About meriting, surely, it wouldn't be considered manipulation if awarded to good posts, regardless of whether the poster is an "undesirable"? In this case a thread like this would suffice:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0 - where posters can report good unmerited post and anybody can merit them if they choose to.
The moderators already started to (anonymously) de-merit us.