That's not unique to you - Bitcoin Discussion is a mess, that's why. The last data I saw showed it has the lowest merit per post ratio of any of the non-altcoin boards. Most threads turn in to spamfests, and no one with any sense is reading past the 3rd page or so. Any replies on threads like that aren't even going to get seen, let alone merited.
Bitcoin Discussion invites the most spam, you're right. I think that's why it's hard to gauge for post quality when you're viewing a thread using Bitcoin discussion because quality replies by people who aren't brain dead are cluttered with lower level members with broken English spamming 1 liners.
Okay, fair enough, you got me here. Surprising to see such shit quality posters that are legendary but I don't browse altcoins at all so that's probably why I have a skewed view. Legendary members in Bitcoin discussion, meta, and P&S tend to have great discussion value added by legendary members so I'll leave it at that.
I think you misunderstand. Merit and sMerit are totally separate. Your merit score will never decrease because of sending sMerit to other people.
Huh? Well, didn't know that. I was under the impression that went you send merit, your overall merit score decreases unless you are a merit source. My misunderstanding.
The idea that you can lose your ranking as a legendary member for posting because you joined the forum earlier on seems rather outrageous.
Almost everyone (theymos included) has agreed that while airdropped merit could/should decay, ranks should not.
Good, but like I said the problem still persists that members can be active in forums that are cluttered with spam, ie Bitcoin discussion, where valuable posts are not merited because they aren't seen enough. I don't think we should leave it to chance that good quality posts are seen by people who will eventually send merit in a system where merit becomes decayed.
I will concede, though, that the initial merit airdrop seemed fairly generous and that it doesn't allow newer members to catch up efficiently.