I'm going to attempt to respond to the immediately below post, and also I have attached a post of yours from another thread, which is related.

Quote from: wiser on March 20, 2018, 11:33:08 PM

I'm generally happy with systems that help make this forum a better place by limiting spam posting, scamming, etc. I've been around for a while so am not in a position to have to earn my way up by collecting merits.

I am a bit concerned about the limited ways there are to get s-merits. It seems the merit sources and the folks who collect a lot of merit points would be the merit whales on this forum, and that over time, people wanting to rank up will post with those whales in mind, rather than simply focusing on quality.

Yes... limited ways is to either receive from another member or to be designated as a merit source. You may be correct that the merit system and the posting on the thread could devolve into a kind of "sucking up" to the sources, and maybe that is partially by design rather than a fluke. Of course, theymos owns the forum so he could tweak the system to the extent that he believes it is needed, but we also know that members who are receiving merits are also going to be generating .5 smerits to go out to others. So if you do the math for the halfening of the smerits that originate with the designated merit sources, then 100 smerits becomes nearly 200 smerits by the time you continue to half it down to nothing.. even though the original 100 smerits started with the sources.

Quote from: wiser on March 20, 2018, 11:33:08 PM

Also, there is a certain aspect of this that depends on your ability to promote yourself, not just write quality posts.

Sure, that might become irritating, because some folks might be seeking merits directly but others are more subtle about it, and in any event some of the forum dynamics change.. .. and you are not really limited in your posts in any kind of meaningful way because it is likely true that some folks are going to merit you for taking an opposing position... as long as you back it up or say it with creativity and/or humor.. and bring some value... so perhaps the benefits of improving post quality will outweigh some of the disadvantages.. and might take months to figure out some of the dynamics and tweak and perhaps years to figure out if the system is causing malignments of incentives.

Quote from: wiser on March 20, 2018, 11:33:08 PM

I don't know if there is a way to kind of equalize that.

The merit system was introduced to address a forum spamming, troll and shit posting problem, so maybe if the new system helps with its targeted objective(s) then some of the other side effects might be considered less important? perhaps?

Quote from: wiser on March 20, 2018, 11:33:08 PM

I think it's great to reward high quality posts, but the ability to write those posts and promote them so that the right forum members may notice them are two different skill sets.

There might be a bit of a puzzle there to figure out which threads have more generous merit givers, but if you are participating in threads that you find interesting and you contribute interesting ideas, then wouldn't logic follow that you are more likely to receive merits because you are truly enjoying what you read and what you post?

From the other thread:

Quote from: wiser on March 20, 2018, 11:04:28 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on March 20, 2018, 08:54:12 PM

Quote from: wiser on March 20, 2018, 08:35:05 PM

I was wondering if/when spendable merit got replenished. I have spent some of mine but haven't noticed any more added. Is there a good thread that explains the whole merit system? I tried to search for it, but didn't turn up anything--this thread was the closest.

There are a lot of merit threads, but this one is where theymos introduced merits, and I suppose is the main starting point merit thread.

Regarding replenishing of spendable merits, the basic answer is that you only get more spendable merits by receiving merits from other members (at a rate of half a smerit for every merit received from another member) - unless you happen to have been designated as a merit source. So far, theymos has only designated 80 merit sources, and you can see that here.

Theymos did state a plan to increase members who are designated as merit sources, such as 100s of merit source designees in the future, yet it remains unclear what kind of specific merit source target number he has in mind or the exact timeline for such, but I would think likely under 1,000 merit source designees in the coming year or so based on what he has already stated on the topic, but that is largely inferential speculation on my part.

OK, so what I'm hearing is that for now at least, once you spend the smerit, it's gone forever.

Maybe theymos will change this in the future, but for now, it seems that there is going to be no replenishing of smerits except for designated merit sources. Of course, theymos could do an airdrop or very vastly expand the number of merit sources, but I doubt that he is going to take any revolutionary steps until some time passes to see how some of the merit system is playing out with his already designated merit sources and how they are distributing merits and also with spending the initial distribution of merits.

Quote from: wiser on March 20, 2018, 11:04:28 PM

I'm not expecting to get much in the way of merit from others mainly because the people I mostly interact with here were all here before the merit system got implemented and we're just not used to it yet. You know what they say about old dogs and new tricks...

Yep.. dynamics are going to change, yet many of the old dogs are still going to have an initial distribution of merits that they can give out. And, yep dynamics are changing, so ranking up is not going to be the same, but lucky for you and for some of the others (legendary) we have already ranked up to legendary... but it is also possible that a new rank could be created (a bit of further speculation coming out of my brain and also based on discussions in other threads/posts that I had seen).

Quote from: wiser on March 20, 2018, 11:04:28 PM

I'll enjoy giving it out, and then when it's gone I won't worry about it too much.

Thanks for the link to the original merit thread. I'll take a peek there too.

Perhaps you can budget some of your smerits, and if you remain active in the forum you are likely to earn more smerits as time passes.