There's a bug in BPIP:
Could this be the cause? Or did you see the number of Merits go down in the profile on Bitcointalk?
Hey @Vod, is there any glitch in the merit stats?
Yes, I am hunting down a bug that will sometimes give a merit to the wrong person... :/The BPIP bug(s) that Vod is hunting down, outlined above, seems to be referring to a different phenomenon from the situation that I described, which is whether merits are subtracted if merited posts are deleted..
It seems that your understanding (LoyceV) and mine are the same. The merits should not be deleted, so it seems to me that the jury is still out about whether there are circumstances in which merits might be deleted (along with deleted posts) beyond extreme intervention abuse situation that seem to be exceptions and had been previously mentioned, as extreme case exceptions, by theymos.
Here is another view of the merit history, using LoyceV's tool.
http://loycevsbasement.privatedns.org/Merit/history/1381048.html
and here is the profile link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1381048
Counting those shows that he has received 15, same as on his profile page in the forum.
The deleted message >
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3308553.msg35975922#msg35975922
Note the Topic ID >3308553
Edit> The deleted post was in a thread that got deleted. Here is the cached copy in google >
BTW, found an bug in the LoyceV's data. It shows that one other post was deleted too, which is not the case.
http://loycevsbasement.privatedns.org/Merit/history/1381048.html
and here is the profile link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1381048
Counting those shows that he has received 15, same as on his profile page in the forum.
The deleted message >
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3308553.msg35975922#msg35975922
Note the Topic ID >3308553
Edit> The deleted post was in a thread that got deleted. Here is the cached copy in google >
BTW, found an bug in the LoyceV's data. It shows that one other post was deleted too, which is not the case.
This iasenko investigation seems to explain the situation - while simultaneously pointing out unresolved bugs of a different nature from the original question.