Maybe you are correct. I usually spend time reading Newbies section, looking for guides and etc. Haven't seen that much in local board.


Thank you an invitation, maybe someday I will make a post there  But so far I'm not hunting merit.

Then I dont understand why people hold merit. I have three variants:

• Maybe they havent found "their unique post" and still waiting
• Maybe they want to reward with not just a single merit, but with a dozen. Perhaps to impress other (dont understand why people give, for example, 20 and more merit for 1 post)
• Maybe they are "growing" an account, to sell it with high rank and with maximum available smerit or just preparing for a wholesale

My quest to become a MS brought me to this post, i have few question so i be clarified.

1. Is there particular rank to be reached before one can apply for MS?
2. Is your personal posts a criteria to becoming a MS?
3. The primary aim of MS is to merit posts that are worth giving merit and hasn't recieved enough, is there an additional/secondary aim?
4. Can i also gain merits from been a MS?

1.   No, but the "somewhat established member" kind of has it implicitly (i.e. you’re not likely to be an established member with a Jr. Account).

2.   Again, not an explicit factor, but being an established member also more or less brings along that you can post decent content (I interpreted this question differently to @Upgrade00, so we cover both scenarios).

3.   Conceptually, the sMerits distributed by Merits Sources (from their allowance) is a new input to the Merit System, and does not originate from the 2:1 ratio generation. That keeps the system running, and not stalling. Besides that, a secondary aim could be that of ensuring that certain boards have a Merit Source to ensure that there is no merit inanition there. Additionally, and very importantly, it provides diversity of criteria (the more people meriting the more variety in criteria).

4.   Not directly. Some may receive the occasional merit to try to pull off an "I scratch your back, you scratch mine", but it’s probably on a smallish scale, with content prevailing.

No, but merit sources have freedom to achieve their own aim (while remain merit underappreciated post/thread), such as focusing post/thread on specific local boards.
Many merit source openly says they'll focus on specific local boards, which is fine.


I guess theymos is doing shady action since he sent 50 merits for many 10th anniversary art contest (1, 2, 3 & many more) and even technical research (Anonymous Atomic Swaps Using Homomorphic Hashing)

No mandatory requirements on each rank but you have to be a real asset of the forum to be accepted with your merit source application. I don't know who was the lowest ranked merit sources at beginning or early months in the history of merit system. Now, if you observe the Merit source application observer, you will see it is very hard to get acceptance from theymos.
[LIS T]Open Merit Source Applications,waiting list.
Your post quality makes sense as one of very important thing theymos will consider your merit source application. If your post quality is too low that is somehow reflected on one's earned merits, you will not be able to verify post quality of the others.
Not exactly like that. Merit the posts deserve merit, no matter what such posts received merit before or not. There is no additional/ secondary aim: the ultimate aim is written in OP.
No. Merit sources are given sMerits to distribute to the forum community. They don't receive a single merit for their works. Why do you ask so?

It is easy to do, check it yourself. Click on my post (this one) or any post of the others, include yours. You will see your available merits.

The future you see is a round one, if you have a half merit, it will be not reflected on that figure. But you can guess, if your total merit is an even your smerit is an even too. Only if your total merit is an odd, your smerit will be an odd.

It is my merit and smerit figures.

Hey. As I answered, click on the merit button, you will see how many smerit you have now to send to the others if you want. It is a real time available smerit.

I edited my post, highlighted it. I earned 264 merits so that I have 132 smerit to send out but as you see, I only have 48 available smerit to send out. I sent out most of my smerit.

but why do you think that you have send out most of your available smerit, when you have 48 to send, it is something about 35% from all available, so it is not that you have send all, or rather most, it is closer to a half

i did not look much on that earlier, but it is an interesting subject to see how users are sending their sMerit

It can be construed quite easily that gifting merits is part of a plan to manipulate the trust system, so err on the side of caution if planning anything.