For users who are curious about the -44 merit transaction, there are 17 transactions like that (with negative amount of merit), according to the last Friday merit data dump by theymos.
Details:
cat | Freq. Percent Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
neg merit | 17 0.00 0.00
pos merit | 369,275 100.00 100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 369,292 100.00
For negative merit transactions only
amount | Freq. Percent Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
-44 | 1 5.88 5.88
-10 | 5 29.41 35.29
-9 | 2 11.76 47.06
-8 | 1 5.88 52.94
-7 | 1 5.88 58.82
-5 | 2 11.76 70.59
-4 | 1 5.88 76.47
-2 | 3 17.65 94.12
-1 | 1 5.88 100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 17 100.00
There are some very special cases that get demerit activities from theymos
+----------------------------------------+
| sent_userid received_userid amount |
|----------------------------------------|
32111. | 0 1724596 -44 |
216598. | 0 92110 -2 |
216599. | 0 81995 -5 |
216600. | 0 1316028 -2 |
216601. | 0 290351 -9 |
|----------------------------------------|
216602. | 0 289011 -1 |
216603. | 0 249872 -9 |
216604. | 0 249436 -7 |
216605. | 0 165478 -8 |
216606. | 0 9645 -2 |
|----------------------------------------|
216607. | 0 358020 -10 |
216608. | 0 15728 -10 |
216609. | 0 2536607 -10 |
216610. | 0 1246188 -4 |
216611. | 0 355462 -10 |
|----------------------------------------|
216612. | 0 92110 -10 |
216613. | 0 2472107 -5 |
+----------------------------------------+