To earn merit one really needs:
1. Fairly recognition (you will need to have a fair known face).
This sounds really unfair against the purpose of why we have merit system.
3. and lastly of course your contents.
I agree only here. Merits has been misused in my eyes.
I believe for a user who is making 20 posts a week earning 5 merits from 300 posts is not a difficult and that earning atleast 5 merits in the last 120 days is a reasonable measure to identify a user as not being a shitposter.
But people are sharing here like merits are being rewarded even for face value. Hence, you cannot measure on merits to identify a shitposter.