Unfortunately, it looks like the spam reduction is already diminishing. That can be caused by the fact that last week the number of users with 1 Merit went up
25x faster than it did in previous weeks. Many Newbies were promoted back to Jr. Member, and
many of those were ranked up through Merit abuse. I also see more Newbies wearing Copper Membership now, which allows them to continue spamming their signature.
It is the important point.
As @coinlocket$ presented in his thread, the merit distribution increased more than 90% over the last week, since the implementation of new rank requirement, which requires 1 merit to be a Junior Member.
It's also noticeable that more and more Junior Members that have 1 merit after that day.
Before that day, I believe that it is hard to find a Junior Member with at least 1 merit.
Personally, I call it as one of side effects of the new rank requirement.
Anyway, thanks @Theymos by the latest adjustments on ranking system.