Topic: Suggestion: Raise merit requirements at the lower and highest ranks (@theymos) - page 4. (Read 1393 times)

But you will be the glaring exception here. In fact, you're probably one in ten thousand or something. I can't really think of another user here who made such an impact in such a short time and for users like you the merit system will work as intended. Great posters will have no issue issue in rising through the ranks so I don't think it should be made more difficult, though the numbers could be adjusted slightly I guess but we'll have to see how things go. Poor posters will get nowhere unless they abuse the merit system but I do have some sympathy with average or even 'good' posters as they could take quite some time to get the merit points they need or deserve. It takes 4.5 months to become a Full Member and nearly one and a half years to become a Hero so lets see how people get on over time because it's certainly too early to say right now.

It's only going to take me longer because my activity was so close to 480 when the system was brought in. It takes 8.5 months to gain the activity to go from Sr. to Hero so it's not surprising I couldn't do it in less than 2. If the system had been introduced on the day I became a Sr. it would have had no effect and that is why I think theymos has got the balance right with the current requirements. It is a barrier to the spammers and shouldn't hold back those who are genuinely here because they are enthusiasts. It might be a little slower for people just starting out as they have to go through learning before they can really make a contribution, but that exactly how I think it should work.

I totally agree. Nullius is probably the best poster nowadays, and rules can’t be made taking what’s exceptional as the norm.

TheQuin is quite a good poster, and the fact that it will take longer for him to get to Hero level shows that the system is not soft.

Oh, what? I had no idea the system was only in place for 44 days... That's amazing. From the way everyone is reacting, I had thought it had been around since last year or something.

This is good news. That means the system is still tweakable. I do honestly believe that we'll see a change in the ranking system such that Jr. Members will have a merit requirement.

In fact, I'm almost certain.

The system has only been in place for 44 days and there are hundreds of members that have received more than 44 merits so obviously, that is true.

Hello,

I was just reading this thread... and I was wondering if what you're saying is true? Can someone really get 1 merit per day easily? It seems like a rather difficult goal.

I've perviewed many threads on here and rarely do I see the green italics above a post denoting someone was merited.

Having spent far too much time reading about merits lately I've noticed a tendency towards suggesting changes that would benefit the person suggesting them rather than benefit the forum overall. Now I'm going to have to try very hard not to argue against change for self interest. If the merit system hadn't been introduced I would automatically have become a Hero tomorrow, but that doesn't bother me at all. Whether anyone believes me or not, I really don't care what my rank is.

The reason I disagree is that I believe the intention of the system is to block the spammers from ranking up and not to cause an obstacle to anyone using the forum as intended. The average of 1 merit a day requirement to keep within the existing activity based schedule seems well chosen to achieve that goal. Now that the initial distribution of sMerit has dried up it has become impossible for shitposters to ever achieve Hero or above (Sr. is probably also beyond their grasp). Anyone who is here for the right reasons should easily outstrip the 1/day requirement and not be affected by it at all.

Your suggestion is rather to change the ranking system to mark out exceptional posters (like yourself). Now that is not a bad objective per se, but not what Merit was meant to be the solution to. It is actually very easy to spot the exceptional posters simply by looking at the actual number of merit they have been awarded. I know this has already been suggested elsewhere but I'd go along with the introduction of a new beyond Legendary rank. That would indeed mark out the exceptional members and also give the existing Legendaries something to aim for.

Legendary is the only level that won’t be able to differentiate between history rankers and merit rankers.
 
So, whatever the required merit quantities might be… create a level above Legendary just as there is for all the other ranks.

As it is right now, with limited merits to pass, and no ranking possibilities, giving any merits to legendaries from someone like me (with 5 as a starting point) does not make sense. I’m guessing other people feel the same way.

Which means that nullius is probably not the yardstick, and existing legendaries can’t be used either, as they probably have not been receiving as many as they would if they counted.


Sorry for the short post.  

I'm not completely opposed to this. There's a huge discrepancy between Member and Full member merit points. I'm not sure about you guys, but it took me over 92 posts, some of which are 300 words long, to get my 11 current merits.

Now, I haven't been here long enough to study the mechanics of merit reception. I'm not sure if, over time, my old posts will gain merits by people happening to read them. If so, then perhaps in 90 days I'll have thrice as many merits without having to post new posts.

But if merits are only given on fresh posts with your highest chances of getting a merit for your post within 3 days of posting, then I'd say that my 11 merits are all I'm going to get for my 92 posts. I'm not complaining as I don't really care too much for merits at this juncture. I'm in this for the long run, perhaps years-long, so I'd rather attain merits naturally, over time.

