Quote from: The Pharmacist on October 09, 2018, 05:06:38 PM

Quote from: TMAN on October 09, 2018, 09:14:33 AM

I would suggest that all the merit sources put a hold on giving merits in meta for a while,

I thought of a merit boycott like this when Theymos made the most recent changes, but I didn't want to make a new thread in Meta about it and thought it might have been too drastic--not that any of the shitposters would have read it anyway to know that they wouldn't be able to earn merits by posting there, nor probably would that even stop them.

As with any merit giving people should just take it on a case by case basis, but I don't think we should stop giving them out in certain sections, but you can certainly stop giving them for certain types of posts. People either complaining or just 'agreeing' that the merit system is good probably shouldn't get them. If people stopped meriting posts in here then I'd probably have 98% less merits, but things like boycotts only ever work if everyone (or a significant) percentage of people are involved. There'll always be one or two users (or scabs) that make it ineffective and it's impossible to get everyone on board.

Quote from: pugman on October 09, 2018, 08:14:25 PM

Quote from: TMAN on October 09, 2018, 01:17:31 PM

totally agree with this point - I nearly sent a merit to a bounty spammer earlier because he made a funny post.

So why didn't you merit it? Just because he is into bounties doesn't make a bad poster. I don't know who you're talking about, but if it were a funny post, then there was some thought behind it, and a merit for that won't make the world upside down or flat for that matter, unless the post was plagiarized or something, then it is a different story. Cause merit is to be given for high quality posts and not post history. Not meriting people who participate bounty in bounties is like not giving citizenship rights to a black man or a muslim guy.

This is why I think the merit requirement should be higher and put up to ten. People would probably actually be more liberal with their merit giving then and giving one out for an entertaining post should be ok, but when one merit is all somebody needs to be able to post it's dicey. One merit is far too easy to get and is too prone to abuse so I personally think we should keep the one merit to become a Junior but remove their signatures and you can only get one when you achieve ten merit and become a Member.