Quote from: LoyceV on October 20, 2018, 06:29:08 AM

Quote from: bones261 on October 20, 2018, 05:57:15 AM

I really don't see the harm done here.

Merit is supposed to stop shitposters from ranking up. "Airdropping" 30% of Full Member onto spamming Newbies just because they posted at the right moment goes against this:

Quote from: theymos on January 24, 2018, 11:00:11 PM

While we will not be directly moderating this, I encourage people to give merit to posts that are objectively high-quality, not just posts that you agree with.

The 30 Merit on higher ranks makes less of a difference than it does for lower ranks.

Well, the last instructions that I was given by theymos was as follows:

Quote from: theymos on September 17, 2018, 04:06:21 AM

~snip

I recommend:
- If a newbie posts something that could be even called good, then give them 1 merit. It doesn't need to be a great post.
- It's best to use all of your source merit. If you don't naturally do so, try giving people more merit per post on average. If you don't send your source merit, then nobody gets it, but if you do send it, then the recipient can pass half of it on.

Thanks!

All a shit posting newbie really needs is 1 merit to be back in business. And what pisses me off is that I thought that I was following instructions; yet that very day, someone started a thread in meta complaining about my taste and implying that I was engaged in some kind of "merit abuse." I am really tempted to start adopting QAs approach since it sure beats sifting through thousands of shitposts to try and find a few posts here and there to dole out 2 merits to. This is a great deal of work and for the most part it is thankless. The only gratitude that seems to have come my way is from those shit posting newbies that I happened to merit. I'm not certain about QAs case, but I didn't even raise my hand and ask to be a merit source. I was drafted. And now I know there is a whole troop of people monitoring my every merit transaction just waiting to breath down my neck.
As long as a merit source is not going to benefit monetarily from giving a merit, It isn't merit abuse. Leave us the fuck alone!