My fate on this forum is very similar - cryptocurrencies began to be interested in October 2017. Registered on the forum after the introduction of the merit system. Created a few topics in the Russian and English languages.
Some of my posts and topics:
Alternative statistics of user registrations on Bitcointalk
The oldest account of Bitcointalk
Spam factory accounts Member in a very popular topic
Ranking-up pipeline
The most polite user of Bitcointalk
From Russian:
Bitcoin wallets for Android and iOS
Proof-of-Capacity (PoC)
Topic: Sr. Member thanks to the merit system (Read 500 times)
Congratulations vlad230, you know the saying "A golden fish has no hiding place in the sea". You're that golden fish and bitcointalk is the sea. Looking at your post history, the evidence are clear and I can testify you're gifted. Also you know how to take advantage of opportunities. You saw what the community users were interested in and went for it. {Merit analysis}
Successful people look for a problem and give a solution to that problem. You did just that and got rewarded (merited) for it.
[...]
Thanks a lot for the kind words! Successful people look for a problem and give a solution to that problem. You did just that and got rewarded (merited) for it.
[...]
Yes, you always need to know what people are interested in. If you produce good posts on what people like to find out or what are they looking for, then they will merit you.
[...]
And just like the advice I got sometime ago, I notice you do the same. you don't hold smerit as trophy rather you give them out to deserving members. Keep the spirit up. Hope you rank up to become a legendary member sooner.
[...]
Yeah, although I do not have a lot of sMerits to spare, I try to distribute it to the posts I deem worthy. And just like the advice I got sometime ago, I notice you do the same. you don't hold smerit as trophy rather you give them out to deserving members. Keep the spirit up. Hope you rank up to become a legendary member sooner.
[...]
I've also applied to be a merit source here: vlad230's Merit source application - Romanian Local board.
Maybe I can be the first one on the Romanian local board
It's rare to see people like you who literally started from the bottom and still see the positive things the merit system has provided us. A lot of people where you came from they always see that merit system is something that was brought up to make the lower ranks suffer when the truth is the merit system is there for us to all benefit from and it is a way on how it will punish the spammers here in the forum. Keep it up I know you are one of the few people here who can be Legendary members who will earn all the 1000 merits needed for that rank.
I've been inactive a couple of days ago due to busyness (until now) and now I'm browsing Bitcointalk, I'm glad to see you ranked up Bud. Like what I expected, members like you really deserves to move up. Congrats Bud 
Oh about my story, its quite too long hehe as I started and used to be a pain in the ass to this forum (spammer) before. What a relief that I found the right path.
Well, congratulations again Buddy, don't forget that we're not done yet. There are still two ranks to achieve
Oh about my story, its quite too long hehe as I started and used to be a pain in the ass to this forum (spammer) before. What a relief that I found the right path.
Well, congratulations again Buddy, don't forget that we're not done yet. There are still two ranks to achieve
Nothing is impossible and you've prove that something difficult can be done.
Of course the process isn't instant but work hard and the result never can't lie !
Of course the process isn't instant but work hard and the result never can't lie !
Congratiolations! You are an inspiration and a great motivator. You are doing what I strive to do. I never thought I would learn so much in Meta board (and even beginners board). Thank you!
Congrats for being a Senior after long journey with merit sytem and new rank requirements, @vlad230.
Personally, I have gone three-fifths of my journey to Full Member.
I wish that someday I can reach it.
You and @iasenko, @coinlocket$, @hugeblack, @Dmrddmr (of course, many others) are strong case-studies that users can still be able to rank up, even to higher levels in the forum with Merit system.
They can live with and rank up with the system without issues, except a little bit delayed.
Personally, I have gone three-fifths of my journey to Full Member.
I wish that someday I can reach it.
You and @iasenko, @coinlocket$, @hugeblack, @Dmrddmr (of course, many others) are strong case-studies that users can still be able to rank up, even to higher levels in the forum with Merit system.
They can live with and rank up with the system without issues, except a little bit delayed.
Your posts are great and I like what you are doing to encourage us that are just starting. I must tell you, you are gifted. You are a source of inspiration for me. If I replicate what you are doing will very happy.
I started the same way. I registered on the 22nd of July, 2017 and I don't know where to start from. I later started by studying the forum and after about 10 months, I start with the bounty programs. I am now gradually moving away from the bounty programs. The bounty program selection is not a better place to start from as a beginner. Seeing your posts today, I was encouraged to have a better right standing in this forum by your exploit.
I started the same way. I registered on the 22nd of July, 2017 and I don't know where to start from. I later started by studying the forum and after about 10 months, I start with the bounty programs. I am now gradually moving away from the bounty programs. The bounty program selection is not a better place to start from as a beginner. Seeing your posts today, I was encouraged to have a better right standing in this forum by your exploit.
Thanks a lot guys for the nice words!
