ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF MERIT SYSTEM

One year ago today, the forum witnessed one of the most innovative change that entirely and successfully changed the way of spamming control. Merit system launched on January 24, 2018, 11:00:11 PM (forum time), or Wednesday 24 January 2018 22:12:21 (GMT time).

Quote from: LoyceV on January 04, 2019, 04:10:19 PM

To take away all doubt: the first Merit was this one:

Code:

1516831941 1 2818066.msg28853325 35 877396

Use EpochConverter to convert 1516831941 (Unix Time) to GMT: Wednesday 24 January 2018 22:12:21.

The system launched by theymos, forum admin, with the topic, namely Merits & new rank requirements.
Firstly, we should take a look at the time-series plot of merit circulations in the forum within the past one year.

Time series plot of full dataset (from 24/1/2018 to 16/1/2019)

Time series plot of truncated dataset (from 26/1/2018 to 16/1/2019) [first two days dropped]

From now on, we will take an overview on merit system (its history, upgrades, basic statistics, and helpful guides & topics on merit system and related stuffs)

Quote from: tranthidung on January 20, 2019, 04:10:33 AM

ABSTRACT
Notes:
- The asbstract describes figures of intraday merits over the period from 19/2/2018 to 14/01/2019 (truncated dataset), except figures of all time high and all time low.
- Days from 24/1/2018 to 18/2/2018 truncated due to highly potential outliers; and days after 14/01/2019 truncated as well due to incomplete week (the third week of 2019 -2019w3);
- Statistics presented in the post are for truncated dataset.
- The part will be updated with the coming data dump from LoyceV on 26th Jan. 2019, I guess that LoyceV will dump data somewhere around that day. For now, simply using the statistics from old dataset.

(1) Potential outliers are days that have intraday total merits beyond 123 or 1163;
(2) Median of intraday merits over the period is 619, whilst the interquartile range is from 513 to 773;
(3) Friday is the day over weeks has lowest intraday merits in terms of both median and mean, at 542, and 617, respectively.
In contrast, Monday is the day over weeks has highest intraday merits in terms of both median and mean, at 748 and 657, respectively.

- All time high of intraday merits is 13018, on the one day period from 24th Jan. 2018 to 25th Jan. 2018, whilst the all time low of intraday merits is 312 on one day period from 24th Dec. 2018 to 25th Dec. 2018.

Chronological history of merit system
Before jumping into chronological history of merit system, we should review where it originated.
Around more than one month before 24th Jan. 2018 [on December 18, 2017, 12:54:08 AM], theymos ask for ideas to improve post quality and/ or at somewhat extent to control spamming endemic in the forum better.
ideas for improving post quality?

1) Launch day: 24/1/2018.
Then, the first forum users discussed about merits there: What is the function of the "Merit" score?. As a result of that, AdolfinWolf is the first one got sMerits from theymos.
How many merits allocated to existing forum users in total?
Theymos stated that there are around 600k sendable merits (sMerits) allocated to forum users.

Quote from: theymos on January 25, 2018, 09:55:22 PM

About 600k.

I am not sure about the figure 600k, when the figure collected, at the first dump or after additional Merits and sMerits allocated to Hero members who satisfied activity threshold on January 27, 2018, 02:57:53 AM (forum time).
Interestingly, an estimated figure of more than 11k sMerits destroyed permanently because they belong to permanent banned users.
Then, bugs found and fixed later.

Quote from: theymos on January 24, 2018, 11:40:32 PM

Quote from: mprep on January 24, 2018, 11:38:29 PM

A few leftovers from the bug:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg28857781#msg28857781 (negative merit)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg28857729#msg28857729 (zero value merit)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg28857682#msg28857682 (negative merit)

It's actually gone, those are just cached.

2) First adjustment: Additional re-allocation merits to Hero members who satistified the threshold of activity over the last one year before the launch of merit system.

Quote from: theymos on April 20, 2018, 12:37:52 AM

The exact formula was:

Code:

yearActivity = activity in the last ~year, max 378
freeMerit = the merit (not sMerit) you started with
modifier =
  0.1 if member
  0.2 if full member
  0.25 if sr member
  0.35 if hero
  0.4 if legendary

return (yearActivity/378) * modifier * freeMerit

So the most you could get is if you were a Legendary who maxed out your activity points in the last year, in which case you would get 1 * 0.4 * 1000 = 400 sMerit.

Note that I later made an adjustment giving 500 extra merit to some hero members, but no extra sMerit was given here.

I'll probably publish a dump of the initial sMerit at some point.

On January 27, 2018, 02:57:53 AM (forum time), less than three days after the launch of merit system.

Quote from: theymos on January 27, 2018, 02:57:53 AM

I decided that the previous allocation was too unfair in this area, so everyone with activity >= 775 got 500 more merit if they didn't already have 1000 merit (and also Lutpin). No extra sMerit, though.

3) Second adjustment: Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements

Quote from: theymos on September 17, 2018, 04:27:20 AM

Due to excessive garbage-posting, you now need 1 merit to be a Jr Member. All existing Jr Members who didn't meet the requirement were demoted. Also, newbies can no longer set any signature or personal text.

