I was a Jr. Member at the inception of the merit system. I started with zero. Whiners, shut up and observe the number below my name.
Hint: To make relatively quick posts such as this one, I am periodically pausing from another post Ive been working on for hours. I maintain a semi-disorganized queue of those.
Its not necessary to put
that much time and effort into posts, because its not necessary to earn 100+ merit per week simply to rank up. I am only doing now just as I did in December, before the merit system existed. Whereas if you are a reasonably intelligent person who spends a moderate amount of time on the forum, then I think you should be able to earn an average at least +1 merit per day. That would allow you to rise through the ranks at approximately the same rate as you would by activity level alone. The system is well-thought.
Whereas if you cant earn at least one measly merit per day of active posting, what that means
ipso facto is that your posts are of such low quality that you are wasting
other peoples time by posting junk for others to read. The merit system is a not-so-gentle hint that you should stop.
Would you be able to quote here the links to some of the recent posts that got your a lot of merit points? I think that would be useful for everybody to see.