What's the purpose of earned merit? does the user with 270 earned merit should be unbanned than the user with 32 earned merit? check the thread and you will see the user with 32 earned merit deserve to get unban than the 270 earned merit.
When i saw the merit statistics as well, what came my mind was if that was the total amount of merits they have earned althrough there stay on the forum or if that was the numbers of merit their ban appeal generated as i see the difference and margin they all have from each other in respect of ranks.
I'm not really sure if this thread is important because most of users got banned shouldn't get unban or changed to signature ban, only few of them deserved.
There are more than these users being banned on the forum since the beginning of the year but i want to believe OP only take time to fish out those that make an appeal for being banned, though this has nothing to do with increasing their chances but may be a way of keeping an update on ban appeals made this year, am surprised no newbie has appeared on the list, do they not consider making an appeal or don't know how to make one.