Okay I just want to point out involving merits into a a signature campaign won't work out. All that will do is encourage merit abuse and then everyone will say, "Oh look at that SteveStake now and his merit abuse! This merit abuse is clearly because the wages are too low!"
I tried to involve merit into the campaign in the past and I consider it the biggest failure in the entire campaign. I held a contest and the people who earned the most merit for the week would split a few hundred dollars in prizes. I say it was the biggest failure because I had to kick so many people out for merit abuse and people were breaking rules and begging for merit. Merit is abused heavily already without someone else giving incentive to "earn" it. If I add in merit rules to the contest we can guarantee a SteveStake is encouraging merit abuse thread.
I will stand by this no matter how unpopular: merit abuse is a problem, not just in terms of fraudulent handing out of merits but also in the circle of merit-issuance among regulars. A lot of the merits are handed out to those who have already amassed a bunch of merits. I would even go as far as to say that some members of high rank are getting merits for low quality posts, just because... it seems the norm in the forum to send merits to people who have already accumulated them. I suppose the problem here is the politicization of merits.
If people have a fit over this, so be it. I know it's not popular to bring this up.