To earn merits, people have to do same things no matter which rank they temporarily stay at (Newbie or whatsoever):
- Control their fingers and only type their posts if they have good ideas to discuss; avoid unnecessary posts I meant.
- Search for many available answers before posting and asking.
- Spend time to read, learn and increase their knowledge and experience in the forum and in crypto; just to be more knowledgeable that will do help increasing their post quality.
- Save good posts or threads for later reference, just save them as good sources for their own libraries.
- Being kindful and helpful in the forum (with good quality posts, of course).
You should know that I started in the forum as same as you, zero merit and from the newbie rank with merit system.
I wrote some words in the past, too.
(1) Never begging for meritsReasons:- Doing this will highly result in Red Trust, it is just the matter of time. Sooner or later, if you keep begging for merits, you will get Red Trust, certainly.
- Doing this don't help you to improve yourself. In long-term journey in the forum, it's not good for you, generally.
(2) Spending most of your time to read and learnOnly start composing your posts when you have something extremely constructive to discussions, topics.
Reasons:- You are noobs, newbies (lack of knowledge, and experience), so what you think are constructive most likely unconstructive in reality.
- When you actually have reasons to start composing your posts, after finishing it, please re-read again and again to check that your posts are good in grammar, vocabularies, and good enough to express most of your ideas. I wrote most of your ideas because sometimes it is difficult for non-native English speakers to write down and completely express ideas by words. It's a challenge for non-native English speakers, who don't have English as their mother tongue.
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(4) Never mind of bounties, campaigns when you are noobsReasons:- Campaigns are there, open then close, then others open and close, from time to time. You should never worry that you miss this chance, that chance, this campaign, that campaign, something like this.
It is the same as merits. Lots of users complain that merits are rare, I can not get merits due to it is rare. Nope, merits (more exactly, sMerits - sendable merits) are available, everywhere in the forum. There are so many merit sources, normal users, who have lots of sMerits readily to send out. They kept them partially due to quality posts are rare, not sMerits.
- Instead of paying too much attention, and time on hunting for bounties, especially bounties that have easy rules and joinable for low rank users; you should start learning, reading, and build up your accounts.
When you hit your finish lines, it's time for you to seriously think of joining bounties.
(5) Learn from inspirational stories. Learn from merited users, topics, postsReading and learning from most merited users, and most merited topics, posts are one of the best way to improve your post quality, coherence and cohesion when you compose your posts, topics.
I have a topic on:
Inspirational stories from self-made promoted users(6) Spend your time to improve your English, especially Reading and Writing skillsReasons:- If you can not read posts or topic in English well, can not get ideas of posts' / topics' authors, it means that you have nothing to do in the forum.
Remember that you have to get their ideas well enough to not misunderstand their core ideas.
- Next, after reading good enough to catch authors' ideas, it is time for you to express your own ideas in case you have something to ask for help, something to discuss, or something meaningful to help others. This is the time you need to have good enough Writing skill.
This is why I mentioned you should improve your English skills, step by step, from Reading to Writing. Of course, you can improve both skills simultaneously.
The forum is the place almost solely for discussions via Reading and Writing.
You can find available sources for English learning in the References at the end of this OP.
(7) Don't pay your attention on post-length (Ideas that I took from theymos' Writing a welcome message)
If you make ten thousand posts in a week, your activity will be capped and you will still be a Newbie. If you make ten thousand useless posts over any period of time, you will gain zero merit and you will still be a Newbie. You can rank up only by making good posts consistently. It's quality over quantity.
When trying to write quality posts, a lot of people act as though they're writing a book report for school: putting facts that we already know into their own words. Nobody wants to read that, and you will not get merit for it. Moreover, the length of your post and the quality of your English are only minor factors. In trying to write a quality post worthy of merit, you should offer new ideas, personal experiences, or perspectives that other forum users will actually find new and interesting.