The interesting thing is that everything is done publicly and with records. It may actually unveil many of the spamnets out there and leave them open for the hunt. If I were a spam-hunter I would be looking directly in the merit awarded in ANN and Bounty threads.


What I did was to set a criteria for myself to give merit an try to stick to it. So, it does not matter if I personally agree with the content or even if I think it is correct from a philosophical perspective. My criteria is related to the posts helping others, providing news or insights, humor (within reason), providing value for the Forum, etc. I try no to merit any "opinion post" unless it is based on specialized knowledge or non-trivial experience and conclusions.

I guess that what I mean is that I "like" the post, but not necessarily agree, as well as the opposite, I don't agree but you post is providing a well built argument or helping.

With the new changes I had to add another criteria a day ago. I will merit newbies only after at least 20 activity, once I clearly see that they are "humans", that they haven't spammed nor made activity rising one-liners and that they are trying to learn, help others and following the basic rules. At least I will make sure that newbies have given some value to the forum and at the same time they are encouraged by the built-in "gamification" of the forum ranks.


I think Theymos has mentioned that he might create another rank above Legendary in the future. "Mythical" perhaps?