New ranking system is actually helpful for getting quality post form the new members ( Newbies). All Jr.Members who have been demoted to Newbies for their 0 merit, can now purchase Cooper Membership with small fees to participate in signature campaign.
Actually I've noticed more spam from 0 merit members who either begs for one merit or spam many discussions thinking that what they write will earn them a merit. I hope this will not last long and after "old Jr. Members" who got demoted get their 1 merit, we will see the benefits of this change. Just 1 merit seems low though, I'd like to see 5 merits instead.
The main problem is the bounty managers who accept Jr. Member in the first place, but I guess if you reward people with 0-value shitcoins then you don't care about filtering, the cost of your bounty is 0$ anyway.
My have time changed. You (RivAngE) used to be one of the BIGGEST whiners about the implementation of this merit system, and now you seem to be recognizing that something about this merit system has been working for the good of the forum and even you have been able to make the merit system work sufficiently for yourself with some merits under your belt - and likely you will be able to make it to 100 merits plus in the near future by continuing to remain active in the forum and to contribute to substantive forum discussions...
I agree with your point about the problematic incentives that seem to exist with bounty managers - and I am not really opposed to some kind of higher requirement for advancing out of newbie status, such as 5 merits (though that 5 merits does seem a bit high, and 2 or 3 merits might be sufficient). On the other hand, it seems to me that before even considering implementing a movement to a higher merit requirement (beyond 1 merit) for Jr. member rank up status, it seems quite prudent to attempt to verify whether the already move up to the 1 merit requirement might already sufficiently (even if not completely) to address the most egregious behaviors without overkill which may have its own negative ramifications in respect to a large number of honest new members being able to rank up and to reasonably increase some of their forum credibility and privileges.