I just got only 1 merit I don't know what it means and I see some profile with thousands of merits. What does it and how does it come?
Next time you are surprised by something about the forum, use the search option, you will find it at the top, type the word (Merit, Trust,..etc) and you will have a lot of discussions about it.
You can also use Google to restrict the search for this forum using site:bitcointalk.org merit.
You can also read the rules for using the forum to avoid problems.