Sorry I didn't have the time to read the whole thread, but I read the OP with great interest.

I like the idea and I 'd welcome it in the forum. However, there are 2 things I 'd like to see being considered:

1. The ratio of 1:10 (like LoyceV said) seems tight.
2. Does this "carry" feature essentially strengthen the "merit" feature even more? Could it work totally on the backend? Like running a stored procedure monthly or quarterly? I am thinking that since the received merit is publicly available for every user, we could apply a merit/post ratio for the past 120 days and if it's not met, the rank could drop. The question with this implementation is how the "rank up again" would happen.