Yesterday the rules about Merit changed. Now, If you want to participate in Signature Bounty at least, how a Junior Member you would have to have 1 Merit. Many people, who was selling Bitcointalk's accounts lost their subject of earnings. The team of Bitcointalk lost 2-3 BTC per day, for accounts from IP with proxybans. It's very sad. I have 90 posts and Newbie... I lost my Signature. A lot of people lost their Signatures. In many Youtube bounties, i have participated in, I lost my tokens, because they need rank on the forum from Junior Member. Thank you..
Well, this was the main idea behind the change... It's not really hard to get 1 merit, newbies are just frightened now, but after a few days this hype will just stop and people will start to adapt to the new situation...