jimmywh. If everyone started with 0 merits. How do you expect to receive any merits? You have to have merits in order to have sMerits. If you take a look at the merits you have received so far, they are mostly from high ranking members. Guess what? if they had started with 0 merits, you would probably still be at 0. Don't fight the system, accept it.
a) there are still merit sources. And more importantly,
b) not receiving merits by default, does not mean that sMerits's coudn't have been allocated by default.
But frankly, the fact that merits were distributed does not make a lot of difference from a rank-advancement perspective. Whether sombody needs 500 starting from 250 or needs 250 merits from 0, is practically the same.
I am just personally disappointed, as I was about 3 posts away from becoming full member before the merit system kicked in. So instead of 3 posts, I need now to get 90 merits ... which, is rather a dismotivation. And I know of others who has been in a similar or even worse position.
There was no "grandfathering" of being "almost" at the next level.