Topic: [Suggestion] Deduction of merits for deleted posts [with exceptions] - page 2. (Read 292 times)

Just because someone has managed to get the required merits doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to get accepted into signature campaigns. The neutral trust on their profile gives campaign managers the right information about the account and I don't think any campaign manager would want to hire a plagiarist/AI spammer. The campaign you referred to has removed a participant that was caught plagiarizing, that’s one of the cases that I am aware of.

I know about that, but as I have observed; neutral feedback or trust mostly doesn't stop them from participating in bounty campaigns and they would still rank up, join them, and keep doing what they are doing unless they get banned, and in most cases, users aren't banned for doing something that gets them a neutral trust. Bounty campaigns usually only has a rule against red trust and say nothing about neutral trust.


They don't get banned all the time, and it won't clean all the history of merits for banned users but only the ones that they received on posts that broke forum rules. Besides, we have tools and platforms that archive data from the past for reference in the future.


Obviously, it can only be done by coding.  I'm not an expert when it comes to coding or web development, but I think it shouldn't be that big of a problem, a condition added on deleted posts by moderators for deleting the merits received in that post should do the work, but whether how easy or complex this can be, only @PowerGlove can tell us.

I also would like to ask! how exactly d o you want this your suggestion to be implemented? is it by a long and gigantic coding? because basically the forum is built of SMF so making changes like this requires a lots of coding and time since it has been a for a long time.

Well I wouldn't agree anyway with your suggestion even though it makes sense because they have been an existing pattern of stereotyping shit posters of AI content generators which Charles-Tim mentioned above and probably even though such user emerges as a higher ranked member he's still going to be know for such actions because the trust system keeps it open to audience to see his tags, which is enough punishment for me and reducing the merit or deleting the already earn merit from them is not what I think.

Moderators will delete these posts if they consider your reports are good and these posts are shitposts. Merit will stay but in merit history, you will see it's as "(Deleted/Off-limits/Ignored)".

With the user, he will very possibly be banned and I have no issue with merit of a banned user. Sometimes, merit history will be helpful for checking too, so deduction of merits in your suggestion is not good. It's like cleaning all history for the banned user.

Since I have been on this forum, I noticed that merit is not censored. Admin and moderators do not interfere with merit system than theymos giving merit sources smerits monthly. It is people that are discussing about it in a way if anyone that is seen doing manipulation can be given neutral trust.

No need for his merit to be removed. If truly the person used AI and people agree to it, why not just leave him neutral trust and state the reason and put the reference link. It is better this way.

The quote below has been taken from FAQ: Everything you need to know about forum 'activity, account ranks and merit:


I want to ask, why?

I know some will say, "Sometimes a deserving post with merits gets removed because of a removal of a thread/topc." or "What if a post is deleted from a self-moderated thread?", that's why, I have added it in the title as well, there should be some exceptions and I will talk about them as well, but first of all, let me explain why I think merits from deleted posts, specifically the posts that are deleted by moderators for violating the rules, should be deducted from a users total merit count.

So, I was surfing the forum as usual, and I saw this user posting AI-generated content. Upon checking his post history, I found a few more such posts, so I reported him to the AI Spam Report Reference Thread and his posts to the moderators. Among the reported posts, one post (that he had generated using an AI) had received 4 merits. Now, I have reported the post to the moderators, and it will probably get deleted, at least it should because I have also submitted proof for it, but the user will still have the merits received for that post, and I think he doesn't deserve that.

Below is a snap that I took of the post I'm talking about for reference in case the post gets removed by moderators:



This is just one example, there are hundreds of such cases. Users are posting crap, AI shitposts, and content that no one understands, and still ranking up because they are getting merited by their buddies who managed to get some merits probably doing something similar in the past.

So, I think merit deduction on deleted posts by moderators should be implemented.

Now, talking about exceptions. I know that when a thread or topic gets removed, users who might have posted in that thread and received merits will also have their posts removed as a result of the thread getting removed, in such a case, the merits should stay. But if OP had received merits and it gets deleted from a moderator for breaking a rule, he should lose the merits.

Another exception is when a post gets removed from a self-moderated thread/topic, the user shouldn't lose merits because the creator of the self-moderated thread can also remove posts and it doesn't always have to be a rule-breaking thing in that instance.

However, I strongly believe that merits received on posts that are deleted by moderators for breaking a forum rule should be deducted from a user's profile.

Looking forward to your thoughts on this.