Topic: Whoops out of smerit. Should there be a way to buy some from theymos? (Read 607 times)

Shitpost legendary members will find it difficult to enter DT with a positive strength to qualify for one, and even if they do, they will be dropped quickly. BTW, the buying process will not be automatic; the admin must go through the buying request and ensure that the buyer is trustworthy enough not to abuse it. We don't have a merit source on our local board, and I'm sure you know what that means for quality posters over there. I wouldn't mind trading some bitcoin for some..


If only the right requirement is not put in place.

Igehhhhh, I slightly disagree. Only quality posts indeed deserve merit. But, it's not that hard fishing merits. Even shit posters can rank up quickly. Newbies spawn up every other day on the WO thread and keep posting tweets to get some easy merits. Eventually, they get it. Suppose this structure takes into consideration. Shitposter Legendaries will take the chance. You may ask, huh? Shitposter Legendaries? Yeah, You know that already. Actmyname leaves neutral on such accounts. There are a bunch of sold accounts around us with sMerits in hand. They can easily exchange merits, and you won't notice that.


I agree with this statement. Theymos or Cyrus could decrease their skin thickness when it comes to response to established members (Like Staff, Moderators, Merit Sources, DTs)

I kinda-sorta know where you're coming from here, but I don't think merits are as powerful as all that.  They're basically just a "like" button except they're also a component of the ranking up process.  If you're already Legendary or have enough merits to get there, they're a pretty useless political tool, no? 

I'm also not sure to what extent merits have oppressed anyone's adversaries here--except for one great example: shitposters are definitely mine, and I have done my best to actively suppress them ranking up and thus earning more money by spewing crap forum-wide.  But I'm only one person with merits to give, right?  Someone else (or even a a whole lot of someone elses) could very well undo all of my suppression.

But all of that aside, if Theymos started selling merits it'd probably turn into a disaster very quickly.  Better for high-ranked/trusted members and/or merit sources who are running low to ask Theymos directly or create threads like this.  The community is often very willing to help when they know someone just wants to spread merits around.

You know the problem right now?? No matter how much sentiments you try to consolidate the whole idea with, it cannot change the fact that SELLING MERITS will automatically go AGAINST this whole meritocracy; so of what use is it to have something that every single good person is struggling for - being put in the hands of some mere low-classed dummies, only for some lame fact that they've decided enough - since they haven't had any other choice - to give everything just to get 'em?? Of what IMPORTANCE will it be to have merit as part of the ranking process when it could simply be coverted for some few bucks (cus it's not gonna look too big for the rich ones)??
Look, instead of suggesting that merits becomes sellable, I'll suggest that Theymos removes the whole system... yeah, cus there's no point and I'm sure he wouldn't wanna do such... just my opinion

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

Well dear, unfortunately merit has become a political tool, people use it as leverage to support their like minded community members and oppress their adversaries.
It could be used in a discussion to inadvertently or otherwise to silence a few selected, because if you are unaware of some facts and see people are meriting my posts against someone else, you'd  automatically assume that I'm right and telling the truth in that said discussion.

Merit is being wrongly used already, selling it to everyone could make it worse, but it could have a price so high that no account farmer would dare to think about buying them. Maybe someone is rich enough that they'd like to use merit as their political voting token. Why not?

I don't know how this whole thing sounds but I think Theymos is not gonna agree with it, since it still falls on the idea of "BUYING AND SELLING" some practical charitable advantage of 'em post makers; very optimistic and incredulous critics - per say.
I don't support merit selling and buying matterless of how you wanna see 'em; as some nuggets to grow the forum members that are doing well in your own discretion or whatsoever... That's gonna make others map out a way to change the whole essence of this idea in particular,.. that's if you're to be given a chance.That's not derogatory, no..., No hard feelings dear..

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

Care us needed to be taken into consideration when considering new alternatives in other not to complicate the whole issue, i see nothing wrong with the merit system already on ground, members should be the one to readjust themselves in posting more quality posts, engage in research and findings or do any task that could be uniquely acceptable and members will show interest in giving smerit, but for the best interest of any legendary rank who wish to have more and enough smerits to send to others, then applying for a merit source is the best to do.

