Being in this forum for a sometime now I have discovered and observed that some people created quality topics here that deserves merit but they won't get merited, instead people that just did a little contribution, post or comment on that topic will end up getting merit.
Before i say anything, you should understand that merit is a very subjective case, and a post you consider merit worthy may not be so for other users, thus if you consider a post merit worthy, meaning if they meet your merit criteria, and you have some smerits, give some to such post and move on. But then, here are some reasons why an OP might not receive merit, but some replies and response to such threads get merited:1) The content in the OP could be wrong.
2) The content in the OP may not have been well structured, thus making it ambiguous to read/understand.
3) The content in the OP was just a ploy at fishing merits.
4) The content in the OP was redundant.
5) The content in the OP helps absolutely no user here.
6) Users/merit sources who saw the post didn't feel it deserved any merit, or it was a topic they are not interested in, etc, etc.
Replies to a thread could earn merits for quite a lot of reasons, a few of which are:
1) The reply corrects the misconception of the OP.
2) The reply was better structured and sensible than the OP.
3)The reply contained some new/novel information that can help other users.
4) Other users or MS considered it worthy of merits.
