As a newbie if you're making a quality and also a meaningful Post definitely you're going to earn merit, but if your post lack some qualities it will be very difficult for you to earn merit. you can only earn merit depending on how quality your post is, The advantage of merit is that it will enable you to rank up from newbie to Jnr member from jnr member to senior member depending on the number of merit you have. However merit also encourage newbies to work hard I could remember my first time of getting merit I was super excited and I was motivated, after then I started working very hard so as to gain more merit. but one thing is that you have to take your time to read threads before replying, so as to avoid posting something that is not similar with the topic.