⭐ Merited by bones261 (2)
I ranked up to senior member pretty quickly back in the initial days. The starting times were a bit disappointing till I got to the thread by QuestionAuthority where he gave me 20 merits. Things started to feel much better after that. I was a regular at the forum back when nullius was breaking the records for merits and demonstrating to everyone what a great new user should be like. (The forum sure misses him i guess).
I ranked up just when the coinpayments campaign was coming to an end. While trying to fulfill the 30 weekly requirements for coinpayments, I often found myself saying the same thing over and over again. I also realized that most of my posts were only in the "Bitcoin Discussion" and "Economics" section..The main hunting ground for shitposters and Sig spammers..lol..
I felt embarrassed and felt like i had nothing to add without some real technical information. I used to frequent r/bitcoin and twitter accounts of all the devs to stay abreast of whats new. This used to help in adding to discussions. Yet, It gradually became clear to me that based on pure "discussions", A Sr. Member rank is the most that you can get to now AND the most that you should get to.
If you want to be a Hero, you must have enough technical know-how to contribute frequently to the Dev & Technical discussion. (I presently have to remain content with lurking). If you want to be a legendary, you must be a big contributor in at least one of the sections like Mining or Services or Market. That i feel is the only way now to get to Hero/ Legendary. I agree that its a lot of work but then it'll really be worth it. Of course, its quite a source of heartburn to see a lot of braindead people from the old days who get have the Hero/ Legendary status
but that is something we cannot help. Its like all those drug suppliers and arms-dealers that must have gotten wealthy with bitcoin. It is just part of the unfair dichotomies of Bitcoin.
In short, No the merit requirements are not excessive. Increasing them for Jr. Member could be taken into consideration too. Most people who really engage eventually do get to member status. The problem with the low requirement is that it has resulted in merit-trading and alt accounts.
I think one solution could be that some percentage of merit required for ranking upto Jr. Member and Member should come from a Verified Merit Source. Verified Merit source should fulfill the following requirements:
1.) Belong to the set of people comprising DT1 member and people who have shown enough commitment towards the forum by earning, say, 250 merits.
1.) Be randomly selected from this group
2.) Anonymous in Merit History
3.) Change cyclically
A thread could be started where these members simply grant merit to new accounts. That source shouldn't show up in the merit history to ensure that people don't get bugged or start getting bribe offers.
Its fairly complicated but so is the problem. Maybe i should think of a more elegant solution..Hmm..Thinking Hat on..
I ranked up just when the coinpayments campaign was coming to an end. While trying to fulfill the 30 weekly requirements for coinpayments, I often found myself saying the same thing over and over again. I also realized that most of my posts were only in the "Bitcoin Discussion" and "Economics" section..The main hunting ground for shitposters and Sig spammers..lol..
I felt embarrassed and felt like i had nothing to add without some real technical information. I used to frequent r/bitcoin and twitter accounts of all the devs to stay abreast of whats new. This used to help in adding to discussions. Yet, It gradually became clear to me that based on pure "discussions", A Sr. Member rank is the most that you can get to now AND the most that you should get to.
If you want to be a Hero, you must have enough technical know-how to contribute frequently to the Dev & Technical discussion. (I presently have to remain content with lurking). If you want to be a legendary, you must be a big contributor in at least one of the sections like Mining or Services or Market. That i feel is the only way now to get to Hero/ Legendary. I agree that its a lot of work but then it'll really be worth it. Of course, its quite a source of heartburn to see a lot of braindead people from the old days who get have the Hero/ Legendary status
but that is something we cannot help. Its like all those drug suppliers and arms-dealers that must have gotten wealthy with bitcoin. It is just part of the unfair dichotomies of Bitcoin.In short, No the merit requirements are not excessive. Increasing them for Jr. Member could be taken into consideration too. Most people who really engage eventually do get to member status. The problem with the low requirement is that it has resulted in merit-trading and alt accounts.
I think one solution could be that some percentage of merit required for ranking upto Jr. Member and Member should come from a Verified Merit Source. Verified Merit source should fulfill the following requirements:
1.) Belong to the set of people comprising DT1 member and people who have shown enough commitment towards the forum by earning, say, 250 merits.
1.) Be randomly selected from this group
2.) Anonymous in Merit History
3.) Change cyclically
A thread could be started where these members simply grant merit to new accounts. That source shouldn't show up in the merit history to ensure that people don't get bugged or start getting bribe offers.
Its fairly complicated but so is the problem. Maybe i should think of a more elegant solution..Hmm..Thinking Hat on..