As for the "army of shitposters" this is an extremely bold and ungrounded accusation. Since theymos has introduced the new merit requirement, I have been +meritting members who have contributed to my project thread in one way or another as a way of thank you for constructive criticism, questioning, and overall thread activity.
Unfortunately for you, you've been meriting those users for "inappropriate" posts, which is why probably everybody would come to the conclusion that it's at least somewhat fishy.
What you
should have done, IMHO, is create a new thread for those users, where you require them to explain what kind of contribution they've made, and merited them for those posts. A lot more work, but at the same time visible and understandable for outsiders.
If this is not allowed, I was not aware and it most definitely was not made clear, and I will remove the merits or request for those users to send them back if it is really something that causes me to be labelled as untrustworthy.
You cannot remove merit.
I guess it would be advisable for you to send Lauda a PM, say "sorry" and point her to this thread for explanation.
She might untag you, but that's solely her decision.