You are missing a point!
They won't give up because they don't really have to rank up to higher levels to earn money from the forum with current rules.
Why is that?
If you have experienced enough in the forum, you would realize that signature payments for Member rank usually double of for Junior member rank. Yeah, that's the point, shit-posters don't have to try to rank up, they have another option, which seems to be better, more comfortable for them.
2 Junior member accounts instead of 1 Member account. That's enough. Keep posting shits and get money, instead of putting lots of real efforts to rank up and get the same amount of payments.

Merit system will keep shit-posters stucked at their current ranks. In the future, when more and more campaigns require minimum number of merits to join, shit-posters will be eliminated somehow. When they can not join any campaign in the forum, they might leave and find others better places.

The system is really, instinctly great due to its original objectives are to wipe spammers out of ranking progress.
Take it easy, guy! Let it be. Learning more, contribute more; keep doing those things naturally. After all, merits will automatically find deserved users and you will be ranked up some day if you deserved to it.

Don't worry. Let it be!

That's it!
Lots of users mainly think about how to earn merits with their threads; hence they don't concentrate on their flow of ideas, threads' logic and don't spend too much efforts to sharpen their threads in terms of coherence and cohesion.
They simply focus on how to attach several words inside their threads to call for merits give away; which usually lead to side-effects instead of getting merits, lol.
Moreover, threads need time (might be long span of time from the point it was published to the point it receive merits). After posting threads, don't pay attention about whether it get merits or not, at which time; instead paying attention on your next threads and their qualities.
Agree! Bumping old topics like this also annoys old topics' authors at somewhat extent.

There are bunches of available non-sense topics related to merits and how to get merits. So, highly recommend do not start  new topics on merit issues. I will call someone do this is new-adapted spammers!
For this English issue, I also give link to TMAN's topic:
TMAN's guide to getting merits
Agree too! Over-quoted, over-used infographics and images will mostly result in negative side-effects. Don't over-use them when composing next threads. It hurts my eyes and my fingers; then that sort of posters should be responsible for my medical bills.

Exactly! It is harder and harder to earn merits day by day, because allocated/ rewarded sMerits at the launch of merit system will dissappear (more exactly, will be completely used) over time. After that, only constructive, deserved users will earn new sMerits, and they will consider very carefully before deciding to give their sMerits away to someone else.
Wrong! No one stay here all the time (in the forum) to help you or to scan around the forum to find high-qualitied threads and give authors of those threads sMerits. It's unrealistic!
Wrong too! The approach will lead to another tsunami of massive abusements from account farmers in the forum, which will operate oppositely with original purposes of merit system.

Actually, high paid signature campaigns have already had different payment rates for users who meet merit requirements and who don't. Most campaigns which paid in Bitcoin require merit points to join.
And their requirements for post quality are also high, too.
I think merit system has performed well in signature campaigns by its contributions to prevent low qualities but high ranked members to ask for joning.

Totally agree. Another point is that demerit system (if implemented in the future) might result in massive abusements in the forum, like trust system. Strict users (mostly higher-ranked) might tend to be hate by lower-ranked, and of course other high-ranked users (who are spammers fortunately ranked up to high ranks mainly due to old ranking system of the forum), and will be under high risk of demerit abusements.

Hello both zentdex and Snappycoco,

I would like to join current discussion about merit system in the topic created by zentdex, which is actually interesting. I agree that lower-ranked members in the forum seems to get lower merits after the launch of merit system. I am not sure about reliability of zentdex data analysis, but I highly appreciate his works.
In my point of view, it will be better if zentdex can make further analysis about average post-length (character counts) of each ranks. This one will help us to have clear picture about what's going on with merit system, merit circulation, and quality of each ranks (naively based on their post-length). Of course, threads which are too long don't mean that they are high-qualitied, but we should have those statistical figures at first.
Thanks zentdex.

I agree users who are selling sMerits, exchanging their sMerits should be wipen out of the forum through permanent bans.

However, there is no official rules about banning due to selling sMerits (should call exactly as sMerits, not merits). Therefore, I think that Theymos should add new point of rules (#34) to avoid any serious arguments about permanenent bans due to merit exchanging.
Unofficial list of (ocfficial) bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ

There are more than 200 accounts which banned immediately after found and banned permanently due to merit farming.
More mass merit farming

No, it won't. The merit system only can significantly reduce the number of spammers to move up to higher positions in the forum through their spamming threads. However, the system can not reduce spamming threads. Why is this? With current rules of the forum, newbies (sometimes) and Junior members can still join signature campaigns, therefore they will keep publishing shitty posts. The spamming endemic will only ended if Theymos launch new rules which completely prohibit newbies and Junior members to wear signature codes and don't allow them to join signature campaigns. Only Member and above can join. If this one be implemented, spamming will come to the end soon.

