Topic: What are the negativities of Merit system[UPDATED][09/08/2018] (Read 1712 times)

Anyonce can answer this? If people keep meriting the bounty threads it can be considered as merit abuse and red tag is needed for them?

Another example for bounty threads got merits which made the manaer to become fullmember by now here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=2015835

He was not tagged for merit trading or abusing,just for the ponzi shills made long time ago.But he also deserves tag for merit abuse? No he didn't abused anything regarding merits the members who is just merited the signature thread maybe want to participate in that,so they deserves negative trust for this activity?I think.

You can see the profile of this man...He got the negative trust for doing this....

Some of the members are doing merit trading ,If the have been caught ,they will  be punished definitely.  There are lot of member's who are giving merits to the quality post.They also use to post different type of challenges for giving merits.

I believe that don't think about the abusers/spammer/merit traders  etc. This is the good platform for getting knowledge and sharing your knowledge....use it for your improvements. Slowly slowly one day ,you will reach at your destination according the your work.

After long time just want to update my topic,anyone have new negative sides other than I have mentioned in the first post.

Adding one more point to OP,

6.Merits were given for the bounty threads and singature campaign threads which are almost has nothing to contribute to this forum.

Example: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=137185

I know that there are still a number of scammers here, mainly at high ranks. These have become quite experienced with the forum and even cheat in a smart way so as not to get detected by the staff or senior members. I am hopeful that the admin comes up with even more harsh steps in future to fight against these spammers.

Merit system has made it hard for new users to rank up which may kill their interest and they will just leave this place. It is fine that the admin wants to fight the spammers but if a genuine member also feels that there are no sufficient merits here, he will not actively participate here. This might not be good for the forum in the long run as we need new ideas and members for growth of the forum. Then there is good also that spam on the forum will reduce. Admin is the best person to evaluate based on both these.

i totally agree with what you said.

I agree with the negativities you talked about but, all things has their negativities, I mean every decisions we made has a negative effect to others, but instead of just looking for negativities can we look for the positive things that this merit system brought to us? I'm still a newbie but I am not complaining about ranking up because I know that there are still people who will give their merits with full of honesty and give merits to those who deserve. Instead of complaining why not improve ourselves?

People are getting probably tired of this but let me give you nullius as example, OK?
He knows the sh!t and have the time and the abilities to write some extraordinary posts, I know, not everyone can be like him, but hey, I think I can rank up in a couple of weeks maybe, and I'm just an ordinary guy, joined back in November last year and had no idea what blockchain is. Now I can say that I learnt quite a lot for this time and I'm thankful.
No need to beg at all, try to do something instead, be creative and learn. The information you find here is more valuable then any merit or coin.

Yes you are right. It is impossible because merit giveaway depends only on upper ranked members, which is unfair by all means.
All upper ranked members do not publish quality post or even they exchange their merits, Who knows.

But we will stay where we are standing right now.


Moderators should have to rethink on merit system started all with zero merit points and Given merits based on panel of experts who reviewed all the posts.
It may be costlier but sure have great impact. 

Well, If you see the traders of merit points then report them and trust me, actions is better than words  . Furthermore, I do not think that those groups will last long in this forum. just with simple click on Merit, we can see who's the cheater. So thanks to merit system, we can easily know the scammers.  
I see that the moderators and the truster members are working hard and giving a great effort to eliminate those cheaters from this community.

let's be honest here actually the only negative of merits is that it will be harder for an individual to gain more profits in the long run in a signature bounty. also, it will discourage members whos not talented enough to post in the forum (not all are a talented poster) if they see that in they are below average in terms of merits.

1) You are very much right about this and I think this problem will exist in future or may become more severe. Members here have seen some of the initial threads regarding merit system getting number of merits. Now in future if we have any other change in forum rules, members will create threads about that rule change in hope of merits again.

2) I do no think that sale of merit points is a big concern here. It might be  happening on some scale but will not continue too long as the default merit points given to members are limited.

I want to point out something. I had an old account back in December (1,5 years old maybe, I didn't use much don't even remember), I was checking out stuff, reading, writing short answers didn't care a lot about what I was writing, however, due to the old system I became a "member" because I had just bunch of posts.

