i was monitoring or studying the merit levels, i discovered it was not directly increasing according to the number of post,i really wished to know how the merit is awarded and the advantage.
if you want to learn anything about the forum related activity you need to always check in the meta section board.
Always keep concentrate on your post quality while your briefing and explaining your thoughts to others. You may consider this merit is like on Facebook. So do your creative explanation while you are in forum.