I disagree, not for the first part of your sentence that has to do with the forum not been a place to earn but for the other parts that stated that, the forum is about making good posts (to my ears it sounded like chasing after the merits). I believe the forum was created as a community to help newbies coming into the space to get inform on what they're buying into and also for the already existing (knowledgeable) member to have a community to hangout and exchange ideas probably on how to better the industry or just chat.

Ranked members aren't always right, blindly following them will be very costly. Some account here are bought so their ranks doesn't automatically equals their knowledge in the industry and in other essence since the ranks mostly represent your stay on the forum it doesn't totally account for your knowledge in the industry at large.

PS: what's the catch, I'm beginning to see similar posts (how to earn on forum) of recent appearing, is there something happening that I haven't gotten an idea of or they're just coincidence.