merit Is like a lottery for a newbie. we just post and hoping that there has to be some bravehearted man who just like that post and give a drop in her ocean
Having a post history which is majorly filled with bounty reports and authentication posts greatly reduces your odds of winning the supposed lottery. I highly doubt members are biased between newbies and higher ranked members when awarding merits, it would only appear so because newbies constitutes the bulk of the forum and majority of them are not really interested in the forum or Bitcoin.
I was once a newbie and there are so many other members who have climbed up the ranks from the bottom. They most likely followed the advice I gave in the reply you quoted;
• You earn merit by putting in effort, reading, learning and then writing. If you've put in effort to read about a certain topic, you would be able to join constructive discussions about it. This does not mean you have to be too technical as a newbie, but, you need to be willing to learn for the sake of it,
• The way above is a
legit way to earn merits,
• Merits together with activity determine your forum rank. Read more here -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178608.0• There is no shortage of merits for newbies, they are awarded for constructive discussions, when you start doing that, you increase your chances of earning them.