That can happen but still, this might be a good idea because there's currently little incentive for the older members to help out newbies knowing that they likely won't have any sMerits to give out (unless other older members see the random act of kindness I guess). The problem would lie in making sure the system doesn't encourage any more account farming, which is exactly what the Merit system hoped to combat, while making sure it gives enough incentives for older members to actually bother.
The only good Merit has done is that it prevents account farming and I am seeing improvement in the content as well. But, at this stage, the main problem is how to get MERIT.
Merit sucks. I've been studying threads and posts and now at this point it's obvious that people don't award merit to others for good posts, they reward it because they know each other on here. Very sad system. It needs to be trashed or redone.
When merit isn't given to good authors, it makes me sad :C
And your point about exchanging merits, for instance, someone sends you 10 merit and you send back 5 merit back and so on, this would just spoil the system and will give the undeserving a better position in this forum.
What's the point in anything if it can be illicitly abused? Might as well just get rid of every law ever created. No point in qualifications either when you can just buy one off the internet. I don't think any system where you can gain some reward or qualification or kudos will be free from abuse but that doesn't mean it is worthless.
so now the main purpose of merit system appear. for abusing!
No, the main system is to reward great content and for those people to earn benefits they deserve. Lazy unscrupulous people will try abuse it though just like they will try abuse or exploit any other system, but as I just said it doesn't make it worthless.
But what if people trade merit, like I mentioned above? Or what if people just buy Merit and then merit lands to some lazy unscrupulous person and he's in a better ranking than the one who really deserves a better position but doesn't get merit points.