The change of ranking rules caused a massive merit abusements in September, total sMerits circulation rocketed in September. You can easily see spikes in September from my time series plot. Consequently, there are lots of higher-ranked users got red-tag with their abusements.

Recent days (since 9th January of 2019), the Trust system upgrade with new rules/ operational mechanisms, that led to a new tide of merit circulation. Once again, you can easily see the spikes since 9th Jan. 2019. In my opinion, the new tide has nearly the same fractal pattern of the Septembers tide. Addtionally, its interesting to see how long the Trust system-related topics will maintain its hot-level. Anyway, the Trust system changes actually resulted in dramatical rises of total intraday merits during last two weeks.

History of merit sources:
1. 24/01/2018: 35 merit sourcess

Quote from: theymos on January 24, 2018, 11:24:14 PM

Quote from: Lutpin on January 24, 2018, 11:02:01 PM

Does that mean all merit sources are hand selected?

Right. There are about 35 right now.

2. 26/01/2018: 49 merit sources

Quote from: shailkumari on January 26, 2018, 06:47:00 AM

I was checking merit stats and found that there are now 49 merit sources:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources

Merit sources
There are 49 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 9025 sMerit per 30 days

Initially there were 35 announced and I noticed 1 or 2 people nominating. How come we have an additional 14 in one day ?

Quote from: theymos on January 26, 2018, 06:35:45 PM

I added more.

By no means is the set of merit sources or their sMerit/month static. I will be adjusting it a lot as needed, especially in the beginning. I wouldn't be surprised if there are 100-200 sources in a year from now.

3. 01/03/2018: 57 merit sources in total

Quote from: sncc on March 01, 2018, 04:47:15 PM

This number is much larger than 11975 sMerits, which are currently created by 57 merit sources per month.
The sMerits created by 57 merit sources are not sufficient and most of used sMerits were initially assigned ones.

4. Rose to 123 merit sources in total (not sure when ??)

5. 15/3/2019: Increased to 130 merit sources
This wave happened simultaneously with Vod's remove as a merit source

Quote from: LoyceV on May 15, 2019, 06:12:02 AM

If I remember correctly, there were 123 Merit sources yesterday. One dropped out:

Quote from: Vod on May 15, 2019, 03:34:33 AM

Theymos has responded to my request to be removed as a merit source. No more working for free.

I think theymos took the opportunity to process new Merit source applications, there are now 130 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 20605 sMerit per 30 days.

How to check temporary total merit sources? Please get it there: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources

Code:

There are 131 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 21045 sMerit per 30 days (02 September 2019)

Merit stats page
How many pages reached after only one day of merit system?
More than 51pages, impressive, right?

Patrol page to check temporary spamming situation of the forum

List of merit analysis topics:
1) Analysis Merit per post per Section/Subsection (by DdmrDdmr)
2) Analysis The Merit Path Where we start off and the path we follow (by DdmrDdmr)
3) Analysis Personal merit per day, merit per post and ranking-up projections (by DdmrDdmr)
4) Top 200 Merit Receivers without Merit from the Top 200 Merit Receivers (by LoyceV)
5) LoyceV's Merit data analysis (full data since Jan. 24, 2018; not just 120 days)
6) Time Series Analysis on Distributed Merits in the forum (daily, weekly, monthly) (by tranthidung)
7) Forum chronicle - UP Rank List (BPIP statistics, trust) (by Nikisa)
Cool

[MERIT] [NFSN} Were destroying more merits than were sending. Like, way more. (by suchmoon)
9) Tracking the difference of merit circulations with Default Trust Changes (by tranthidung)

Guides on how to get merits and merit giving-away challenge topics
I will add more topics later
Guides:
1) List of Threads Giving Away Merits - Updated 12 march 2018 (by Outlay)
2) TMANs guide to getting merit
3) cabalism13's Activity Tips on Ranking (by cabalism13)
4) Stop searching for merits and you will received them.- see Smerit as liabilities (by CryptopreneurBrainboss)

Challenges:
1) Updated [20/01/2019]: List of Active Merit Giveaways threads. (by CryptopreneurBrainboss). This one is the most updated, and fully topic on merit-give-away challenges. Should read at first.
2)   Giving 18 Newbie Members a Chance to Rank Up To J. Member (by Pmalek)
3)    Merits for all Rank Members - Conditions Apply - 5 merits available. (by Juggy777)
4)    I have 10 merit to give for Jr.Members and newbies (by mikeywith)

Inspirational stories of self-made promoted users (by tranthidung)
I believe that the topic can inspire some users to change the way they use the forum, and stop complaining, instead start thinking more positively.

Notes:
The topic has been under construction.
- It is normal if I made mistaske, so I welcome all comments to correct my mistakes if you find them.
- Thanks all in advance for any supplementary information.

Someone who have not been busy with signature campaign, can use the avatar.
Merit avatar for use.

One year anniversary of enhanced merit system
Merit source observations