Bitcoin Forum

Since month merit topic remain hottest one on this board. We still have three groups of users first one claims that merit system is great and everybody can get merit if he puts a bit of effort to his post, second one agrees that system is great but it is very hard to get one merit and third one criticizes whole system claiming that new users have no chance to get merit.
The second and third one have something in common – they both think that merit is almost impossible to get for newbies because high ranked users exchange merits with each other and they are no likely to give any merits to low ranked/fresh users.

Few weeks ago, after getting my first merit I wrote my story (Short story about being merited…. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032642.0)) to show that merit is really achievable, but Myth that only high ranked users are able to receive merit is still live on this board, so I though, that maybe numbers convince people.

There are plenty of merit analysis on metaboard but most of them are large and quite complicated, so they are intended for advanced users. So my intention is not to make another one similar to others, just shortly show that merits flows to everyone.
 
What is also important I limited my analysis only to merits which was earned after introducing merit system. I’d like also to check if ranks achieved on old rules (users ranked before merit system was airdropped with number of merits equal to their rank) are important from the merit’s point of view.

Merit system works about 8,5 month, since introducing 251.653 merits was given for the post writing, they came to 22.547 users (from 2,400,000 users registered what is less than 1%!!!).


You can see that the largest group of users 56,47% who have ever earn merit are users who start their posting career after introducing new system – what means… newbies!!! Looking at numbers of merit the situation is the same this group have earned the largest part of merit (for posting).
Of course you always can say that many of them didn’t get their merit in proper way – bought them, begged for them etc. but it still remains the largest group.



The table above shows how many users from each group received merits in several ranges of earned amount. Absolute numbers shows that “old rank” doesn’t affect very much (except “old Legendary”) on post quality confirmed by merits. “Newbies” - users who started their activity after introducing merit system are the most rewarded group in ranges 1 – 100 and 250 – 750 they are on the second place in ranges 101 – 250 and 1000+.

For sure, if we changed absolute numbers to the relatives – compare the number of all users in each group to number of users who have ever received any merit this analysis would probably look little bit different – higher ranks would show bigger percent users who has been merited… I wrote about a bit about it earlier here:
But the difference is not as much so let’s leave it - it’s not a point of my consideration today.

My main purpose was to show that merits don’t go only to small group of ranked people and I think that looking stats above you agree – THIS MYTH WAS BUSTED!!!


EDIT:
I've used data stored on https://albertoit.github.io/Merit-Explorer-SQL/ (https://albertoit.github.io/Merit-Explorer-SQL/) to make my calculations.
The data was downloaded at the beginning of October (maybe last days of September).

Just follow the rules and reply to each post carefully, which has nothing to do with rank.
Many of spamposters are high ranked members, and the low ranked members also have a lot of published high quality posts, which is related to your attitude towards the forum and has nothing to do with rank.
When you give your effort, you will get what you deserve.

That shows to me that everybody can get merit if they put a bit of effort. If merit requirement to wear any kind of signature was raised to 10 merits (member level) we would get more people improving and getting those merits. There would be also people trying to cheat the system, but it would be more difficult than now.

It also shows than getting lots of merits is only achievable by the most talented and hard-working people, like LoyceV or DdmrDdmr, and that should be rewarded in some way, like getting in the highest paying signature campaigns, as it already happens.

Wrong. It is scientifically proven that the merit system was designed to ruin lives and people only merit their high ranking friends here because the rich like to keep their riches between themselves. This is corroborated by dozens of Newbies saying so hence facts.

It is only scientifically true if it is accompanied by a MEME and it it published on the internet.

https://i.imgflip.com/2jsiuk.jpg

The general idea you state is correct. I’m working on something else, and part of what it shows and that stuttered me is that there is indeed a large base of users that are currently on the lower rank levels (Jr. Members & Newbies), that have received at least 1 sMerit. The proportion of these is nearly as much as all the other ranks put together, so looking at it from this prism (people who have received at least 1 sMerit), the conclusion is that the number of users being merited is rather spread out. Of course that only considers the "being merited" factor, and not the "how much" factor.

Notes:
We do have some differences in the numbers though, which seems weird. For example, the total awarded sMerits is of 241.323 and not 241.653 (there’s also a typo in the OP where it stated 251.653). Difference is small, given.

Nevertheless, checking on the  Merit Dashboard (https://public.tableau.com/profile/ddmrddmr#!/vizhome/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/GlobalSummary) (Tab called From/To Rank), currently the Legendary rank has received 39.920 merits, while your data indicates 45.741, so numbers are off for some reason or other which I cannot tell.

