

From the discussions, it is looking as if the job of a merit source is a tedious one. But I wonder why some members have developed the "culture" of awarding merits quite easily.
Although I feel your pain, because you are sent to the newbies, whose post most times can be annoying.

I think you should check out some other forums, we could use some merits over at Cryptocurrency Trading (I know lots of legendary members don't like this section but I think there's some good info there from time to time). 

Also some side advice is don't merit things that are obviously merit farming, like people giving away merit for some sort of contest, this is obviously just to gain merit from the contest itself... or people boasting about merit achievements in a post, these are often merited and not only are a waste of time, but are really spammy and conceited.

Good luck with your new position!

(IMO) merit should be given to those who can be proven they are not spamming the forums for bounties.

could be easily found with one liners as all the established members have said with bounty reports

I have lots of one liners myself contained into (1 ANN thread) which I bear their signature but do not partake into the bounty side of it. Should I be merited? NO for I'm still learning that I need to be more active with all the community as I grow.

As these new rules are pushing the bounty hunters to be more productive to the community. As I have been looking forward to growing and expand my forum capabilities.

I read 2 pages of posts and none of the participants suggested an easy way to organize a catalog or knowledge base of new topics that newbies and Jr.Member post.
Given example. We have catalogue in section beginners (in any section)
1 John-link theme-name-where to start? (informative article with discussions)
2 Louise's Theme-link-name-how to earn bitcoins? (informative article with discussions)
etc
Take part in can be made by both old-timers of this forum, and other participants. That is, anyone who can help this forum can take part in such a marathon of knowledge. (I certainly understand that there are topics in which one author writes a few articles and publish them in one thread) but the essence of my proposal is that the veterans of the forum can stop by weekly and see the first post in which the titles of interesting articles that I can combine in the same directory as the base of knowledge and interesting topics in various fields.
I hope I said it right. I can make a commitment.

I can make a commitment to create and maintain such a thread. I think it will be an interesting marathon, which will be a good marathon of participants and some competition. You can plan articles in advance and follow the list. For example, 20 topics in one category, then 20 topics in another category. The best articles will compete among other participants, and will be evaluated by you, heroes, seniors and legends, who are endowed with an important task, to encourage those who make the forum much better.

Besides this wonderful suggestion, you can also set up a passive way at the same time. In case you missed something, we all do sometimes - It's related to this first comment in this thread.

You could start a new post where newbies/Jr.Members reply pasting the link of around 3-5 or 10 posts/replies of them they think are really good. So you can decide if reward them or not.

In fact, it's something that would encourage them to try really hard and some might even possibly research how to write better, in order to try really hard making those posts in an attempt to impress. No solution is 100% accurate, but with this two i believe you will feel comfortable being a source.

If the requirement were to be enhanced, it might make more of them quit the forum, not increase the spam.

That best way to support Newbie on this forum, i think one merit is good choice, because too much merits will make more user do spam and shitpost 

This sounds like a good idea in theory. I forgot about Patrol so I opened it to try out your suggestion, and this is what happened (most posts have more than 5 lines):

1. Bounty signup
2. Bounty report
3. Bounty report
4. Bounty signup
5. Bounty signup
6. Spanish local board
7. Bounty report
8. Bounty report
9. Bounty signup
10. Guess what? Bounty signup
11. Serbian local board
12. Bounty report
13. Bounty signup
14. Bounty report
15. Bounty signup
16. Bounty report
17. Russian local board
18. Shitpost:
19. Bounty signup
20. Bounty signup
...
34. The _first_ post that met your criteria:


Some guy trying to explain how he can beat a 50/50 random number generator. I'm not going to merit it but if you guys want to be my guest!
...
52. Oh man this is hilarious and is going to get #18 nuked:

...
...
Went through 200 posts, not ONE decent one worth meriting. I did find this gem though:

All I can see is bounty application or reports which is annoying.

10 merits is a bit huge, not unless if its really worthy to your perspective.

