It doesn't. My point is more on the ranking. When I joined, I accepted the ranking challenge and tried to make meaningful posts on each of my messages/replies. It's a nice way to encourage being active in this forum and helping others, and not just be lurking or posting only when help is needed. And of course, it's gratifying to see me moving up from Newbie to Jr. Member and hopefully higher.

So to be clear, I can still visit threads and contribute.  I just feel the additional Merit system will add another layer to users here, and instead of focusing on contributing to the threads, it adds a new dimension of finding how to reach their target Merits in addition to reaching their target Activity.

I understand there is an issue in terms of spamming and flooding posts just to be able to join bounties and all. These are money after all and it is general human behavior.  I believe the objective of all this is to tackle the issue of 1) limiting the number of new users to genuine users and 2) reducing, if not eliminating, the amount of spam in this forum. It's a tough balancing act. Time will tell how this new implementation will fare.