Quality posters will be rewarded, they won't have much trouble getting merit and rankings.
Theymos said:
I'm hoping that this system will increase post quality by:
- Forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.
But I can say that every user should try to do the best they can and let other users judge the quality of their posts. I also agree that engaging in good discussion increases the chances of gaining knowledge and merit, and that is something that is often the habit of quality posters as far as I know.
So I'd say that's how it works. I won't talk about it too much considering you seem to know how the merit system works even though today you got your first one apart from the airdrop.
Theymos encourages more low-ranking users to post something quality, which is how all users managed to raise the rank even after the merit system was introduced. I found some users can even have higher merit than activity, they are contributors and high quality posters. While me and you and many other users run slower, but that's okay as long as we're willing to try.