I would say it was a good decision to make your thread self-moderated. That's why you were able to delete several posts that never read the rules. Look at this thread as well, You will see people started posting their merit countdown right from their current rank while the rules said you shouldn't start the countdown if you need more than 25 merits. I checked your thread and this thread. Both threads' rules say you can start applying/countdown only if you need 25 merits or less than that (25 for Sr. member in Ratimov's thread).

Anyways, Congratulations to everyone who ranked up already. I would like to write a good quote here.