I've got a few hundred sMerits that I can award, but only 9 of those are source merits at the moment. I do try to award source merits as soon as possible, that maintains the merit flow.
I don't see anything wrong with hoarding regular smerits, within your personal discretion. On the other hand, if you are a merit source, then it seems that you have a responsibility to attempt to spend your source merits, and even having a cushion of 9 smerits in your source does not seem to indicate that you are hoarding source smerits. It seems to me that sources are going to come to differing judgements about how many source smerits that they might keep, and even though theymos may want to give them a lot of discretion in terms of the spending of source smerits, he may also consider that if a source is not spending smerits on a monthly basis that is approaching their source level - let's say within 70% ish, then perhaps he (theymos) should reduce their source smerit monthly level and give those source smerits to someone else (whether an already designated merit source or to designate some new merit source)?
I'm on the netbook right now, but later I'll use the notebook and revive Talk Merit to see if I can unload a couple of hundred merits.
If you really believe that it is necessary for you to unload some of your smerits, then so be it. let them fly.
The easy way for people to get some of those is to support some of the Fit to Talk English projects. They help Bitcoin Talk as well as the posters themselves.
Sure, I have noticed that some members have created focus areas that they want to support people (by giving them smerits) who support certain focus areas, and surely, that has created a few interesting threads after the implementation of this new merit system.
By the way, sometimes the forum does seem to need some improvements in english abilities, but surely sometimes creative and interactive thinking is needed too (whether that is with good English or broken English). Sometimes, I find that members post their one-liners, and then another member will ask them questions about points of their post, but that initial poster is never to be seen again... The problem in those kinds of instances remains a lack of interaction rather than whether their post had been well formulated in English. Sometimes, if the member interacts better, then their English can be improved, but also their point(s) can be better understood, too, but instead they devolve into missing in action (which may be a personal problem that they are NOT following through or sure it could just have been that the poster was a bot, rather than a human? perhaps?)
I've been awarding merits to senior members recently, and this is because of the difficulty in finding good posts by junior members. It isn't that they aren't making them, it's just that they get drowned out by the bots and bums.
Sometimes I try NOT to merit members who I have recently merited in order that I can spread out the merit love a bit better, but I have found that sometimes there is a certain high level of output that comes from established members, and it becomes irresistible to merit their posts.. In that regard, I might read a series of posts from a member, and it is bam, Bam, BAm, BAM, BAMM.... and I just have to give in and merit the greatness. hahahahahaha
On the other hand, I don't shy away from meriting newer members because I want to merit them, but sometimes, it is difficult to find good points, and then they also might not interact when the time comes which I was on the verge of meriting them, but their lack of interaction loses the merit opportunity (if they had wanted a merit, they lost it by not responding).