Most of the newbies today want to earn more money with the use of the forum those are the goal of the newcomers because of the news they've got. The aim of this forum is to gain and give a lot of knowledge that came from different users who contribute a lot. Some of the members aim for merit but do not have good quality content.
If you want to earn the merits of the best recommendation is become unique, creative and a good content creator after that many people will appreciate your content and the merit will follow. Ranking and merit system is not a race it takes time before you will get to rank up but even it is slow there is progress.
In my opinion, if you can contribute something to the forum or help other members with some important into, you will get merits.
There is no specific rule how to earn merits so there is no meaning to talk much about it.
Just be yourself and don't talk much about it 😀
I understand that most new members here are atracted with earning potential and they are desperate to get merits and rank up because of signature campaigns.
Still, there is no shortcat here or more easy way to achieve result, only hard work and effort.