This is a HORRRIBLE idea. I can not overstate this enough. Merit and the trust system are already heavily abused to the point of their being almost totally counterproductive. Adding negative merits will turn this place into just another retarded fucking echo chamber like every other site. All that will happen is people will only say what is popular, and everything else will either be punished, or silenced. This place will then proceed to completely turn into a cesspool instead of just mostly a cesspool. This MUST NOT happen under any circumstances.
Try reading the full topic before overreacting. It has since been clarified by gmaxwell that they simply meant having a way to mark a post as nonsense. They're not proposing deducting merits from users:
Everyone is getting too caught up on the idea that this would remove merit. I would consider it more like a newbie flag, but rather than being placed on a person it would be on a post.
Right. Apparently I screwed up by using the word "demerit" in my post. Removing merits is not something I consider particularly useful.
I did. Any iteration of this idea is retarded and will cause horrible unintended consequences. I suggest when people say things that you don't like you find a way to cope with it or use the existing systems instead of obsessing over new an improved ways to control the speech of others.