Also I discovered in previous times people got merited based on effort, quality, projects or solutions. And majority got theirs through mere effort but this days effort no longer count. Effort must match with 100% accuracy.
Sending Merit based on "effort" would be like rewarding for participation. If something is a lot of work but not useful, I'm not Meriting it. If it's useful and didn't take a lot of effort, that's a win-win 
This is the right idea I would say. Let’s not forget that should we look at this towards participation, the forum is quite a large one and their are those who participate even in places that we might see to have less value or don’t seem to look at twice. Those would count for activities and in turn, merits would follow given the suggestion from the OP. That would drastically result in a decline in quality and an increase in quantity or as it’s used here, participation!
It’s a little not fair as it is, there is some bias but, it’s something we really can’t take out of the system you know, we can’t have it perfect as, there would always be a downside. Even Bitcoin ain’t perfect!