If ever you want to review some posts to get merited feel free to scan my posts though I had only few of them right now but you can try to see this thread I made    
Ponzi Scheme 101  

Ideally, you should be looking for good posts, but not only good posts from lower ranks, but if that is what you want to do, it is your choice.
Since you would surely need some time checking the qualities of the posts you are going to Merit, so that you don't Merit posts of pure plagiarism or even the spinned ones, so maybe being a little more active would make you a better source for the community.
Just avoid looking for posts in boards like Bitcoin Discussion, Altcoin Discussion, Economics to save your time since even though it is possible to find some in them but it would definitely consume less time to find some in other sections.

Nah...  More like a suggestion.  Which is actually good cos we need new, smart people in here.  Most of the newbie accounts I see aren't really that smart.  Lol.

They obviously should read more...  And if not, at least have a sense of humor.

That type of post is the sort of rubbish you have to face as a merit source. The guy obviously hasn't read the original post, and doesn't understand the merit system, or the role of a merit source. He has filled it with a visual cacophony of images which are not relevant to activities as a merit source. He filled the thread with no consideration for the bandwidth or restrictions of readers using mobile phones, or those who voluntarily scan threads hoping to find posts that are merit worthy.

I've put the guy on ignore, and I'm doing the same for anyone who awards that dreadful graffiti with merit.

You don’t seem to have grasped what merit is about, at least in terms of what it should be awarded for…

My last post is quite informative. It may deserve some merits.

The length of the post determines the quality among the newbies where as the high ranked members can get merits for couple of words.

Surely this can be a tip but if someone wants to be a merit source they need to find the quality posts maybe it will be a tough task in this forum.

What is the point of the above revival collage ? I mean it’s not like it’s aimed at the OPs concern is it?

To the OP. You could, as you say, see what other merit sources are awarding and follow their footsteps (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=topsendat), but the idea is to get more eyes on the field, enabling options to others around, and with a diverse criteria. It’s better if is performed naturally, meriting posts you encounter on your way around the forum that seem decent enough to you. If you want to focus on newbies, Beginners & Help may be more crowded with them than other sections.

I will give a few tips and ways to make it easier to see posts that are decent or not worthy of your glory

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If you want to be a merit source:

 1. Be a somewhat established member.
 2. Collect TEN posts written in the last couple of months by other people that have not received nearly enough merit for how good they are, and post quotes for them all in a new Meta thread. The point of this is to demonstrate your ability to give out merit usefully.
 3. We will take a look at your history and maybe make you a source.

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Maybe you can take an example here:

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You can create this link:
For anyone who posts feeling good, please send 10 of your post links (no need for new ones, old links can also) English-speaking and qualifiedHERE, I will review.
Shipping format :

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As far as I know, you will receive a specific amount of sMerits as long as you are a merit source.
Every merit source doesn't spend a lot of time here. So, they may not be able to spend all the sMerit they receive per period.
Let's asume, merit source "A" got 30 sMerits and he used only 3 of them? Won't he get sMerits again? If he doesn't get sMerit next month, it means merit sources have to spend all the sMerits.
I don't think everyone sources are too active. Some may be busy with real life and missed one period.
So, as per my theory, it doesn't matter whether they used or not, they will receive a specific amount.

I'll state my personal opinion here if you are ok.
You don't have to check every thread regularly and see posts, yeah, every good post can't be caught and merited but if you post in quality threads, just see what's posted above, see 1-2 pages, it's enough to my mind and merit if someone deserves it. To my mind great section to see quality posts are: Development & Technical Discussion, Bitcoin Technical Support and Altcoin mining.
Wish you all the best and be so good in your job that in future, do opposite and give us some advice )

you should check meta and beginners topics .
there are too many reputable topics there ,yelling i want merit   and then you decide to give them are not.

It's quite a difficult task, and the awarding is very subjective. I try to encourage new members to start good discussion threads, and I've set up a site to help members with English as a second language. If you have some fluency in a language other than English, I would welcome some help.

