I have read from the first sentence to the last sentence that was written by Op, but I did not find any of the words that Op wrote lead to merit. Why can you assume Op is making efforts to earn merit.

I think it's normal for members in the forum to make efforts to get merit as long as the efforts made don't violate the forum rules, merit will always be searched for by all members in the forum including you as a condition for rank up besides the amount of activity. Contributors and merit sources have their own views in assessing a post, you are not required to give merit as long as you think posts made by other users do not meet the requirements for merit.

Op keep working with new ideas as long as you exist in the forum. Believe me, there will always be generous members and merit sources who are willing to appreciate your posts if they think they deserve merit.