- I think there should be an option to report a member, instead of an individual post. The format could include selecting a common reason for reporting (Sig Campaign Spam Poster / Plagiarism / Off-Topic with a comment section for other possible reasons), and then have it only alert a moderator once several people (maybe 5-10?) have reported the same member. Would reduce number of reports and probably be more effective in eliminating the worst offenders.

- a twist on your suggestion for a sub forum on BCT for highly merited members. Instead of merit as a req, you have "bouncers" who let people into the "club" based on looking through their post history and determining if they contribute value to the forum (not that every post has to be long and philosophical, but is on topic, and actually adds to the conversation). Perhaps a thread could be started for people to submit an "application" to the club. And as the club grows, you could add a number of "Suggesters", who can suggest members for selection into the club (to be approved by a bouncer), and as the club gets big enough, a major change could be implemented to the forum across the board where only those "in the club" have privileges on the forum (such as avatars, sigs, starting threads, etc). I know it will seem too exclusive or elitist to some, but it could be a possible solution to many of the issues currently plaguing the forum.

- an alternative to the idea above is simply adding more (maybe a lot more) moderators. If this happens in conjunction with making it a little harder to get to Jr Member (or at least the first rank where you can have a sig), I think most of the bots / crap-posters would be weeded out. You just have to make it hard enough to be not worth their while.

- what if merit--all merit--slowly deteriorates over time? This could help solve some issues--for example, members who got grandfathered into the merit system with a high rank, but do not post anything worth meriting. Over time, their rank would deteriorate unless they step up their game.

- an alternative to showing on each post if a member has been reported by other members, only have it show up when you click on "report to moderator".