So i was going through that "This shitty Merit System has ruined Bitcointalk and made it like Facebook" thread and it actually made me think  about this whole merit thing.

Ok, so the whole point of the merit system is to stop spammers and shitposters from flooding the forum and bring forth the more sensible   people, yeah?

Well since most of the people either don't have merit or simply never think about it (I completely forget about the whole merit thing even  when I come across a good post) and then you get dedicated people as merit sources and threads that ask for good posts to merit them,  doesn't really sound like a master plan. Easy and reliable? Sure, but it's not intuitive tbf.

There's nothing more that I hate than upvotes and downvotes, why? Well because the whole place becomes an echochamber (reddit) and no discussion can be had whatsoever. You disagree with someone popular or say something controversial you'll just get bombed with downvotes and that's it.

Tho I think that the combination of those two can make something good, something that most people are used to already by now.
 
 

Something like this:
 
 

1. You have " + " and " - " on every post. If you're in the " + " zone it shows the green number of upvotes next to it, if you're in the " - " zone you have a red number next to it.
 

2. Every upvote gives you a small amount in the background depending on that users rank. So if a user that's member upvotes you, you get like 0.01 merit or something, but if a hero member upvotes you, you get like 0.15merit or something like that.
 

3. Downvoting would be a little different. Since there are probably a lot of people that are higher ranks from before the merit system, it wouldn't be that great to give them that much power to shut someone down, so let's say that there would be a threshold where when you get enough of the downvotes you lose merit (maybe something like 0.5) but if you get downvoted by a legendary or some other higher rank, you'd lose merit when you get downvoted regardless of the amount of downvotes you have or do not have.

So if someone posts something really useless or copy/pasta reply, he can get downvoted enough not to lose merit but to think about what's he posting next time. Like a small slap on the wrist.
 


4. That would essentially eliminate merit trading because they'd have to upvote every post of the person they want to send merit to and when someone's constantly upvoting someone even if the posts are useless, it might raise some red flags.
 

5. It's easier to look for answers if you need any, among the sea of basic replies, when there's a big green number sticking out to point it out to you.
 

6. Merit would still have it's purpose since you still couldn't rank up without enough merit and you'll still have to write sensible posts if you plan on ranking up maybe and those who are shitposting would either stop it or lose merit and rank if possible.



CONCLUSION:
 
IMO this would benefit more to the weeding out spammers and copy/pasters and reward good posts regardless of rank. Everyone loves when they're rewarded for doing something good, even if that's just a bunch of green plus signs and numbers, it's still confidence boosting and a pointer.

As I've already said merit would still serve it's purpose, those on the top could still reward each other with merit like right now (it's a joke lol), of pointing out who's posts are good and who's advises or opinions are more than educated guesses or hearsay.

I'm still seeing same old copy/paste posts everywhere, especially in economy and bitcoin general rooms, and something like that would gradually kick out spammers and reward good posts.


This is just something that I thought about just because I love thinking about how we could improve on every day basic life things that we rarely ever think about, if it's possible, and thinking how I could solve something or make it better.

Would you add something or maybe have a whole different idea? I'd love to hear thoughts on this and other "solutions" just for the sake of looking at a problem from different angles and getting a different approach on problems overall.