Although I still prefer stompix's idea of having to spend merits to bump a thread. This would cost abusers a lot more than just getting a merited account and using it for unlimited bumps.
Glad you like it, this is the best I could come with that would not let to serious abuse. Of course, merit can be bought but is going to cost them a lot and they would be far easier to identify.
Still, I wouldn't go as far as saying that suddenly people will want to make meritable posts in the altcoin section.
But from what theymos proposed I'm really concerned with the point you've raised:
Also if I want to comment on some scam I would likely bump it to the front page (which happens now too but the front page bump in the new system would be far more valuable). An opt-out from the score would be nice.
So if an ICO is discovered to be a scam with a fake team or anything else and you, loycev or marlboroza post in it warning people about the issue that topic would probably be on the first page forever although your warning posts will be buried under a ton of one-liners.
So the system would backfire seriously in this case, turning scam warnings in the most generous promoters ever.
In my case, for example, I posted only once in the last month on an ANN, congratulating BCH for the flippening.
Pretty obvious that with the new system I would have stayed away, so this might have some weird consequences.
LE:
@cryptohunter
I see you've edited your reply but the first time you've mentioned: "a person" that was doing the scanning and is now banned from the board. Who are you talking about?
The only person I know of that was doing free design analysis of these complex new designs (ones that had strong technical whitepapers) and publishing his findings was anonymint. I was often bookmarking his posts and reading regularly because although I could not fully understand what he was saying in all cases I then used to compare what other devs would say in reply to him. By matching up whether they agreed, were still debating or disagreed one could get an idea themselves and make a best guess on if it was a good idea to get involved or wait and watch. Most of what he said about designs and future issues were very accurate from what I could tell.