While preparing set of data i didn't focus on rank names for me most important factor was merits. I wanted to "catch" what was the starting merit level (airdrop) of each user while introducing this system. So I took every user who has ever got merit, calcucated his "earned merits" and than checked his current merit level. Than, after comparing these two numbers i was able to get the number of merit he was airdopped, and this helped me to divide users into groups.
I didn't care about names of the rank so there are also some Admins/Staff/Donators/Customs etc. who was qualified by my to the proper "starting group" for example:

- theymos who got 1.000 merits from airdrop was qualified as "MERIT AIRDROP: 1000 MERIT (OLD Legendary)",

- and You didn't get any merits from airdrop, so you are qualified as "NO MERIT AIRDROP: FRESH USERS",


This is only merits comparison not a deep analysys... I also didn't care about activity and leveling up through last months. Otherwords I took a snapshot of day introducing merit system and compared it with snapshot from last weekend focusing only on merits.

I'd like to show that nwebies like You could earn more than thousand merits in less than 9 months.....
(by the way congratulations!)

Glad this myth was dispelled, I always see bounty hunters complaining that merit is solely transferred between users of high rank. In fact, when the Jr. Member demotion rule came into effect I saw dozens of now newbie bounty hunters thinking about leaving the forum simply because they thought they would never earn a single merit. Quite pathetic if you ask me, but don't expect any of them to see this thread since few venture outside of the bounty section.

I don't know what you mean by "many".  Sure, I've seen some Sr./Hero/Legendary members who post crap, but they're outnumbered 100:1 by low-ranked shitposters.  Easily.  And lest you think I'm biased against giving merits to the low ranks, let me tell you that isn't the case.  It might well be that most of the merits I've handed out have been to Full Members or above (though I have no idea if that's true), I would gladly merit posts made by a Newbie or Jr. Member if that post is worthy of it.  The sad fact is that most aren't, and it's damn hard to sift through the garbage to find something worthwhile written by a noob. 

Heh heh.  We would see more merit-buying and trading than we would post improvement.  I'm 100% sure of that.  Shitposters try to "improve" their posts by making them longer, and the results are usually not pretty--take a look at the Meta section after the 1-merit requirement went into effect, and you'll see what I mean. 

If you're a shitposter, you don't just magically come up with something interesting to say or with improved language and writing skills.  What's more likely is that we'd see more plagiarism if that merit requirement were boosted to 10, in addition to people trying to buy those 10 merits.

The problem with many lower ranking levels is that they(we) focused (hitherto) on just posting and never really paying attention to the quality of content. the blame game increased when the new rules were implemented.The good news is that we are already seeing the positive impact.Every one gets merits, just post right

I totally agree with you - raising the minium to 10 merits is not a bad idea.
A few weeks ago when I found out I needed one single merit to publish images I was almost depressed....
Since then, 3 weeks have passed and 48 merits have appeared on my account, whether it was simple - no, but whether it was very difficult - either not.
It was enough to think a little bit and put some work and effort. Within 3 weeks according to bpip.org (http://bpip.org) I came to a group of 900 users who earned the most merit ever (how is it possible???)

As you said rising merit level won't prevent this forum from abusing but it would make more difficult... one important thing: today getting merit is easiest for people who speaks good English - this forum should be international so knowledge of English language shouldn't be a most important condition to get merit - other words we should more promote local boards with merits.

Well, we are both here speculation about what could happen because we don’t know for certain. I’m sure that some people would make an effort, but my point is not so much about people’s behaviour as about mathematical certainty: merit-buying and trading is more difficult with a 10-merit requirement than with a 1 merit requirement.

As for what would happen with shitposters trying to improve their post by just making their shitposts longer, I think this would be the case but not much worse than it is now. When the merit system was implemented, shitposters started doing that (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3299568.msg34443764#msg34443764).

Then, when the 1 merit requirement was introduced, some more started doing that. It could be seen on meta but I didn’t see a huge difference overall. However, there were some that realized that could make the effort to write some good posts to get one merit, although they were a minority, of course, but we have a guy on this same thread:


And I've seen others sharing a similar experience.

Shitposters are always going to try to cheat but I think the 10 merit requirement has to be implemented not so much because of the possible effects, as because it sends the message that if you want to get paid to post, you have to make efforts and earn merit. That’s what the merit system is about, isn’t it?

