I'm glad someone else has voiced the thought that I've had for some time now.  These shitposting bounty hunters have to get referred to bitcointalk from somewhere, and it's goddamn ridiculous.  I picture billboards along unpaved highways all over Asia & Africa advertising how much wealth can be achieved with little work, and I'm sure word of mouth must be huge as well.

I fully support this suggestion, as well as the one hilariousandco made that newbies should have to earn at least 1 merit in order to rank up to Jr. Member. 

The merit system has improved things in so far as people who are capable of making good posts have really started to make excellent ones, but I don't think it's cut down on the shitposting at all.  Bitcoin Discussion, Economics, and a handful of other sections are still full of awful, incoherent nonsense.  I do think that in order to combat this, there needs to be more restrictions put in place for noobs. 

And it's not like all of the suggestions would have to be implemented all at once.  Theymos could try something like what Yahoo62278 suggested here, or what hilariousandco and others have suggested--put in place one thing and see what happens.  If it has a minimal effect, try another suggestion.