If you disagree with the merit system, so what's next? My suggestion is you should leave the forum if you can accept and live with merit system. And Meta board is one of the most interesting place in the bitcointalk forum, but now it looks like a open-landfill for shitty-poster, merit beggars come to cry, to complaign, to wait hopelessly getting merit from generous users by crying, and complaining.
Such annoying users don't deserve any merits!

As Jet Cash suggested, you have to accept and live with merit system. If not, as I suggest you should leave the forum and find other ones.

I read your threads repeatedly. Something I do not really understand and hope you can explain a little bit.
1. Does it mean staking rewards will depend on staking weight, which in turn depend upon total number of coins in the wallet?
2. Does required time needed before wallet activated to stake also depends on total number of coins in the wallet?

Thanks for your help in advance.

You too, you should leave the forum because you are merit beggars (50 merits for what a normal topic). Your merit history shows that you likely bought those 50 sMerits for ranking up. However, you seems to  try writing longer and longer threads in your last previous pages (I don't want to evaluate your post quality at all).
Constructive, useful users will certainly rank up with merit system's challenges.

Merit exchanges have occured (and it is not strange due to basic human instinct) regardless of campaigns required merits to get higher payments or not. Simply because lower ranked users need merits to rank up (particularly shit-posters who are unable to write high-quality posts and will never get merits by themselves). Merit exchanges are very popular in local boards (I saw lots of users pointed Russian out as the local board massively abused merit system).
I strongly support ideas of signature campaigns to pay higher rewards for users who meet their merit requirements.

It should be like this. There are abundant Junior members who are mostly post shit. Their post histories are completely shit-show (sorry but I can find other words to express my ideas). Newbies only need to wait 6 weeks to become Junior members, and two Junior members equal to one Member in the signature campaign you shown (of course, if the campaign allows them to join). As you can see, it is much harder to get 10 merits and rank up to Member compared to create two new acounts and rank them up to Junior member. I hope that in the future, merit system will stuck them forever, and new rules of the forum will prohibit Junior members to join signature campaigns.

Congratulations, hugeblack! I hope that I can take your case as my big motivation. I have actually got 18 merits, and still fallen far away from the target of 100 merits, at which I can rank up to Full Member. As you demonstrated, constructive users can obviously rank up with merit system. It is possible challenge. I like the challenge because it also gives me motivations to learn more and to help others. Before the merit system, I don't think I should learn several aspects of the forum as after launch of merit system.

Eventually, merit system will control all spammers in the forum, keep them stucked at their current ranks, makes them dissapointed and might leave the forum forever. At earlier stages after launch of merit system, they complained, cried a lot, but over time they have to accept the fact and have to adapt to survive in the forum, to rank up or have to leave the forum.
That is magic impacts of merit system.

Users will evaluate quality of other users' posts. I don't think Theymos can create a system which can automatically verify post quality. It is likely impossible tasks.

English is global language, and this is common language in the forum too. The most important boards in the forum only allow English and users should sharpen their English skills to contribute to the forum through their English-proficient posts.

Such low-quality, non-sense, spamming topics will be locked and deleted soon by moderators. Don't worry.

It's good if newbies can join signature campaigns in the forum after merit system launched about 2 months ago. However, I think that newbies should focus on learning, getting knowledge first before thinking about doing anything else in the forum. This should be their first priority when joining the forum, which is useful and can help them a lot, help them free.
Furthermore, newbies should post constructive threads when joining signature campaign, should avoid as much as possible spamming threads. The reason is spamming will make their post history looks badly, ugly, then they will probably never get merits in the future. No one want to send their sMerits to a users, who always spam the forum since his/her beginning day in the forum.

For someone who don't know how to use search function in the forum. This one can help you to get what you want. Please follow these steps, then you can use search fucntion more efficiently. It will help you to save your time, and find what you want.
Additionally, searching before posting is very important to avoid spamming, unintentionally plagiarising (which seriously violate forum rules that result in bans).
Tips - Guide for forum search (coly20032003).

Agree. It is not easy to earn merits, but not extremely difficult, not impossible. Users can get it if they really contribute to the forum, contribute day by day, contributing continuously. I believe that merits will come to such a constructive users.

Sometimes users will get merits for their high quality threads, sometimes they won't get them. One of the reason is users (especically higher-ranked users) don't have too much time to scan around the forum to find high-quality threads, then evaluate them and send them merits. Another reason is high-quality threads covered by hundreds of shitty-posts. Nevertheless, merit system will solve the problem over time. Let's wait and see.
There are many posts with proper title and content that need to be merited but they are not getting any single merit.
No, it's hard to release such a official rule like you proposed. The problem is verifying/ evaluating quality of each thread is an impulsive tasks. Someone can feel that the thread is useful, helpful for them because it helps them to solve their problems; someone else can feel the thread is non-sense because it is not highly related to their issues.