Quote from: Razmirraz on Today at 01:51:12 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on July 30, 2022, 08:13:00 AM

And, merit hoarding for regular members is surely less of an issue than for merit sources, and I am pretty sure that in the first round of merit source member assignments, some of those members who were assigned as merit sources, were really stingy regarding their sending out merits, and some of them even publicly stated such.

Merit Sources shouldn't need to do merit hoarding, because when they make a Vision and Mission when applying to become a Merit Source, they often attach a history of their achievement statistics. Speaking of the first batch of Merit Source assignments, there are still many things that need to be addressed, maybe they are stingy because they have difficulty finding worthy users in their post history reviews to be appreciated or have other activities outside the forum that cannot be abandoned, in the end, many monthly sMerit allocations are piled up.

Probably it is worth repeating that the very first batch of merit source members were selected by theymos based on whatever he thought might make a good merit source.. perhaps based on their past contributions to the forum.. but a decent number of the initial selection ended up being merit hoarders... .. also the system was new, so it likely took a little bit of time to get used to the idea of sending smerits and also for theymos to see how it played out in those first couple of years..

Quote from: Razmirraz on Today at 01:51:12 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on July 30, 2022, 08:13:00 AM

I surely don't feel like I have enough information to know whether some improvement could be made in terms of either rotating merit source members a bit more or if there might be some improvements if theymos might increase the number of merit source members.. because there does seem to be a bit of work in making those kinds of assessments, and surely sometimes there are likely some issues with how some of the merit source members (and not even excluding myself from the potential problem areas) are sending smerits and/or unfairly benefiting from their being assigned as a merit source member... .but likely theymos does also recognize that even if some of us might be sloppy and neglectful and maybe even deliberately bad from time to time in how we are either sending smerits or refraining from sending smerits, he likely also recognizes and appreciates that there is quite a bit of work that may well go into merit source members figuring out their own approach to the matter and then actually employing it on a daily/weekly and even monthly basis (as Philip mentioned the very issue that he has had with building up of smerits and some dilemmas regarding how to spend them in a way that is comfortable for the merit source member as well as other real life issues that s/he may well have happening)..

We never know if haven't tried it, the opportunity needs to be given to non-merit source users who are very active in distributing sMerit to other forum members.

Personally, I am very much in favor of the idea of increasing the number of merit source members or even rotating some of the merit source members.. I do speculate that theymos has some reservations in regards to being too rash in terms of making changes.. and a rotating system might cause a lot of work for him and a lot of frustration from merit source members.. and might even cause resentment from non-merit source members to be making changes very frequently.. so there might be downsides in terms of attempting to be very creative in the process.. but the injection of 20 to 50 new merit source members might be a good idea.. but maybe even that might not have as many upsides as it seems to have on the face of the matter.

Another possibility could be that theymos could try to delegate some of his responsibilities in regards to the whole merit source system and appoint a merit source czar that would oversee the whole system.. but that might well bring on some of its own issues.. even if theymos feels some burdens in carrying out those duties himself, too.

I recall at one point there seemed to have had been some thoughts that the merit system might be able to replace the trust system.. and then there are goals of having systems that might play out in more decentralized kinds of ways.. but then at the same time, there seems to be no real escaping some of the allegiances and alliances that form, and also sometimes the injustices that play out with some of the drama, too... even seemingly really good forum members might end up going through melt-downs of sorts.. there would likely be a lot of pissed off members if there were a discovery that the merit system would replace the trust system..

.....,and for sure, even when the merit system went into place, there were some of us who were assigned as merit source members (including yours truly) who had little to no clue that such a system was going to be going into effect, and it can seem like a kind of April fools joke to sign in and to try to figure out "what the fuck is this?" and to find out that you have been assigned as a merit source, and don't even really know what it is, yet... so knowledge does evolve on the topic and we get used to it. and sometimes the transition can be confusing, including if theymos were to proclaim that the merit system was going to be taken away.. that would likely cause disgruntled folks, too.

Quote from: Razmirraz on Today at 01:51:12 PM

I also found some Merit Source Applications that have not been accepted, I thought Theymos should give it a try as some local councils also need Merit Source.

Yes.. some of those merit source applications seem to sit for a long time (years perhaps?) without any assignment of any new merit source member for certain areas of the forum.

Quote from: Razmirraz on Today at 01:51:12 PM

Changes need to be made on a rotating basis to reduce potential problems, Theymos should be more active in overseeing stingy Merit Sources and immediately rotate with new Source.

Personally, it seems difficult to conclude that something "needs to be done" - if not knowing enough information regarding what problem might "need to be" solved... I am not going to proclaim to know if I do not see reports or investigations into reports... .. and, sure there might be some parts of the forum that seem to have some leaders or even more contributory members. and how might we know, or not know, if there might be some concerns about certain kinds of activities or if there might be some thoughts about various members who might be appointed as merit source members and if that might be helpful or maybe it would not necessarily be helpful to the situation in that local.. I would not really be able to globally know without having some specifics in regards to posting activities and reports at minimum.. and even some of the moderators might have some of their own views on the topic about which theymos is attempting to account for, too.

Quote from: Razmirraz on Today at 01:51:12 PM

I think if done like this, Merit Source will be even more active in distributing monthly sMerit allocations to deserving users (please correct if I'm wrong).

You may well know about some areas of the forum in which I have hardly any clue about the dynamics.. so sure you could be correct about the need for one or two more merit sources being needed in a certain area of the forum.. but I doubt that we can conclude that theymos is not doing enough merely based on an assertion that there might exist a seemingly obvious solution that might include increasing merit source members (or rotating merit source members or removing a merit source member) in one or more areas of the forum.