Merits can be earned by posting high quality topics and a topics that can produce a good discussion ! Yes it's a reality that only high rank members get a lot of merits and us newbies or low ranks gets nothing because of these reasons:

1. High rank people has more knowledge and experience in this forum thus they can produce a good topic and discussion
2. Mostly high ranking people gets the chance to create & manage bounties (legit and high quality bounties gets a merit from participants or reviewers)
3. High rank people are not afraid to post a comment or topic because they know all the rules to avoid a ban

Those are some of the major reasons I think... if there is some other reason just qoute it ! :)

Here is a reason why newbies or low ranks don't get any merits or less merits:

1. Low Rank people or newbies has less/no knowledge and experience thus they cannot produce a good topic or a good comment in this forum
2. Low Rank people or newbies (those accounts who are not owned by ICO's) didn't get the chance to create & manage bounties for the reasons that ICO's base only on trust, ranks & importantly experiences
3. Low Rank people or newbies is afraid to post a comment or topic because they really don't know fully the rules to avoid a ban

And also in addition many says that merits are just created just to ruined the lives of newbies and low ranks they are created to make the people on top more rich. Maybe that's true but its up to you newbies & low ranks if you want to make your rank up ! You need to make more effort and have more learnings about this business for you to be able to make a good topics and discussions to produce merits ! Everything cannot be owned without efforts ! Face it ! Don't compare yourself to those high ranks make your own name and be on top and you can make a change by helping those newbies go up also ! :)

https://mokas.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/MICKEY-MOUSE-IF-YOU-CAN-DREAM-IT-YOU-CAN-DO-IT--1.jpg

I was going to send you 1 Merit for this post but I checked out your post history & it’s littered with Bounty Hunting spam so I’m not going to now, sorry.

You’ll never rank up if the majority of your posts are in that shit hole of the forum. More posts like this though & you’ll rank up.

But isn't this attitude counter-productive? We're meant to be rewarding users who make decent posts and if a user makes one then that post probably should be merited. I get your logic though, and this is why I'd argue that I think we should up the requirement to ten because I think merit sources would actually be more liberal with their merits and users would also have to make a few decent posts to get the merit and not just one. When all they need is one it makes their job much easier and merit sources much harder because they don't want to give a shitposting bounty hunter the merit if that's all they need. A lot of users will probably just give up trying to make decent/great posts once they'd achieved Junior rank and I think that's a real issue. It's a bit of pain when we have to start checking user's post history just to check if they should be merited, but if the requirement is ten merit then we probably don't need to do that and can start being more liberal which benefits everyone.

I think it’d be much better if 10 Merit’s were required to rank up to Junior. I’m in a pickle here because that post is Meritable imo but I don’t want to be responsible for somebody earning money from the forum if they constantly post in Bounty threads.
If 10 was required I would definitely have Merited him.

I was also wondering wether to merit him but not for what he has written, which isn't great, but because you can see he put effort in writing that.

Then, I also looked at the post history and decided not to merit him. If the post was great, I would have done. But a long post where you put effort isn't necessarily meritable, and in many cases you see shitposters stretching their crap, as we were talking about before.

Same here. A decent post does not make up for a lame prior posting history. If the user persist in creating decent enough posts over some weeks, he will eventually be merited for sure, but the will to create decent content should not be a one time off kind of thing.

When it comes to people participating actively in social campaigns, I favour a profile such as that of  coinlocket$ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1339716). He is in my opinion a good hybrid poster, being capable of going about his socials, but at the same time creating decent content or actively reporting and busting accont farms and merit abuse. This kind of profile is equilibrated and contribute, and has been for so for a long time.

That's not true, though.

1 - Anyone can put a bit of effort in to researching and constructing a good reply. Having less knowledge is easily remedied by a little bit of effort.

2 - It is a minority of high ranking members that manage campaigns or bounties, and of those that do, the minority of their merits come from campaigns.

3 - You don't need to be a high ranking member to know the rules. You can read the forum rules in 10 minutes. And having a post deleted because it broke the rules doesn't mean anything, you can just continue posting.


The reason you get nothing, as has been pointed out, is because your entire post history is just spam bounty pyramid quotes.

My personal opinion is that one merit is fine for becoming a Junior and at least that is some protection for bots so those users can still be nuked, but I think Juniors should have their signatures removed completely and you only get one until you get ten merit and become a Member. Requiring one is just open to far too much abuse, and as we've seen people are reluctant to even give out one because of this. I would personally be more liberal like you if the merit requirement was higher because one merit isn't life or death and the one fluke merit doesn't give you the ability to earn.