But if some new person signs up today, who is enthusiastic about the forum or the currencies, he/she will have to beg or buy or 'write clever informing articles' or be friends with high ranked ones...

I think merit system turned the forum into the real Bitcoin. The older you had it, the more profitable and powerful you are. I am okay with my rank, can use signatures that's enough.

This is likely happening now. I've seen groups selling merits for money. Man this is crazy. They would really do everything just to cheat the forum.

I've still got merit to give out, and I had a look round after I read your post. I nearly gave some to a newbie, but his post was capitalised, and I hate that, so I passed over his post. Everything else seemed to be repetitive and obvious, and didn't get me enthusiastic. There are quite a few good tech replies on the serious help board, and it's a shame that they don't get merit. None of them was in my area of (limited ) expertise, so I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to act.

I've now got a lot of people on ignore for merit begging and trading, using oversized text and the misuse of graphics, so maybe I shouldn't go looking for posts to award with merit. I've had to adopt a fairly strict policy on post format because it was taking far too long for me to read threads. This is a personal decision, and doesn't reflect forum policy of course. However, posters may like to consider the fact that they won't get merit if their post isn't read. Making your post easy to read and well structured tempts the viewer to find out more. Over sized text makes it harder for him to scan quickly.

The only lower ranked member that will reach leg status is nullius lol

One negative i have seen is am not really seeing any merit being dished out lately, except perhaps in the Bitcoin discussion forum.. maybe average joe has run out of merit? or maybe the initial boom is over and this is the normal state? or maybe it's cyclical? i dunno, just seems to have stagnated a bit..

-If we keep looking for the negative sides then how would we see the good things 

"You always see what you really wanted to see" - not sure where I read it but I believe it's a good philosophy.

Him tried to break it down however let me rephrase the things since the original post made a month ago from now...

- well yeah, it's already happening. You will be amazed mathematically it goes really big! Have a look on my 1st suggestion.

- It's quite impossible. In fact we do not know what will be the percentage of the good posts that won't get merited. It's just sad 

- If you have bad intention in mind then no one can stop anyone not just them.


- I guess my second suggestion resolve this.

 

Strong words. Merits for that.

Kinda like those people who are doing a great job at translating for they are really the most useful for investors from different countries.
This is one of the negative sides of it. There will always be flaws but your post have some too.
This is a forum and I think you should not just stay here for your job and also share your thoughts, something like this one now.

Somehow there will be that person that will give merits according to their own view.
Crap, I didnt even know how I ended up here, just links by links.

If shit posters decide to stay away from this forum because of the new merit system, I think this is one of the big achievements of this new system. Those who have something valuable to contribute will stay here for sure.

Keeping in mind how this new system affected the members here, I think it is obvious to expect so many threads. Also, this is not permanent. As people get used to this, we will have less of these threads.



If you are knowledgeable (irrespective of your current rank), you should be able to make quality posts. And if you are making quality posts, you will get merits and rank up.

I think the negative of merit is clear we would be hard to raise forum rank but that is a way that we can be better to communicate here, and improve what should be the purpose of this forum.

What changes I see today, after the introduction of the "Merit" system?

1. The reverse effect. The merit-system was made in order to save the forum from the influx of useless posts, topics, etc. Today, "thanks to" the introduction of this system, we have the following: the creation of the same topics about new merit system, about shit-posts and the emergence of begging.

2. Head-butting. The system did not provide for the usual human factor - comparison of yourself with other people. Someone stands higher, someone stands lower, both in real life and in the virtual world. "Thanks to" the introduction of this system, we have: Beginning disputes and accusations against each other, thereby creating another spam and flooding on the forum. Here we return to №1.

3. Competition. The merit-system expected people to evaluate the good posts or topics of other forum participants in good faith. The result of the introduction of this system: shit-posts are estimated of the friends, family, acquaintances or their multi-accounts.

4. Monetization. For the time being, it is not clear until the end, the system struggling with the sale of merits or not? Like other forum participants who watch this process and paint trust if they saw merits on shit-posts, so I can’t say with full confidence about the sale of merits, this process will be more clearly visible after the passage of time.

