The thing is that for the forum, what matters is the total merit you have (airdropped + earned). This is what matters for our ranks, so there is no reason to put only the earned in there.
This. Breaking down your merits into earned and airdropped only creates more confusion for newbies, and IMO it really doesn't matter all that much. From Jan. 2018 on, no new member is getting any airdropped merits and as the number of members continues to grow, it's going to be a relic of the pre-merit system that fewer people will even understand.
Eh. I guess I just always like looking at my total number of merits and not worrying about how many I actually earned from other members. The 1000 I got as a gift I can always subtract in my head if I need to--but I don't ever feel the need to. Legendster, you're thinking about this too much. Lol.