In recent years, it seems that a lot of people have been making low-value posts just to get paid. To address this, I've added a merit "cost" to posting: from this point forward, for every 15 characters you post, you will lose one Merit point. This should eliminate any incentive to make low-value posts.
Any halfway-decent poster should be able to earn much more merit than they lose due to the penalty. But I recognize that some good posts are occasionally overlooked. So to counterbalance the penalty, I also added a system whereby you will earn a bit of merit just by reading posts. If you want to write a lot, you'd better do some reading as well!
For both the penalty and the bonus, this applies only to your merit score, and does not affect sendable merit (sMerit).
Let me know what you think of these adjustments.
Hey!Any halfway-decent poster should be able to earn much more merit than they lose due to the penalty. But I recognize that some good posts are occasionally overlooked. So to counterbalance the penalty, I also added a system whereby you will earn a bit of merit just by reading posts. If you want to write a lot, you'd better do some reading as well!
For both the penalty and the bonus, this applies only to your merit score, and does not affect sendable merit (sMerit).
Let me know what you think of these adjustments.
Theymos got me on this one
I have refreshed my system like 30 times and discovered I became a Hero member again. I checked my merits and it reduced much, I thought I opened an older tab, I had to refresh one more time and nothing changed. I went to my merit history and nothing worked there. My next move was meta, I carefully read this thread from beginning to the end without having the April fool in mind. I was going to reply to the thread telling theymos how everyone is gonna become a newbie before 7 days time. Then I read the first reply and understood today's date. I wasn't April fooled in the real life, thanks theymos for not allowing today pass me by.