Good Job there fella. I commended your posts which most of it are great and was able to impart awareness for other members as well. Some of the post are technical and I bet only few people here does a posting skills like you. You could be an inspiration to others especially those members that has skills also like you.
[...]
I'm sure you can find a subject where you're better than the majority are. A lot of people are earning a lot of merit and do not have technical skills at all. The challenge now is to find it [...]
[...]
Sounds like you're here for the right reasons, you just need to keep doing a good job and try to make your posts more visible. Good luck! 
Congratulations!
My story is not so different from yours actually. I registered way back in Jan, 2017, when the only thing I used to know was "Bitcoin is a digital currency." and that it had a very big market cap and quite a big value. I was so curious to learn more about it, so I registered here and started reading everything I could. I didn't use to post anything at that time, but was just learning the things around here. I had to stop using the forum for some time because of my studies, and at the time I came back, Merit system got introduced. I was a Newbie at that time, since I haven't been posting and was away from the forum for some time as well. If I would have started posting right after my registration, I would have been in a higher rank today, but I didn't have the knowledge to do so, and, though I didn't know a lot about spam and all at that time, I didn't like writing useless things like the most newcomers do these days.
So, at the time Merit system was introduced, I had been posting already since I knew I can do that now. Just like other Newbies, I used to think I won't reach a higher rank anymore, and it isn't possible for me to earn Merits. I even used to search for Merit giveaway threads in order to get some Merits. As the time passed by, I started getting Merits for my posts, which encouraged me to post in a better way, so did I. Very soon, I had enough Merits to rank up to Member rank. I was so happy for it. Then again, I had to leave the forum for a couple of months for some personal reasons. I would definitely have much more than I have right now if I hadn't need to go. But I came back, started posting again, and earned enough Merits to rank up to Full member recently. I'm happy again, because there was a time when I used to think I may not be able to achieve this, but I did, and all by just posting normally, without much technical knowledge or stuff like that. I will continue doing that, and hopefully, I will be happy once again, when I will rank up to Sr. member.
My advice to everyone struggling for Merits would be: You don't need to be a very much knowledgeable person in order to get Merits. All you need is some time, a good enough command on English, the ability to grasp the things you read, and some simple knowledge about how to construct a good looking post. If you have them all, and you use them in the right way, there is no one to stop you. Don't ever think that you are not worthy of it because you don't know the algorithms of blockchain technology. That is not a necessity for this, though it gives you an advantage to have knowledge of every kind, but a constructive post doesn't always need to have anything like that at all. If people take it like that, then it is a very big misconception.
My story is not so different from yours actually. I registered way back in Jan, 2017, when the only thing I used to know was "Bitcoin is a digital currency." and that it had a very big market cap and quite a big value. I was so curious to learn more about it, so I registered here and started reading everything I could. I didn't use to post anything at that time, but was just learning the things around here. I had to stop using the forum for some time because of my studies, and at the time I came back, Merit system got introduced. I was a Newbie at that time, since I haven't been posting and was away from the forum for some time as well. If I would have started posting right after my registration, I would have been in a higher rank today, but I didn't have the knowledge to do so, and, though I didn't know a lot about spam and all at that time, I didn't like writing useless things like the most newcomers do these days.
So, at the time Merit system was introduced, I had been posting already since I knew I can do that now. Just like other Newbies, I used to think I won't reach a higher rank anymore, and it isn't possible for me to earn Merits. I even used to search for Merit giveaway threads in order to get some Merits. As the time passed by, I started getting Merits for my posts, which encouraged me to post in a better way, so did I. Very soon, I had enough Merits to rank up to Member rank. I was so happy for it. Then again, I had to leave the forum for a couple of months for some personal reasons. I would definitely have much more than I have right now if I hadn't need to go. But I came back, started posting again, and earned enough Merits to rank up to Full member recently. I'm happy again, because there was a time when I used to think I may not be able to achieve this, but I did, and all by just posting normally, without much technical knowledge or stuff like that. I will continue doing that, and hopefully, I will be happy once again, when I will rank up to Sr. member.
My advice to everyone struggling for Merits would be: You don't need to be a very much knowledgeable person in order to get Merits. All you need is some time, a good enough command on English, the ability to grasp the things you read, and some simple knowledge about how to construct a good looking post. If you have them all, and you use them in the right way, there is no one to stop you. Don't ever think that you are not worthy of it because you don't know the algorithms of blockchain technology. That is not a necessity for this, though it gives you an advantage to have knowledge of every kind, but a constructive post doesn't always need to have anything like that at all. If people take it like that, then it is a very big misconception.
The forum's decision to introduce the merit system and ranking through merits instead of activities was one of the best decision.
Ranking is still driven by activity. Merit was introduced as a barrier to prevent the abuse of activity ranking. This is quite an important distinction, and members need to realise that merit is not a ranking tool, but a rank prevention tool. Understanding this will help you to increase your rank by optimising your activity and posting quality.
