It's quite appalling that people engage in buying and selling of Forum Merit. This practice kills the essence of Merits on the forum and should be frowned at.
Post and comments should really be monitored and members going through this illegal means just to rank up should be banned from the Forum. There's literally no point using Merits to rank members on the forum if it can be bought with just a few bucks
Well said, but there is always something different if you earn merits by your own, having some good post? Informative? or a reply that is very related to the topic? I don't about my merits actually but I care about my replies or topic being made, being deleted cause out of the topic? or a spam?
The "Merit Selling/Buying" is not a good thing to do if you really wanted to rank up, ranking up would take your time and efforts reading and creating a good replies.
Most users want to get rank up so fast probably because they want to be getting higher rewards from their bounty activities, which is why they go in length to buy merits from other users and not interested in gathering knowledge. Of course, the forum is built for gaining knowledge and your freedom and not just money.
Bounty campaigns should have at least a requirement of Earned 5 Merits on the last 120 Days? Like the signature campaigns of @Hhampuz the applicants of the campaign surely contributes good replies very well here on the forum.
