Hate to say it, but some of the best discussion happens in the Meta section. There are other sections like mining and other technical sections, but for the most part those are out of my league. That's why most of my sMerits have gone to posts in Meta.
I would absolutely love to jump into Bitcoin Discussion and post there, but I know it's a waste of time. Some of the threads in Economics are really interesting and occasionally I do post there, but that's another section where my post is never going to get read. I have given out merits in Economics, particularly to Hydrogen for sparking some good basic crypto discussions.
I think a lot of noobs think that by posting supportive statements about the merit system in Meta that they're going to earn merits. That usually isn't the case, because most of those posts are just one line garbage, usually written in extremely broken English. Those folks are more likely to end up on a merit source's ignore list than they are to earn any merit. They're wasting their time doing this, but they don't see it that way. They're also wiping their filthy paint brush all over one of the best sections on bitcointalk.
On the other side, large accounts which got good amount of smerit, used merits to give to their own parked accounts. I have proofs but i recommend an internal analysis to take collective action.
Can you post what you have? Also, I'm not sure what you mean by the part that I've bolded. In any case, there have been many instances of members giving merits to their alt accounts. I'd be interested to see any proof you have of any high-ranked, trusted members doing so.
Anyway, merit is a hot topic all over the forum. There are so many bounty hunters here trying to rank up and they have such a hard time earning merits--which is no surprise, but it shouldn't come as a shock that these threads keep popping up. It's even been suggested that there should be a child board devoted to discussing merit. IIRC I supported that and suggested that such a section should be signature-free and in which merit would not be allowed to be given. I think that would shut a lot of shitposters up, but only if they bothered to learn about the restrictions. That's always a crapshoot.
Just see one post above, where i have picked example of legendary member giving merit to his parked amount, that too for a post of 2015
Yeah, we were probably writing our posts at the same time.