He is not completely wrong there, that your chances of getting merit increase if you make a thread. Of course, if thread is complete shit you probably won't get anything, but they do use that as a merit fishing tactic because sometimes it works.
Posts or topics are means but they are not decisive factors to receive merit. Quality of your works in posts or topics is matter.
Quality Topics advice for newbies- Require significant time for preparation: research, read and compose the content
- Won't be covered by newer posts and more easily to find it when you need.
- Even it is your post, if you don't bookmark it, you will hardly to find it months or years later.
- With topics, you can find them very easily by either of the two methods change 1292764 to your userid
Explores the pros and cons of two methods.
As above, quality topics have better chances to receive more merits than quality posts, generally. It's only applied for quality ones.