Okay, so probably a dumb question. OP was looking for merit, so I'm assuming that you need merit AND activity to rank up instead of just one or the other? I glanced through the FAQs but assumed it was just one or the other instead of both..
You are replying to me or who?
If me, then you should take a look at both as well because I never really pushed myself to get merits, I just let it to come towards me for what I am doing in this forum.
If I wanted more merits I could make some threads which are trending at the moment but that is not my way of doing it so I never wanted to do it for merit sake.