Quote from: actmyname on August 05, 2019, 07:01:25 PM

Quote from: Quickseller on August 05, 2019, 12:27:09 AM

Quote from: ChemicalSpillage on August 05, 2019, 12:12:12 AM

Quote from: Quickseller on August 04, 2019, 11:03:08 PM

I have no idea if this is going on or not, but it is possible to send merit from a --> b --> c --> d --> a

I believe this is what the post you quoted is referring to, or something very similar to the above.

4 degrees of separation will connect a huge number of false positives if we're going to accept that kind of merit transaction.

You could say this about almost any member that's sent and received a substantial amount of merit (i.e. users on the list)

I havent done any kind of research on this, so I dont know if there is any credence to the OPs claim.

There are actually only three degrees of separation in my example. You could perhaps filter out cases in which only small amounts of merit is received from a person via three degrees of separation.

The-One-Above-All sent 1 merit to mikeywith. mikeywith has sent merit to Quickseller, who has also sent merit to The-One-Above-All.

The larger you make the circle and the more unique people you send merit to, the higher the chance is of being implicated in a "merit cycling circle" but of course, correlation is not causation.

I dont think small amounts of merit would constitute the type of merit circle that would be any kind of a problem. The sole criteria for merit that I give out is if the post in question is objectively good and/or high effort and/or is the type of post that the forum should have more of. I dont participate in any kind of merit circle arrangement.

If there were larger amounts (either in raw amounts or percentages of merit received) of merit involved, there would be a bigger problem in a merit circle, especially if the amounts involved allow for those involved to rank up or more importantly have additional DT votes. I probably wouldnt be concerned unless there were hundreds of merit involved amongst the circle. I havent looked into if there are any real merit circles anywhere. I wouldnt be especially surprised to see one or two that would reasonably be considered abuse when reviewed by a neutral person. I dont know if anyone the OP is complaining about would be part of any merit circle.