What you don't have, you can't abuse! The old Legendary account would require a large number of merits in order to have smerits for farming. If this new structure is implemented, only high-quality posters will benefit.

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The Bitcoin for Merits will be fantastic, but it should be limited to only DT1 with a positive strength to abuse.

There are bunch of quality posts on the Nigeria Board- someone can throw some there.

Placing merit here in the forum as additional rules and policies is something that gives reason that every community should be responsible for what they post here.

      And I don't think you have an obligation to give merit to anyone here, it's still better to give what you think is deserving of the person to receive merit from you, the wellspring inside that did it. It's just that sometimes I see some people who make sense in the posts of others here, but I don't see that merit is thrown at them, but the topic they made really makes sense. Then the others were only posted briefly but immediately received merit, although it is their freedom to whom they want to give merit. This is the only thing I noticed, actually.

Having a 1:1 ratio would be 1 merit per a merit received, If you get loyce correctly, I think the account farmers already have some sMerits in possession due to their legitimate activities in the forum. Hence if they decide to disseminate 100 merits amongst the legendary accounts in the farm they'll never run out of merits, it'll definitely get useless for Legendary accounts. For instance, 10 legendary accounts managed by one member who has 100 smerits can easily share those merits amongst account 1 that'll receive 100 sMerits for receiving 100merits then it'll forward to account 2 that'll receive same number of sMerits for receiving 100 merits and so on. If the merits keeps circulating amongst their legendary accounts they can boost the number of merits to any amount they wish by meriting themselves for 100 sMerits. The only way the sMerits they own would depreciate is when the farmer tends to build a new account to full member by gradually sending the 100 merits to the new account that'll in turn get 50 sMerits then it reduces down till the new account now realizes about 195 merits; new account receives 50 smerits for 100 merits, then 25 smerits for 50 merits, 12.5 smerits for 25 merits and till it fades, as the legendary account receives the same amount of smerits per Merit sent to them by the new account.  That'll be an abuse, though such activities can be tracked, but they shouldn't be a room for that.

Let's say for arguments sake that it becomes 1 : 1 for legendary members only going forward from the change. Would it really mean unlimited sMerit for "account farmers"? Won't these members still need to actually acquire the merit in order to farm more accounts?

I understand that the numbers are incorrect, the idea itself to slightly tweak sMerit distribution however, I think can help to solve the issue DaveF is facing without massively effecting the value of Merit.


My mistake 

That would introduce exponential growth, and old Legendary account farmers would have unlimited sMerit to farm more accounts. Basically, the Merit system would become worthless.

It's 1 sMerit per 2 Merit received.

Chill bud. The numbers are an example. They can easily be modified as to what is seen fit by those who make that kind of decision. The point of the ideas are to vary the amount of sMerit per user rank. Not to increase the circulation of Merit. You raised a great point here:

But again, that is the problem with the numbers. Not the idea itself (to vary sMerit based on user rank).

Are you for real?
Forget about Idea 1. Even if Idea 2 take into consideration. There is no need for Merit sources anymore. Currently, we receive 0.5 sMerit for each merit we get. If Legendaries receive 1.5 sMerit per Merit, they receive. It's 3x already. Then you suggested the same thing for other ranks up to Full Members. Well, In no time, You will see more merits than posts made per day. No offense, but I wouldn't say I like the idea. People won't have posts to spend their merits. Suppose I received 500 Meits and I have 600 Merits to spend. When I spend 600 merits, someone else will have more merits to spend as well. The Merit circulation will explode.

According to the DdmrDdmr's Merit dashboard^[1], 21,926 Merit was transacted in March 2023. In Comparison, only Legendaries received 11,884 Merits (54.2%). Forget about Hero, Sr, and Full Members. In Comparison, 1948 Merits were obtained by Member, Jr, Newbie and Brand new (8.88%). Imagine what will happen there. Once again, No offense, But it's not a good idea.

