I think every newbie should have a kind of startup merit, maybe send able or personal or even both so as to navigate in this space.
You don't need merit to navigate through the forum my friend, all you need is your data connecting and your mobile phone or a laptop. Merit is awarded to quality post based on what a merit patron deemed fit to be a quality post for him or her. Merit is never what can make you navigate the forum, look beyond that and if you try and learn and be productive on the forum, you will get the merit.
Good and sound advice and I second this.
There is another interesting perspective that I want to share about merits and ranking up. You need to forget about about merits in order to get merits
. I know it sounds quite paradoxical but it is true. Especially in the initial days, your approach has to be learning-centric instead of merit-centric.