You are almost correct but you seem to have left out the current and future merit sources.
It will be up to them, including source creators, to balance the amount of merit inflation/deflation and to distribute sources more evenly across sub forums..
We will have to wait and see if they do a good job..
Topic: The merit system, as laudable as its purpose is, is flawed. - page 2. (Read 480 times)
Hello everyone,
I'll start with a small disclaimer :
I have lurked a long time on this forum. I opened this account since 2013 and observed a lot.
Being a top notch high ranked user was never one of my priority and I was there when the big merit update arrived.
I don't make this post to whine about merit, I'm just trying to share my point of view to increase the quality of this forum (maybe it won't, but I do what I can :p )
I take into account that there were diverse users with diverse profiles and diverse rank during the merit update.
According to theymos' post https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-new-rank-requirements-2818350 , that gives us a initial amount of X sMerit. X = (total merit granted by every ranks) / 2
If we consider "one big cycle" as "every user here during the update gave all the smerit he could", then the remaining smerit coming out of this cycle is now X/2.
Everyone who did a bit of math in their live see me coming.
Any number X, divided by 2 a large number of times, will come really close to 0. In a few cycles (I know, I know in the reality there is no 'cycle' like that, everything is continuous; that doesn't change the math), there will be almost no smerit left.
I know that there is other way to earn smerit (list interesting posts, etc...), but come on. From my point of view : if I use a forum, it is become the subject interest me, and I want to grow and learn about it. I think you will never see me doing some compilation of interesting post compilation just because I want to earn smerit and I think there is a lot of people in the same state of mind.
I think there is a lot of post worth reading that are not "rewarded" enough. That's too bad because the ranks of the users who made it does not give them the credit they deserve. You will say "well, they'll earn credit by earning merit". Yes, but I stated earlier that smerit is a finite "ressource". In 2-6 monthes there will remain only a few people who earned the hero member or legendary member rank before the update that will be in condition to give smerit, and also some people spaming meta to earn it.
Plus, there is a lot of discussion and child boards. Some of them are frequented by a lot of people, and others are not. Some of them are frequented by people who have a lot of smerit to give, and others are not. Some people were here since a long time and posted uninteresting posts & ranked up, some people came later and struggle or will struggle to rank up, even if they deserve to.
As I totally understand the will of highlithing profiles and posts, I think this system is flawed and is somehow unfair to any good-willed newcomers.
Again, I'm not whining about it. I'm just trying to make a constructive statement. If I'm wrong or if there is something that I didn't understand, please I'll enjoy talking about it with you (and will update this post if needed).
PS: I did not review every post of the meta discussion before posting it. If there is a similar topic, please let me know and I'll delete this one.
I'll start with a small disclaimer :
I have lurked a long time on this forum. I opened this account since 2013 and observed a lot.
Being a top notch high ranked user was never one of my priority and I was there when the big merit update arrived.
I don't make this post to whine about merit, I'm just trying to share my point of view to increase the quality of this forum (maybe it won't, but I do what I can :p )
I take into account that there were diverse users with diverse profiles and diverse rank during the merit update.
According to theymos' post https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-new-rank-requirements-2818350 , that gives us a initial amount of X sMerit. X = (total merit granted by every ranks) / 2
If we consider "one big cycle" as "every user here during the update gave all the smerit he could", then the remaining smerit coming out of this cycle is now X/2.
Everyone who did a bit of math in their live see me coming.
Any number X, divided by 2 a large number of times, will come really close to 0. In a few cycles (I know, I know in the reality there is no 'cycle' like that, everything is continuous; that doesn't change the math), there will be almost no smerit left.
I know that there is other way to earn smerit (list interesting posts, etc...), but come on. From my point of view : if I use a forum, it is become the subject interest me, and I want to grow and learn about it. I think you will never see me doing some compilation of interesting post compilation just because I want to earn smerit and I think there is a lot of people in the same state of mind.
I think there is a lot of post worth reading that are not "rewarded" enough. That's too bad because the ranks of the users who made it does not give them the credit they deserve. You will say "well, they'll earn credit by earning merit". Yes, but I stated earlier that smerit is a finite "ressource". In 2-6 monthes there will remain only a few people who earned the hero member or legendary member rank before the update that will be in condition to give smerit, and also some people spaming meta to earn it.
Plus, there is a lot of discussion and child boards. Some of them are frequented by a lot of people, and others are not. Some of them are frequented by people who have a lot of smerit to give, and others are not. Some people were here since a long time and posted uninteresting posts & ranked up, some people came later and struggle or will struggle to rank up, even if they deserve to.
As I totally understand the will of highlithing profiles and posts, I think this system is flawed and is somehow unfair to any good-willed newcomers.
Again, I'm not whining about it. I'm just trying to make a constructive statement. If I'm wrong or if there is something that I didn't understand, please I'll enjoy talking about it with you (and will update this post if needed).
PS: I did not review every post of the meta discussion before posting it. If there is a similar topic, please let me know and I'll delete this one.
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