I ponied up the one merit. At least she isn't posting nonsense/copy-paste in mega-threads to meet some bounty requirements or farm an account. Bounty reports are not really "spam" since it is required to collect the bounty and is therefore a welcomed post.

I always find this argument really funny.  This is the one reason why so many newbies argue that it is really hard to earn a merit.  They will post a decent and high-quality post and you will point out that they do not deserve it because of their other posts.  Then what will happen? that newbie will be discouraged because he cannot remove/delete his past posts and cannot turn to a new leaf and will be forever be judged because of his past post and will never earn (or be lessened the chance to earn) a single merit in the future.


This is weird coming from someone who uses his/her signature to promote something related to crypto/bitcoin.  Anyhow, your argument is just like a false dichotomy.  You can be a quality poster while doing bounty at the same time.  If your argument is what really is beneficial to the forum, then why not suggest to remove the "bounties board" altogether?  There are so many quality posters and doing bounty campaign at the same time.  You cannot prevent users of this forum to just choose one.



This concern is always being discussed all over the forum and there is always one conclusion.  It is the responsibility of the bounty hunters to manage the credibility and quality of the posts of its bounty hunters.

I respect with what sir/mam "LFC_Bitcoin" decision and I admit that my post are compose of 99% bounty spam but isn't it one of the reasons that mostly maybe 80% of beginner joined this forum because of bounty hunting to gain money. Even I admit it that it is one of my main reason why I joined this forum. One reason also that my post are compose of 99% bounty spam is because I am still a beginner and I am still learning more about blockchain & this forum so in my own experience I have seen "bitcoin" and this forum as "money" or a source of income (and that's what mostly user in this forum think - we cannot remove that fact) .. but for months that I have been in this forum i have learn some more things about the important of this forum and how valuable this forum can be so by reading more threads and starting to get a more conversation with other users I can say that someday or maybe in the near future my post history will be only full of meaningful post and conversation. I will try my best sir/mam LFC_Bitcoin to know more and learn more !=)

https://i.postimg.cc/76zntPsj/aa.png

But it really isn't hard. People shouldn't have to just make one good post and then they're good to go. Any idiot can do that, and once they have it they then don't have to bother making any more good posts because Christmas has come early for them. They can just go back to shitposting again, so that's why they should have to demonstrate they're not a one-hit wonder and can make a handful of decent posts. This is why I would argue we should make the requirement ten merit, and I actually think it will make things easier for everyone. People will be more liberal with their merits and so users are more likely to get merited, and shitposters won't be able to abuse the system as easy. When one merit is all you need to earn here people become weary about giving that user a license to get paid, and making one solitary good post really isn't enough to measure their capability especially when you can just beg, buy or trade the merit quite easily.

I am guilty of that as well. The problem comes from rewarding posters in the Bitcoin Talk underworld. Merits generate sMerits, and I try to keep them away from their potential abuse in the spamming underworld. Also, keeping merits away from active spammers may encourage them to leave, as you have pointed out, and I believe this is why the merit system was introduced.

Some corrections in the table in the OP.
I don't know where the OP got the data for the table but seems that some things are incorrect.
I had a 10 initial merit ( I was a member when the merit system came) Now I have earned 535 merit.
I don't know how old the data was when the OP used if for this statistics, but I'm over 500 earned from the end of September.
https://i.imgur.com/1Y2vkj9.png

I've used data stored on https://albertoit.github.io/Merit-Explorer-SQL (https://albertoit.github.io/Merit-Explorer-SQL)/ to make my calcullations.
The data was downloaded at the beginning of October (maybe last days of September) so probably dataset wasn't updated with data form last week of September. According to my dataset you had 499 Merits "earned" (509 including airdrop) - so only a bit under the 501 edge...

Oh, my bad. I saw it was posted 10th of October, so I assumed that the data was from around that time. So everything is correct then.

Think of it this way:

Let's say you have a colleague at work. This colleague has been there for a while - say twelve months. They aren't a good worker. They don't pull their weight and in meetings they generally just repeat the same meaningless nonsense over and over again, getting in the way of actual conversation and progress. They are rude, abrasive and obnoxious. Every time that they've spoken to you it has been to either bad mouth another colleague or try to sell you some bath bomb from the multi-level marketing scam they are involved in.

