Well, this discussion have actually come a long way, I checked the date and can see that it's from way back 2023, and this is my first time of coming across this thread, and since the thread is still active, let me chip in my opinion.
I will use an example..
During a presidential election, there is usually a lot of presidential candidates or aspirants (whatever we chose to call them), and each of this candidate is promoting himself and the party his in to the general public seeking their votes, and the general public will cast their votes based on who they like and think is fit to be president, in the end, different people will vote for different candidates, but only one candidate with the most votes must win.
Now, when this candidate that won the presidential election is sworn in as the president of the country, is it right for him to chase all those who did not vote for him away from the country? Is it ok for him to boycott or ignore a city where he did not win in his developmental plan or agenda?.
The answer to the above questions are "NO", because the country is one, and a president should rule a country not with emotion or sentiments.
So also it is with merit sources, being a merit source is a previlege given to some hardworking from members here, and those who given such prelivilege should not abuse it, it is mandatory for them to merit good and deserving posts, regardless of who the post is coming from, not merit a post because the poster is their buddy or friend, that is wrong and an abuse of that office of being a merit source.
I will use an example..
During a presidential election, there is usually a lot of presidential candidates or aspirants (whatever we chose to call them), and each of this candidate is promoting himself and the party his in to the general public seeking their votes, and the general public will cast their votes based on who they like and think is fit to be president, in the end, different people will vote for different candidates, but only one candidate with the most votes must win.
Now, when this candidate that won the presidential election is sworn in as the president of the country, is it right for him to chase all those who did not vote for him away from the country? Is it ok for him to boycott or ignore a city where he did not win in his developmental plan or agenda?.
The answer to the above questions are "NO", because the country is one, and a president should rule a country not with emotion or sentiments.
So also it is with merit sources, being a merit source is a previlege given to some hardworking from members here, and those who given such prelivilege should not abuse it, it is mandatory for them to merit good and deserving posts, regardless of who the post is coming from, not merit a post because the poster is their buddy or friend, that is wrong and an abuse of that office of being a merit source.
An abuse of this position, in my opinion, would be a deliberate disregard for some personal reasons for posts that actually deserve merits. For example, because the merit source doesn’t like the user or there are some long-standing grievances against him and specific user. But I don’t see abuse in emotions as such, because emotions, in principle, cannot be completely neutralized; they will be present in judgments. And it's better to use them wisely.
