I agree.

There is a simple way to deter merit farmers from spamming WO: just stop giving them merits and stop responding to their posts. They will eventually go away.

Explanation
Chartbuddy thanks talkimg.com

Interesting....https://blog.bitmex.com/kite-or-board/       (Arthur Hayes)
TL;DR
1. predicts that financial repression is about to start (at least in Japan);
2. bitcoin will be one of the main "escape" valves for banks
3. money market funds will soon lose their high yield
4. heavily references this 'academic' paper: https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/2023/06/02/fiscal-dominance-and-the-return-of-zero-interest-bank-reserve-requirements.pdf
(knock yourself out)
5. bitcoin will not go down below 25K

If you disable merits here then they will just go farm their merits elsewhere, and the good posters here will have less incentive to post, therefore decreasing the overall discussion value here.
Another alternative would be add a local rule that posts that are like the ones you mentioned will be deleted and enforce it, as in you have to post something original too in your posts.

So you guys talk about random stuff and at the same time add more money to your portfolios while merit farmers do their thing for the same reason, more money?

I can't believe this is the first time I post here.😅

Explanation
Chartbuddy thanks talkimg.com

Just some honest answer please

I do merit accounts large in this thread … but mainly the known accounts imo.
If I go out of line, inform me, but I try to merit value members and give them some merit ammo to resend on quality posters….

Voted NO as well, maybe something different can be done as only 250-500 rank members can earn some Merit or something.

we all know that certain merit sources are giving them merits again and again. so I tend to think inviting farmers is endorsed by theymos.





If you think that OGs are here for the "money" merits you are an idiot.





You wanna tell me that the OGs need merits as an incentive to post here?    they came here for the community not the merits.
you seem not to know what a high discussion value the WO had before the farmers.  Maybe you have bought your 2014 account ?



Yeah have someone checking and deleting posts all day... great idea  

It is expected that as Bitcoin gained popularity, people would disperse to other internet places, because that's basically what happened with the older forums, people went to discuss Bitcoin on other social media, like Reddit, Youtube, Telegram, and so on, and if they are real fanatics they could even create their own things and gather their own follower and maybe even get monetized and earn real money with their contend.
That's the path that all internet followed and I doubt things would really change even if the alleged merit farming issue is solved.

Another alternative would be just ban people from posting in this thread if they are repeated offenders, how hard would be ban certain users from posting in certain threads?

Also be low rank is not a funny place to be if you want to post, because of the timeout between posts, so ranking is a factor that may cause a good poster be more or less engaged in the forum.