I think the admins should consider making everyone start on an equal playing field with zero merits and then everybody has to earn them from scratch. It's true that many people probably haven't earned their rank and got lucky just by signing up at the right time but then should Newbies be on the same starting point as someone who has been here for years and made a big contribution? Should theymos -- for example -- have to earn his merits the same way a Newbie will and we discount all his past contributions that he's made previously? I think the "free" merit that was given out was some sort of compromise to take past posts into account even if that means some spammers got through the system. I think it's likely a catch 22 situation and a case of you're damned if you do and damned if you don't because if everyone started on zero merits then all the old timers would complain, but if you give certain ranks merits for free then all the Newbies would complaining that it's not fair. Life isn't fair, but we have to play with the hands -- and merit -- we are dealt.


But you can look at this two ways. On a whole higher ranks are more likely to make better posts, so therefor are more likely to get merited. The quality of posts that come from new users are -- generally speaking -- very low and there's plenty of them so it's obvious higher ranks are going to get more merit, but that doesn't mean new users don't get any. There have been some new users who signed up and got a lot of merit very quickly because they made excellent posts that stood out. The problem is that most new users don't and that's why they're not going to get any -- or much -- merit. I can see why users are annoyed or feel hard done by the merit system but there's probably not much anyone can do other than play with the hand they have been dealt.