Here is my concrete suggestion for merit thresholds, with proposed changes set in bold. Discussion of my reasoning follows.
| ___Rank___ | Threshold |
| Newbie | 0 |
| Jr. Member | 10 |
| Member | 30 |
| Full Member | 100 |
| Sr. Member | 250 |
| Hero Member | 10001500 |
| Legendary | 30005000 |
I have about 230 posts currently and let me tell you that achieving 10 merits by far the hardest thing to achieve with all the help in the mining forums I try and do, believe you me.
Like trying to get blood out of a stone.
But I agree on the top end of the rankings as there seems to be a psychological notion to give more merit to people on their rankings than their actual posts.
Not bitter in anyway as I approve of the system but just an observation that is very noticeable.
I will concede that it could take longer for a newbie or a jr member to garner attention from other members in order to receive merit, but you should also consider some critical self-reflection, as well.
Look at your post history. You have a lot of one liners and participation in bounty threads, and this seems to be true of your post history both before and after the implementation of the merit system. Quantity of one liner posts does not necessarily equal substantive contribution that motivates other members to want to send merit to you because they are inspired or humored by you in some kind of feeling way... They need to get merit sending inspiration from the content of your posts.
Anyhow, if you are currently having trouble getting 10 merits, and you cannot seem to figure out what you are doing wrong, then you are likely going to have even more difficulties learning how to reach the next couple of merit thresholds of 100 and 250 merits. Of course, if there is some kind of luck that this merit system changes to make earning merits easier for you, then you may benefit from that in order to rank up, but I would not bank on that kind of change happening any time soon.