I looked up your example on
https://bpip.org/profile.aspx?p=angryrob, and it appears that he has never received any merits under the new system. So the amount of the merits that he received on January 24, 2018 appears to have been 250, which would have been based on having a minimal activity of 240 at that time... if I am reading OP correctly..
You can call it whatever you want, but if you intend to communicate with other forum members it is good to explain your references, especially if you are not using familiar terms. Furthermore, if you start out in a combative framework, you are likely NOT to get any response because you are just coming off as bitter and disgruntled rather than really attempting to contribute in some kind of meaningful way.
In other words, people might not need to agree with you, but if you are trying to move people to change their minds, they usually are not going to want to get caught up in a bunch of confusion that you seem to want to cause with your seemingly baggage ladden references.
Of course, you are free to have your own conclusions and opinions, but if you don't back them up, I doubt that those opinions and conclusions are going to persuade anyone to agree with you - unless they happen to share ill-backed bitter disgruntledness with you... so I have some difficulties understanding your purpose, if you only want to complain and whine. I would think that trying to persuade with facts and logic would be a better approach, but that remains your choice, as you already indicated.
You have facts and logic at the very beginning of your post. If that's not enough for you, to consider this a privilege system, then I am not interested in convincing you. The "policy" implemented should be reviewed and adjusted in light of those facts.
Again, you seem to be going into another topic. I was merely referring to what seemed to have been part of the motivation to establish merits for ranking up. You may have to read through this thread and become a bit more informed about what you are attempting to criticize, if you don't even seem to understand what motivated the system that you are criticizing to get put in place..
I am not embedded in the life of scouting out various forms of membership abuse and ways to make money with forum accounts, so probably some other member will need to chime in about your points that seem to be deviating quite a lot from the topic of this thread..and what seemed to had been your original point(s).
I didn't deviate from the topic of this thread, I am discussing it and its effects, and I didn't deviate from my original post indeed consider my last posts an extension of the first post.
O.k. I will consider that we are not really making much progress in our discussion because I responded to your various points with my opinion, and I even thought that your points were fairly weak from the start, but I was willing to entertain them, but we did not seem to go anywhere.
Hopefully another member can respond to your points because I personally think that you are not really making any clear case. Think about it. '
A merit system is implemented with various goals in mind that are communicated to the members, and if you, as a member, are suggesting to change the system, then you have the burden to provide facts and logic in order to convince others (especially forum administration - theymos) that changes that you are suggesting are warranted or would be helpful.
In the end, members do not make the policies of the forum, but instead it is theymos, perhaps through the suggestion and recommendations of members (and moderators) but in the end, he decides if he is going to make changes in accordance with suggestions and criticisms. Whether you deviated or not, I am not following what seems to be more like a stream of consciouness production rather than any decent points that make sense to me. Perhaps some other member will be able to follow and chime in better than me.
I am against those who received an oversized amount of free merits and now have worthy accounts to scam with
That was the point of my first post beside my opinion on the ranking system and I think it is a fair point