Quote from: Cashi on September 20, 2018, 03:43:31 PM

Since Bitcointalk has launched new requirements for Jr. Members (1 Merit) I heard this several times now: Newbies willing to buy one single Merit and pay with BTC (or ETH). It's no surprise, that many Newbies are shocked, when they saw their rank was downgraded. But in my opinion, this is nothing to worry about and after all its not worth at all to buy a Merit. I hope some Newbies will read this as Meta is now flooded with posts from them...

This upcoming trend to think about to buy a Merit makes me really sad and there are several reasons why someone should never buy a Merit:

1)
A Merit buy is considered as Merit trade and this is not allowed. If you do so, you risk your account to be tagged red from DT members. If you are tagged, this will mean your account is useless to participate in most Bounties. In addition you have to wear a new signature (or its more a personal text): Warning: Trade with extreme caution!
Do you want this? I think you don't, so don't buy a Merit.

2)
Why should you spend money for something, that you can achieve easily? Its really not very difficult to earn 1 Merit, most likely a semi-helpful post can be enough.
But after all youll see how easy it can be if you try and get a Merit. The second one will follow if you keep up posting good comments and you will also get to know how its getting easier to post useful comments because youll not only earn Merit, youll also earn experience how good comments are made and improve your language and knowledge.
My advice: dont buy your single Merit, earn it! And Im sure you dont want to stay a Jr. Member forever, to be a Member you need 10 Merit. This should be your next goal.

3)
If you buy Merit, you will help scammers to enter this Merit trading market and it's well known, that Newbies are not very experienced in spotting scams. You can see this in every Telegram group if some fake Admins PM users and try to scam them.

There are some new Merit sources now and a new bunch of sMerit was airdropped to existing Merit sources a few days ago, the circulating sMerit is now much more than before. It has never been easier to get a single Merit. You see: There is no reason to pay for a Merit.

I agree, perhaps due to the rapid growth of new accounts, Bitcoin has launched new requirements for Jabra. Members (1 Merit)