I honestly have no idea how I ended up with so much merit I was just posting away

and I never even knew about merit untl one day some guy msgd me asking me to send him some LOL. So I was like sure why not!? But now I want to earn some more because I realize I can't rank up without it gotta get some MERIT, and LOL @ smerits (funny name)
hahaha that's a funny story. I think that's very nice to hear. That should be the purpose of this forum in my opinion. I've been exploring around all the different threads, and I can understand now how some posts get awarded merits, sometimes even a large number of merits. There are people who make very useful posts for users of this forum, or even sharing extremely useful thoughts or tips on topics outside of this forum too. Such acts show me that there is still hope in humanity haha. It is very heartening to see how genuine some people are when it comes to helping others with the problems/worries that they share on this forum. Even if some people do it merely for the merits on their accounts, overall it is still a positive thing I believe, since this system helps to encourage quality inputs and this snowballs to benefit the entire community on this forum. I like your style that you just contribute willingly without the agenda to be awarded merits, keep it up mate! U have my support!