How do I get some merits? And what is the advantage of a bitcointalk community member being merited?
It is a fact that you should accept your failure to rank if you do not invest in comments and content.
To get the merit, you need to post really good articles, as far as I know, there are some people who do such as theyoungmillionaire, he farmed more than 500 merit in a few months by reporting spam, contributing for community.
English is important, you have to understand what the topic is talking about and you have knowledge of the subject to comment, do not think that any comment will be merit.
There is another way I find it easy to make merit, that is to Meta box and report the spam, plagiarism or report the bounty scam ...
Hope these can help you.