To be honest, I just don't like the idea of giving merits on local boards. I am sorry if I sound like a bad guy but I would say that local boards feel the national pride and duty to help each-other to rank up and give merits to their compatriots.
I think the situation is following: People from poor countries help each-other to rank up to participate in signature campaigns with high payroll. That's probably why I see that person only gets merits from local boards while his/her posts in English language never get rewarded. This isn't fair and probably destroys the main idea of merit system on this forum.
Correct me if I am wrong, I have no problem with that but this is just what I see and notice.
At least is not all the local board that does such, maybe you might have seen it happening in some other local board and I won't say
people from poor countries , is best you specify the country and no country would like to be addressed in that way in as much as I myself respect you opinion. But some how what you're saying about these whole thing getting to destroy the merit system is true. I think that some merit source in some local board are really strict and they don't just give merit to any post just to help out their fellow compatriots in ranking up to join a higher paid campaign, to me I won't want anything to mess things up concerning the merit system as it is, before one has to get a merit he/she has to earn it.