I am new to this forum, but as far as I know it is not difficult to rank up. Because if you want to get merit, you have to use your own knowledge to help others or give good knowledge. So that they benefit a lot. Then you will definitely get merit. But if you post on altcoin board, you can never earn because it is spam side, to say here, everyone's post quality is same. So you have to post Bitcoin discussion, meta, economics, mining etc. If you post in these, you will definitely get credit.
It's nice to hear from new members ike you that it's easy for you to rank up and you know what you need to do to get there. And then some from the very beginning give up, don't see opportunities for further growth in rank, which can deprive the forum of interesting opinions and useful knowledge that they could bring here. Although it would seem that the recipe for success is quite simple - to have the desire for it and make attempts.