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Instead, I'd make the opposite argument, which is that those who were previously making terrible posts are at least making an effort to improve and enhance their knowledge and understanding because of merit. If they don't, merit prevents them from ranking up. And those who have no intention of improving are understandably upset. That's the reason merit is working.
Agree. Merit system has shown greater impacts on lower-ranked users because they have to stop spamming with one-word, one-line posts or even long plagiarised/ shitty posts in order to catch merit points. They have to improve their posts quality somehow. Overtime, they will form new good habit, which allow them to write high or at least good quality posts naturally.
Ability to naturally write good quality, constructive threads is important, which help to build up the forum.