I don't know if this is an intended consequence, but it would seem that this excludes almost any non-English speaker from higher ranks. Am I incorrect to see this as a little bit unfortunate?

Obviously if nobody can understand what you are saying there is no reason for you to merit, but there is many (I assume) that deserve merit in other languages, and a very significant minority of our community are non-English speakers.

Let me know if I am looking at this incorrectly, because I very well could be misunderstanding the current situation in the "Local" boards, how they are "valued" by our lovely staff, etc.