I second you on this. I also put that into consideration when it's someone I haven't merited before also I have merited users for following post rules when quality was average for keeping the forum healthy.

@Stedsm, you can try increasing the amount of smerit to the quality posts you merit maybe that'll solve your having much smerit issue. Notice you didn't merit any user  between November -December last year and your first merited user in 2019 got 15merits (and receiver is using it for a good course)  so you're good.