The random prize draws for voters are no doubt a motivation too.
But it can raise questions against the fairness of the vote. Obviously there are some voters who has no idea about their voted members. They have done it either for the merits or for the prizes.
i asked exactly this guy and two others at that time to edit my nick and write it correctly, because it looked 100% like copy&paste and these guys didn't bother at all with the research of the respective candidates.
It make sense, but the user has done it in questionable way. He has voted you in ‘Bitcointalk Ninja’ category. But I think that he doesn't have the idea about your contributions in this forum. Even you have suspected that it was something like copy and paste.
There are several hundred posts in this thread, and do you think I should check each post for duplicates, previous versions, and everything else? There will always be abusers, no one is safe from this.
I haven't said it in this way. Just look at his profile. He is wearing the avatar and signature of a well known scam betting site. I was thinking that you were checking some users activity before giving them merit. I have thought it in this way after watching this post from you, “
Post titled: When tarable really wants merit”
Do you seriously think that merit sources each evaluated post conducts a full analysis for the presence possible deletions, re-posting, look at the history of posts, check which posts they sent merit to before, etc? You are greatly mistaken. Only in the most obvious cases, but not for every post.
No one does it, and I didn't mean anything like that. The situation is different in this case. Our voting posts are neither constructive nor informative. However, those are important as it will help to determine few best & ideal forum members in those specific categories. But the situation is getting messed up there when the users are receiving merits just for submitting votes.
I believe there was a rule that they could use their discretion for who can, and can't vote.
There is a rule like that “You must have 50 merit or be a full member or higher to vote”.
I think it would have helped to reduce those copy and paste votes if the rule was like that: You must have ‘X’ earned merits to submit your vote.