Quote from: nullius on February 10, 2018, 11:33:21 PM

Quote from: actisstupidname on February 08, 2018, 12:49:46 AM

You won't win here, buddy. It's already a cult. Noticed the merit stats? It's one big circle jerking group of guys giving merits among themselves. And the concentration of the merit activity is centered here in the Meta section.

Some few merits are spread out to parts of the Bitcoin discussion, but the larger sections of this lame forum have almost no merit activity at all. And that speaks volumes of what kind of people the seniority here are.

Following is the breakdown of where Ive earned my merit thus far. The largest proportion has come from Development & Technical Discussion, where I am proud to have recently become the first (and thus far, only) person yet awarded merit by Core developer gmaxwell. Here in Meta and elsewhere, Ive also been trying to contribute to the efforts of DT members who are protecting the integrity of the merit system; but in the ordinary course of discussion, I havent been awarded as much merit for that as for my tech posts.

46.4%	137	Development & Technical Discussion
31.2%	92	Meta (in the ordinary course of discussion)
16.9%	50	An unrepeatable historic forum first-and-only in Meta: I flamed a man so harshly that he gave me +50 for it! My pen is a mightier sword.
3.4%	10	Reputation
2.0%	6	Bitcoin Discussion
99.9%	295	Total

(Percentages do not always add up to 100.0% due to rounding.)

So much for your absurd theories.

Doesn't that technically add up to 48.1% received in Meta? User stats are also disabled, so it's not clear what proportion of your posts are in Development & Technical Discussion vs. Meta. One individual anecdote also doesn't really disprove his claim that merit is concentrated in Meta and in limited social groups. From my observation, I'm guessing he's right about that, but I don't have any forum-wide statistics to point to. Has anyone scraped stats to look at the actual distribution among sub-forums?

As another anecdote: In my case, I never post in Meta. One post I made in Meta two days ago netted one third of my current merit, though it represented only ~3% of my posts since the system was added. I've definitely gotten the feeling that if you want a higher merit rating, you should 1) make a high quality but preferably an agreeable post and 2) do it in Meta. When I say agreeable I mean with regard to community sentiment. If your post is thoughtful but contrarian, it seems less likely to receive merit.

Quote from: nullius on February 10, 2018, 11:33:21 PM

The merit system is very simple: Meritorious posts earn merit.

That may have been the stated intent. But is it generally true? Some meritorious posts earn merit. We can agree on that. Certainly, not all meritorious posts are even noticed, let alone merited. You have to wade through a lot of shitposting in e.g. Bitcoin Discussion to find quality posts, and regarding sMerit, I suspect that's not where peoples' energy is going.

It's natural for merit to be concentrated in Meta, too. "About the forum" sections tend to be the most community-oriented boards out there. And at its core, merit seems to function like a social media "like" button. I don't see how you can stop people from meriting posts they like or agree with, just as they do with "like" buttons. But something you find agreeable =/= quality or noteworthy or deserving of merit. Not by definition, and not by the stated intent of the system.

I'm not too concerned either way, but I think it's a tad dishonest for us to act like post quality is the only determining factor -- or even the most dominant factor -- in deciding merit. It's just not logical. There are social/psychological dynamics that are going unconsidered.