I decided to give my merits to persons of lower ranks, from newbie to senior member. I think it's not fair to give merits to high ranked users. I do not say that they do not deserve to, but what for they need it? But low ranked members really need it to raise. Unfortunately, posts I like and found informative and interesting in the most of cases belong exactly to high ranked members. This guy is pretty good, but the case of plagiarism made me to change my opinion about him.
That is narrow thinking.
What about top merited posts and top merited topics ? If posts are merited based on low member ranks so they can rank up then the good posts will never make the lists of "worthwhile reading". I check the list for several reasons - to look for good reading material and to look for merit abusers (who are often scammers or spammers).
Senior members that "don't need" merits to rank up re-distribute merits from the sMerits that come with the merits. Their merit lists are often good sources of worthwhile reading.
Then you get the smart members on her like Loyce, Piggy, Ddmrddmr, vod etc that use that data to create various tools that analyse trends and suggest improvements.
Full merit transaction history for any user - now with GRAPHS! - LoyceVOur very own sMerit Network Picture - enhanced with access to all sMerit TXs - ddmrddmrSwiss army knife Tool to query Merit data online - Full History -piggy Most recognised on Bitcointalk - VodMerits are for good posts and members that make good posts - regardless of rank. Ranking up is only a bonus for those that deserve it. There are plenty of merits floating about to end up with junior members that actually deserve them.