As what others said, create a dedicated thread for merit and members can quote their best post that they think deserve a merit. Ideally, some posts that deserve to be merited is somehow needed to dig since spam posts flooded the threads. Somehow, we can see their effort to construct a post even it seems that they're struggling.
Perhaps this is the right decision.
There are excellent newcomers who write good posts in personal councils, and accordingly they need to be rewarded with merits too. For them it is both motivation and stimulation for receiving merits.
I repeat once again that I am ready to create such a flow and moderate it.