The first post I made on this forum was a post of my introduction and also my set aside goals I want to achieve on the forum.
I got from the reply enough advise, Knowledge and guidance
Like Frequent asked questions https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/faq-everything-you-need-to-know-about-forum-activity-account-ranks-and-merit-2766177
And rules guiding the forum https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/unofficial-list-of-official-bitcointalkorg-rules-guidelines-faq-703657
that has been very useful to me so far and I know if I continue to abide by them I will keep on going in the right track.
With that said, Prior to my first post I never had any interest or any excitement of merits, in fact I had basic knowledge of it but as I found out I got more than 10merits on that particular post.
I found out about merits from posts I see from Newbie's like me searching and crying for merits, saying merits are not shared properly, or wanting to know about merits so soon without even participating in the forum or reading the forums rules and regulations.
Citing myself as an example with my first post on the forum, I have come to realise that searching for knowledge should come first before any other thing in the forum.
CONCLUSION
All these being said, I wish to advise my fellow newbie's to seek for knowledge first before talking about merits. Merits should come when you make a good post, so focus on making quality and educating posts than looking for merits.
