So basically this will mean that the Chipmixer ANN is going to be pinned on the top of the board for... for ever?
Or really, any ANN from a company where more senior members here have a vested interest in bumping the topic..?
Maybe an unintentional side effect, but that's really a massive advantage that they'd get over other companies/etc.
Or not... I don't know.
Bitcointalk seems to become more and more of an esoteric meritocracy.. Where people with higher ranks, or those who spent more time here, now also have a more powerful voice? Hmm. (Or am i understanding this wrong?)
As much as i disliked these threads with account farmers talking to each other, i don't know if such drastic measures are warranted, or if this is the right direction for Bitcointalk to move towards to. (Although i must admit: i haven't visited the altcoin boards in a long time, if ever.)
While the side effect may be providing long time users with an advantage, ultimately I think the primary goal is to restrict new users, simply based on the fact that it is simpler to set up sock puppets on newer accounts to spam. I am sure if it was possible to prevent abuse otherwise, Theymos would let noobs post without even logging in. Sadly that is not possible.
Longer time user = more advantage in bumping with no other consideration would be okay. There is a very very strong merit anchor to their advantage. So some of the devs there will not be able to bump their own threads and they are the most important announcements.
Legend members need earned merits or they are noobs now.
Merit is becoming a very financially rewarding metric to game and it is wide open to gaming. You really want old members that also have LOTS of earned merits if you want to push your project regardless of whether they make good posts or are valuable real members of your community. CHipmixer is going to do well and so are any projects pushed by the SAME GANG. This is going to push scampaign managers to not even bother with manual review of posting quality now.... projects will want MORE MERITS pushers now regardless of whether their posts are good or not. This defeats any idea of getting campaign managers to review people manually for post quality and trust not just accept gamed metrics. The projects will insist they suck up the gamed merits score junk.
It is good activity is at least included here, but merit is given too much weight again.
junior with some small earned recent merits now trumps legend developer even regular posting legend devs who just don't get much merits because merit sources " don't bother with the alt sections according to them since they have them on ignore " lol
We best get the devs of any projects and their key community members over to meta board to apply for merit source or at least get feltching for merits.