I've been awarding points in ones and twos because I believe that that is the best way to encourage members to make good posts. This logic probably comes from the likes system on another professional forum that I frequent. I've been a member for just over 2 years, and I've received over 5,200 "likes" in that forum. Members can only award one like per post, but there is no limit to the number of likes an individual post can receive. I think this system has helped me to hone my posting, and it encourages me to make posts that members will find useful or amusing.
I've still got 80 sMerits because I don't go out hunting for posts to merit, but I just award them when I find a post that appeals to me. However, it is quite difficult to find these posts. The most promising boards ( the serious discussion ones ) tend to be neglected by most members. I don't visit the Frog Pond very much, as most of the threads seem to be worthless ( in my opinion ) long tail spam fests. I think I have given away too many on the Meta board - there are too many posts about Merit points, and I've just created another one.
The beginners board ought to be the place for me to read threads, but that seems to be more about issues other than Bitcoin. Tech support has some interesting threads, but I'm not a power user of Bitcoin, so I'm not sure I'm qualified to make judgements there.
So what's the point of this thread. It's really a plea to turn the Frog Pond into a useful board for Bitcoiners. It wouldn't be too difficult to do. If the mods could lock the long tail spam fest threads so that they slipped away, and the non Bitcoin and newbie threads were moved to the appropiate boards, that would create some breathing space on the first page. There is also something that members could do, please start to make quality posts on the serious discussion boards.
ps. I don't sell sMerit, or give it to people who ask for it, sorry.