Quote from: llyfee4u on January 25, 2018, 03:50:59 PM

Quote from: Dvach on January 25, 2018, 03:07:03 PM

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2439743.msg28861940#msg28861940 - 7 merit points were received for the question "How much merit points newbie need to receive, before he can post in other section?"

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2770539.msg28896442#msg28896442 - 50 merits for "Right, yesterday he told, that he saved 9% of coins"

High quality posts, huh?

I have few thoughts regarding this. First of all, this could be implemented with purpose to raise the price on the accounts with senior ranks. Admin informed us, that moderators will not moderate merits, than why do we need this? I find it quite suspicious. Secondly, it will help hero/legendary members to save their profits in the bounty campaigns. Now it will be difficult to reach senior ranks, and new rivals will rarely appear. That's my point regarding this new system. Embarrassed

Exactly, it has already begun. 50 sMerits for that post with 10 words. I struggle to see how this will work in a fair way. As i've said before, something had to be changed to encourage better quality posts. I'm just not entirely sure, this has been very well thought out. The required merits for ranking is not proportionate either.
Even on this thread, i've seen quite a few posts which i feel deserves merits but considering that sMerits are like gold dust, nobody is rewarding. Essentially, legendaries now have 'GOD' status (which is ok), but it makes it practically impossible for other to rank up except people use some 'under hand' tactics to get the required merits. This needs tweaking.

Quote from: Lutpin on January 25, 2018, 03:49:26 PM

(This assumes the majority of the people participating behaves in a responsible way)

Good point, and therein lies another issue. No guarantee that people would behave in that way.

Quote from: bobq on January 25, 2018, 03:12:58 PM

The new system is surely better than the previous one, even though it is over-rewarding "old members". I guess nobody who has joined Bitcointalk in the past six months will EVER manage to become Legendary Member, at least not in less than one or two decades. Fine, this could be a price to pay to avoid the forum getting even more trashy, I fully agree. But I think that the implementation of this new system could be done in a more fair way. The fact that initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for one's rank is not a big deal for Newbies or Juniors, but for higher ranked members, like Senior or Hero Members, it can create big inequalities. For example a freshly ranked Senior Member is now getting the same merit score as someone who has already been a Senior Member for almost half a year and is about to become a Hero. Even more dramatic would be the case of a Hero who has already the activity to be a Legendary but the random system did not grant him the rank yet. A more fair way to distribute the inital merit would be to calculate it proportionally to the actual activity. This would avoid that people like me (I don't want to make it personal but I'm the first example which comes to my mind) who is missing only 4 points of activity (and 5 days) to the rank of Hero Member, instead of getting, let's say 470-480 merits (instead of the 500 of people who already are Heroes), is getting only 250 merits like someone who has just ranked Senior Member 10 days ago, and instead of 5 days it may now suddenly take me years before I can become a Hero - how many very good posts has one to do before he gets 250 merits? If you receive one merit every 4 post you do (on average you are likely to get less IMO) it will take you 1000 more posts to rank up from Senior to Hero, and if you like me were only 4 points of activity from that target, and now suddenly you need another 1000 posts, to say that this is becoming extremely frustrating is a big understatement. On the other side, with a more proportional and balanced initial distribution of merits I think nobody would feel that the system is penalizing them more than it penalizes others - which means people would be more inclined to recognize its substantial fairness, or at least that every effort has been done to achieve the maximum possible fairness.

You've summed this up brillianlty well. I want to give merit but its crazy scarce.

Thank you for your intention anyway

Your answer actually proves my point. It will take an endless time for anyone to get the Merits necessary to rank up, since sMerits are so extremly deflationary. Every time someone sends sMerit half of them get "burned". If you send me 10 sMerits I will get 10 Merit + only 5 sMerits that I can use myself. This means sMerits supply will soon get down to zero. So again, an endless time to rank up might be not a rethoric figure but a precise depiction of reality. I understand that there will be a few "elected" ones who will be able to create limited quantity of sMerits out of thin air, but whoever they might be, how will they use their power of choice? I hope this will not lead to a sort of feudalism in Bitcointalk, that would really spoil any pleasure to be here for any person with some dignity.