5. Get-away. Many participants can make a decision to leave the forum, observing the current situation and the forum will be empty. The bottom line: on the forum will stay only "oldsports", but some people don’t understand, there are some newbies who benefit the forum and share useful information. If he is newbie on the forum, this does not mean that he is newbie in the field of crypto currency. I know many crypto-guys who into the theme of crypto for several years, but have not been registered at the forum or registered recently.

Of course, there are exceptions. Some people will stop spamming on the forum, in view of the current uselessness of stuffing posts, as well as out of fear that they will be painted by the negative trust, but if we go back to №3, it is clear to everyone that the system will not do much good against spam.

Any solution for this? If moderators control merit system like activities good for forum? Moderators can find high quality posts and they can give merit.

One of the minuses of this system is that scammers like Jamalaezaz (bounty manager scammer) will recieve merit points from the twitter and fb spammers of his bounty campaigns.

People are stealing hundreds of thousand of dollars but we are playing with merit points.
Just another useless system like trust system....my 2 cents.
If you want to do something that matters try doing a system that punishes or better yet eliminates thieves from this forum...maybe then bitcointalk wont be as cancerous as it is now.

I think one of the negative aspects of this system is that soon we will see more and more topics with inappropriate discussions or irrelevant information (such as copy/paste of articles found on the Internet) because people will see that it is easier to earn merits if you are a thread creator. So there is a chance that a flood of meaningless posts will transform into a flood of meaningless threads.

Merit system now that stipulated as part of cryptos procedures on how they would assess positions of bitcoiners. Somehow its quite difficult to all, because no matter how good or
quality post you had, but if nobody wants to give their merits to you, still it will be hard for us to earn merits and rank ourselves.

if this will create a big problem soon then then there will be a great discovery for the solution. I am Jr. and hoping tha this merit will deliver fair and and merit sources will do great in their responsibility.

This would be a positive effect of the system, not a negative one.

We don't need people who shitpost just because they want to earn. Newcomers who write good posts will have no trouble getting the required merit points. It is very likely that their activity will be the limiting factor.

It is possible that 'merit for sale' would exist and users wjo haven't been earning merit would possibly buy the idea due to having merit is being required now by signature campaigns. Also, not all people who are posting quality posts would possibly get merit. Trading of merits between users would also exist, standards and policies I believe is for further enhancement, still hoping that the goal of cleaning the forum would be achieved.

I would like to add:

6. Wage distortion in signature campaigns

Soon, signature campaigns will choose participants with merits and they will have a different/higher pay as compared to those who don't have any merits. Although it's not necessarily a negative effect of the merit system. In fact, the merit system would help improve campaigns because campaign managers will be able to ensure that the participants are really quality posters if they choose the ones with merit.

However it is negative for those who genuinely want to earn and haven't gained any merits yet. They won't be able to earn just as much as those who already do.

I give merit points as a thank you to a poster for providing helpful information. This serves two purposes - it shows the poster that his post is helpful and constructive, and encourages him to support the forum with more posts. It also helps a useful poster to recognise that the forum priorities are not just about promoting crypto bounties. If a forum member feels that the forum has become a crypto bounty marketplace, and not a Bitcoin information exchange, it is possible that he will reduce the frequency of his visits.

A merit Measurement scale is also not attainable, since if my intentions is to game the system I could give 5 merits  each day regardless if it is an excellent post or not, No one can judge that since measurement scale can be subjective you can justify that it is an excellent post for you but not for others. So I guess limiting the merits being given is a more fair way of appreciating a post.

That would be great but unfortunately I doubt most of members would use it. i think most of people would ignore that function. But I strongly hope I'm mistaken.

I think it is possible that some people will trade with others in order to get Merit.

Below junior members, Merit is so scarce that they do not want to increase Merit for others, which is a deviation from the Merit system!

Why? Because it is our duty as a members of this community. Not everyone understands that but hopefully there will be enough conscientious users for this system to work.

Dudes, the only one thing I can't get - why should anybody send merit? What the point? 

I think everybody is just not giving a mind about that function so there are stagnation of ranks on the way. Everybody would just stopped ranking up.

The forum displayed thread based on chronological history, at least till now.