Of course you can ignore the whole concept of ranking, and just enjoy the community interaction here, and utilise the free exchange of information.
A lot of people in this forum used to post anything, no matter whether it was related to theat topic or not. The forum's decision to introduce the merit system and ranking through merits instead of activities was one of the best decision. This would help very well to appreciate quality posts.
Good Job there fella. I commended your posts which most of it are great and was able to impart awareness for other members as well. Some of the post are technical and I bet only few people here does a posting skills like you. You could be an inspiration to others especially those members that has skills also like you.
And for us who were not gifted on that aspect then good luck to us finding merit! I know it may seem too hard but well just keep trying and participate here in the forum discussion. Who knows, one day we might be able to learn about technical aspects on this forum too. LOL
One thing I would like to ask it is possible to put a congratulations announcement wherein we can see some of the guys here like you who were able to rank up just a short list with names and the rank?
Anyway, Congratulations!
And for us who were not gifted on that aspect then good luck to us finding merit! I know it may seem too hard but well just keep trying and participate here in the forum discussion. Who knows, one day we might be able to learn about technical aspects on this forum too. LOL
One thing I would like to ask it is possible to put a congratulations announcement wherein we can see some of the guys here like you who were able to rank up just a short list with names and the rank?
Anyway, Congratulations!
Really inspired by your story and more because i am also like you. I registered in December 2017 and in the beginning was also disappointed by the merit system. But later on i realized its importance and i am really thankful to the forum.
I'm not sure if all of you know me, but let me tell you a few things about myself.
I've registered on Oct 31st 2017 after almost a year of lurking this forum, reading a lot about crypto currency trading and mining in general. I'm not sure why I didn't decide to register straight away, but I think one of the reasons was that usually what questions I had at that point were already asked and replied by someone else.
A short while after registering, the merit system was implemented (Jan 24th 2018) so, at that point I was a Jr. Member and had 0 merit by default - nothing airdropped to my account. This seemed a bit unfair to me at that point but one thing I wasn't aware was the huge amount of spam going around each day and the account farmers that were spamming just to make a buck. I quickly realised the importance of the merit system once I have opened up my FREE post review service: vlad230's post review service - Jr. Member and up where I was selecting quality posters to merit. I have seen a lot of account farmers and spammers posting a review request so, this helped a lot in understanding the big picture.
Along this almost 1 year since I've registered, I've learned a lot about crypto currency and expanded my knowledge in different directions by creating a lot of threads & posts and also offering to get more involved into the forum and trying to help with whatever I could. For example I have create threads like:
I decided to create this post to serve as inspiration to others, as I also have been discouraged in the past. Some guys also asked me if I can give them some advice so, the best advice I can give all of you is to: never give up, always read more than you post and don't expect something for nothing.
I would be curious to hear some of your stories or comments
I've registered on Oct 31st 2017 after almost a year of lurking this forum, reading a lot about crypto currency trading and mining in general. I'm not sure why I didn't decide to register straight away, but I think one of the reasons was that usually what questions I had at that point were already asked and replied by someone else.
A short while after registering, the merit system was implemented (Jan 24th 2018) so, at that point I was a Jr. Member and had 0 merit by default - nothing airdropped to my account. This seemed a bit unfair to me at that point but one thing I wasn't aware was the huge amount of spam going around each day and the account farmers that were spamming just to make a buck. I quickly realised the importance of the merit system once I have opened up my FREE post review service: vlad230's post review service - Jr. Member and up where I was selecting quality posters to merit. I have seen a lot of account farmers and spammers posting a review request so, this helped a lot in understanding the big picture.
Along this almost 1 year since I've registered, I've learned a lot about crypto currency and expanded my knowledge in different directions by creating a lot of threads & posts and also offering to get more involved into the forum and trying to help with whatever I could. For example I have create threads like:
- vlad230's post review service - Jr. Member and up
- [CryptoNight] CPU mining guide & coins that will get you a return
- [CryptoNight] Forked coins, ASIC resistance and current algorithms
- Kraken, Bitstamp exchange via Revolut & Mr. Tango
- [NEW FEATURE] Seeing a post that quoted your post
- Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day everybody!
- [NEW FEATURE] Live Chat for users
- vlad230's One merit to rank up review service - Jr. Member and up
- [NEW FEATURE] Night/Dark theme for BCT
- [Guide] Best/Top Crypto Exchanges: Fees & more
- [Merit Analysis] "Self Made" users based on earned merit
- [Merit Analysis] "Self Made" Jr. & Member users that have earned merit
- vlad230's Merit source application - Romanian Local board
I decided to create this post to serve as inspiration to others, as I also have been discouraged in the past. Some guys also asked me if I can give them some advice so, the best advice I can give all of you is to: never give up, always read more than you post and don't expect something for nothing.
I would be curious to hear some of your stories or comments
Jump to: