I don't seem to understand why we have brand new accounts created by existing members everyday and they go about acting like they don't know what goes on in the Forum, they ask questions they know the answers to.
Because it's a
trick.
A newbie account named Bob created a new thread about what is merit, then he use his main account named Alice to answer it with long paragraph, this will make people to merit Alice, then both Bob and Alice will meriting each other.
Is indeed a trick but no one can tell when it will happen.
Hmm, is the Alice an bob still active?
What you just said about Alice and bob do happen but one can't identify who really owns the account and I feel that's the abuse of merit we're talking about, it can't stop too quick even the use of AI to make the post look clean.