This might not be fair for new people, I don't know if others will ever consider to give merit to newbies. Guess I had to been registered here like 1year back to get some kind of "good" positions. Juniors and newbies are often treated poorly.
It's perfectly fair to new people. It just means that in order for you to rank up or earn Merit, you have to write high-quality posts, rather than just spam a bunch of worthless stuff. You're not being treated poorly; everyone has to write high-quality posts. The only difference is that higher ranks start with more Merit as a baseline, which doesn't provide them any kind of advantage over you.