Thanks to the new merit system, i can now strain the kind of information i want to read as a new member of this community. It looks like people are "scared" to post now so it is quite easy to find good posts around and read them. I noticed that my eyes are caught by posts with merits more than those without merits( i don't underestimate posts without merits though. some of them are helpful to me). I hope i am able to learn quickly and earn merits too. I have all the time in the world to be patient.
So far I didn't noticed any changes in content. We need to wait at least few month to see what effect Merit system will bring.
I just noticed that some shitposters started to make more lengthy posts which are still shitposts. And later they are complaining that are still not getting any Merit points.
I don't know why they should be scared to post. There are no risks to post, you just won't get any merits for low quality of posts. But if we would have demerit system, I imagine that many people would be really scared to post. But I don't think that we need to for such system because I believe it may be abused too much.
Yes, when merited posts are highlighted, these posts are getting better visibility and it's one of the main purposes of Merit system.