Yep, kind of.  It's probably more of a merit-grab attempt than anything else.

I've got no problem with people who earn money here on principle; it's just that this forum has had a long-standing problem of members in sig campaigns or bounties making posts in horrible English that are of little to no value.  It would be great if more posts were paid for in the local sections, as that would reduce the number of posts that non English speakers try to make.  I'm not knocking anyone for not knowing English well, because a lot of people here know more than one language and that's admirable--but trying to make substantial posts in a language that you're not fluent in and being incentivized to do so makes for a really bad combination.