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.
Nah, that was theymos throwing them dogs a bone.
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.