Want merit just hop over to meta and start back slapping and getting into some team and hop in on their arguments in threads there with supporting statements you just mix up from what has already been posted . I notice all those with buckets of merit are all big meta section posters that are either helpful or just part of some clique.
On the other hand ..forget rank and merit and just focus on
1. finding scams and highlighting them
2. finding genuinely interesting and valuable projects and highlighting them.
3. help others in ways that you can.
In the end 0.001% of this board understands the tech and designs at a level that can be useful to evaluate their true worth ... so probably just focus on preventing the vast array of scams that put off 99.99% of people because they lose money via such schemes.