The merit system is not working, look the merit points of people on the forum, it does not move (even for the more relevant posts), the forum established a system which was suppose to penalize newcomers flooding the forum with useless post, but the forum penalize itself, good luck everybody, If you think people will give you merit points for free you are mistaken.
You aren't right. Look at this stats:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=recentAlmost every minute here in forum is some post rewarded with merit.