This will create a new market for selling merits im afraid,
beside i think there are going to be a lot of good posts unrewarded because the merits are scarce and hard to obtain.

Same here buddy, I missed out the Senior Member rank with only 2 Activitypoints and 6 days, now it seems to be far away. It is a pity that Merit is not related to the previous earned Activity points for existing users, so I got the same like a fresh ranked up Full Member.

Although I like the new system.

This was requested a few times and will be added soon.

This systems looks good to stop compulsive online posters, because now this will be useless, and this is ok.
Of course it sucks: next week I should rank up to "Member" but now it's no more so automatic, and I have to earn 10 points.
OK, we'll see how hard it will be.
But - even I appreciate the good intention - it seems to me that there is a lot of space to abuse.

I mean, I think it will be very easy to create some "clans" where members will reward each other, more over at local level: can someone suspect what kind of agreement will be take in some mysterious language?

I think this system is a very good starting point, and we'll what will happens: of course it's too early to evaluate it.

I'm  little pissed of, as I don't have any merit to share, and by the way I don't understand too well the stuff about merit, smerit, o.5...
I'll read more, we'll see what happen.

Btw, congratulation for the initiative, I hope it will make this forum a better place

This new merit system looks fine with me thanks theymos. This will remove shitposters in this forum definitely. In a week or so, the time will come that one requirements of the signature campaign is base on the merit of the user. Although this is a good additional feature, there is a loophole with this. One is many users will sell their spendable merit to other people so this merit system will be consider a way to earn money too.

thanks bud.. though not sure if I like being mentioned in the same thread as QS..

we all know that OG is a bitter vindictive tit who abuses his DT position when he feels like it... I wear my negs from him with pride.. it doesn't stop people trading with me and sending 1st.. its actually amusing to some..

this new position takes some power away from the dinosaur.. so its a good thing..

I think that it would be a decent proposal to make to Theymos, if he could figure out a way to give pro-rata merit credit to members who are not at the very beginning of their rank.  I know that it might be a lot of work, but it might also be the more fair thing to do, if there is a way to reasonably accomplish such.

maybe every two weeks along with 14 max activity you could get a certain number of merits as well

I see people can get a negative Merit Points too. Do you actually rank down if fall under the rank limit? This can be speculative option if it gets into bad hands.
But the idea is really good, well I was really close to Full member now I have a longer way to go, but no worries, I think I can contribute to the community, already got 7 Merit points and this is awesome