Is stingers still a merit source?
Not anymore. That's clear abuse, awarding merit for political reasons rather than any idea of quality. Only because he was a source, I effectively undid those merit sends. If he had not been a merit source, I still would've blacklisted anyone who got into DT1 through that type of shenanigans.
I hadn't read into the thread deeply enough to see that stuff. Those are better arguments against the trustworthiness of H8bussesNbicycles & co., but note that the current negative-trust-ratings were sent long before that. Before February, the thread looks like politics to me.
I'm wondering whether you specifically disapprove of account dealers being tagged--not necessarily your opinion on the matter, but whether you'd consider that an inappropriate use of the trust system.
Since some people view account sales as fundamentally untrustworthy, I think it's an appropriate use.
I have no problem with your (theymos) conclusion that "H8bussesNbicycles's thread looks like [politics] to me", but isn't there a bit of a problem with the self-moderation aspect of certain kinds of threads, especially when dealing with seemingly meta issues?
For example, I had 6 posts deleted from that thread so of course, now I don't even attempt to participate or pay attention to postings in that particular thread, since I could not even contribute if I wanted to, except if I were to exclude Lauda from my trust list, then they might allow my posts, and I thought that my posts were innocuous, even though obviously the contents of my posts likely distracted from the message that they want to promote in that thread and spread through the forum if they are able, inaccurate as some other members might find such thread messages to be.
I don't find it unreasonable to have a restrictive selfmod thread. You can guess from the banner & deletion stats that it's going to be a restrictive, single-viewpoint thread. You could always start another topic.
That said, using selfmod topics in a
deceptive way can be an appropriate reason for negative trust.