Merits now is obviously the new policy and rules in terms of ranking your account in the forum, where it is a hindrance for the newbie nowadays for them to rank up their account easily. Unlike before it is more on base in the post activity but now there is merit for you to level up your position here. Though the point of merit system was for us to make post seriously at make a quality post according to them. But it is still useless in my opinion, the shit post can become quality post and quality post can become useless at all.