I am bumping this thread just to say that, curiously, I seem to be earning more merits lately. I don't know if it's a streak or what. In the 8 days so far in May, I've earned about 30 merits, that's 15% of the total I've earned in 9 months. I hope this will take hold as I gain more knowledge and become a better poster, so that I won't notice so much that lack of smerits to send.
Ideally, as the total amount of time on the forum increases, so does your knowledge and your ability to make quality posts. As your ability to make quality posts increases, so does the chances of you earning merit, all else being equal.
The funny thing is that I wasn't expecting to get any single merit when I created the thread, as I was asking a question and just wanted to exchange opinions, but look at how it's turned out.
Meta has always been an "easy" board to earn Merit, and it's a good place to get some attention. Making good posts isn't enough, you also need someone with sMerit to see your posts.
I have noticed that meta has tended to not have as many threads with many posts getting merit recently. Same with reputation.