Another thing, if people are spamming nonsense copy/paste news and are getting merit for it, you may wanna warn those meriting them that they are not doing any favor to your local thread as that will only make them spam even more of the same stuff.
I did what I could do at this moment. I have warned those members doing these things, but I don't know if it would work. It does not matter if I stop meriting them or not. They will eventually manage to lure some merit from merit sources who review local thread posts because they cannot evaluate them. And these merits get circulated in a closed circle.
I chatted with one of the merit sources, and he promised to check before reviewing those user's posts. I wanted to fix the problems within our local thread, and I hope they will understand. I have seniors besides me, like LM.