Quote from: NeuroticFish on Today at 06:52:36 AM

Quote from: kudosinitchi on Today at 06:26:13 AM

This maybe a noob or complicated question and apologize in advance if this may find you a dumb question to ask but i just want to know the history of how the Merit spread in the forum.

Firstly, we know that Satoshi Nakamoto founded this Bitcointalk forum way back November 22, 2009 to be exact and his key people are Martti Malmi & Theymos. Source : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BitcoinTalk

Secondly, in relation to the title of the topic, I was told that Merit system was introduced by Theymos and my first thought then was, did Theymos hold thousand of Merit when the merit system was implemented and distributed it to the pioneer of this forum? or is he have a merit source key people to do the job? or when the merit system implemented all of the users that time got rewarded some automatically?

Thirdly, If this post may find insult to the pioneer of this forum, I apologize. Be know that my intention was to know the history of how merit spread first to the community because i find it brilliant steps and motivational as keystone to uphold this forum from spammer.

Lastly, I thank the key people who made this message board where people can talk to each other and sharing ideas. Thank you in advance for enlightening me.

I think that you may have greatly misunderstood merit.
I will start with the fact that bitcointalk is a forum. A centralized forum. Whatever happens in this forum is in the hands of its administrator, since he can do whatever he wants with the database where everything from this forum is stored.
Now, the merit is not bitcoin. The merit doesn't need proof of work. The merit is just numbers Theymos adds to the database, out of thin air.

When merit was implemented many old user had already certain ranks. I am very new in here compared to the founders, but I already had Legendary rank by then. Just as an example.
When merit was implemented everybody got "airdropped" merit according to his rank. I've received 1000 merit. I don't remember how much spendable merit (sMerit) I've got then, it must have been at least 500 (half of the received merit). From that point people started meriting valuable posts, legendary posts or their idols. If you look into https://bpip.org you'll see most merited accounts and also how much everybody got airdropped.
For example Satoshi has 4473 merit, of which 4223 earned and 100 airdropped. And I can assure you he didn't post anything since the merit exists Wink

Meanwhile a fair number of merit sources were created, meaning that certain users get spendable merit (within some limits) in order to keep the merit flowing in the forum, hence getting the more valuable posts getting merited.
Everybody who receives merit can spend half of that (rounded down) for meriting others.

Did I miss anything? Please ask if so.

Thanks mate for a well detailed explanation! Now i know that Merit were made out of a source code right? like programming a very complex program. Now the airdrop thing, i think i get it now how these merits started spreading in the forum, how i wish i was able to know this forum earlier hehe but i know that this is just the beginning and soon will rank up