Active Merit sources can't make up for inactive sources, so the inactive users should be replaced.
For what? So that new merit sources to the same users throw their merit? The current sources have already raised the rates for evaluating posts, it is already rare that anyone throws 1 merit per post, at least 2, 4, or even more. What problems will new merit sources solve? None.
It makes no sense to change inactive sources to active ones so that they just exist.
Generally, my most recent practice has been to attempt to give 1 merit to almost anything that seems to have some contributory value even if I might not personally agree with the points being made - but then I do not generally attempt to go out of my way to look for posts to merit - except maybe every once in a while when I feel that I have enough extra time to explore around the forum a bit.
By the way, maybe only about 1 out of a 100 of my sent merits are 2 merits or more, probably 1 out of 1,000 are 3 merits, which is the max that I ever have given to date.. hahahahahaha.. mine is a wee bit of a differing philosophy that might not be as suitable to other members who are deciding how many merits to send to any given post or member.
This just seems like a dead end for now. I gave up on applying for a Merit Source, it's no use and I have no free time lately. Seems like the merit correction will be at the same intervals as the bitcoin halving.
I haven't visited this thread since I replied here in January (and I should have, since I got a couple of replies to my post), but it does look like Theymos isn't tapping any new merit sources for now. I do wonder why that is and if he thinks that there's sufficient merits circulating for it to be less of a burden to rank up.
On a related note, if you're reading this Theymos, I could use my source sMerits replenished a bit more quickly. I've been handing out a lot of merits as of late and have had to almost exhaust my earned sMerits in doing so. My plan is to continue the spree, though there are days when I do less reading and don't find anything worth meriting--but that's always been the case. Hopefully Theymos will grant my request, but if not it's not a huge deal.
In essence, you are really asking theymos for an increase in the quantity of your source merits, Pharmacist.
Even if theymos decides to tweak the merit system in a variety of ways, I really doubt that he is going to tweak the 30-day replenishment matter - which seems to work pretty decently and any of us should be able to figure out ways to manage that, but I do agree that there may be some of us who feel that we do not have enough source merits being issued because we are frequently running out (which seems to be the point that you are making about yourself, Pharmacist) - versus those merit source members who may well be not even using all of their source merits which causes those source merits to expire after not using them within 30 days of being issued..
I am merely speculating that there may well be those kinds of merit source members, too.. who are seeming to be quite inactive as you guys have already mentioned, but theymos likely is able to completely break those kinds of matters down because the quantity of merits that merit sources have is not public information, even if some have disclosed their levels and some of that information can be somewhat extrapolated through some of the threads on the topic, including the Coin-1 "generosity" thread.
Sure, theymos has not really said anything on the topic either, as far as I know, so sometimes we might try to speculate what he is thinking based on his lack of saying anything or anything that he said or done that relates to the topic that might seem to be getting long in the tooth, at this point. I do like the idea of getting more active merit sources, but I don't even feel very qualified to know what might be some of the trade offs that are being considered, but if overall the number of merits that are being sent is going down and maybe even that some deserving posts, threads (or members) are not getting merits, then there may be some good contributions that are being missed, perhaps? perhaps?
By the way, I can see why some source members might not be sending merits because sometimes it can take some time to read through some threads (or posts) and figure out if that post might seem to be adding some value whether objective or subjective impressions are used to determine if there might be any "value" there, but if some members might have more scattered use of the forum, they might not even feel comfortable enough to conclude value on a subjective level.. and sure I agree that there may also be some members who may well be considering way too high of standards before even squeaking out the sending of one smerit.
I recall early in the merit system, one source member who had stated that he would ONLY send merits if blah blah blah was met, which sometimes might seem a bit extreme of considerations for a source to have such rigid standards, but still there has been a considerable amount of latitude that theymos has left with source members and may well result (even to this day) that source members end up being a wee bit too stingy in what they would like to see before they send an smerit to a post, thread or member.