[/quote]Any given forum has to be one language, else it's chaos.  The language here is English and that's not a knock against anyone who doesn't speak it.  But it stands to reason that if one cannot  use the language properly, one will not make good posts and hence will struggle with the merits.  Users on the local boards don't necessarily have to rely on merit source members.  Any high ranked member should have sufficient sMerit to spread around.
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Appreciate you reminding me, as I was more thinking of the initial outlay of sMerits we received based on current rank.  Once that supply mostly drys up, or is  at least halved, then I believe we will see a serious stagnation of ranking increases.  Even with receiving the occasional sMerit, this is just an estimate, I'm fairly certain I won't see my next forum rank for about three years.  I'm uncertain if that is the intended result.

Stephen King, a favorite author personally, sells books by weight it seems to me often, and I think he might be merit challenged the way things stand now.