I kinda agree with Carlton Banks.. I believe bitcointalk has reached a stage where everything has been answered... most of these posts by newbies are repeats.. Like how to export wallet key etc.. They keep on repeating the same stuff.. They need to learn how to use the search function.. Plus the general discussion section gets spammed with shit posts which are repetitive and are in broken English, which ruins the reading experience for other users.. Like if you believe you have something super important to add to the discussion which has been missed by other users then happily pay a 500 Satoshi fee... Also i kinda like the repayment idea.. Like if your reply gets merited you get back your 500 satoshi.. This can work and can do wonders for this community.. But on the other hand i believe the merit introduction has been working wonderfully.. So far the posts i have read have been less shitty.. So by giving it more time it will eventually give us the same result..
The forum is wall-to-wall shitpositng but I don't think this is the solution. Simply banning the crapcoin campaigns that do nothing but pay for any old broken English spam would go a long way and is the bare minimum we should be doing but if we were to charge for anything it should be for a signature. If you get money back for receiving merits it will just lead to even more abuse and the system is already heavily exploited by those giving merit to their alts and "friends" so this would just happen in even greater numbers when there's cash refunds on the line.