It is possible that n merit sources were removed at the same time n were added, and the sum total of their source merit was equal to each other.
From what I've seen, new Merit sources usually start with a lower amount than existing Merit sources, so this is not very likely.
So each merit source has about seven or eight merits they can give out per day
No, you're talking about the average per Merit source. Some get only 10 per month, others gets
hundreds to 1000+.
(In other words they're not really looking that hard).
I can only speak for myself: I have 26.67 source sMerit per day to get rid of. On some days I send more than other days, so the amount I get replenished varies per day too. I always find myself short on time, and the work-from-home-thing only made that worse. I don't want to "look harder" to find more posts, that would mean I have to read much more posts than I already do. Being a Merit source doesn't get paid, just like reporting posts. I do both to support the forum, but you can't ask Merit sources to look harder just to Merit more posts. As of last Friday, I've sent 7495 Merit transactions to 1901 users. Sending them more than one at a time makes
the "merit economy" ~ less top-down. As long as it doesn't end up on spammers, it's fine with me