I love these statistical analyses. Unfortunately my schooldays were over 60 years ago, and the mathematical basis for such calculations was far simpler. These reports do allow me to appreciate the tools available now that computers are ubiquitous. I have also built up quite a nice library of related ebooks from the free offers at PackT publishing.

To return to the merit awarding topic. I've been fortunate enough to have had a few hundred sMerit to award, and I have tried to do this in a fashion that I believe will have the greatest benefit to the community. This has meant that almost all of my awards were of single merits, with a few doubles for those posts that I considered special. In some ways, I have been quite envious of awarders who are able to rewards posters with 5, 10, or 20 or more merits for a single post. I am aware that the first merit for a new member can be very motivational, and I have tried to encourage many of the newer members in this way. A single merit to a hero or a legendary is far less motivational, but it does show that his posting is appreciated by the community.

One other factor that I consider is that every merit awarded has the potential to create almost another merit in the forum. This means that an award of 10 merits to allow an alt to rank up to member status, creates virtually another 10 merits to be used in that sub-section of the forum. Would it be possible to see how many awards of 10 merits have been given to people with a current status of 'member', and which of the larger merit awarders are making awards that are predominantly single merits.

I use the word 'merit' to include both source merits and spendable merits.