Friends/Collegues may give each other points for undefined reason.
Campaign announcements may gain merits by the campaign team itself.
It is ok for me, if the merit system may also be used this way. But it would be great, if the merits guidlines would be adjusted to clear that out. Maybe others also want to give their friends merits as present or just for fun.
The way this, needless mistake instead of an actual solution, works is as follows:
Non merit sources are like non DT members. While not preferred, you can leave *almost any* kind of rating to anyone. The same goes for sending sMerit[1].
Merit sources are like DT members. They should pay attention to how they are distributing their points. E.g., obviously someone would be a bad merit source if he/she split his/her supply on the (same) few people each month.
Therefore, as a non source, I'm allowed to send the sMerit to whomever I want, whenever I want, in whatever amount I want.
[1] Just like in the trust system, sending sMerit to your alts will land you into trouble. The only difference here is that selling is not explicitly allowed (selling trust was not explicitly disallowed AFAIK, it was a community *rule*).
Ah ok, thanks for explanation. We are free in sending sMerits for legit reason.
I was only focused on Merits for high quality posts. That makes now for me more sense. So we could it indeed compare with likes.