Suddenly and out of the blue, after a year or more of being lazy and rude, one morning this colleague starts being really friendly with you and offering to do some of your workload. What is your initial thought? "Wow, they are a better person now - I know, I'll go buy them a coffee and some doughnuts"? Of course not. You would be immediately suspicious and wonder what thing or favor they want from you.

Now, lets say that person is friendly to everyone and works hard all day and asks for nothing in return. And then does it again the next day. And for the rest of the week. And for the rest of the month. After a while you think "Finally this person has turned over a new leaf", and you start inviting them along to your Friday evening post-work drinks.

Merit is the same. One good post is not enough to erase months and months of shitposting, especially when it is obvious that as soon as the newbie gets that one merit they are desperate for, they will just go back to shitposting again. If you show a sustained change over weeks and months, then as has been pointed out already, merit will come your way.

There are 120 merit sources and thousands of other users who can merit this newbie, as evidenced by bones261. Everyone has their own criteria and that's what makes the system work. Otherwise theymos could just grant merits based on how many times you said "sir" and "please".

So how about you find those unmerited "high-quality" newbie posts instead of whining about meaningless hypotheticals. I'm quite certain these unicorn posts don't exist (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031461.msg45849525#msg45849525).

How about this analogy?

Let us say that for each day a person accomplishes something good or performs wonderful then he will get a chocolate. Then there is this :

"Let's say you have a colleague at work. This colleague has been there for a while - say twelve months. They aren't a good worker. They don't pull their weight and in meetings they generally just repeat the same meaningless nonsense over and over again, getting in the way of actual conversation and progress. They are rude, abrasive and obnoxious. Every time that they've spoken to you it has been to either bad mouth another colleague or try to sell you some bath bomb from the multi-level marketing scam they are involved in."

So that person did not earn a single chocolate for the past twelve months (just because he/she did not deserve it).

Then "Suddenly and out of the blue, after a year or more of being lazy and rude, one morning this colleague starts being really friendly with you and offering to do some of your workload."

Are you going to give him/her a chocolate for performing good for that day? or still withhold that chocolate because of his/her poor performance for the past year?

But your argument neglects one thing, and that is the hierarchy of ranking.  There is a reason why we need different number of merits per rank.  If that member deserves that one merit, then he deserves it.  If he will get another merit from other posts from him, then that will depend upon his future posts.

Merit system is introduced to reduce spammers (and it is really working).  More than that, it is to prevent spammers from ranking up.  If that spammer only deserves to be in jr member (because he only made one good post that deserve only 1 merit, then go for it), and merit system already doing its job of letting that spammer stay in jr member forever (member needs 10 merit).

Or you just want all the spammers to stay in newbie forever? I think you are fighting a losing battle in this part.  You will never able to completely eradicate them, but at the very least the current merit system is preventing them to grow in numbers and rank up at the very least beyond jr. member or member.

Newbies, bounty hunters, will never be discouraged from trying to create more relevant content to gain merit by receiving such criticisms. Because of money.

To get more money, it is necessary to think a little more and create new strategies. Instead of behaving like machines. The need for merits will eventually cause a shortage of those users that only create ghost accounts to join these bounties. This can lead to an increase in the price paid by each real participant and those who strive can receive more.

Suggestion to disqualify junior members from taking part in signature will definitely benefit not only Junior Members but also the forum itself.  Because to rank up for the purpose of taking part in signature campaigns every Junior Member will have to earn 10 merits and for this he will have to read more and more.  It will increase his knowledge and he will be able to post good posts. Initially it may not be welcomed by Jr Members but bitter tablets are always given for betterment of the people.  So it will do good in future. 

But IMO not rewarding with merit to good post  just because the person could not post quality post in the past or taking part in some bounty;  is not good decision,.  Every good work done at any stage should be rewarded if it is really reward-able.  And if every merit source is of such view and not sending merit to the quality post ; then how can we expect a newbie to rank up. 

Theymos has in many occasions reiterated his desire to NOT make the forum unfavorable or unfriendly to the lower ranked members.
And your odds of member rank for signature campaign just seems to be fishing for approval and maybe merits from other members.

And the idea that newbies or Jr members are solely responsible for spam on the forum is wrong. A walk through some spam mega threads would burst that myth.

I don’t think that removing signatures from Jr. Members will happen. It could make sense if there was more merit being awarded on a weekly basis, but currently I count 2.850 people that have ranked-up to Member or above starting as Newbies (and additional 8.370 have made it to Jr. Member).

