(1). "Stop searching for merit and you will get them i.e stop commenting or posting just to get merits." so I stop and to my surprise I got merited for the first time in this forum and the funny part is, it was not even my best comment (in which i was using to search for the merits).
To my knowledge, this is the best thing the guy said to you. It's like - when we try to do too much for a thing, we sometimes do the karma wrongly and in hurries and worries, you won't be able to conquer over your fears and won't win anything. Keep calm, keep posting quality content, stop thinking about merits and you'll probably get one on any of them by an understanding member any time.
Not going personal, but to what I think, the Sr. Member must be DdmrDdmr.
(2). I should see Smerit as liabilities to myself and an Asset to others and give them away to deserving users immediately I get them. I did that few days ago and i just notice that merit i sent save another user from being demoted.
All I'm saying is, instead of commenting/posting to get merits do those act to add value to other. Hopping this post inspire someone to do the right thing.
Edited: Take this post as an example, it was written to advice others and now it is getting the merits I never had.
No doubt this proved to be an inspiration for everyone out there (including me) and I confess I used to be lazy enough to check any meritable posts out here, but now I promise to be very firm on this to save any user that deserves to remain a part of the forum as well as achieve something that we've already achieved because if we can't use our talent (here: merits), it's useless.
Quoting a post from a different user here for everyone to know more on what they actually receive and make them aware of their liability as well:
Hi guys, new here. After reading thru all the necessary threads for newbies, it is still unclear as to who can award merits. Is it only after u reach a certain rank? or is it only specific people are allowed?
A quick summary to answer your question:
1. Users with a rank of Member or above before the 24th of January 2018 received an initial and onetime only airdrop of smerit (spendable merit).
The amount received in terms of global forum aggregate was around 600k as theymos disclosed.
The quantity the above users received in the airdrop is based on the following formula also disclosed by theymos:
yearActivity = activity in the last ~year, max 378
freeMerit = the merit (not sMerit) you started with
modifier =
0.1 if member
0.2 if full member
0.25 if sr member
0.35 if hero
0.4 if legendary
return (yearActivity/378) * modifier * freeMerit
So if you were a member you would have received during the initial airdrop 1 smerit at most, a full member would receive 20 at most and so on.
2. There are also 80 users that act as official merit sources and may award up to 18500 smerits per month between them. These sources are not public and do it voluntarily, being users of a certain status and degree of respect. Their monthly smerit does renew each month (with certain rules) and constitutes the only renewing smerit in the system.
3.Every time any user receives merit, he gets half that amount of smerits to send to others at his discretion. Halves are not allowed, so the basic idea is that for every cumulative of 2 that you receive you get 1 smerit to send. Sent smerit is not renewed (do not confuse smerit with merit; your merit counter never decreases).
Theses are the basis to merit generation. The ethical side to sending merit vouches for you to send them to posts that you find are contributive to the forum (helping others, knowledgeable, good point of view even if you don’t agree, etc.). Merit abuse may be pursued (I.e. Ill use of smerit, which is a whole other another chapter).
Merit: this counter never decreases and is increased with every smerit you receive.
SMerit: this counter increases with every 2 cumulative smerits you receive (you get half) and decreases every time you send smerit to a post.