Now I understand that OP is saying it's far too easy to rank up to Hero. I'm not really sure. I've spent hours on this forum, and not just hours, maybe about 24 or more cumulative hours making long posts. OP is talking about becoming a Hero member when the merit system just came out... that was a long time ago.

The merit atmosphere is now very different. People are more stingy about merits because now they have a better grasp of what they are and what they can do in the wrong hands. They're aware of forum farmers and merit farmers, and etc.

People now understand that awarding someone a merit is almost akin to awarding them a Trust Rating. I've noticed that people with merits are actually looked upon with more respect in the Trading sections.

That said, I myself, have stopped myself from giving a decent post any merits even though I wanted to... simply on the basis that someone was a new member and I was not sure whether they were a scammer or a genuine poster. So I didn't give them a merit. I'm more apt to give someone a merit if they have a decent post history with no negative trust.


Merit is now becoming a quasi-trust system. And I can safely say that I would never give a merit to someone with negative DT feedback unless the feedback was nonsense (which it rarely is if it's DT feedback). Now, that's unfair for people with negative feedback. There are people who will never give them merits because of their negative feedback (whether it's legit or just a fluffy accusation). They're just going to see the negative red and never click on +Merit. Will these people ever be able to rank up? Yes, but slowly... There will be other people who will give them merit regardless.

That said, I think we should increase and decrease the merit requirements so that it's more realistic. I propose:

Jr. Member = 30 activity AND 1 - 4 merits. Why? Because there's just so much account farming going on nowadays. People are posting just enough to get away with spam, to get their 30 activity, then use that account for some kind of signature campaign or (hopefully not) to go scamming people in Trade. The merit requirement will act as a gatekeeper from potential scammers because most of these scammers probably aren't going to put well-thought posts out enough to get a merit. It won't deter scamming altogether, but it will help significantly, I believe.

Member = 15 merits. Like I said, it was tough for me to get my 11 merits... But I do believe we should increase the Merit thresshold for Member level because I'd like to decrease the threshold for Full Member. This way there isn't such a huge gap that makes no sense.

Full Member = 50 merits. A Full Member is someone who supposedly knows his way around the forum. He's someone who is a full member of bitcointalk.org. He's a regular on the forum. Someone many people will know by name. But making Full Member merit requirement 100 is kind of ridiculous. I believe 50 is a good mark, since Member requirement is 15. In the current merit atmosphere, getting 50 merits is difficult. If you're not joining "merit contests or giveaways," and just getting them naturally by posting, 50 merits is a tough break. People only award posts 1 - 2 merits. Even if you get a meritable post per week, that's max 8 merits per month.

Sr. Member = 150 merits. Once you're a Full Member, you should probably get the gist of how to get merits. You'll know which posts work and which posts don't. You'll know the sections to post in where merits are most awarded. I think, at this point, you'll understand the limits of getting merits naturally. You'll see that it's a little impossible to get like 10 merits for one post. You'll realize that if you want to rank up, you'll have to apply to a merit campaign or some other contest in Meta. That said, I feel as though Sr. Members are people who are either so selfless on the forum that they're just pumping out 1000-word posts everyday without reason or care for merits... or they're people who actively join merit giveaways. In other words, the Sr. Member rank is one of fluff. It's basically there for people who game the system or are tirelessly loyal to bitcointalk.org. That said, I don't mind the merit requirement being 100 more than Full Member.

For Hero and Legendary Member ranks, I agree with your 1000 - 5000 requirement (lol did you know Theymos doesn't even have 3000 merits yet?). I think it's just impossible for Hero and Legendary members to get merits unless they actively join these giveaways. And that's understandable. You can only reach these levels by gaming the system.

That said, I believe we should create a new rank above Legendary for people who are dutiful to Bitcointalk.org. The ones who aren't merit farming or trying to game the merit system by participating in giveaways.

Should be like:

Trusted Member = 7000 merits. This is for people who are in it for the long haul. People who want to be a part of this community earnestly without any hidden agenda to rank up. These are people who will stick with Bitcointalk.org for 4 years straight or longer. The biggest requirement for this rank is that they have no negative trust and never participate in a merit contest / giveaway. These are the true members who post diligently, contributing intellectually to threads everyday without care for merits. They're the ones who organically gain merit until they finally get this rank, which they deserve.

