Quote from: cestmoi on December 18, 2018, 01:28:19 AM

So if we do a little bit of maths for @The pharmacist
total sum received from 10 users = 636 merit = 61% from just 10 persons all (except 2 are part of the top 200).
If we look at the top 100 (remove foxpup, dbshck, Winner)
He has received 283 merit from the Top100 it is 28% of his merits from just 6 persons.
If you take the top 150, then it is 569 merit received (56% of all his merit) from just 8 persons, all in the elite.

Like cryptohunter, you're looking at it the wrong way. It makes perfect sense that the most merited users have the most Merit to give, and since they give it to good posts, it often ends up with the same people.

To stay with your example, let's get some more data on The Pharmacist:

Quote from: LoyceV on December 15, 2018, 08:58:28 PM

Code:

9. 1023 Merit received by The Pharmacist (#487418) from 171 unique users in 590 transactions

Code:

31. 736 Merit sent by The Pharmacist (#487418) to 294 unique users in 579 transactions

As you can see, he's had Merit transactions with hundreds of people. It's no surprise that most of them don't have many sMerits to send, which leads to the obivous result that most of his Merit came from a small group of users.

And some more data:

User The Pharmacist (full history)

Quote from: cestmoi on December 18, 2018, 01:28:19 AM

Merits do stay in the top 100 / 200 / 300 call how you want.

Again: you're looking at this the wrong way. Instead of looking where the Merit came from, you should look at the post it was sent to. Obviously there's some abuse, but I'm pretty sure most of the Top Receivers received it for legit good posts. Why would it matter who gave it, if the post deserves it?
I've merited your post, not because I agree, but because it's worth reading and you're not a spammer.

Quote from: eddie13 on December 18, 2018, 02:01:35 AM

Look at the first 2 posters in this thread. Over 1k merits each wasted if you are of the mindset that merits are for ranking up.

I'll just respond to this part: that's the wrong mindset Tongue

Theymos made it very clear we should try to merit great posts, and later backed it down a bit to "good posts".
Merit is only wasted when it is given to bad posts, or spammers.

This is what theymos told me:

Quote from: theymos on May 17, 2018, 09:03:16 PM

You're now a merit source. Thanks for helping out!

Note that there is a bug with source merit which will have the effect of replenishing your source less than the expected amount. If you actually run out due to this, let me know and I'll just increase your source amount. (Also, I will eventually fix this...)

The bug is fixed, but I'm pretty sure I could get a larger source amount if I would ask for it. The only reason I haven't asked yet is because I still have 300+ sMerits left. I now manage to keep my source empty most of the time, and I'm slowly eating through my other stash.
Merit isn't scarce. But if a user is limited in sMerit, by all means: don't send it to the Legendary Top Merit Receivers, but find a low ranking user who deserves it. Merit was introduced to stop account farming spammers, and this forum needs new real users to survive in the long run.
According to [TOP-200] Members who support newbies - Thanks! , I've given 41 Newbies their first Merit. I have no intention of keeping Legendary status an elite thing, I was in one of the highest paying signature campaigns before Merit existed, and I care enough about this forum to want to help improve it.
But I can't deny Merit has been much better for me than I ever would have thought! When it was introduced, I didn't quickly rise up to the Top merited users, that took a lot of effort.

Quote

Take me for example.
I am going to have 1030 activity for legendary soon but nowhere near enough merits even though I am a damn good poster.
Why? Because I don't make thousands of posts like some people do

Some stats:

User eddie13 (full history)

Received a total of 191 Merit up to last Friday.
Received 1 Merit (0.52%) for 1 (0.07%) of 1352 posts created before the introduction of Merit (0.0007 Merit per old post).
Received 190 Merit (99.47%) for 65 (17.01%) of 382 posts created after the introduction of Merit (0.4973 Merit per new post).
Received 0 Merit for posts that are now deleted.

I like using the "Merit per post" and "percentage of posts merited" for comparing post quality excluding the effect of the number of posts made by a user. Mine is very close to The Pharmacist. SaltySpitoon, nullius and DdmrDdmr have much higher numbers. Gmaxwell holds the record as far as I know. You (eddie13) are above The Pharmacist and me, which indeed supports your claim of being a good poster, without enough posts to quickly rank up.

Quote

My views are also not completely in line with those mostly in control and I like to bust balls when people get too authoritarian and/or big egos.

True, I've seen you around, and merited you a few times. I try to make it a point to also merit good posts without agreeing, but it's always on my mind that my Merit can be seen as an endorsement for that post.

Quote

I speak out more than I should if I was just trying to achieve whatever high rank/respect/trust/power. (like this)

That's a very good thing!

Quote

I can put a lot of effort into a post and get no merits, then I say something short, sweet, and funny and get a bunch.

Try sarcasm, that's the real ~~money~~ Merit maker Cheesy

Seriously though, you're right. I find it hard to predict which of my posts will receive Merit.

Quote

Cryptohunter makes a LOT of posts and a lot of them are very big long posts that took a lot of effort but are not inline with the views of those who have merit to give

I don't mind disagreeing with cryptohunter. What made me put him on ignore is that he keeps saying the same thing in many different threads. He does make long posts indeed, which makes it a lot of effort to read too. If they're all unique I don't mind, but after reading the same thing ten or more times, I give up.

Quote from: suchmoon on December 18, 2018, 02:13:15 AM

we must obey theymos, right?

I think theymos would disagree Tongue

Quote from: suchmoon on December 18, 2018, 02:13:15 AM

Cryptohunter's problem seems to be mainly the attempt to bend facts to fit a narrative. I think there would be merits raining on her if the original assertion about good posters hiding on altcoin boards turned out to be true.

I don't even mind bending facts a bit, that can easily be disproven. Just not if it keeps coming back.
I'd like to take cryptohunter off ignore again if he (she?) stops repeating the same thing. Now I feel like I'm repeating myself too Tongue

Quote from: Veleor on December 18, 2018, 02:29:45 AM

However merit sources can create a topic in Meta and offer to forum users, who believe that their post deserves a merit but was deprived of attention, to provide links to their texts with a small explanation comments.

I've made this suggestion a few times to users, without much success.

Quote from: eddie13 on December 18, 2018, 03:23:39 AM

You sources are conservative with your merits, giving just enough that it is working while making high rank much harder to achieve and more elite. You are just doing what you think is right.
You aren't giving 10 merits to posts you pick instead of 1 because you must thing that is too many.. You think 1 is enough and they should be more scarce than giving out 10s all the time. You are keeping high rank elite. Whatever..
You 2 (first 2) deserve a higher rank than the old legendary, and some deserve higher than you, so maybe it should be more elite.

I think my source sMerit is 200 now, per month. I make it a point to keep it as low as possibe, but I also try to Merit as many different posts and users as possible.
If you're not a Merit source yet, I think you should apply!

Quote from: The Pharmacist on December 18, 2018, 03:38:44 AM

I think I'd do a better job as a merit source if I got more source merits

Ask theymos, see if he agrees.