Earlier I had made an assertion that 90% were likely not fooled, but what do I know.  There were parts of the implementation that were so outrageous that it should not be true, yet it was presented as if it were serious.. but the fact that it was made on April 1, and lots of posters identified that fact early on, would have caused more recognition of the joke.


So, yeah, the joke seems to have played into the wishful thinking of a lot of lower ranking members, who would want to dilute the new merit system to such a degree that it reverts back to the old ranking up system.  I can see why some members would want to have changes in that direction, and theymos was taking their requests (and desires) to a kind of extreme, while keeping it serious looking enough that some members bought into it (even if it was merely a kind of wishful thinking).