Your quote don't refer to the post of the Merit Contest only to the post in this thread. Where is it from?
It can be found in this post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5110093.0Essentially, the Stake.com signature campaign is running this contest, and markstivn98 has therefore linked his own post in here to try to gain merits to win the contest. Whether that breaks the rule of "Absolutely no asking for merits" as stated in the contest announcement is obviously up to the Stake.com team.
Hahahahahaha
Sounds like it fits th definition of "asking" to me, but you are correct o_e_l_e_o... that is for the contest administrators to determine.
Reminds me of Bill Clinton's famous responses under testimony:
"Depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."