Topic: Unmerit rule? (Read 516 times)

You're right.
This is already happening by the way. Can't you see all these new threads from newbies trying to earn some merits?
This merit system erased bots for sure, but at least bots were not opening threads.
All these newbies are opening threads trying to earn merits even if they have nothing to say . It seems like a huge problem to me.
We could even find another method to re-distribute merits from high ranked users that are not contributing to the community by the way. We could find a lot of methods.

Those people in high rank, attained that for being here earlier than you and I. So that's their reward for being among the early birds. And if they don't contribute to the forum it's not a compulsion maybe just like you whom was inactive  upon joining, maybe they're also inactive right this moment. Let's all just wait the merit system out and see what it brings.

Bots are dying already, it's virtually impossible for a bot to ever rank up now with the new system. Also we still have the best tool available, reports. I think a lot of people forgot about this, you can report as many posts as you like and you can even create threads dedicated to expose spammers and shit posters and they will get either banned or red tagged.

Why do so many people want to make the merit system even harder? Maybe we all need to sit down and have a discussion about goals. If the goal is to reduce spam and get bots off the forum, then let's do things that help with that.

While this forum is great, I do have a day job. I also consider myself an investor and not a trader. I also prefer to read and not post most of the time. Your ideas about merit decay would actually INCREASE spam from people like me. Because now I HAVE to post all the time to try to earn merit and I can't just relax and choose NOT to earn merit. Being a member of this forum isn't a job for 99% of the people here.

I came here to say this. The only thing is that it wouldn't be fair for "archived" users, if you will. Or users that take a hiatus for several months, only to come back to a meritless account? That's not fair, as it would be viewed as a penalty for inactivity, not a penalty for not earning any merits.

I think that merits could use some sort of decay, though... Not sMerit decay, so don't get confused with what I'm trying to say... It's the same thing you all are saying, but with the stipulation that your merit score will drop ONLY if you (a) haven't earned a single merit in a predetermined amount of time and (b) your activity points have increased within every activity period of that predetermined amount of time. This would just mean that they users who are actively posting and haven't earned a single merit would be the only ones at risk of losing rank.

I have no complaints about the merit system; I find it extremely easy to be able to earn merits. It doesn't take a lot to put some thought into your posts, by any means.

And OP, like @The Pharmacist, I've given you a merit, as well, as it is very apparent that you put a lot of thought into this topic.

Do you get what i said?. I said, with your suggestion, all rank will need merit. Adding a required merit per month to maintain merit or adding new rank beyond legendary will make a lot of people need merit, doesnt care if it is a shitposter or the quality poster, that is why i said do you want to compete with people high quality poster with 3 years experience in this forum?
For now, up to hero member in need of merit. If we are talking about your suggestion, then all rank will need merit, dont care whether they are shitposter or quality poster, but it is making more competition. Then human tend to do favoritism, if a legendary rank say "a" and a member rank say "a" , who will get more merit in your opinion? And 1 thing to add, even though some legendary ranks are a shitposter, there are some of shitposter who is an original shit and some who is shitposting because they are lazy but originally they have the competence to be a high quality poster (i mean, come on man, 3 years of experience in cryptocurrency world)

Your suggestion is okay i guess, but not for now in my opinion.

Well, there are some loophole in this system, as far as i can think of.
1. In my opinion, there are some gangs or groups going around in this forum, even though there is no official on it, but there are some people who thinks identical and they share same interest thus making them feel like they are in the same boat, so
 a. They could help each other, but even though they are giving merit to a good posts, it will look like this is a shady act like merit farming.
 b. There will be a oposition group for them, which will not give them merit to reduce the competition in the forum.
2. Even though there is no group, people will still doing what i said up there, especially the b part.
3. It will make lower rank member harder to collect merit. Because right now the system and mindset for people in this forum is to give merits to people in need, which mean hero to lower rank or sr. Member to lower rank, because it is not that important for legendary to get merit, but with your suggestion, all rank will need merit, so you adding more competitor to this competition of getting merit, and to be honest, i dont want to compete with higher rank members/experienced old member, just like a game, do you want to pvp people with higher level than you?

Those are things that i can think of now, would like to hear some other opinion too.

What is the point of such a hideously complex addition to the merit system? Right now, the system is still being felt out. It will take some time before the proper spending of merit, and rules for giving merit are more clearly established. I imagine that when trust was first implemented it was given almost freely, now it is difficult to obtain.

Seems decent on paper, but you're forgetting that some people have lives outside of BCT. And not only this, but there are a limited number of merits that can be sent by sources every month, which means that if a user doesn't get to that minimum amount of merit in the month despite posting well, then they are punished by the system.

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Redistribution seems like a zero-sum game and beneficial but there are the hindrances to individuals that may choose to take a break. Would that dissolve them of their meritorious behavior? Surely not.