This new features effects those members who are closely to ranked up, they are waiting for many months and excited to rank up but when this merit system launched they was disappointed because merit will vary on ranking up our accounts. That is why many users complaining with this system, but over all observation this new features makes us more productive member by creating quality post and make this forum in high standard forum.

Well, I believe the ones finding it difficult to be constructive enough to get Merits will find the system negative. Others are taking it as a positive feature for the betterment of this forum.

Not totally agree with your points. However, I think Theymos should limit the maximum number of merits for each thread. The range of merits received/ donated might be somewhere between 1 to 5 (measurement scale). For example:
1. for good quality post
2. for somewhat better than good quality post
3. for high-qualitied post.
4. for somewhat better than high-qualitied post.
5. for extremely high-qualitied post.

This sort of merit measurement scale will better control sell/buying sMerits between users.

Are posts that receive more merits displayed on top? If so, there can be some benefits. Good quality posts can be seen easily. Accounts gaining merits unreasonably can be seen easily too.

i agree its hard now to rank up when newbies are not famous because they will stock in jr member. but they need to be friendly so he/she will receive merits.

I think the biggest negative impact is that many people can't upgrade!
The phenomenon of sale Merit is sure to appear!

Here are the negative points I think of the Merit system:

1. The system is somewhat biased as for higher ranks they don't need to work hard already for their ranks, compared to lower ranks.
2. The system is somewhat not fair as a person with a lot of merits can award an instant 20 or more merits to one post. There are a lot of people who needs those merits which are also posting good posts, so rather than giving instant 20 merits to one person why not spread it to others. There should be a limit of merits you can receive from 1 source in a day. Let say 1 merit from 1 source per day should be fair enough.
3. The system encourages selling of merits in exchange for services or cash.
4. The number of merits required for a level up is just outrageous and not very attainable. Due to the number of merits a person need to have before a level up, this should be updated. Maybe increments of 20 merits per rank movement would be fine as long as they will also implement a cap of merits you can only receive in a person per day or maybe per week.

Unfortunately bounty managers seem to completely ignore new entries. What baffles me even more is that higher ranks than me provide subpar translations (no diacritics, use Paint to edit photos and so on) but they still receive a big portion of the contracts.
And yeah you are right, my work is great, my autism makes me edit and translate everything to near-perfection (sometimes turns bad when push this too much haha)

Not going to comment on your case specifically, but putting people on ignore after negging them is a sanity-keeping policy, because if you've left someone a neg for just reasons there isn't anything to discuss.  It turns into an excuse factory and a time-wasting exchange.  I've done this myself, because some people will absolutely flood your inbox with sniveling nonsense and then try to call down the wrath of allah or whatever sky fairy they believe in on you. 

Start up a new thread in meta or something, but you're probably stuck with the feedback you got, unfortunately.

Nobody is being labeled by rank. Welcome to the new bitcointalk, where the quality of your posts matter more. I didn't look at your previous work , but i'm sure it's great. good post!

I think people also overlook the fact that individuals who already have a decent Rank are more likely to receive merits, as they look more appealing (signatures, avatars, golden coins etc.).

And who the fuck would even merit me? I don't chill in an armchair with a cup of tea next to me, participating in elevated discussions on this forum. I translate whatever ann threads and whitepapers I can. The only reason I left my habitat was to see what the hell was this update and to my surprise, it doesn't really help me.

Unfortunately people label me based on my Rank. They don't even look at my previous work, they just cut me off the list. This Merit system gives me reasons to be concerned.

As you should.  This post is totally off topic!   

merit's are worthless

Lauda and his group are already abusing merit points by giving themself merits in their own circle

No, it is not. Read about the actual system before you shitpost. Also, it's not spelled "Stack".

in future no user will be active on Giving their sMerit.
because if they are now actively using their  sMerit.
as you can see every Use of sMerits will become half to the receiver of Merit.
sMerit is Limited and it will be run out of Stack soon.
and if only Legendary earns the sMerit/Merits what will Happen on the
 limited circulation of sMerit?

