My local board, portuguese, lacks activity... I am the merit source there, and there are very few new posts per day to merit...
This is the problem. If you write good posts in your local forum, then most of the merit you will get from merit sources.
And other participants will not be able to give you merit, because they do not have it or very little.
For a good publication in the local forum, you can get 10-20 merit, and for a useful publication in the main section, the reward is higher.
Therefore, I find that earning merit in a local forum is much more difficult.