Quote from: stwenhao on Today at 04:53:08 AM

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Does it really makes any sense becoming a source and hid it away from people

Quote from: theymos on January 24, 2018, 11:00:11 PM

I will not be posting a definitive list of merit sources (so that people don't bug them too much)

As you can see, it should be quite obvious, why the full list of merit sources is not publicly available anywhere, and why only Staff can see it.

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with time the list must sure comes out

I wouldn't be so sure. If someone can receive similar amount of merits, that he is rewarded with, then by looking at received and sent merits, you won't figure it out, that such person is a merit source. You could catch someone, if he will ever send more than half of what was received, but this is the only way to detect it with 100% certainty.

Also, there are users with thousands of unspent merits. But very often, there is just not enough posts, which are worth meriting (or they are made by Legendaries, who have more than enough merits). And many people don't want to spend all merits they have, because then, merits are worth less than usual, if they are distributed too generously. Also, if you go to zero, then when you will notice some really good post, you wouldn't have enough merits to use them. And because you cannot "timelock" merits, you cannot spend them now, and see them sent in the future, when you will receive new merits, or when they will be allocated, if you are a source.

By the way: maybe that idea with timelocking merits is worth considering. Of course it should be protected from flooding, and going into "-1000000 merits, waiting to be received and sent", but I can see a value in going for example to "-10", and having a private history of pending "transactions", which would be visible only to the account owner. I guess it could be a good test, to see, if someone deserves becoming a source, without explicitly granting that permissions; maybe even being a source should work in that way.

From the beginning of the merit system in January 2018, theymos has followed a practice/policy of not specifically naming merit source members (except perhaps incidentally from time to time), so essentially, he has not been providing any merit source list.

Nonetheless, reasonable inferences can be made regarding which forum members are merit sources, and since June 2018, Coin-1 has been providing and updating such inferred merit source member list with numbers in the thread entitled: "[TOP-200] The most generous users giving merits."

Maybe Coin-1 will have a challenge to figure out which members are no longer merit source members (or they have been substantially reduced in their monthly merit wadd) or to figure out which members have been added as source members.

Quote from: Pi-network314159 on Today at 05:13:18 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on Today at 02:50:47 AM

Quote from: LTU_btc on June 07, 2025, 07:27:31 PM

Today 90 of Meta topics is about merit Cheesy

. I see plenty of right people who got their applications finally approved. Congrats to everyone - you got what you wanted, so, now spend your sMerit wisely!

Quote from: Jewan420 on June 07, 2025, 12:19:31 AM

The decision to remove inactive merit sources is really great. Even some new merit sources have been added which is definitely good news. But the number of merit sources has been reduced which is definitely bad news. Maybe it would have been a good decision to replace the inactive merit sources with some new active and sensible members as merit sources. Because the forum lacks merit sources who will read the posts regularly and give merit to the deserving posters. Although there is an alternative thread for this, I think it would be better for active merit sources to find the posts and give merit than to report the posts.

I don't see reduced number of merit sources as bad news. I think it's better to have 88 merit source who is actually active, than having over 100 when significant part of them is inactive. Offcourse, it would be best to have 109 actually active merit source, but maybe theymos don't see enough right people for it.

Personally, I would like to see more than 200 merit source members, even though understandably it is likely quite a bit of work to be overseeing merit source members.

your suggestion is good but the problem is how active can they be? this was the same reason merit source has been reducing first was 130 secondly 109 now 88. all we need is merit source that can be active.

You could be correct that it is difficult to find 200+ members who are both active (and would be active in sending smerits) and who are otherwise qualified to do the work... to the extent that we might consider smerit sending as work.

Quote from: Pi-network314159 on Today at 05:13:18 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on Today at 02:50:47 AM

Another thing that might be good, if there are more merit sources would be to have a reduction of the average merit source to be something like 100-300 per member who is a merit source).. sure I know that some members are below 100 source merits and some are above 300 source merits (if we calculate the current average to be around 360-ish per month).

yes i think that is what theymos is doing now. i dont think the new merit sources that was appointed was given above 100 merit per member, because some old merit source with high allocation are whimpy in terms of given out merit. and as a result of this, it seems there are no merit source why they are. instead of given 300 Smerit allocation to one single merit source, it is good to shear among 3 sources 100Smerit each or 6 sources at 50Smerit each to help cover up in many places in the forum, as some merit source claim not to find some post worthy of merit maybe others with same allocation will distribute. if merit allocation is sheared among sorces, i know theymos will then observe and increase the allocation of those who are dishing our wisely to meritable post or those that does the perfect job as desired by him.

I am pretty sure that historically, there have been some merit sources with 1000 or more monthly Smerits, and maybe those were special situations, and sure it could be possible to send that many smerits over short period of time, yet maybe theymos has discontinued assigning merit source members with such relatively high monthly banks of source smerits.

I am surely not proclaiming that the job of figuring out who to assign as source merit members or monitoring the merit sending activities of source merit members is an easy task... including it is likely true that from time to time there are likely complaints about the merit sending practices of some members (which with source members there might be needs to determine if some kind of higher level abuse such as quid pro quo might be happening in regards to such merit source member(s)).

Quote from: Pi-network314159 on Today at 05:13:18 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on Today at 02:50:47 AM

but it seems like a lot of work for members to be distributing 500-1000 smerits every month..

those that have up to 500 to 1000smerit above often create threat for quality post application either in the local board or the English board as a way of saving themselves the stress of singlehandedly looking for good or quality post to merit.

Sure. I have seen some of those merit solicitation (or would it be merit-worthy posts solicitation?) threads, and it likely does change some of the organic dynamics of finding good posts, in which leaving these matters to the natural process might not necessarily lead towards good (or better quality) posts being identified and merited.. and sure merit solicitation threads can create incentives for either self-promotion, which is not always a bad thing, or the worser versions of either outright begging or semblances of begging. And, for sure, if there might be some forum members who are pointing out the better quality posts of other members, then hose kinds of merit solicitation threads could be good places to identify otherwise un-noticed or under-noticed posts.