Lauda is a Legendary Member, they do not need any more merits to "Level Up" so if they want to swap merits all day long with another member let them be!

if 2 JR members were up to similar antics then it is a totally different story - its not apples for apples buddy

Let's look at this issue more widely...It doesn't have a great value what rank do you have,The most important is how much you are educated.By this system experienced people will start to share their knowledge better,More importantly,that there will be posibility to have a healthy convesrations,becuase we really need it,People post and they don't remember about this because they are posting only for ranks and not for help.The main reason why this forum was created is to help each other and share our knowledge,So I think this system will be one of the precondition to achieve this goal and its not only for shitposters to improve their quality.

5.Random members going to be tagged if someone exchanged merits,but it is not going to happen if a DT member do.(too fair)

DT has nothing to do with being a source of merit.

Meaning, I'm not allowed to send merit to someone who sent me merit?

Of course they do. Each post that I send merit to deserves the amount of merit that I gave it to them. It is up to me how much merit I give and where I give it to.

There is nothing untrustworthy going on. Stop being butthurt because we nailed your alt accounts.

That has nothing to do with this thread.

He's an escrow scammer, don't expect anything good out of him.

I would hope that you all are kidding,Right?
Surely it must be against the rules to sell merits.
If not, we have just opened the door for those that have the resources to become the new chiefs.

Hi all!
Yesterday just fell the victim of this kinda injustice. Changed with my friends some Merits and got red trust from DT member (affiliated with Lauda & Co)
How do you think, are there any chances for us to be retrieved?

Could actually encourage more corruptions. I just do not fancy the idea of giving people more powers.

Now that is a very interesting observation.
Thank you for pointing that out.

There's definitely potential for abuse, but I think we should wait and see. Give it a few weeks and see how seriously people take it. If people are as upset about all the shitposting as they seem, then hopefully those same people can put this system to good use. At least merit is public, so shenanigans are all out in the open.

Good catch,BIG cats found.

I am interested to see who is going to neg them for this untrustworthy attitude from a DT memebr.

First of all I am not against the merit,I just want to figure out the negativities.
If someone said DT will be fair while distributing the merits.I will say no,
Here I have a reference for that,Lauda and aTriz most well know members of our forum exchanging merits between them.
1.Lauda merited aTriz for running a twitter campaign ( https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.25417254 )
2.aTriz merited Lauda for a shit answer ( https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.28801076 )
If you are saying that posts deserves 50 and 20 merits.I am totally against you.So all the merits are going to stuck between the well known forum member.

How do we know that merit holders are actually going to reward them based on posting quality?

The supply implications (e.g. decay and how actively people use the merit system) also aren't obvious. So, even if people do use them as intended (as a reward for quality posts), we don't know how well-distributed they will be. For example, it's theoretically possible that once the initial sMerit awarded yesterday is mostly spent, that sMerit mostly circulates within limited social networks that revolve around merit sources.

So there's little guarantee that the system will be equitable. As a Hero Member, I won't complain, but TBH this just feels like an extension of the flawed Default Trust system. We don't technically know who merit sources are, but my guess is that it will become obvious that there is a lot of overlap between DT and merit sources.

Not necessarily. The community as a whole is who will need to keep an eye out and report the ones that slip through the DT1/2 members - just like regular old scammers.

well, devs now not only need to delete spam, but also need to catch these traders. a lot of work to do, and make this forum more unfriendly.

People are not demanded to post high quality posts, nobody is preventing anyone to post stupid posts (as long as it's not a pure spam). However, if one wants to go up in ranks, he would have to actually contribute to the community by posting good and constructive posts. That's the whole point of the system, it is supposed to be some kind of indication of the user's quality.

I agree. I think it makes it confusing for new users, and the difficulty in getting merit will defer the new users from joining the community. Although it is too soon to say, it seems like receiving merit is a bit difficult as the supply is limited.

I agree with point 1 and 2 in the short term, in the long run more merit will be available to be given therefore it wouldn't necessarily focus into already existing high ranks, this is similar  to what happens on reddit, furthermore is a super fresh system so let's give it a few weeks before taking a position.

Its way negative to those who are on lower ranks like newbies and jr. members, they want to learn from bitcoin community yet they are demanded to quality postings to get merits. I think lower rank must have more sendable merits as they will give it to most useful post they read. Farming merits ? when that time comes sell merits in high price because it is your digital dignity and respect.

