Overall it's positive change, although few parts need to be more explicit. So i decide to ask for clarification.
will be changed to
You must have 50 earned merits to vote ➥
Note.
Is it right to assume user must have 50 earned merit
of all time? Do you count earned merit after voting phase started?
It will be even better if you give a date/month for their latest post to be accepted them for the votes.
I addressed that part
here. So by active users we understand users which were and / or are active during current year (and, of course, made notable contributions during this year).
How do you define active user? Only by "Last Active: " column on profile page?
We were also curious about how users feel about implementing a rule which would give chances to more people to win. What we were thinking about is the following: to arrange things thus the winner of a category cannot be the same person from previous contests. Or he can be, as this does not mean a ban -- but he can be with more efforts. To be more precise, all previous winners could start with a coefficient of 0.8. Attention! -- this happens only regarding the previously won category!
--snip--
Since there are many changes, IMO this addition (0.8 coefficient/multiplier) isn't needed.