That's more like it. I think Theymos did a good job.
TL;DR Trust for trades, flags for marking jerks. Good.
The prime example that the merit system is a joke and serves no purpose is the fact JayJuanGee has a high level of merit. None of those systems promote any honest or factual level of discourse. All it is is someone posts "HURRR Bitcoin will go to $5 trillion each by tomorrow" then waves of mindless scammers give him +merit. Things like merit, flags, and everything else are then nothing more than gauging who is most heavily pump and dump shilling. This is why people like Trollgoossens have high merit as well, for doing nothing more than pump and dump shilling.
Haha sour grapes if its so easy where is all your merit? about 12 merits some suckers gave you. Now youre all upset.
Id say that's working pretty well.
(sorry all)
Don't get me wrong.. standing up for the sour puss, roach, but he has received much more than 12 merits. In fact, he has received 194 merits from other members since the implementation of the merit system.
You can see all of his received merits on BPIP. Currently, he is ranked as 312th most merited, which is no small feat given the thousands of BTC talk members... also, kinds of contradicts his points about only the undeserved receiving merits, and he seems to be a kind of "undeserved" merit receiver... while quite stingy in giving out any merits..
Notice that he has only given out 12 smerits in the two years since the merit system was established.
Don't get me wrong. Roachie poachie is still a fucktwat, but there are some members who do send him smerits for his largely baloney, irrelevant and/or butt hurt posts.

194 merits?
What are we talking about?
I got my 100th merit on January this year.
Sorry to be so cocky, Im not like that usually, but Roach... come on...
Actually, there seems to be no need to compare or to compete with Roach in regards to merits.
Of course, you, fillippone, provide heads and shoulders more valuable, meaningful and topical information than roach... so there is not even any kind of comparison.
But, there are also a lot of trolls, shills, racists and other kinds of bitcoin hating nutjobs who would likely be more than willing (or desparate) to contribute to "the roach cause," as a kind of martyr.. for him to fight the good fight.. and he may even receive payment from some stupid ass desperate bitcoin naysayers or bcash pumpers.
So, for me, the quantity of Roach's merits is a kind of "who gives a shit?" consideration.
By the way, I will also admit that there have been a few occasions that roach's level of retardedness has caused me to laugh so heavily that I thought that my days on this earth might be limited and loss of control of some of my muscles, including my merit sending finger almost slipped in the direction of that dumbass.
