You joined this forum more than a year ago. But you do not know, what is merit? This is because you have spent most of the time in the forum in bounty section. You didn't spend much time outside the bounty section so you don't know what merit means.

Merit is an indicator of a good quality post. This means that if you see some merit in a thread or a post, then you must understand that the post or thread must be of good quality. If you post good quality post then you will definitely earn merit.

Now let's talk a little bit about what is sMerit (sendable merit). sMerit is the merit that you can send to others. If you get 1 merit, then your sMerit will be 0.5 which means half of the merit you will get will be added to your sMerit. However, you cannot send a fraction of 0.5, 1.5 such merit to others. You can only send the full number of merits (1, 2, 5 etc) to others. To see your Merit and sMerit Balance, visit..
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit.

Here are some important threads about forum rank and merit which will clear your idea about forum rank and merit if you visit them.

1. FAQ: Everything you need to know about forum 'activity, account ranks and merit
2. Forum ranks/positions/badges (What do those shiny coins under my name mean?)
3. Merit & new rank requirements
4. TMAN'S guide to getting merit.