I have been here since 2017 and have Total time logged in: 16 hours and 55 minutes.
How does this Merit thing work? I am defiantly not asking for free or just handouts but I don't understand it.
If I want to give someone a Merit can I not because I am a Newbie? Or do I need to upgrade membership first?
First of all, the time logged in has nothing to do with the merits so it is not important how much time you have logged into bitcointalk.
In order to give merit to some, you need to have s-merits with yourself. With every 2 merits you receive, you will have 1 s-merit to send to anyone. Now the big question is how you can get merits.
Well, there are no hard and fast rules for this, you need to post constructively, help others through your ideas/posts, and if the readers find your content useful or like your post, they will definitely give you merits.