There has been a little change, which I observed from the merit source data board. We previously had about 109 merit sources, and currently the number has been reduced to 88, and the total number of Smerits by source is down to 31318 from 32990. A lot of inactive merit sources have been removed, and from the announcement on Meta, it appears that a few merit sources have also been added. This could be what the admin was doing the day merit sources were experiencing a bug on their merit send page (negative Smerit).
Well, even if people didn't announce they had become sources, it wouldn't have taken long for others to notice.
After a long time, theymos made an update to the list of merit sources. Some inactive sources were removed, some those who applied were accepted. I won't name names here, but it'll soon become clear who the new sources are.
An update regarding merit system was needed. I see this as a positive development for the forum. Good luck to all new merit sources.