There may be a bit of "I know it when I see it" coming from merit source members in regards to judging if too much merit fishing might be happening, and you can't necessarily blame them...
It's too late in the day and I'm too lazy, but I recall not too long ago I posted a response to a lower-ranked member who'd started a thread that I knew was straight-up merit fishing after reading the first few sentences. I made a comment that it was obvious he was mistaking post length for post quality and that what he'd written was bloated beyond belief. So yeah, in cases like those you know it when you see it.
Other times it's not obvious if someone is just posting because they're hoping to earn merits--and frankly I don't necessarily see that as wrong in and of itself. You can write a post that's witty or one that's clear there was some work and thought put into it, and as long as it's interesting, who cares what the motivation was behind it? I only care when it's blatant merit fishing, and I've noticed that those cases tend to be when a lower-ranked member creates a new thread and not when they're posting within one that already exists.
But at the end of the day, the merit system is not moderated and each source has their own way of going about how they spend their monthly sMerit supply. I'm not against it, but I want to share my opinion.
Yep.. fair enough.. Theymos does seem to leave quite a bit of latitude..at least so far... and perhaps part of the rationale is that it is a voluntary position (I am pretty sure the very first set of assignments of merit sources, were just members who theymos picked for his own reasons.. so several of them did not ask (including yours truly)
I'm also one of those merit sources who didn't apply to be one. I figure if the boss man taps you for a job you didn't ask for, he's not going to be riding your ass the whole time. We probably got the position at the same time, and I don't know about you, but I haven't heard a peep from Theymos about anything merit-related since then.
Not sure how many merit sources there currently are, but it's a diverse bunch. That's an advantage, since most (if not all) of the boards are covered, and each source has their own standards with respect to what's a merit-worthy post. If there wasn't this kind of leeway and discussions like the one we're having, I don't think the system would work as well as it has.