They don't post too often — that's one of the reasons. But then look at core devs or ex-core devs in the technical section, or theymos, or many other examples of members who don’t post much, but when they do, they get a ton of merit. That’s why where you post is very critical when it comes to earning merit.

I suppose they have a low merit count mainly because the mining board has always had just 1–2 merit sources. I think right now I’m the only active merit source there. Before me, it was just the admin frod, who didn’t have a large allocation. Of course, other factors like attitude also play a role in your ability to earn merit.

What I’m trying to say is that merit count can be very misleading — not just from a technical perspective. Some people contribute very little and still earn merit, and the opposite is also true.

On a side note, those two members don’t really participate in the merit system. Kano, for example, doesn’t send merit to anyone, which is the main reason I don’t merit him much — because those sMerits would just sit there, and I don’t have a large enough allocation to sacrifice, besides, I think other people are more "in need"for those merit given that Kano and CK are already known and visible to most people, so, I rarely merit them. But if I had the ability to, I’d drop 10,000 merit on them without a second thought, just to help them stand out even better — even though I know both of them couldn’t care less about merit anyway.