Good analysis. I believe the merit system is still too young and it will be needed some time to all users to get used to it. Now, everyday I read publications abput how to get merit (mostly made by newbies), but I understand even in the higher ranks now it is really difficult to rank out, for example from hero to legendary.
It's for sure still too young and I think most users are having a hard time ranking up no matter what rank are they currently in.
It is time to create a kind of Merit-contest?? We can pick a topic and let the people talk about it, and see what happens...
Those kinds of contests are already taking place.. Like here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2957836.0There are also people giving away merits to other members who refer them to an under-merited post of theirs.
As long as you have the sMerits to give away you can create one yourself!
The admins are letting people create merit contests/giveaways but first you'd need the merits to do so, leading us to the heart of the problem which is: There isn't enough merits!
Since new participants cannot able to analyze the quality post. High rank members have the knowledge to understand which one is quality post. If meriting option goes to less rank members it will become another spam here.
I never said that I wanted new members to be in charge of giving away merits..
Now Hilariousandco starting washing out the merit sellers and exchangers. You may find many people have bee tagged in this, Hope he will take this as a huge list.
Banning merit Sellers and exchangers would be of great help to us! As more merits will be available to legitimate users.