For current members, your initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for your rank. Of that, a certain amount (less than the usual half) is spendable. The spendable amount was calculated based on your current rank and the number of activity points you earned in the last year. A Legendary member who hasn't posted in the last year would still be Legendary, but would not have any spendable merit.
I don't agree with this, this is just like giving the "old members" (including me) a head start. I'm not saying that earning merits is a race but giving us a head start also means giving us a free reputation out of nothing. That does not necessarily mean we need to rebuild our reputation from zero, I mean there are so many members that have earned a good reputation on this forum.
So I think the merit points for old members have to be given based on their reputation now and without affecting the rank.
Anyway, I think this is gonna be the end of account farming.The new system is surely better than the previous one, even though it is over-rewarding "old members". I guess nobody who has joined Bitcointalk in the past six months will EVER manage to become Legendary Member, at least not in less than one or two decades. Fine, this could be a price to pay to avoid the forum getting even more trashy, I fully agree. But I think that the implementation of this new system could be done in a more fair way. The fact that initial merit score is equal to the minimum required for one's rank is not a big deal for Newbies or Juniors, but for higher ranked members, like Senior or Hero Members, it can create big inequalities. For example a freshly ranked Senior Member is now getting the same merit score as someone who has already been a Senior Member for almost half a year and is about to become a Hero. Even more dramatic would be the case of a Hero who has already the activity to be a Legendary but the random system did not grant him the rank yet.
A more fair way to distribute the inital merit would be to calculate it proportionally to the actual activity. This would avoid that people like me (I don't want to make it personal but I'm the first example which comes to my mind) who is missing only 4 points of activity (and 5 days) to the rank of Hero Member, instead of getting, let's say 470-480 merits (instead of the 500 of people who already are Heroes), is getting only 250 merits like someone who has just ranked Senior Member 10 days ago, and instead of 5 days it may now suddenly take me years before I can become a Hero - how many very good posts has one to do before he gets 250 merits? If you receive one merit every 4 post you do (on average you are likely to get less IMO) it will take you 1000 more posts to rank up from Senior to Hero, and if you like me were only 4 points of activity from that target, and now suddenly you need another 1000 posts, to say that this is becoming extremely frustrating is a big understatement. On the other side, with a more proportional and balanced initial distribution of merits I think nobody would feel that the system is penalizing them more than it penalizes others - which means people would be more inclined to recognize its substantial fairness, or at least that every effort has been done to achieve the maximum possible fairness.
Fully agree with you! My rank of Sr.Member still young (2 months only) but for people who near of rank changes its a tragicly! Needs a corrections of initial merits!