I don't think a single merit requirement is of any significance, it's too easy to feed into an alt and bot network. I've mad a number of suggestions in the past, and some of them are.

- Newby thread starting restricted to an intro and an account recovery board. Newbies and juniors restricted to beginners and associated boards.
- Merits associated with posts deleted by a mod, or by  the poster should be removed.
- No merits for trading, bounty, ICO or similar posts.

I think there were a load more, but that will do for the moment.