But it is pretty much a "like".  The only difference is that giving out merit carries a lot more weight because merits are fairly scarce when you take into account the sheer number of members on the forum.  Plus we all know how valuable merits are. 

I tend to merit posts that I like.  It just so happens that those posts are usually pretty good, even if they're just a gif or a picture.  A picture is worth a thousand words sometimes.  Good posts don't always have to be long, but IMO a post that's well-written and on-topic is one I tend to "like".

I'm hoping Theymos tapped some local board members to be new merit sources, but there's no way of telling as of right now.  There's a thread in Meta that can identify suspected merit sources based on how many merits they've sent, but I think it's too early to figure out.  Having more sources in the non-English sections would alleviate some of the pressure to post in English, which some people are feeling--but then we still have the problem of signature campaigns mostly paying for English posts.  That's something that I think should change.