Everyone on WOK now has a merit score, and you need both a certain activity level and a certain merit score to reach higher member ranks. The required scores are:

Rank                      Required activity                      Required merit

Brand new                          0                                                 0

Newbie                               1                                                 0

Jr Member                        30                                                 1

Member                            60                                               10

Full Member                   120                                             100

Sr. Member                     240                                             250

Hero Member                 480                                             500

Legendary                      775                                            1000

What is Merit and sMerit?

You have Merit and sendable Merit (sMerit). sMerits can only be sent, they have no other purpose and hoarding them is pointless. When someone gives Merit to you they lose sMerit of the amount transferred and you gain Merit as well as sMerit (which in case you can send again).

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

You get merit points when someone sends you some for one of your posts. Additionally, when someone sends you merit points, half of those points can be sent by you to other people. NOTE: This will not remove the merit points you currently have.

Certain users are designated as "merit sources". They can create new merit out of nothing, up to a limited number per month (which differs per source). I will not be posting a definitive list of merit sources (so that people don't bug them too much), though you'll soon figure out who they are if you pay attention.

I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:

If you want to be a merit source:

 1. Be a somewhat established member.

 2. Collect FIVE posts written in the last couple of months by other people that you would give merit to and email the list to me. The point of this is to demonstrate your ability to give out merit usefully.

 3. We will take a look at your history and maybe make you a source.

Trivia:

For current members, your initial merit score is equal to the minimum required to your rank. Of that, a certain amount (less than the usual half) is spendable. The spendable amount was calculated based on your current rank and the number of activity points you earned in the last year. A Legendary member who hasn't posted in the last year would still be Legendary, but would not have any spendable merit.

If someone sends you 1 merit, the 0.5 sMerit is not wasted; it is just not shown until you get another merit point.

How is forum activity calculated?

Activity is calculated with the following formula:

Code:

activity = min(time * 14, posts)

Activity is increased by staying logged in or by posting and is updated every hour.  There is a maximum of 14 activity points every 2 weeks.

The activity number is determined in this way:

time = number of two-week periods in which you've posted since your registration

activity = min(time * 14, posts)

Rough summary of what this means: If you post once per day on average, then you will eventually get the maximum number of activity points that you can get. Posting more than once per day on average is useless for increasing activity. The maximum number of activity points you can get is 1 per day, but your activity score only updates every two weeks. Therefore, it will take about 100 days to get 100 activity if you post once per day on average.