If there is one lesson that helped me ranked-up and contribute to the forum, it is this advice: do not chase for merits by spamming posts; create substantial and quality replies and merits will be the one chasing you.

Unfortunately, most newbies nowadays are so obsessed with ranking-up their accounts in order to participate into campaign signatures. While that is totally understandable, it somehow creates hundreds of pages of spams across the forum which somehow degrades the overall quality of posts. If you really took your time reading and understanding the replies, not only do you help other newbies but you also help yourself.