Go to the patrol page. Scroll the page as fast as you can until you find a post that has more than 5 lines. Open the profile of who posted, see if the last 5 posts were larger than 3 lines with a valid and original content. Copy and paste in google to check if it is not a copy and past.

If all is correct and it seems that this newbie will help the forum, give him 10 merits.

Bill gates once said that he really likes to recruit the lazy peoples to his company because he believes they will somehow find a way to do the work with minimum effort but with good productivity. Maybe theymos likes the way bill gates seeing the laziness.

I don't think that's a good idea. We are normally tends to think that our every post is merit worthy. That's the human nature. So I would like to suggest vise versa of what you have suggested. If we can find the post of others which deserved to be Merited, just share it here and then OP can check whether that perticular post deserved to be Merited.

If you have time little time create topic that you will visit ones a week. Users can make one post something like joining into some counties or campaigns.

Example form:
Please review my post: [link to specific post]
Rank: [specify rank] in this case i read here that someone suggested that can be limited to newbie and jr but maybe members can do this also

This maybe could benefit that maybe besides you someone else can spare also a merit or two if post is good. Off course you can limit per member that you wont give more then five times.

Consider this as suggestion, maybe it will help.

If you're just finding posts to be merited I think you can help me by giving only 1 Merit to these posts:

(I was running a Filipino Account Review and a sad thing that I've run out of sMerits so I can't give them any more as of now)

These posts where written in filipino language but I can assure you that these posts is a good one and for me it deserves a [+1]

(Just Click on the Link)

He specifically mentioned trying to find newbies to you? That is interesting..

I have also been trying to find good newbies to merit and it has not been easy.. I don't have/get all that many smerits and even with the few I have I have not been able to completely dump them on deserving newbies, so I have a few in stock. The ones that especially deserve it are hard to find, probably because they have already got merit since they are good posters. Maybe 1 in 50, if not less, newbie accounts deserve a merit to become a junior and haven't gotten one yet, after looking at their post histories..

Maybe my standards are a bit too stiff (or not?) but I have only been able to bring myself to merit 7-8 newbies or so since the mass derank happening..
You could look at my sent merit history, but I don't know if they deserve more merit than the one I gave them. By definition if they have received a merit then they are no longer newbies so their is that hangup too.. You aren't going to find newbies in sent merit histories of anyone because they cannot exist..

Even if I find a newbie account that makes good posts and knows what they are talking about, it makes me wonder what happened to their old account..
they are probably red tagged or some shit and starting over from a new account..

I like the ones that I can tell are real newbies from their first posts, and ask good questions they actually want the answers to..

Other than newbies, I think I prefer to give my few smerits to lower ranked accounts that actually need it, where they will mean the most to the person..

I don't know if you can find an easy way to give merits to deserving merit virgin newbs, but just giving merits away to whatever posts you like and want to see more of is probably pretty easy, much easier than trying to find rare deserving newbs..

Just a tip here, I'm not a merit source but I've given more than 200 merits. When you like a post, check that it's not a case of plagiarism. I know it takes a bit more time but it's important to keep your reputation as there is no demerit option yet.

As far as I know, you get a certain amount of sMerit when you're a source. When you "spend" it it will be replenished the same date next month.

In theory, if you don't spend your assigned merit you won't get it back the next month so, it's almost how budgets are made - spend or loose

At least that's how I understood it, others feel free to correct me if I am mistaken.

You can create a Merit review service putting your terms and conditions to qualify. It might will save your time as Newbies directly post on the thread (about their post that need to be reviewed.) or you can review last 20-30 post of that newbie.


Lazy and want to spread love, might you leave newbies more confused.

Since you're merit source , you need spare your time to forum. 
Remember when comes the great power ....

But I have question, what will happen to merit source if he/she never giving any of his/her merit because let say OP's case , lack of time although OP's posting is very insightful ?

How about we just send you links to some of our posts we think are merit-worthy?   

