At least that post of yours has shown you how merit works. It's never a cast in a stone kind of approach. Look at it, you asked two simple questions whose answers you could've easily harvested by a mere search and someone felt sympathy for you and sent you a life jacket. This is why I've continued to maintain that the merit thing is subjective, not in anyway objective. In some other threads, (even if it's on the same merit issue) the OP would've received a backlash or at best, in an embracing mode, received direction to other threads but not received any merit. Count yourself lucky on this. Now that you've been pointed to threads by others, let me quickly add that in your attempt to hunt merit; just steer clear off any forum infringements. Write to help others by making helpful comments and responses. With that, I know merit will trickle in.