I doubt that it is fair to lump all Legendaries together, and there seems to be a bit of a disgruntlement over legendaries having had already earned such status on the basis of the previous system. I say so fucking what? Yeah, there may be some legendaries who don't earn merits after the new merit system, but we have to consider their particulars too, if we are going to suggest that they are "good for nothings," merely because no one has subsequently sent them any merits.
I understand that there is a bit of desire to consider received merits as a separate status as compared with air dropped merits, so all good and well with that, but frequently there is way too much emphasis given towards the meaning of the receipt of a lot of merits.... or maybe even too much attempt to denigrate some members who already ranked up under the old system, so they may give two fucks about earning any more merits (and they have a right to take that position, if that is how they feel about it).
I understand that we are probably going to have days in the future (and there might already be a bit of this going on) in which more and more formal systems are implemented in order to incentivize members to continue to chase the merit rabbit (in a kind of rat race)(I know that I am mixing metaphors), but we already appreciate that, part of the more central goals regarding the implementation of the merit system was to lessen the ease of account farming and disincentives spamming and profiting from shit posting. I doubt that the incentive would be so strong as to discourage the sharing of dissenting opinions or even the ability for unpopular members to contribute in their own continuing to wannabe unpopular ways. There can be value in that too, and there can be value in accepting that members who ranked up to whatever level of the old system still have legitimately earned their rank(s) because the then system for ranking up was different.. but still the legacies of such system is till ingrained and a part of our current forum, and it does not necessarily feel right to diss on forum members who have earned their rank under the old system, unless for some reason you might have cause to see that there are problems with their historical posts or their current posting behaviors.
Maybe a bit of a bias here:
of course you think you deserve your rank,
considering you are a legendary user.
Get the fuck out of here.
You are trying to find bias in a post that is based on substance and logic.
Do you actually understand that there was a system, less than 2 years ago, that allowed members to rank up based on activity, which is partly a product of post count and time?
Do you believe that those members who ranked up during that time and under those rules don't deserve their rank? If anyone is biased, it is you, and you are both envious and unable to accept prior historical rules that were different but carry on into the present. Instead, what the fuck do you want? You want to start over? That would make even less sense.
I'm not saying that point of view is wrong, just pointing it out.
You are pointing out nonsense because of your own inner and seemingly unjustified resentment about history.
Let's be real here: the new merit system was implemented to make it harder to progress.
Partly true, but mostly only for spammers and account farmers, but a side-effect of that causes more difficulties for almost everyone to rank up.
But if you ranked up before the introduction of the merit system, then that was a windfall rather than a fact that those members did not deserve it. They did deserve it, because they did whatever the rules were at that time in order to achieve their rank.
The original idea was to prevent spammers, etc. but it made it harder to legitimate users as well.
Great... at least you seem to understand that part of it.
It's not like older members had a choice in this new system, nor did they know it was going to be implemented.
That's correct. Probably very few members either knew that the system was going to be implemented, even though I saw that there were some threads about the topic, so there may have been a decently small minority of members who suspected that some kind of change was going to go into effect. Personally, I did not have any kind of suspicion or anything regarding anything in the works in that direction until it actually went into effect.
They earned their rank under the old system, which may have been less difficult but they still did. There is really no point in comparing the past to the present, as it's a completely different situation.
Not completely different, but at least you seem to be kind of accepting the reality of the matter... Great.
There is really no point in being upset about this, as it's just complaining at this point.
I was responding to the discussion of other members, and you are never going to eliminate complaining or even bad feelings from a certain number of members regarding any change that might happen, whether the change is justified or not.
The new system is harder, but it's still doable if you put in the effort.
Surely, it is harder because it adds another factor, and I would even concede that it takes a decent amount of efforts to earn any merits at all, including currently 1,000 merits to reach legendary, but even earning smaller amounts of merits might take a considerable amount of efforts, and even strong efforts and substantively great posts, might not result in the receipt of merits.
The reason a lot of us are stuck is because we spend to much time lamenting the "older members", while we could be contributing to the forum.
Perhaps, some of the members have such an issue, like you suggest. At the same time, I will concede that there are a lot of older members who may have merely averaged mediocre posts that averaged about 1 post per day, and ranked up with hardly making any efforts at all, but don't we already concede that was another system, water under the bridge, spilled milk, etc.. so in the end, it is a part of something that existed in the past and ramifications of some of it follow into the present. Surely there are some members, currently who thrive under the current system, but I will concede that those members tend to be some what exceptional in finding an approach that works for them.