As I am
the one who recieves merits from
xandry, I'll try to clarify some points.
For a start - let him speak for himself (since he answered in
a thread in Russian section devoted to similar question):
[...] Indeed, when merit system appeared, I got the opportunity to encourage users for help in moderation, which was frankly lacking. (Note: In Russian section.) At first I tried to apply it to "service" threads (about bans, ranks, forum rules, etc.), but sometimes I haven't got enough time to watch if something useful in these topics appeared, so when I click on a link in report and notice that person not only sent a report, but also, for example, explained to author of violating post what they did wrong (thereby I don't need to explain it myself), I endeavor to gratitude them in a merit form. By the way, it turned out, that "violators" often take such user warnings into consideration and move their topics to the correct sections or delete their posts.
Regarding the possibility of obtaining merits this way. Here're some situations when I don't give them:
1. You were wrong and I do not see any violations.
2. You wrote a message with an explanation, but I trivially did not read it.
3. You didn't reach even a Jr. Member rank "naturally".
3. You collected too much merit in the last 30 days, try again later. This is not my personal limitation - it's set by the forum.
Therefore, we have some kind of game of chances here.
That is to say:
1. He doesn't give merits for reports themselves. Currently you can receive merits only if you report some violation and simultaneously leave a message for the author of violating post/topic explaining what was wrong and how to avoid alike situations in future. These messages receive merits
since they're considered as helpful enough. Next the topic/post is deleted, so you can see that "Deleted/Off-limits/Ignored" thing on the stats page.
2. He doesn't give merits for every report. See the clarification about chances above.
3. Also trust me you don't need to create alts and post nonsense in order to report something and obtain merits in Russian-section: we've got enough "actual" violators there. In fact in some subsections (like
Newcomers or
Bitcoin news) dozens of new topics are being created daily, and every second topic breakes the rules. People just don't care about reading them - all they think about is their neverending bounty-reports.
I hope this would help to make the situation a little bit clearer.
In addition: For some of us the so-called "help in moderation" isn't limited to "what's-wrong-explanations". For instance, my reports mostly aren't followed by any messages and don't imply any rewards (you can look at my history
here). The same applies to replies in "service"-topics mentioned by
xandry.
