People seen to be using the merit function as a 'thanks' button instead of for posts that are actually meritous (not sure if that's a word but you get what I mean). I think merits hold more value than essentially a facebook 'like' and shouldn't be given as liberally or just as a 'thanks' or +1 and of course bounty hunters are going to want to give thanks for yet another bounty the can bleed dry, but it's unnecessary. Give the merits to somebody who deserves them and will benefit from them as I'm sure there are plenty of users who's posts are going unmerited around the forum.
I didn't answer your first post because as much truth as it contains, it is kind of a pessimist vision and it isn't helping much. It even kind of crush my motivation !
- The "thanks merit" could be solve easily if we exclude bounty and announcement board from the merit system. There will always be a few "thanks merit" between people helping each other, but helping each other seems positive to me, and so, merited. Just not related to marketing, ICO, or worth scam. Again, merit and marketing don't fit together. It's a payed job and it doesn't need merit on top of it.
- The "like merit" is much more difficult to solve because it's all about merit's sources objectivity. They must try to reward every interesting post, no matter if they agree or not. I believe they should also reward every noobs who has spent a couple of hours to write a post, even if it feels forced, because there is an actual merit in the action of trying. And otherwise, they will never try again.
Anyway, we come back discussing the merit system while we should find some solution to improve the quality of the forum. No one will waste all his time cleaning the toilets for free, but maybe if we all spend a little time, that would do the trick.