This post was mostly drafted on 27 February 2018.  It was delayed by some unlucky drama; I now post it on the negative one-year anniversary of when I can first be activity-eligible for Hero rank.

Starting with 17 merits awarded to some of my old Jr. Member posts by people who remember them, I reached the Hero threshold of 500 merits within 27 days, 8 hours, 16 minutes, 22 seconds of active posting.  All in all, from the moment that theymos announced the merit system, it took me 32 days, 9 hours, 14 minutes, 51 seconds to go from zero to Hero—at least insofar as merit is concerned.  Yet when I received my 500th merit, I still had a 98 activity level; the earliest I can reach Hero Member status will be Activity Period 1283, which will start during 12 March 2019.

This is not to brag about myself.  There is already a thread which somebody else started to do that for me; and anyway, the number below my name speaks for me, in and of myself.  Rather, I am offering an object demonstration in support of my suggestion that merit requirements for the highest ranks are far too easy.

Moreover, from discussions I’ve observed and also from patterns of abuse, I think some small adjustments are needed at the lowest ranks.  I do think that the middle ranks’ thresholds are fairly set for ordinary decent posters.

Here is my concrete suggestion for merit thresholds, with proposed changes set in bold.  Discussion of my reasoning follows.

---

I do think that the merit requirements for ranks through Member through Sr. Member are currently optimal.  To rise in rank at the level permitted by activity currently requires earning merit at an average rate of just over +1/day.  I think that’s a reasonable expectation for an ordinary intelligent person who spends a moderate amount of time engaging in generally pleasant forum discussions.

But “Hero” and “Legendary” are such strong words; and the substance of successful ranking systems always holds the highest ranks to standards which not only increase, but accelerate.

Proud, unapologetic elitist though I am, I do not for one moment imagine that I be a superman.  If I can merit zero to Hero in four weeks, then surely any person who wishes to bear a rank and title of honour should be able to earn much more than a measly one merit per day.

Wherefore, I urge that @theymos consider the following adjustments:

• The merit threshold for “Hero Member” should be raised to at least 1000, perhaps 1500.  I don’t really think that earning a bit over +2–3 merit per activity-day (or waiting a very long time) should qualify somebody as a “Hero”; but anything less is an insulting abuse of the term.
• The merit threshold for “Legendary” should be raised to at least 3000, perhaps even 5000.  Likewise:  Can somebody who fails to average less than around +3–5 merit per activity-day be called a “Legend” with a straight face?  I fear my standards are too low here.

Don’t simply be proud of these titles:  Make them signify an achievement to be proud of!

---

Of course, I waved my hands past one obvious flaw in premises:  I infer that the system is designed so that good posters “rank up” at about the same rate as before; and I agree with that goal.  But the mechanism does not enforce it.  A system with a “merit velocity” measure would surely be an easy programming task; however, it would be unpredictable and confusing for humans.  On the latter account, I would argue against any such system.  Moreover, I suggest that this “flaw” is unproblematic.

If an ordinary reasonable poster steadily makes decent posts for years, plural, then they will enter the top ranks simply on the basis of seniority, patience, and predictable dependability.  It seems obvious to me that such a person is here for all the “right reasons”, and barely even interested in matters of rank (or its potentially lucrative increase of privileges).  Certainly, I doubt that any spammer or account farmer could keep it up that long without being nuked by mods.

---

Final note:  Now is a good time to raise merit thresholds for Hero and Legendary.  I myself am the only person below Hero rank who has thus far passed the Hero threshold; and I hereby waive any complaints I might have if that threshold were suddenly doubled or trebled at this time.  Starting now, I’d have another year to reach the new threshold...

Anybody else who legitimately even comes close to having earned 500 merits is already Hero or Legendary.  Thus at this time, a change in merit rules for the highest ranks would neither have any impact on anybody (except me) who had already passed the higher thresholds, nor create any disparity between accounts which “ranked up” before and after the change of rules.

Changing the rules for Jr. Member and Member would cause some small unfairness.  However, the thresholds in question are trivial; and the unfairness and disparities thus caused would be commensurately insignificant.  It may be understood if somebody who had earned >500 merit were to be upset by a changing of the Hero threshold, especially if anybody else had already ranked up to Hero under the initial merit rules.  But anybody negatively affected by changes in the 10–30 merit range should see the disparity evened out within a very short time, if a good poster.  I’d expect that any complaints over such changes would only come from those who have been whining about the merit system in total, viz., wannabe spammers.

All in all, the time to make changes is when the merit system is still yet young.