While I was going through the OP, the quote on not having to merit banned users caught my eyes, it presented merit as though being given to the users account rather than the posts. Well, it wouldn’t mean anything to the users account rather haven’t been previously banned but, in the context that quality posts is what is being merited rather than the user, a post isn’t banned or removed else, it be none existent or has no value. In as much as the post isn’t deleted and it’s perceived to be of quality, meriting it isn’t exactly out of place.
It’s a pointer to what a quality post does look like for someone.

Then again, for the idea of banned (temporal bans, signature bans & permanent bans) there should be a means to denote these if we look to implement it. I would like to know this for sure and the suggestion from LoyceV on the cross


However, you don’t get to know what kind of ban the user is placed on. Perhaps there could be a color pattern to this, when it’s inked in red (permanent), inked in yellow (temporal) and inked in blue (Sig ban). Or perhaps we could just center it on permanently banned users.