I assume everyone knows by now that there was a new change to the ranking-up system and in order to rank-up to Jr. Member you need 1 merit. Also, all of the Jr. Members that did not have any merit were demoted to Newbie.
You can read more about it here: Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements

This is a good approach to stopping the shit posting/spam in the forums and this might help us regain the Bitcoin & Altcoin discussion forums which were lost to spam a long time ago.

Another thing that needs to be fixed since there are a lot of people here that have higher ranks and still post garbage, is a better control over the shit campaign managers that basically pay people to spam. This way we could kill the cause completely and not the effect.

So, to all you guys that were demoted to Newbie please stop wasting your time by bitching about it and start contributing to the forum in order to receive merit and rank-up.

If you wonder where is the best place to start, then take a look at the rules here: Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