I started earning merits in October or November 2019, as I was inactive until then. So I earned 205 merits in 3-4 months.
This is indeed a very good track record, and all this might be easy for you, but do you think that it is a good idea to base whole ranking system on the above average merit earners? And you fall into that group. As i said before, some middle ground is needed.
When asking to change something that can affect so many different people, you can't just look from your point of view, broader picture is needed. For example, have you checked the amount of people that earned certain amount of merit ( e.g. 200 ) since the introduction of this system, and then evaluated whether that amount is too big/too small?
What i want to ask is, did you do the ground work first, or this is purely based on your merit earning ability?
Thank you for sharing your opinion (twice) here, Rikafip. Indeed I did not check the amount of people who earned a certain amount of merits in a given time. But this is not based only on my experience. I wrote in OP a few motives which made me think that. And I saw many reputable members here earning a lot of merits (well deserved) simply by acting with good faith in mind, trying to help the others and the forum. Which is normal, as oeleo stated as well, for example.
- practically, all you need in order to rank up is to be a honorable person and to wait.
That's pretty much how it's supposed to be. The merit system was designed to prevent spammers from ranking up, not to hinder good users. If you do the things you suggest - don't spam, don't scam, don't plagiarize, only make useful posts, learn, contribute, etc. - then you deserve to rank up without being hindered. The merit barrier, as you call it, rightfully shouldn't exist for these users, although arguable it still does. The merit barrier should only exist for the users who
are here to spam, and it (largely) seems to be working in that regard.
Indeed, there are some elitist users here which have a merit vs activity ratio of 2:1, 3:1 or even 4:1. Such as you, Ddmr, Loyce or nullius, for example. I take off my hat in front of you (seriously, not ironic). Such achievement is almost impossible to earn. But I didn't think about this very select circle when I wrote the OP.
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Somehow, based on the upper-written comments, I had (have) the feeling that some suggest that earning merits during that contest was too easy. I ensure them it was not. For example, my drawings took several hours. But ask the guy who created the game how many hours he dedicated for that. Ask Yatsan how many hours he spent for the sublime paintings he made. And so on...
So I suggest to raise the merit standards because it is way too easy to earn them.
See the similarity there?
That was a nice catch and a good point
But the second quote was a bit taken out of context. I meant basically that it is harder for an artist to create art than for a journalist to write good topics and that's why the number of journalists writing high quality materials is much bigger than the number of artists. Then I compared that to the forum, where we can find many good contributors, but they are much more than the participants of the art contest. Think about there are over 2.000.000 registered users and only 600 or so participated in the contest. From those 2.000.000 users I'm sure there are much more than 600 good writers or good contributors. And most likely theymos appreciated as well that realizing a piece of art is hard, he decided to give more merits to those who participated in the contest. This is what I meant to say.
In the end, most of the people who replied here stated they don't think it is a good idea to make rank-up more difficult. In my country we have a saying: if you drink and someone tell you that you are drunk, you can argue; if two tell you that you're drunk you should go home and take a nap. Most likely, the majority is right and I am wrong. But remember, it was just a personal opinion, not a decision which would affect the forum. I just considered I can express freely an opinion.
The good thing is you already realize how hard it is and you want to prove that yourself that you can in spite of every criticisim you being received here. Good luck on ranking up dude. I'll be happy to check what will be your contributions in the coming future and I'll bump into this post of you later on and see how close you are already to becoming a full fledged Legendary rank.
Thank you for the encouragement, cryptoaddictchie, I appreciate it!
And indeed, is hard to swim against the stream, to say so. But criticism is good, as long it is based on rational allegations and expressed in a constructive manner. Not easy to take it, especially when it comes from a majority, but good overall. Makes you wonder if you are wrong.
