If merit exist to fight against spammer, why not the distribution came from reports? a good report will add 5 smerit, a bad report will reduce 5 smerit, and an unhandled report will affect nothing.
this does not duplicate the activity value, as that is beneficial to the giver, while smerit is beneficial only to the receiver.
The smerit given by merit sources is also beneficial to the merit sources itself, it's a law of attraction bro.
One thing I think should definitely change is the total amount of merit you can send to a single user. If we limit it to, say, 10 merit per person, it would encourage us to seek out and reward a wider range of posters. Right now, it feels like most members give the majority of their merit to the same few users, which is understandable, but it limits merit distribution. That’s something we should work on.
I like this one, we need a policy where users (especially merit sources) give merit to widely users, not only for few specific users. Even though those users might won't change their habit, but at least this would reduce the gap.