I think the best way to award merit is to look through a lot of posts each day. So, this may require more hours per day (if you're not spending a lot of time here already).

If you're a regular here, then you'll know where people are posting good quality posts and follow them.

Another suggestion, if you're looking to find more people to merit and kind of 'ease the task' a bit, would be to create your own review thread.
For example, QuestionAuthority has one here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28975211

If you also like to lurk Meta there are a lot of posts that are "merituos". You can even find them in forums like Bitcoin & Altcoin Discussion but you need to take the spam shovel there

I agree with The Pharmacist here. I would even go a bit further and check the post history and merit only if the post history looks good don't get tricked by one good post
Otherwise, the recent limitations theymos put in (1 merit to be Jr Member) are useless.

P.S. OP, you have unlocked the gates of hell to your PM box. Good luck  

Do you have any standards on giving merit? Well if you do you do not need to go anywhere else instead you can let them go inside in one thread and check their previous posts to be merited.
Like for example:

BCT Name: Gellany32
BCT Profile Link: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/gellany32-2298341
Number of post: 2
Number of Activity: 2

The raw data is needed before taking a look to one's BCT profile and those above mentions could be a tool for your assessment whether to check the posts or not. Like there are newbie's like me gets demoted. I manage to delete my post since I figured out that it is better to start again than buying copper membership. I do love to accept the challenge which theymos had implemented that if i could not rank up then probably this forum is not for me.

Aside from that things are getting better in this forum. It is really annoying before seeing spam post which contents are obviously just being made because they are getting paid on it. Unfortunately, I did anticipate all those wrong doings for spamming posts on the section. However, I was relieve now seeing the current situation for the forum having a huge improvement on preventing spam posts.

Basically I consider the new update as an assessment tool for one to see the results. And clearly the result is good and it shows positive feedback from the newbies to legendary rank regarding on the implementation of jr. member rank requirement. I may not be technically good but for sure I could not be left behind with the other members here in the forum.

If your sMerits keep increasing every 30 days then you are a merit source,if that was same as when the airdropped merit given at the time of merit system implemented you are not but it doesn't meant that you dn't have to merit anyone,just merit the posts if you think the posts are worthy to merit because airdropped merits may decay at any time.

Edit:Oops Ninja was little bit faster.

You probably aren't. AFAIK theymos sent a PM to every user who was choosen to become a merit source.

But you can check in the merit page: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit

You should see something like this if you are a merit source:

That's the thing.  I'm doing that and I haven't found one newbie that deserved a merit.  So I'm thinking a little more effort (but the absolute minimum lololol) is needed.  Lol.

I have lots of sMerit. But, how do I know if I am a merit source or not?

It's not meant to be a responsibility, or a chore.

Just surf as normal, and if you like something, leave a merit or two.

It's good that you have a positive attitude and want to spread love among the newbies in the form of merit.

Every merit source has his or her own standards as to what constitutes a good post.  What you're going to find (if it's not obvious already) is that Newbies and Jr. Members tend to post only for their bounty campaigns, and those posts are invariably lazy, poorly-written, and don't say anything interesting.  My advice would be to NEVER merit posts like that.

If a newbie post is clear in what they're trying to say, and it doesn't look like it was written in leet-speak, feel free to merit it.  I tend to be very picky, but that's just me.

Be judicious when meriting posts.  You don't want to give them out to someone who's going to sell their sMerits or merit their alt accounts.  Good luck, and congrats on being selected as a merit source.

You could create a review thread. People (maybe limited to Newbies/Jr. Members) would post links to their supposedly HQ posts and you could merit them if you think they are good enough.

theymos suggested that I'd give merits to some newbies in the forum who make good posts, but then I don't wanna waste too much time looking at threads for hours just to find one. 

Is there another merit source in here?  I wanna distribute merit by looking at his (or her) sent merits, read the posts where the merits were sent myself and see if it deserves some additional merits from me as well...  Can I do that? 

I know...  I'm lazy.  But I wanna spread the love.  Lol.