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[1] https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ddmrddmr/viz/shared/4S8ZR5P6X

I would not say this would cause people to are earn "lots" more sMerit. The concentration of sMerit would go to those who would be better distributing it (higher ranked users) and would not effect the vast majority of the forum (Full members and below). Not to mention that the amounts could definitely be configurable (reduced or increased based on what is seen fit). The point in the idea is to address the problem that people who are distributing merit to good posters are running out, not considering the "merit source" idea that is currently in place.


Overall I think that a better system needs to be in place than a manual application system. To combine the two ideas, after reaching a certain amount of merit, one can create an automated support/oppose application that can be made once every X time (for example once a year) where at least 80% of (insert user condition here) must support for it for a user to become a merit source.

Many ideas can be discussed. Though if one thing should be taken into account from all of this, it's that things should be carefully made to be more automated than reliant on manual things like applications. Very old school, I'm surprised that's the current approach

That can result in abuse in power by some. Filtering the application reduces its chances.

Your idea is not bad, it can definitely help in some cases. But I don't think of it as one of the conditions that this system should change and the forum should implement this idea. Obviously your idea is to help users earn lots of sMerit every time they earn merit, but I tend don't see many cases where admin have to upgrade the merit system as long as merit sources are everywhere.

Merit sources don't work like robots to detect all quality posts, but there are ways to get them to pay attention to those posts if they do. I think this thread is one of them:

1. [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source

It seems like the system just needs a tweak to fix this problem. I came up with two ideas.

Idea 1: Adjust sMerit per merit based on user rank from the time it is integrated forward. For example:

Legendary: Receives 2 sMerit per Merit received
Hero: Receives 1.5 sMerit per Merit received
Senior member: Receives 1.2 sMerit per Merit received
Full member and below: 1 sMerit per Merit received (No change)

Idea 2: Adjust sMerit per merit based on user rank and apply it to the Merit system being integrated forward. For example:

Legendary: Receives 1.5 sMerit per Merit received going forward + receives Current Merit +50% in sMerit 
Hero: Receives 1.2 sMerit per Merit received + receives Current Merit +20% in sMerit
Senior member: Receives 1.1 sMerit per Merit received + receives Current Merit +10% in sMerit
Full member and below: 1 sMerit per Merit received (No change)

The difference between idea 1 and idea 2 is that idea 1 adjusts the system going forward, while idea 2 applies the to all past merit. I believe that either of the ideas shouldn't saturate the Merit ecosystem too much. Presumably, idea 1 would not saturate it at all, it would just increase future distribution. While idea 2 would instantly increase circulating Merit.

The limit is 100 Merit per post.

I think your intention are to become a merit source well, that's a good thing its also mean there will be more smerits in circulation but i think option of buying copper membership is not fair as there will be no governance remains on platform. Like the one with good content quality but with no or less money will remain behind in the race of merit number and the second is who do not have good posts quality but have money then they can buy those smerits and can share among his/her favourable person because if that person has no sense of making or contributing to the btt then how can be the decision of them sending merit to each other will improve like i know you can give smerits to anyone you want but if you walk around only few board and section the the circulation will narrow down to only few seekers.

Sencodly, if you want to become a merit source then you can learn from these profiles.

• Applying to be a merit source by hilariousetc
• Application to be a Merit source for Bangladesh Thread by The Sceptical Chymist
• fillippone Merit Source Application by fillippone

well you if you are so determined to contribute btt by encouraging newbies or low rank member making beautiful content for btt than i must say until you become a merit source you should apply for getting merits from other merits sources here is the three merit source options that i think you should apply.

• [Merit] Share your best posts/threads with Fillippone to be merit assessed
• [Merit] Share your best topics with Merit Source
• [self-moderated] Report unmerited good posts to Merit Source

maybe there are more on the list but i just familiar with these three and they are active. Well overall, if you became a merit source then try to remain active and i really appreciate your enthusiasm towards community.