I'm afraid the new-newbies will dominate this forum to get one merit, back to their old rank Jr. Member and continue signature campaign.
Forum will full of new spam-topic, instead spam-post. That's terrible.
If signature campaigns only accept Member or higher, I think we will have a fresh forum.
What's your idea ?
This behavior of the administrator is very reasonable.
The newbie can also rank easily with a merit. If you want to change, the bounty signature campaign must change, for example, the full member requirement