Definitely Yes jerry! The hoard behind getting the merit points is very brutal. everyone wants merit points for the higher post on the forum & trying to all  the tactics to get the merit points because something is not going right.
I have seen some posts which are getting merit points for the rubbish. May be some posts have some meaning that describe only by the person. But taunting a person for a post may also give you 8 merit points. I am amazed.
And one post got 18 merit points from 5 person for writing nothing.