They might not have necessarily been deleted by a moderator. If the user deletes their posts then it will also say this.
I doubted that scenario in these highlighted cases (I don't think anyone would be deleted their posts tagged with merits
)
I think if a post is removed either by staff or the user themselves then the merit should be removed also as it can be used to hide abuse.
Those posts were merited before 20th of July 2018. So users normally didn't try to remove those posts since
Merit abuse isn't moderated by the forum. But not now, go and hide somewhere dear merit abusers,
"
theymos" has started to take actions regarding Merit abuse cases. (but not mere abuse scenarios)
Link>>>
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4708873.msg42558257#msg42558257 I have seen QuestionAuthority (amongst others) merit posts that have in fact been copy and pastes before. It would be quite easy to copy someone else's very informative or helpful post or article from elsewhere then just delete it once if has been merited and get rid of the possibility of the abuse being uncovered at some point.
Merit sources also not the machines but normal human beings, their judgments sometimes can be wrong(since plagiarism is all over the forum and hard to identify). But since so much of Merits have been wasted, Merit sources also better to think twice before meriting so much of Mertis. I think "theymos" should
give authority to do the reversals of Merit transactions where source identifies a clear violation of forum rules even after he/she merited.
