As i had experience with the other forums too like Cryptotalk and now i am on Bitcointalk where things are too much different as on Cryptotalk its pretty easy while on bitcointalk ot complex, so i am still learning about this forum, the problem i am facing here are followings,
1. What is activity
2. What is merit
3. What is the criteria of rank system
1. Activity is pretty much what it says, it increases slowly by participating in the forum (i.e. posting) but the progress is capped by rank in order to curb abuse such as burst-posting or spamming in order to rank up.
2. Merits are like upvote points which are given out to contructive or informative posts. Both merit and activity go hand-in-hand with the ranking up here. So for instance if you earn 1 Merit, you become a Junior Member but you have to accrue 42 Activity points beforehand for the rank up to take place. For every 2 Merits you receive, you earn 1 sMert (sendable Merit) which is used to Merit another user's post.
3. Pretty much explained in points 1 and 2. However rank also plays a major role in unlocking certain forum privileges, such as expanded signature space, formatting and joining signature campaigns
Actually there's a sticky on the above posted @
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/faq-everything-you-need-to-know-about-forum-activity-account-ranks-and-merit-2766177 which is more elaborative.
And the one most important thing that how are we gonna earn from here???
Joining solely to earn is greatly frowned upon, because it basically forces you to post just for the sake of posting without actually contributing anything useful. A good example is repeating whatever that has been said by other posters before you.
However after you've spent some time here, you might come across paid signature campaigns which basically pay you to post.
If you'd like to earn, contribute to the discussions, be helpful and you'll get Merits along the way. Once you've reached the required rank (some campaigns start accepting from Members onwards), you could apply if there are slots available.