I see a lot of Legendary members and many of them deserve to be of that rank.  But there are also many Legendary members who post just to increase their post count.  Merits did make things harder for members noticeably desperate to spam in order to join signature campaigns, but they did not seem to do things hard enough that most of the spam and useless posts are discarded.

I advice you not to set the objective to rank up.  I have just ranked up to Full Member today and I can not say I struggled with my posts.  I just do not chase Merits and they somehow come my way.  This is probably how you earn the quickest.  Be yourself, not a shitpost writing machine.  I hope you do not get offended, this is not directed towards you.

Upon checking your profile, I notice you are an article writer.  That is great!  Find a way to help the community with your skill.  Start writing tutorials or informative articles.  I rather believe the issue you encounter is that your informative articles always end up with a link to read more, which a lot of the Bitcoin Talk users will not do.

The way to go seems to be having a true interest in spending your time to help others out and discuss here.  When you have this interest, it is a smooth ride.  And I think I am not the only one who notices when a member truly cares about what they are writing or they are only writing for Merits, activity or post count.

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Regards,
PrivacyG