Best and accurate sentence so far. +1, which left me with a solo merit to keep the +merit box open!
I will not say that 100% of merit sources or other members are doing this but since the merit system was implemented there was so many trafficking starting from the guys sending +50 merit to their alts, friends between them for stupid comments...
Actually what I notice is the probability to be merited increase with how famous you are in the first place then how substantial your post is. For example if theymos makes a post about a new forum feature, he may receive for it a total of +50 merit, while if any other staff member announced it, he may receive less than 30. No?