<…> maybe the one I see the most effective to get those merit is helping the newbies in your local section since I think the competition for getting those merits is less compare to international boards where mostly the one who get it is those people who have huge reputation and scam busters but identifying scams takes to much time of work.
I can speak for my local board (Spanish) as to that statement. It’s as you say there, but with a
fineprint that will vary, I figure, from one local board to another.
The Spanish forum lacks a fervent amount of activity, and as such, those that do post there are easier to spot. The lower ratio of competitors favours those who can create a decent post, although helping out newbies is not a trend, simply because there are not that many to help. The topics are more information related and raise some debate and versed opinions around the topics.
The associated
fineprint may be that the amount of merits per post is lower than on other forum boards, and so is the number of meriters. The key obviously is to have at least one decent merit source around there.
Even so, I find that, at least on my local board, the best posters are also participants in the general English sections, and have no problem being merited there (and generally are better merited on the English boards).