It is not bad if newbies earn merits from the general boards, I am also sending merits to those people on the general boards. What that is most important is for them to post good and rank up.

If a newbie post good, I will merit him or her. I will try and do something about it but the newbie should post better so that he or she can be noticable.

Right now my smerit has finished and I have only 4 earned a smerits left.