One of your friends PMed me telling me you're a good poster in your local board and to help you out with merits.  I find that a bit odd, honestly, but when I un-ignored a few sections and tried to look at your post history, this was the only post I could see--asking about merits.

You've been here for about 10 months and have earned only a single merit, and you haven't even made a lot of posts.  You average about 9 posts/month, so how do you expect you're going to earn any?  It's hit-or-miss with earning merits, and a lot of times good posts get overlooked.  If you're not making many to begin with, forget about it.

What's the sudden interest in ranking up, anyway?  I assume you know how the system works, so why you posted the above question is beyond me.