Good thing you have tried to engage to this forum if you are really that interested in cryptocurrencies. To answer your questions, Merits are being sent by other people in this forum if they would like your reply, or the topic you have created, it is more of an interaction between users in this forum, like compliments perhaps, if you did something good. The best thing to do in order to improve the quality of your topic is to be on point and also, to provide credible data to your claim for example or opinion in order for other people to agree with the subject matter. Merit is a bit hard to earn, some users are not participating in a way that they are not sending merits, but we cannot blame them for doing so because that is their decision whether to give or not. If you won't be merited, do not be upset, just continue to inteact within this forum, because there are people here who are 'active' in giving merit to other users. Just enjoy the experience as you learn new things, and other things would follow.