Also I foresee how users who know each others from long time will distribute merits among themselves even without proper well written posts. (I didn't read the rules accurately so maybe this is not possibile)
I hope this system will work out, but when you give power to users, it's a risk, there is always someone who will try to take advantage by cheat the system.
The limits that are in place seem pretty solid for combating this sort of in-grouping; that being said almost all of the users that have known each-other a long time are already legendary and therefore have no incentive to hoard merit points among themselves in order to rank up.
Right now the system is being cheated and taken advantage of by users spamming around nonsense; they are ruining the forum for everyone else. This is, in part, a counter-measure against that; of course it will come with it's own problems, but as long as it remains a net-positive then we are in business.
I thought of unlimited as a source that will go on producing sMerit.
Yes, it is limited ... but it will never dry out.
Now, most of the merit point will go of course to the oldest and wisest members on the forum (as it is normal) , so how much of it could go to new accounts? Probably 1-5%.
Those points might get too valuable
But already Lutpin addressed the issue:
I think the amount of merit sources is supposed to increase over time.
I suppose it is unlimited if we were able to stick around forever, but we have a finite time to live so effectively there is still a limit on the distribution; I see your point, though.
I do not see a problem with the majority of the points going to the best contributors, based on their merit, do you? I do not think new accounts contribute much more than 5% of the wisdom, nuance, creativity or information around here. Should an uninformed spammer be a Hero member?
The points are meant to be valuable, but yes there will be fluctuation in the sources/amount created in order to maintain a happy medium.
I expect merit to tend toward scarcity as time goes on, but when it gets too scarce, I'll have to add more merit sources or give the existing sources more free sMerit. The goal will be to avoid people from feeling like getting merit is virtually impossible, but also to avoid a scenario where everyone is always maxing out the limits because 1 merit is ~worthless.
Each source has a different limit per 30 days. up to 8125 merit could be created per month.
So with this merit system what is the expected time to get to legendary?
You're missing the point; there is no longer an "expected" time, just by going through the motions and taking advantage of the system. You will never make it without merit-earning posts.