But what makes me laugh is how many “friendly” posts are created by those who, seeing how the manager generously distributes merit, join in the farewell posts. And again, I see familiar faces who are hunting for such places.

You are correct sis, if you look at my previous post I had already suggested for the manager to luck up this topic reduce spam post flooding here.
I was so surprised to see lots of farewell post and at same time had also seen most project closing without any goodbye post simply because there wasn't any merits distribution over there.