To play along with the idea of a potential new Rank, I’ve taken a look at those accounts that have now got an aggregate total (earned+airdropped) of Merits > 1000, and clustered them into segments by simply dividing their Merits and Activity each by 1K.
That means that a MeritSegment of 1 means that the account has (1001 .. 1999] Merits, a MeritSegment of 2 has [2000 .. 2999] Merits and so forth. Likewise with the ActivitySegment.
There are currently 2.028 accounts with an aggregate Merit Counter of Merits > 1000, in accordance to the following distribution:
MeritSegment ActivitySegment nAccounts
13 2 1
13 1 1
11 1 1
10 4 1
9 2 1
9 1 2
8 3 1
8 2 1
7 3 3
6 2 1
5 3 3
5 2 4
5 1 3
5 0 1
4 3 5
4 2 6
4 1 9
4 0 1
3 4 1
3 3 8
3 2 13
3 1 13
3 0 1
2 3 14
2 2 32
2 1 20
2 0 2
1 4 3
1 3 51
1 2 372
1 1 1208
1 0 245
Since the current ranking system requires a quasi-similar amount of Merits and Activity for the mid-to-high Ranks, I’m assuming that this pattern would roughly follow (not exactly), and therefore the most logical potential candidate requirements would be:
2k Merits & 2k Activity (greater or equal on both accounts): 95 Accounts
3k Merits & 3k Activity (greater or equal on both accounts): 22 Accounts
4k Merits & 4k Activity (greater or equal on both accounts): 1 Account (Theymos)
The 2K^2 option has a significant base of 95 current forum members (+more potentials on their way), yet not too large, whilst the 3K^2 and 4k^2 seem too unpopulated for a rank (might as well give them a personal title than a rank).
Nevertheless, Activity is the slow factor to gain for quite a few. Looking at the segment table above, all those above 4K Merits are essentially way above their Activity, so perhaps pairing the two for potential new ranks is not the most adequate measure. Bearing this in mind, other alternative could be:
4 Merits & 2k Activity (greater or equal on both accounts): 27 Accounts
6 Merits & 3k Activity (greater or equal on both accounts): 5 Accounts
8 Merits & 4k Activity (greater or equal on both accounts): 1 Account (Theymos)
This set is of course more restrictive than the prior set, but the first entry (4K2K) could be an option.
I’m assuming that, overall, 2K Activity would be the target for the hypothetical next rank, following the current pattern. 3K Activity seems too restricted by any means to date for it to be a rank. Now whether the Merit parameter should be 2K or 4K (or else) would be a question of numbers, determining what figure seems reasonable from the get-go, and how many are in the pipeline towards that new Rank. The idea being the Rank to be aspirational, hard to obtain, yet reachable through persistence and presence on the forum.
Note: My premise is that accounts should not be deranked at this stage, but rather, were it the case, create an additional one above.
