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>- Are merits actually being circulated between those who really need it?
If we narrow the term need to being useful in terms of ranking-up, then lets start by looking at received merit distribution by rank:
rank EarnedMerit %
Administrator 3195 1,11%
Global Moderator 757 ,26%
Donator 1510 ,52%
Founder 1526 ,53%
Staff 4261 1,48%
VIP 383 ,13%
Legendary 52479 18,17%
Hero Member 33784 11,7%
Sr. Member 47463 16,43%
Member 60211 20,85%
Full Member 48454 16,78%
Jr. Member 24418 8,45%
Newbie 9548 3,31%
Brand new 823 ,28%
Total 288812 100,%
Note: Data as of 28/12/2018 (currently updating the
Merit Dashboard to include data right up to today).
Arguably, some ranks do not require merit for ranking-up purposes: Administrator, Global Moderator, Donator, Founder, Staff, VIP and Legendary. That adds up to 22% of total currently awarded sMerit (64.111 sMerits).
Nevertheless, those ranks may require some earned merit in order to participate in campaigns (some top paying campaigns seem to require it), feel a certain level of recognition, and as a side effect redistribute the earned sMerit to others.
- Are they also helping out others through their sMerits?
I make the following numbers to be reasonably true:
600.000 sMerits from the Initial Airdrop
-291.791 Sent sMerits (Merit Sources and Regular users as of today)
+146.000 minimum organically generated (merit halvings first degree)
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454.209 Total unsent sMerits
Therefore 291.791 sMerits have been sent, but there could be something in the line of 450K unsent sMerit, mostly originated in the initial sMerit Airdrop. Now a lot of that could be related to accounts that are no longer active, do not care for the Merit System, or whatever other reason.
There's a different sort of thinking I've come across - most people don't use their merits by not sharing them with those who deserve them.
As stated above, the initial unspent sMerit airdrop is an incognita as to why there is still so much. I dont think it is so much a question of it been hoarded per-se, but rather that there are many people for who the merit game is not attractive, and have no direct operative need for it themselves.
If we focus strictly on earned merit that has not been sent, I make it around 38k (see
[TOP-200] Members who have a lot of earned sMerits).
Overall, I dont see too much of an issue to earn a couple of merits for those that create decent enough content, but rather find that ranking-up speed is really slow for the vast majority in the mid-to-high ranks.