True, I don't think that demerit needed in the merit system. Only merit points will be good enough. As you said, merit abusers will take this chance to manipulate the system as they want, by sending and removing points to clear any evidence, In addition, there is some people who can demerit you without any reasons and then you can find yourself in a lower rank.

Demerit is a dangerous avenue to go down for sure, but the shitposters who have already leveled up are also a threat to the quality of the forum.. Perhaps adding in an increase into the base merit required to keep current rank would be an option? it shouldn't be massive as posters who have been inactive will need a chance to get the level they had back, maybe something like a 50 merit increase to each level in 6 months, that would kick the shitposters down a level for sure, brain is a little fried right now so I cannot think of a sensible system that would work but I am sure someone else could come up with something constructive if they agree with me

A demerit/unmerit is a bad idea. Some people will abuse it as well as with the trust. Probably it's time to enter a new rank - Supreme Master or Mythical Legendary. This will push the higher ranks to share their knowledge with the newcomers.

Unmerite/Demerite without borders would be indeed completely abused by some users.
But some rules could be found for this to work : for example if you could unmerite someone by spending one of your merit point for each unmerite point you want to give to this person. With your merit points you will then have either the choice to rewards someone for a good quality post or to punish someone for bad behaviour/spamming or anything else. Then it will limit the unmerite abuse.
But the merite score and the unmerite score would have to be two separated scores I think.

To put in place the merite system it was hard and there was a lot of whining but I can imagine the mess it will be if an unmerite system is put in place ;p
But the idea behind it to demote some of the old Legendary who shouldn't have their current rank is interesting indeed.

I don't think demerit is needed . It'll be the best thing for merit abusers ). They'll have chance to remove their merit abusing evidence then when checking time over, they'll send merit again. LOL. Although I know your idea is really good but we don't need it in this forum.

I don't agree with your suggestion, OP, and it does sound like you're whining a bit--but you put some thought into your post, so I gave you a merit. 

And yes, there are tons of Hero & Legendary members who got those ranks before the merit system was put into place who wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of earning them if they had to get merits to do so.  We all just have to accept that, and whining about it doesn't change matters. 

The merit system is hard on noobs, that's for sure.  But my opinion is that's the way it should be, since there are so many new accounts, and many of them are being farmed or are alts of each other, and the net result is that bitcointalk has been overrun with shitposters.  So we desperately needed to crack down on shitposters. 

I suppose everyone has forgotten when I was on DT along with actmyname, and we were tagging shitposters--but try to recall that for that brief period Meta was absolutely filled with threads complaining about actmyname and myself.  We were driving those idiots crazy, and it was a refreshing, euphoric time, but it was a lot of work.  Then the merit system got implemented, and shitposters no longer had to get tagged (and Theymos decreed that he did not want them to be), and it's been so much better ever since.  Then that blistered nutsack of fuck OGNasty excluded me from his trust list, followed by Tomatocage, and then I was off DT....but that's another story.

It's not perfect, but it's better, and I'll take that over the way it used to be any day of the week.

Oh, you've wasted your time, you should be on high ranking profile now with a lot of merits to give on your account, so don't complain now about the new rules, since it was half your fault for not making your account high as possible during those times.

Why don't we understand that it is the merit sources who have the highest number of merits to give each month. There is no need for them to be reluctant in awarding merit points to good posts. Only problem I see here is that the merits in circulation are less than needed. This can be achieved by either increasing the number of merit sources or increasing the number of smerits given to merit sources per month. Second is more easy to implement, finding more honest members for the role of merit sources can be an issue.

If you don't like the merit system as it is now and are crying about how hard it is to achieve merit in the first place like the dozens of other newbies are how would you feel once you have finally achieved your rank but then you find it slipping away from you constantly as you fail to get enough merits to sustain it? It's just going to force users to desperately make topics trying to beg for merit. It would just be counter productive and make things worse.


Nobody said it was perfect and it clearly isn't but I certainly haven't seen anyone propose a viable alternative (or one that wasn't much worse or open to even more abuse).

I respect with your opinion but it doesn't mean that merit system is not working good. Merit system is best but it becomes bad because there are a lot of BCT users are not following rules. They make another account so that there merit will go back that is called Account Farming

I think you're just impatient lol. I looked through your last 40 posts, and 60% of them were 1-liners or 2-liners, while the rest were pretty meaningful, so you know how to post good content, yes.

I think it's just that people are reluctant to give out merits right now because it's being mixed up with the Trust system.

Either that, or they have too few sMerits and aren't getting so many merits themselves, so they're reasoning that they should only give merits to really, really good posts.

The system is still equilibrating. But as you can see you already have 1 merit... and getting 1 merit when you post mostly 1 or 2-liners is a miracle lol.

So the system works. I bet you'd have 2 merits if your next 40 posts are 60% paragraphs rather than 1-liners .

Try it