theymos' experiment with merits as a means of rank promotion is an abject failure as the DT1 merit sources golden shower each-other with high merits for status and the newbies get nothing trickling down, hence their prolific shit posting and alt farms.
In the ~3 and a half years since I joined the forum its never been easier for newbie accounts to rank up. First of all, number of posts written dropped down significantly (probably in the region of 50%, maybe even more) meaning less competition, while in the same time there was an increase in the amount of smerit generated each month. Combine those two things and you get a situation where all you have to be is a half decent poster in order to rank up regularly.
Problem is, there is a lack of even an average newbies so what will high ranking members do when there's lack of decent newbies other than share the merit among themselves.