Hey guys, what's important here is to have a different opinion, a different way to see things. That's why I like the first post of these thread.
Hope we'll  find some good thoughts out of here.

Thanks playboy for bringing up the issue and for having a different view, which by the way I don't share, but bring some critic to the subject.

No you can be a legendary if you posting high quality posts and post that may be helpful. only shit posters will never attain the legendary rank.
I don't think there will be merit farming since just like trust everyone will see the user sent/received merits it will be easy for DTs spot the account farmers
I agree not all quality posts will merited but you have a high chance that you will be merited.
No. I think mods and DTs will be fair and square when it comes to meriting someone.

It's not the problem to be honest,because;

Ans : If they have a good quality posts,why not ?(It's not the problem absolutely)
Ans : Only Merit Source can do that,but i doubt it(very unlikely).because there'll be no more sMerit in the future if you spend it all.
for short time it will,but for long time ? no.
Ans : True,but i hope we can cover it up in the future because of this;
Ans  : It's very unlikely because it's 0 value to them(should be,right?)

Well,Favoritism ? 

I was joking about selling merits obviously (hence the smiley faces). I do not thinking selling merits would really work unless you were a source and I am sure theymos was pretty picky with who is a source. I do think this system will help the more I understand it though and that is a positive thing.

We don´t know if that is true because we don´t know how scarce is merit going to be. For example, in a extreme case, if only 1000 merits are created by the sources in a year, getting 500 will be nearly impossible.

I don't think it would be appropriate for a merit source to sell merit points (how do you know you are a merit source anyway), and seriously trying to do so would probably result in this being taken away.

With the above being said, I would not personally sell merit points, however I don't have a major issue with it as long as you are not a merit source. Your merit points are ultimately earned via your good posts, so I don't see why you can't do what you want with them. Also, if merit points are not being done in the open, it will only create a false sense of security because they would likely be done in secret if there was serious pushback against these kinds of trades.

How much per merit you guys offering?    Time will tell how this makes a difference for the spammers. My guess is that it slows the farmers down a lot and that will help as the copy/paste guys gets bans...

This is actually unlikely, at least over the long run.

Accounts do not have any way to automatically gain merit points unless they are a merit source. Also you can only give out 1/2 the merit points you get.

I don’t think this is against the rules. Also users have a limited amount of merit points to give out unless they are able to make a lot of good posts.

Same thing happens in Chinese local too

  Merit sale has aready started in russian local. No bans detected

In more than 2 years, if you actually contribute, you should have no problem reaching 1000 posts that have been given 1 merit, 500 posts that have been given 2 merits, etc.


Merits are finite. Those that want to sell merits will run out very quickly, unless they have a huge army of accounts, and you can't farm them by making new accounts. Merits are also public, so if people with all one liners somehow get 100 merit, the community can spot them and give them a negative trust if needed.


Well, yeah. You can't expect people to be seeing every single post, and this is really only a problem if you really want to rankup, but basically post spam, and in an attempt to do so, make a single high quality post. People who consistently post quality should be rewarded.


Almost every moderator is a Legendary member, so gaining merits would not help really. There is no reason for mods, DT and sources to trade merits, as they are usually Legendary, post good quality, and contribute.

All those negatives are the advantages of higher rank members.
1.There will be less members with lower ranks who can join Signature/ Bounty Campaigns. Higher Ranks can now join those project without hassle.
2. There is always a solution to the problems especially to those who are not agree with the new system. Merit sales could be possible.
3. Exactly, I know we are not encouraged to give those sMerits but what if they do not feel like giving their sMerits even the post has quality.
4. Because they have the power.

This is very possible to happen and also some guys here will sale their merit to earn money.

1.I think the lower ranked members is never going to rank up to legendary.
2.Soon there maybe a merit farming.
3.I am sure that not all the quality posts will get merits.
4.Mods,DT,merits sources are exchanging smerits between them.
5.Random members going to be tagged if someone exchanged merits,but it is not going to happen if a DT member do.
6.Merits were given for the bounty threads and singature campaign threads which are almost has nothing to contribute to this forum.


I just want to hear more negativity if there,from the experts and seniors of our forum.