The criteria proposed would mean that campaigns signatures would basically be only wearable by forum Members or above that made it to their rank prior to the Merit System, and as of today, would only allow for 2.850 newcomers to participate.

There are different levels of spammers (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5051400.msg46971432#msg46971432). Of course the big part were newbies and Jr. You can see the real impact of the new rule here :  


That was mostly the low quality of spam, now we have to focus on the higher levels.

It doesn`t work that way. Usually the history of posts is viewed in order to make a conclusion based on more information about a particular user. For example, a user has written a more or less normal post, but you aren`t sure whether to reward him with a merit. You open the post history and see how good is the work of the member as a whole. You may be able to find other decent-merit-posts and you`ll reward this member.

Another reason to view the post history is the useless, poor-quality, or even the rule breaking comment you encountered. Then you analyze the activity of the user as a whole, to decide whether to report this member to moderator. The history of his posts can both confirm that he`s a spammer (it`s here participation in various bounty, the writing of one-line-posts play the role), or else you can refute such guesses. In the latter case, you give him the opportunity to improve the quality of his work, perhaps even give advice on how to do it.

But noone doubts that good, high-quality posts deserve merits (regardless of previous activities). The history of posts comes to the rescue in a situation of doubts and hesitations.

And you could not dare to protest the high ranked member who raised this issue in this thread.  Either you did not read all the posts in thread or you just preferred to target soft target like me  :) . 
I do not like to repeat the words used for merit fishing  :) for you.  Best wishes friend.

I began to be confused what should I do to get merit, what should be seen to get a merit? is that a good post or quality? but when I get 1 merit, I will be jr.member, but why should my posting criteria be like that? fullmember? senior member or hero?

Well it is not true that only high ranked users are rewarded with merits. I could even attest to it because I was once a demoted to newbie but see how I was able to comeback and even rank up to member. This because the merit source had helped me and seen that I could step up my posting skill and gave me some merits. I was motivated by them to participate actively in the discussions instead of spamming in those SMT.

Now, I am still looking back in this section because I can learn so many things here about the forum. I am going back to the basic first and learn some things here.

Although of course the statement

"Only high ranked users are rewarded with merits"  was always going to be domonstrated as incorrect due to the fact it was kind of an extreme statement.

It is quite a complex thing to really get to grips with but in broad strokes I would feel quite confident about saying if a new poster is posting on the alt board (alts are generally the thing most noobs gravitate to ) you are going to be a huge disadvantage compared to posting in the meta section and being an established member of a group that are familiar with each other and have previously supported their posts/ideas. Again that is quite normal and not really something I think is really a big issue.

However to try say that these things are not factors of varying weight could be misleading. I think noobs that make claims similar to merit goes to those legends and top merit holders already are not to be mislead into believing they are barking up the wrong tree and in the wrong forest.  I think that if I were a smart new user here though I could devise a way to accumulate merits rather quickly but then you may not be able to post freely and in a natural way that boards should really encourage.

If you do want merit certainly do not question or push against ideas or those that have it in abundance that is for sure.

I also strongly suspect that a significant and perhaps far too large  proportion of merits GIVEN out by the top 100/top 200 merit holders are retained within the top 100/200 top merit holders.

So although it is not true that only high ranked users are rewarded with merit, there are other statements one could create that could seem that things are not as far from that situation as would be ideal.

You have busted a myth based on a statement that I would say nobody would honest think was realistic and have provided some good data but on the other hand if i was a new poster here posting in the section that of most interest to most new users I would have to assume a lot of merits that could be coming my way will be going to a group of people in meta who don't really need them.

I have recently been wondering if this is a bad thing or not. It is certainly not a reason to end merits as they are fighting successfully one of the most board destorying trends.  I think that merit could be given a far greater power to make the board better but nobody seems to favour my previous proposals regarding them. Maybe because they are not great ideas or hard to implement but I didn't see any real argument that demonstrated that.

Merits were introduced with good intentions and I think they even in current form are of great use and benefit. Lets not though consider them as a perfect system and not tell people nothing to say here when they notice some issues.

While definitely merits isn't only given to high ranked members(everyone is aware of that), merits is definitely handed out based on quality contributions,and thus whoever such contributions come/is coming from ought to be rewarded with a merit of the sources/user feels so irrespective of ranks or what have you..

So many new/demoted users have ranked up quickly,and some have even ranked up quickee than the others(the OP is an example)
As of this moment I cannot really see anything wrong with the merit system,the merit sources are doing their possible best to fish out meritable posts,and it's definitely not an easy task in the forum this days