I must say I'm a bit divided here. The idea looks great, but by having just a few merit sources doesn't it make the system a little centralized?

The "campaign spamming", and bad post quality is a problem, and this system should give everyone a chance to objectively quantify their opinion, in order to express if what they read in this forum is good or bad. The problem here, from my point of view, is that an opinion is of course always subjective, and if we restrict the merit sources to much, then we will have a system that may, or may not be, aligned with what the majority of users think or like.

Right now, I think that the ability to give Merit will somehow act as our voice in this forum, that should be used to judge content, and this is a good thing, but the problem is that we might "run out of voice" as we use it, unless we are a merit source.

I know there are two key factors to minimize this "centralization" problem.
-  We all start with sMerit that we can spend, and half of those sMerit points can be used by someone else.
-  We can apply for a "position" as a Merit Source, by gathering 10 posts for evaluation.

The problems here in my opinion are:
- The initial sMeirt should end soon enough if we don't manage to become a merit source (and we can no longer judge content).
- If we apply for a "position" as a merit source and we don't get one, our problem of eventually not being able to judge content in the forum will persist.

Right now I see three possible "solutions" for these problems.
- Everyone could decide who gets to be a merit source. "Applicants" would still gather at least 10 posts for evaluation, and the users could vote for them. Those with more votes would become a merit source. This is far from being ideal, but it is still less "centralized".
- Users would be given a small amount of sMerit, based on their activity (still not ideal, because Merit would be less valuable this way)
- There could be a new type of sMerit that users could purchase, and then use to evaluate content.

I think the third option is better and I will explain why. We all buy books, newspapers, movies, music, etc.
We buy these things because we like it's content, and by buying them, we are expressing just that. So I see no problem in buying sMerit, and then using it to express my support for some of the posts I read, because I liked them. Money is used to express value, so this is exactly what would be happening with this option.


To end this post, I will repeat that I like what this system provides (the ability to judge content), but I think the ability to give Merit should be as open as possible (without trivialization of course). Maybe I will never run out of sMerit, and what I think it could be a problem will never become one, but right now these are the concerns I have about this system.