Ratimov himself never stated it that members should stop applying to the thread, what he meant was applying here does not guaranteed receiving Merits from him but other merit source or members with enough smerits could as well pick users from here and help, else if this thread isn't serving the purpose for it creation Ratimov himself would have lock the thread to end the merit help for newbies.
Absolutely right. In this thread, merit does not have to be submitted on my behalf, someone else can also help someone in getting a new rank. So it was before, when some participants also came here and sent their merits at their own discretion. So just because I stopped sending merits doesn't mean other users can't.