Besides that, merited posts that later get deleted are a bit of a drag in various ways. Statistically, 6,72% of total overall awarded sMerit is assigned to what is now a deleted post (steeper the first few months than the latter). That is a fair share of traceability that disappears to some extent, and that Id rather not happen either.
That's the central problem. They can just create a thread (plagiarized) and, after receiving the merit, erase the thread and continue with their personal spamming preferences (like in the example I shared).
And vice versa. I have seen posts in the past few weeks on local board suggesting that the local board members should 'help' each other by giving merits as we are all 'brothers' instead of giving them to 'strangers.' Then they post a translation (from English to their mother language) of an article/guide (Google Translate evidently) and actually manage to get a merit or two. There are others who put some effort in the translation, which is welcome to help those whose English is weak.
Yes, I guess the people are doing anything to get their very first merit and be able to continue "working" in here. The example I've shared is more or less, in a resume, a Spanish-native sending PM's to other Spaniards with the goal of earning a merit by a plagiarized post, a post that, obviously, he erased after receiving his merit.
The sad part, from my perspective, is that we are seeing how any single tool is being used to continue spamming, from the erasing tool to the PM one. The worst part: thee are getting what they want, I've seen a lot of 1 merited-forever-juniors incoming, and, I bet, mostly all of them are going to continue with their spam activities.
Maybe there is some stats or something to look into and see how right I am, maybe I'm wrong (and I would be very happy if that happens, by the way).