1 - Newbie starts a topic - copy/paste content from bitcoin-related article + link (so no plagiarism), no own thoughts nor any other contribution. Is it treated as spam and should it be reported to mods, or is it allowed and we should just ignore it?
2 - Would you reward a Newbie with his 1st merit point, if you see a decent post of his and/or engagement in discussion, but his posting history is, in vast majority, bounty-campaign proof posts? Do you consider such people as spammers, or you just ignore campaign-report posts? After all, they don't pollute the forum and are contained in dedicated threads.
1. Yes, we can`t consider such posts plagiarism, since the source of information is indicated. But basically such posts don`t bring any benefit to the forum, as they don`t show the level of the author's awareness of this or that problem. If the author of the comment doesn`t share his conclusions and reasonings based on the analysis of this or that news, then such a post is useless, since other forum participants can always get acquainted with the material from the primary sources. It is necessary not just to share information (the relevance of which, moreover, often remains in question), but to create a problematic field for discussion and argumentation.
2. I believe that a person should be given a merit for a worthy post, not relying at the same time on his post history. Yes, mostly newbies write bounty related posts, but if a person tried and wrote something interesting and useful, why not give him a merit specifically for this post? After all, merits are given for certain posts, and not for post history as a whole. If we all paid attention to the post history, before giving merits to newbies, the latter would hardly ever have received them.