It would cock-up my whole calculus on the Merit Dashboard for the Initial rank for accounts. That alone plays against me seeing the idea with a shine … (kidding – a bit).

In general terms, people are used to the concepts of ranks, and the possibility of reaching them in life or getting stuck where they are. What has a different tone is the concept of being de-ranked, be it in life or on a forum, and although that’s part of the idea behind the proposal, having a ranking-system should, in my opinion, play trying to incentivise reaching higher ranks (if that is one’s game), showing the carrot if you will, but not waving the stick.

I figure that the main practical use for ranks is to participate in campaigns. I haven’t looked at them in detail lately, but I believe many decent enough campaigns play around with the idea of earning a certain amount of merits in a given period of time to participate. That kind of does the trick, leaving out those who, merit wise, are at the end of the food chain, whom may be relegated to lesser campaigns which may consider them, if at all. There will be of course the chance to join campaigns such as those mentioned in your eighth point, but it seems like an overkill to implement a de-ranking system because of that.

It would be better to, let’s say, subject signature bearing on the whole to earning at least x Merits in the last y days, leaving the ranks be, although there are still plenty of drawbacks, especially for those that are not active or roam boards that are not often merited.