Average statistics are not enough, not exact to describe non-normal distributed variables.
Hence, if zentdex can share dataset which he used for the OP analysis, someone in the forum can use and help to make supplemental analysis.

Only real new members (who are eagerly to learn) will be motivated by merit system. Account farmers hate it certainly ^^

Of course, merit system can not entirely changed the forum by itself. The system need cooperation of the forum members, campaign managers. As you saw, there are lots of topics on merit abusers and several campaigns ask merits to join.

Please remember that the Meta board is not the place for spamming with such boring thread like your latest one.
Please read more, compose better English-written threads, posting them at the right places.

The system is not a perfect fairly system, but it is fair enough for the forum users.
In addition, it is a really fair system for all newcomers after the launch of merit system in January of 2018. All newcomers since that point have the same starting point, have the same odds to earn merits; and only really deserved users can rank up due to merit system effects.

I don't see any reason to write such non-sense thread. This is basic stuff that everyone in the crypto ecosystem already know. It is really hard to find informative, high-quality threads to read due to abundant non-sense threads like yours.
Please don't do this next time, m8.

Adaptive efforts from one of merit beggars in the forum. It is one of evidence that spammers have adapted to new rules of the forum after merit system launched. New types of spamming method, which intentionally to write longer and longer threads.

Yeah, over threads and discussions I read, I guess the forum is only designed for Bitcoin discussions by Theymos and Sirius. Then those two left, and Theymos took it over. During several years, the forum add more boards/child boards for Altcoins. This change made the project now dominant by Altcoins related to his and threads.
So we should limit Altcoins boards somehow and give the forum a chance to backs to its original version.

Less coins released each block due to constantly decreased inflation will help the price of Diamond coin. It is normal, basic principle and amazing correlation between block rewards and price.
Another plus point is more and more potential internal projects have been developed by Diamond developers recently. We will see their official products in the near future.

Yeah, should not publicly list of merit sources because it can lead to annoying abusements from merit beggars. Nevertheless, over time smart users will know who are merit sources (Theymos also stated that in the topic about merit system).

Over time, merit leeches will end some day. Why is that? For each merit exchanging round, sMerits will decrease half, then after several times exchanging merits, those merit abusers will lose all of their sMerits.
After that, if they are not able to contribute to the forum, they will stuck at that point of merit-count. Might be forever.

They are not leaving (I guess), they are trying to cheat the merit system. Small part of them are trying to adapt by improving themselves to be better, more constructive. I think those users who changed this way are good for the forum, though they were spammers, shit-posters in the past. However, if they can change to be constructive users, it's good; then we can call them as ex-shit-posters, lol.

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.