Buying merit or normal ranks is like buying yourself a bunch of trophies to put on your shelf. It's stupid, and it's an insult to everyone who achieved it legitimately. I can't see ever doing that. I don't particularly mind letting people pay for some of the privileges of these things, such as with copper membership, but it should be a parallel system.
Copper membership is good. Now, if you want to participate in signature campaigns, you can either pay the $10-$20 for copper membership or accomplish the herculean task of making one good post. I don't think that it's unreasonable in either case.
If people are making good posts but are still struggling to get merit, then that's a problem with the merit system and should be fixed on my end. Demanding money in order to bypass a broken system would be really bad. But AFAICT the merit system actually is reasonably effective at identifying good posters.
Been a little busy for a few days. Today I logged in and saw this new rule implemented. Personally, I loved it. This will really help eliminating crap postings in the forum. A very good step indeed.
I really don't mind paying 20$ for copper membership. Can you please direct me to the thread with the benefits of copper membership? Thanks.
With copper membership, you have almost the same rights as Member rank on the forum.