I've given my opinion on this in 2 or 3 posts on this thread already.

But I'll also add that when an admin is coming up with rules that can cause such a paradigm shift they need to strike a balance so as not to negatively affect the genuine users of the forum. This new system actually shows the dictator styled leadership of the forum.

Anyone who respects a forum should have common sense enough to post standard quality posts without being told, even if there's no reward system in place. In this case the post counts and activities just serve as incentives to participate and contribute meaningfully to this forum.

Many users here are too damn lazy to do research, go through websites, read whitepapers, check out roadmaps and learn about whatever they are commenting about before hitting their keyboards.

Instead of opening room for more moderators and finding a way to reward them to encourage them to keep this forum clean, instead we have his new shit system stuffed down our throats.

Well...I refuse to chew or swallow it.

I'd rather stay stuck on Member for life if the forum refuses to reverse the system, than go out of my way hunting for threads I think I can benefit smerits from by so called 'quality posts'.

Long live BitCoinTalk!!!