But isn't this attitude counter-productive? We're meant to be rewarding users who make decent posts and if a user makes one then that post probably should be merited. I get your logic though ~
But on the other hand I'm with DdmrDdmr too:
~A decent post does not make up for a lame prior posting history. ~
I'm mostly in DdmrDdmr's camp, too, but I also get the point hilariousandco is making. If newbies haven't made at least a couple of decent posts in the month since the new requirements for jr. member took effect then it's probably safe to say they will never get better. Conversely, if a former shitposter/bounty hunter has managed a few good posts in that time then I am less opposed to meriting them. I, personally, won't merit anyone whose post history mostly consists of bounty reports, but that's just a personal preference and, like I said, I see the point hilariousandco is making w/r/t encouraging those users who (might) have realized the error of their shitposting ways.
This is why I think we should make the merit requirement ten. Nobody has time to go through a users post history to check it and this is something we shouldn't even have to do. I'm fine with one merit for becoming a Junior, but not to get a signature. Lets remove Juniors sigs completely and make the merit requirement ten to get one. That way we can be way more liberal with merits and at least a shitposter will have to redeem themselves by making multiple quality posts so their previous history shouldn't be something we have to worry about as they've probably redeemed themselves if they've managed to get the ten merit. Ten merit is also obviously ten times harder/more costly to abuse and one is far too easy to get or abuse right now. I think this benefits everyone and will probably make it easy for users to get the merit, or at least make them put more effort in over several posts rather than just hoping they get the merit for one decent post (which users are obviously reluctant to merit if it's an anomaly).