[...] merit points that can be earned by helping others or creating interesting topics.
It's a lie. To earn merit points you have to do anything, that merit sources likes. As we know, usual users (especially newbies) are not merit sources, so, doing anything which helping them is absolutely pointless.
Are you saying that merit sources would only send merits for something that directly affects them? Doesn't make any sense.
My impression is that most of high rank users don't check frequently the altcoins sections nor local boards. [...]
But most of new users likes these sections and they don't need anything else on this forum. As i mentioned earlier, merit system is unfair to new users and stupid.
If these users don't need anything else and just want to hang out in the alt sections they can still do that without merits. Nobody is getting banned for not having merits.
But I have a feeling that they do need something else... am I right?