I just have a question and I know that with some replies on this thread others people will learn.
My reasons for creating this post is to know if an account is ban and after the same account get unbanned will the Smerits still remain on the same account or it will be removed while the account is dormant?
There is no point in hoarding sMerit; keeping it yourself does not benefit you, and we reserve the right to decay unused sMerit in the future.
There is always a note, as stated above, that displays on every user's profile whenever they want to give out merit. It doesn't state when and when the smerit will decay. These equally mean that if an account is banned, their Smerit doesn't automatically disappear because, in some ban cases, there is a chance that after appealing, the account can get unbanned and the user can start their usual activities on the forum again.
I also believe that Smerit's on ban account doesn't decay because there are no rules like that on the forum either. Some cases regarding merit abuse got connected to some old in-active accounts that had Smerit on them for so long, yet it never decayed.