I am very far from being a Trust system expert, and I definitely don't find myself in a place to assert or deny what has been said about Ratimov, since I do not monitor his forum activities with such close attention, but what caught my attention is the part about him abusing the merit system in order to create some sort of an army of minions, who would defend him. I get that after what I am going to write, someone will consider me as such an example, but I definitely don't see myself that way, because, firstly, I don't have such close connections with him, and secondly, I don't really try to defend him, I am just sharing some of my observations.

A couple of days ago we had a brief discussion with Ratimov in one of the Russian topics, where we touched the topic about his thread for helping newbies and those who have little merits left to rank up. And from that discussion I can conclude, that Ratimov checks those application precisely and don't give merits away on the right and left, he searches for valuable, interesting and constructive content, which really deserves to be merited. I believe, if he would want to create an army of grateful followers, he would merit everyone indiscriminately, because it would increase his chances to being worshiped by others. However, in my opinion, he doesn't make gifts and doesn't merit those users nobody else merits, he just helping those who deserve to rank up obtain this higher rank a little bit faster.

Another thought which came into my mind doesn't even have the direct connection to Ratimov`s actions. It is about merit system in general. There were a situation in OP`s post about Ratimov having so much merit for plagiarised content and absence of original thoughts. However, my question is following: why did he even get so much merit and continues getting even more? Is not this problem not with what he writes but with the fact that a lot, I mean, really a lot of forum members find his posts somehow useful and send him merits?

I keep seeing many users trying to justify the objectivity of the merit system. I disagree with that, because I believe, that merit system is subjective in its roots. People send merits for something they like or agree with, but as much often they send merits to those post which have already been merited, especially by high rank users, not even trying to involve in the written themselves. That is why, I would formulate my main question like this: is Ratimov the only one here guilty for abusing merit system or has he "being helped" to do this by everyone who has ever sent him at least one merit?