I am also a beginner and there is still a lot to learn on this forum, but when it comes to merit, as far as I know merit cannot be mined, merit is given to someone provided that the post must be of good quality and not contain plagiarism. purely from our own knowledge, and there are many more merits that we can get by taking quizzes that provide merit, in this forum there are lots of threads that hold quizzes like that, as long as we explore as often as possible, and prioritize increasing our knowledge if we wish. To increase our rank faster, All ranks who have reached a high rank here must all start from the bottom as long as we are consistent with what we are currently doing
Merit is subjective sometimes, some forum members gives merit not because you the knowledge but sometimes impression, anyone can give you merit if they see you do the right thing, they can give you merit when you call their attention to something they failed to remember, they can give you merit for giving them hints and you can even get merit for making a submission of posts or even contests, you can even get question for asking questions and many more.
Just be yourself and contribute to the forum, you wouldn't have problem about merit as many people do complaint about. There are local boards where people don't visit most often yet these boards all has dedicated merit sources where merit can be gotten easily yet they complain everyday about not having merit or the system been bias to them and on and on continuesly.