As soon as you visit the thread you know that saying bullish statements about the price, especially if we are in bull market, or saying you have bought a certain amount of Bitcoin is quite likely to get you merit there.
I've visited that thread a few times and had sort of noticed that the merit distribution was like the booze at a billionaire's cocktail party, free-flowing and copious. All the shitposters who figured out where that party was are like filthy vagrant gatecrashers dressed up in tuxedos they don't actually own.
- It is a distraction that dilutes honest conversation between good faith participants.
- It is lazy, dishonest, and often wholly unnecessary.
- It lends to promotion of a culture of cheating.
While I agree wholeheartedly with all of those points, I'm of the opinion that there should be less "government" on bitcointalk and thus I don't think there should be restrictions set by fiat from Theymos. I think the names of the biggest offenders from the WO thread (the ones who are handing out merits to posts that don't deserve it) should be compiled into a list and then someone should PM them with a request to visit and comment in this thread. That way if they didn't realize this was a problem that's being noticed by the community, they'll have no excuse in the future.
And after that, if the behavior isn't stopped perhaps DT members can come up with a plan of action--or not. I don't actually know how bad the problem is in the WO thread.