People who have merits are the only ones who can give you some. For every merits that they have they receive half of it. Example: I was given 20 merits by different people, therefore I have 10 sMerits by now. sMerits means they are the merits that you can give to other users that posts are quite helpful. For every merits that they give you, you receive half of it. (1 sent merit to you = 0.5sMerit for you). But there's no easy way of getting it. You should always be active in the forum and have some useful posts. You should not worry about getting merits for now and just be consistent being active and posting.
Thanks! I'm pretty clear about merits and smerits now. May I ask, u mentioned u received 20 merits, but why does your account show only 10 merits? This is still confusing to me. Is there a delay when u are issued merits for it to be displayed on your profile?
I figure, Natural Perm was giving an illustration of how the system works. This is not their actual situation. In short, you receive 4 merits for a post, and they will be displayed for everyone to see. Plus you get 2 spendable merits which YOU can use to credit to other posts you deem useful. Smerits are not displayed under your profile picture next to your posts.