I know who I am, I am Vietnamese, and I am still learning and improving my knowledge to post constructive posts, it's a process, Merit is to evaluate whether an article is useful or constructive, and to have a constructive post that requires a lot of knowledge, enthusiasm and experience. Not an easy one. And I'm posting this thread just for fun, and let everyone discuss and talk to each other. So do not be so serious, okay?

Chill man, everyone is accepted in bitcointalk.org, especially people who has passion for bitcoin and cryptocurrency and willingly to do something good for the forum and for the member, i hope you are that kind of person.
Merits is not only for useful or constructive posts, we can give merit to the post that we like or we agree, becuase there will be subjective point of view based on the giver of merit, so lets just continue using forum and learn a lot, but dont put "getting merit" as your main reasons, just let it flow, merits will come later if you give your time and energy to contribute to the forum. Good luck mate !

You can get your own unspent merit by attempting to spend a merit, but I believe that if the merit button is not available, then you have no available merit to spend.  

I believe that there is NOT a way, so far to see the unspent merit of other users; however, I believe that there had been some posts speculating on how many were available in total, and I believe Theymos did provide an overall number in one of his posts.

There are some other merit stats available, here which is also at the bottom of the merits page that is accessible on your personal profile page.

Edit: Whoops: I see that TryNinja beat me to it, and had largely already made a response with additional details, above.

Thanks. I honestly didn't think anyone with Merit would care to encourage my posts. Another aspect of the problem. Merit's control is deeply centralized. But I would be ok with that if they amount of Merit required was not so incredibly high.

But I don't think I'm on here enough to earn enough to rank up and I do think the data would support my conclusion that the Merit system was too much of a swing in the other direction. I'm actually concerned this change could cripple what is a very important part of the crypto ecosystem. I've been in and out of crypto for years. Lost access to my original profile because, like I said, I'm not on here much. Coming back in I've found this place has changed. It used to be my go-to to ask for and get great answers. I think it's still the best source for interactive answers. I also like this is THE place to launch an ICO bounty. And odd development to me, but I like it. That will forever codify its place in the system.

There certainly are way too many new spammer accounts that don't do much for the discussions. But I don't have access to enough data to know if they are really spammers or just newbies. I'm guessing a mix.

Realize that newbies should be welcomed here. If you want crypt to grow, and we all do, we need to make it so new people feel comfortable, not excluded.

And thanks again for the Merit, especially since you disagree   

Think of it like FB. They probably want to censor posts because they have their own worldview. But it's counter to their mission and would cripple users activity and then what happens? FB stops being useful to very many people (cough 'MySpace').

You may be correct that the merit required is a bit too high, but if it ends up being overkill then there may be a way that Theymos can fairly tweak it - but it is certainly not a given that he will tweak it in the near future because perhaps some of the problems had gotten so far out of hand with spammers and bounty seekers that a period of overkill might be considered a better short-term path forward - because even tweaking back down would have some potential costs, too.



Well, you are correct that you have to be on the system and using it in order to earn merit, and you could be correct that you are not going to be on enough to earn merit to rank up in any kind of timely manner - but I think that was part of what was being attempted to rank  up and differentiate the more active users - even though you might be a good person and even a more rounded person by not being on the forum so much.. but what is rewarded is being active on the forum, so in that sense there could be some disproportionate rewarding of internet nerds and socially awkward people rather than "normies" hahahahhaha


Could be, but it NOT like the system is locked in or that the changed has created an inevitable spiral downward into DOOM, and if it ends up being too much then there may be ways to tweak it, like already mentioned.


Well , this is a place to witness a variety of those stories.. and disgruntled rage quits, distractions through alts, ICOs and bounty hunts, battles with bitcoin maximalists and many variations.  Sometimes you can add to the story and understanding of others and other times through participation you can learn the extent to which or in what ways your story differs or potentially adds value - and it can be quite interesting to get into some kind of online battle with another user, and then later realize that you have way more in common with your online battle opponent than you initially thought.


In my 4 years on here, I did lose access to my account twice, so that taught me 1) a bit better safe keeping of my account, 2) the value of my account and 3) it can be a bit of a bitch to get back access to your account.


We know that change is inevitable, and look at bitcoin and the crypto space..   HOLY FUCKING SHIT...   You cannot kept the same atmosphere when you have that much change and money coming into the crypto space - a combination of smart money and dumb money.


So far, I have not gotten involved in that aspect of the space - but I understand those kinds of things remain options for me, especially with a high ranking account... .. but personally, I find enough value posting in the space and other things that I have going on in my life (sometimes peeps on the forum assert that I do not have a life outside of the forum, but I surely do, even though I will admit that there are periods of time that I spend more time on the forum that what would be better for me personally).


I get confused by the whole thing too, and there are some members who spend a lot of time RED Tagging these kinds of accounts, and I am glad that there are some members willing to engage in that kind of controversial work that also causes them to get sucked into the fray of forum politics, which once your "in" that kind of mess, it may become difficult to figure out a balance.  Here's a good recent and seemingly ongoing example of that kind of messy forum politics.


I don't think that crypto's growth is necessarily dependent on newbies being able to easily rank up in this forum under something like the old forum rules.  It may well come to be that rank becomes more appreciated when it is earned, but also no one is really being stopped from posting in this forum based on rank, but if they are spamming, shit posting then they are going to have difficulties,... and yeah, the same is true that if you are just using the forum to read posts, but you are not really actively engaging, then you are not going to rank up very easily, either.


You have a lot of decent ideas and you might find that your ability to get 85 more merits may end up coming easier than you thought.. or that some tweaks could happen in the new merit system to make the seemingly formidable become more attainable.



Even though I get the point that you are making here, it seems way too early to suggest that either FB is going down the myspace path or that this forum has any kind of similar downward spiraling fate.

Found out the key words "merit is gold." Doing massages, comments, replying and postings have the value of measurements and only the deserving earn. Merit which bring health once given.

The challenge is how well you can make your post as constructive or helpful to others. Well, it's difficult to earn merits now and for those people who are making their posts as constructive as they can but can't really earn merits. All that there is to it is to improve their communication skills and knowledge. This forum will surely help them develop those skills as they will be earning points little by little.

Thanks for the explanation. Yet it's very difficult for a newbie to collect merits. Still, I'll try to increase my knowledge regarding the technology, concepts and culture related to blockchain and cryptocurrency. Once I gather enough information, I can start contributing with rich contents and earn merits. But, at the same time, the seniors can encourage us with some free merits.

That is the reason for change. If you want to earn from the forum, give something in return.