also you need merit points that can be earned by helping others or creating interesting topics.
That's how it should work but in reality it doesn't... at least for now while the merit-system is relatively new.
[...]
I don't really care about merit but writing those guides was time-consuming and the return was 1 merit... Whatever... Hopefully there were still some people reading it at least.
i gave you a merit on one of your guides.
yeah it can be a drag when you put time and effort into a guide or post on a very specific subject that may not attract a large number of readers, and thus get overlooked by readers that have merits to send. but as merit sources that tend to hang in particular forums are added hopefully this should even out over time as smerits are spread out to people in those sections of the forum.
then again hopefully people dont just try to write only "merit worthy" posts and then eagerly await for merits roll in. not every great post will receive merit.
as of this point ive seen lots of posts i think are worthy of merits that have not had any. for me "merit worthy" is a constantly evolving target: kinda depends on how helpful to my particular interests it was, how many smerits i have at the time, my mood, rank of the poster, how much effort i think the poster made, phase of the moon, etc. standards vary wildly, so trying to constantly write to a particular standard hoping to get merits is gonna be a rough ride.