I thought of a merit boycott like this when Theymos made the most recent changes, but I didn't want to make a new thread in Meta about it and thought it might have been too drastic--not that any of the shitposters would have read it anyway to know that they wouldn't be able to earn merits by posting there, nor probably would that even stop them.

In any case, I think it is a good idea, and I think I've stopped giving merits to at least lower-ranked members making posts in Meta.  It's pretty obvious when some of them are fishing for merits, posting crappy analysis on things like plagiarism or stating obvious facts about how the forum works or whatever.

Things have calmed down considerably in the past week, so it's not as much of a concern to me.  Had things remained like they were when the 1 merit requirement went into effect, I'd be all over this.  Maybe the shitposters learned that their efforts were in vain.  It doesn't seem like their Meta posts were/are earning them any merits.

Yeah, I can't do it either.  But even with some of the lower-ranking memebers busting scams, I can still very easily vow not to give merits to Jr. Members and certainly not to newly-busted Newbie members in merit hell.  That's a no-brainer.