It seems that you can't get higher up in the ranks without "likes" lately.
Which is sort of weird, because if you basically don't have friends in high places or people just don't like you at best you stay in place. Not to mention that you can get negative merits. Why? Just because maybe someone doesn't like your thread/face/English pronunciation and so on.
At least this is my opinion.
I hope I won't get negative merits, but if I do I'll have to accept the fact that just freely speaking your mind is not the best idea.
You can't get negative merits as far as I know, you can only gain merit.
This has been put forward as a method of increasing post quality, not of requiring you to have friends. ie: posts that contribute should tend to get merit, and the merit system should force you to contribute before you rank up.