2. Every upvote gives you a small amount in the background depending on that users rank. So if a user that's member upvotes you, you get like 0.01 merit or something, but if a hero member upvotes you, you get like 0.15merit or something like that.
3.[/b] Downvoting would be a little different. Since there are probably a lot of people that are higher ranks from before the merit system, it wouldn't be that great to give them that much power to shut someone down, so let's say that there would be a threshold where when you get enough of the downvotes you lose merit (maybe something like 0.5) but if you get downvoted by a legendary or some other higher rank, you'd lose merit when you get downvoted regardless of the amount of downvotes you have or do not have.
Those are risky since account from account farming or hacking could be used to earn merit, even though the account already tagged. Even worse if they abuse downvote to remove competitor from signature campaign.
5. It's easier to look for answers if you need any, among the sea of basic replies, when there's a big green number sticking out to point it out to you.
Wouldn't it create similar problem with reddit where people upvote because they agree with someone and early poster have more advantage?