Merit fishing is a phrase coined to wicked lower-ranked members. Since my newbie days till today, I am yet to understand why the so called merit fishing is a problem.
I'm yet to understand the 'divine powers' with which some users use to categorize a post that is merit fishing, sometimes it looks to be more of what is not of their own taste, what i mean is, when they like a post, it is a good one, when it it is not, then it becomes merit fishing, as far as i am concerned a user can never know the intent as to why a post is made by someone else, thus when a post is called out for merit fishing it is just their own personal speculation which should not be taken serious at all. I'd rather ignore a thread i do not care about, that call it out for merit fishing when i am not sure of myself.