This thread is is an excellent initiative, but alas not sufficient to repair the damage done to the forum by the merit system. In time it has proven to be very divisive. I agree it was a necessary measure in the time of the ICO craze and the swarms of locusts which were spamming the forum with background noise because of signature campaigns. But I remember that Theymos had thought that the merit system would produce on average almost one merit for each decent post, so it would not be an obstacle for normal people to rank up, but alas this didn't happen. As a consequence, we're having now a forum where the ranking has turned into a division in castes, which as I said is very divisive.
Personally I can't stand communities divided in castes, I don't care about hierarchies - but castes are really annoying to me. It's good that you try to fix a broken system but there would be the need of a legion of people like you. When the merit system was introduced - exactly three years ago - I was 4 days away to become Hero Member, even though I had been a member old enough (a member since February 2014) to be already Legendary - but most of the time I'd read other people posts but not enter into discussions - this is why I didn't rank up, and in fact I didn't care about the ranking issue at all. And even though I continue not to care, I can't unsee this division in castes, which is why I'm not taking part to many discussions here any more.
Good luck with your initiative!