To add to the previous posters I am mostly a lurker in these forums posting only here and there and have managed to get fair amount of merit. So to get merit you don´t have to be very active or prove that you can use crypto for other things aside from asking it. Meaningfully engaging with other members is enough to eventually get all the merit you need. If you indeed spent your own time writing tutorials (and you didn´t plagiarize them as some have pointed out) then I am sorry that your hard work wasn´t rewarded with merit. Still it´s a good first step in connecting with the people here.