Quote from: r1s2g3 on September 21, 2018, 12:31:20 PM

@OP. This is one of the drawback of Merit system. Merit hunter are now spamming every thread in search of Merit. Earlier it is much easier for them to farm activity in Spam Mega Thread or Off Topic.

Yes, merit spamming has become very common and some of the smerit holders are also supporting it by meriting this type of posts now.

Quote from: Alone055 on September 21, 2018, 01:03:23 PM

I never said that. What I said was that the reason behind the quality posts being missed is not because people are only Meriting the posts that they agree with, but the reason is the spam.
What you have interpreted here and what I said are totally different in meaning.

I think missing the quality post and meriting the posts which don't deserve it is also a big issue and it should be solved. But yes you also highlight a possible problem in the merit system.

Quote from: Alone055 on September 21, 2018, 01:03:23 PM

-SNIP

It's not about blaming them as a merit abuser but it's about telling them the real purpose of merit system and how to use them in a proper way!

Quote from: Alone055 on September 21, 2018, 01:03:23 PM

-SNIP

I respect your thoughts too.

Quote from: supermine on September 21, 2018, 01:40:04 PM

And also merits distributed in META were totally useless in my opinion so I am asking theymos to remove the merit button from the meta section then we can concentrate on the bitcoin discussion of our forum.

You have a good solution but there are also posts in meta which surely deserve merits of there explanation and work behind it. So just eliminating it will not be so adequate. In some cases, there are useless posts merited as you can see in my main post and I would surely add up more examples so that everyone could understand the reality and improve it.

Quote from: Jet Cash on September 21, 2018, 01:48:28 PM

A better solution would be to remove the alt, ANN and TwitBook threads from the discussion board.

Yes, some of the posting rules should surely be modified in the bitcoin discussion board and removing spammy thread you mentioned is a good solution to it

Quote from: paxmao on September 21, 2018, 02:20:45 PM

We all should start getting used to the fact that a merit is not a like and should never be used a such. Until then I guess we are open to manipulation.

You have explained too much in one sentence for sure. LIKE ≠ MERIT ( small but great meaning to tell everyone for what merits should not be used)

Quote from: The Pharmacist on September 21, 2018, 02:28:19 PM

But it is pretty much a "like". The only difference is that giving out merit carries a lot more weight because merits are fairly scarce when you take into account the sheer number of members on the forum. Plus we all know how valuable merits are.

I tend to merit posts that I like. It just so happens that those posts are usually pretty good, even if they're just a gif or a picture. A picture is worth a thousand words sometimes. Good posts don't always have to be long, but IMO a post that's well-written and on-topic is one I tend to "like".

Merits are really scared and they should not be used as a LIKE and that the reason I think behind the scarcity of merits in other discussions boards as I mentioned earlier.
Most of the posts you merit are truly deserving it but anyone can make mistakes of meriting the posts which don't deserve merits but just match our thoughts and this is not the right way to use it as per the use stated by theymos.

Quote from: Lauda on September 22, 2018, 04:55:03 AM

Tman's 'fuck off' post is more worth than 95% of the garbage in this dump. This will less less frequent/obvious once the amount of abuse, whining and whatnot has tackled. Non-issue. Just an FYI, if you try to restrict users (i.e. change this) most of them will just stop participating at all since it isn't worth the trouble.

If you think that way than there would be floods of "FUCK OFF" posts every were in demand of merits. I think there should be no partiality while giving any merit as that just makes the merit system useless logically.
( This post is also an example of how merits are used not for the quality but for just supporting views)

Quote from: TheUltraElite on September 22, 2018, 09:29:18 AM

As long as the people who are not getting merits understand that the fault lies in them and not the merit sources or merit system they can say bye bye to getting ranked up.

I think you should do some research just in meta section and you will surely come back here with many examples of undeserved posts merited and this is increasing every day and this is a big flaw I guess.

Quote from: hilariousetc on September 22, 2018, 10:05:59 AM

Of course people are going to give merit to posts they agree

This is a totally wrong statement by you. I don't think this is right as the real purpose is just lost behind the merit system.

Quote from: hilariousetc on September 22, 2018, 10:05:59 AM

If someone makes me laugh or has entertained me then I might give them one for that because at least they've put some effort in, but spammers shouldn't be getting merit for utter shitposts and as long as that isn't happening then good, but I'm not going to not merit a post because someone might have an issue with it for whatever reason. Give them to whoever you want for whatever you want especially if they stand out to you for whatever reason and of course that is always going to be subjective.

Posts which make you laugh are surely merit deserving as the poster has done some efforts to put some humor in it but posting a GIF or One line views does not have any efforts involved in it rather than spending the merits for telling people that you support them you can just spend them of a person who is putting some efforts in posting.

Quote from: hilariousetc on September 22, 2018, 10:05:59 AM

People are just trying to nit pick things that are complete non-issues here. Big deal if you give a Legendary Member a merit for telling a shitposter to fuck off or for a meme that made you laugh. Legendaries don't even need the merits and if you're a merit source it's not like you've wasted a precious resource, but we're letting them know we enjoyed or appreciated the post amongst the mountains of mindless drivel and trash that are being spewed all over the forum.

I think there should be no difference in merit source and a normal user for sending merits as there are no different rules for a merits source all are same.

Quote from: hilariousetc on September 22, 2018, 10:05:59 AM

What about the hundreds of other merits we give for the hundreds of other quality posts? You're acting like this isn't happening and the merit system isn't working because we gave a couple of solitary merits for some memes or jokes to users we appreciate. Please. There are bigger issues here than this

Yes, you have surely motivated many users to make quality posts and merited numerous merit deserving posts too but even if you do not spend one merit on a post by legendary who make you laugh and use it to merit a newbie who is just trying to build himself on the forum he will be better motivated to make numerous such posts and help in betterment for long term. Of course, This is also a big issue which could make the merit system useless and you should not ignore it.

Quote from: paxmao on September 24, 2018, 10:45:28 AM

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.

Yes, this would at least save some merits getting wasted for bots.