All the posts from complaining Newbies without any merit prove the system works. I don't think bounty spammers will ever get a vote in it.
I found Newbie with 2800 posts and 0 merit:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1463210What do you think if forum will restrict all newbies to post active links? This might help with the massive spam.I find this suggestion very interesting and might actually help on reducing countless bounty reports posted on a daily basis on this forum.
Although, I think admins should take a few weeks before another restriction is placed since most newbies still haven't coped with the recent restrictions that theymos have implemented.
Let us see first if requiring 1 merit would be enough to stop them.