I don’t think that they will address it here, because they don’t care about the web site or these forums.
You can see that they’re only interested in the app, because if you look at the latest user reviews in the Google Play Store, you’ll see that they respond immediately and repeatedly to the negative reviews that people post about the new Ziggy character, whereas on the forum, they ignore complaints about Ziggy completely.
Perhaps it’s my unfamiliarity with the Google Play Store because I see only a few less then 5 star reviews, which don’t mention Ziggy, and only one reply by Memrise the last few days.
But, disgruntled users, perhaps then rate the app in the Google Play Store and the Apple Store?
Made one:
Thanks for taking the time to make the polls, @Arete_Hime.
I can’t do much more than echo what other users have said here at this point. I liked the old dignified yet silly ranks a whole lot more than these cartoony characters that look like that came right out of a show targeted toward preschoolers. I spent a long time crawling up to the rank of Memperor, and got to enjoy it for a couple of weeks. Now I’m…Level 16. Which one sounds more impressive? lol
What irritates me more though is that they removed the badges without any heads up. While I was not thrilled about the announcement for Ziggy last month, I was at least happy to see that the staff actually saw fit to give us a heads up on it, as that’s been one of my biggest gripes with how Memrise does things; just ‘surprising us’ with their updates. I’m disappointed that they snuck out the badges in the process, after saying ‘more coming soon!’ for so long.
As far as the new level system goes, (and despite my wishing it weren’t so, I’m doubtful that it’s going anywhere) I think something that should be considered is making intermediate levels between each ‘evolution’. In other words, it doesn’t ‘evolve’ every level. It would be unreasonable to expect a hundred different forms to be designed, but it also seems silly to me to have such a small range of levels. (I’m an RPG nerd; I know what I’m talking about here. :P) Taking Pokemon as an example, which I’m guessing served as inspiration here, Pokemon don’t evolve every level, but instead level up with changes to just their stats and skills, then only evolve once certain levels have been reached.
Just a suggestion; I’m honestly going to feel detached from ‘Ziggy’ either way, as it’s simply not something that’s relevant to me. But please, please…move Ziggy off to the side somewhere. Having it photobomb everyone’s avatars is downright obnoxious. 
Anybody know how we can turn this silly ziggy creature off? This really detracts from the whole Memrise idea. If ziggy and the new ranking system remains, at least give us a compromise of not showing it. Any human can reply. Verstehen Sie?
Here are a few posts that might be of help:
I’m using the Adblock Plus addon in Firefox to remove it, personally.
Pretty much what everyone said. I’m still gonna go for streaks to please myself but this was a big mistake. I really hope that they bring back the mem-badges and streak badges.
I don’t hate Ziggy as a design, he’s pretty cute, but he should be a website mascot or some kind of AI assistant that motivates you, not an unexplained graphic plastered everywhere.
Hi folks
I personally took a long time deciding on my “northern lights” image and now it has this creature all over it.
I hate it.
The only good ziggy is a bowie ziggy
at least my sword points exactly where it should be pointing: right in the ziggy
Ugh! After all these “years” of working toward 50,000,000, I would’ve had the next rank by Christmas. Is it possible that Memrise works on a search engine for courses that works better vs the stuff that is just fun to work on like cartoons. Years ago there was a super way to find classes with three search options but now all we have is a cute little ziggy to show for improvements. Guess you all will flash mob another train station or hop on the Memrise bus and hit the road versus what really counts. Those of us that build cases in the past remember the fun of making a course that folks liked to use. That kind of went away when our course become so deeply buried that they never show under the newer search engine. I apologize for the negativity, you are still my favorite way to learn, but the priorities of Memrise seem a little off.
I’m in a similar position to you @heikkiss having achieved Memporer a little while way; except my next level will be 17. In my mind I had set my next goal as Overlord. I’ve missed my run - it’s Levels 17 and 18 for me.
My thoughts entirely. I use Memrise with students aged 13-16 and they will probably just cringe. They don’t need gimmicks. It’s just completely irrelevant.
Point taken Arete Hime. I’ve rated “operation Ziggy” in the Play Store. And thank you for creating the polls, it should provide an additional source of valuable information for the Memrise team. I believe this material on the forum is not just a waste of time and energy but a chance for them to bring genuine improvements to the program.
No. Nobody from Memrise responded, and the message they want to send is that we are not worth responding to.
Their deliberate decision not to respond is a loud and clear non-verbal display of dominance and control. The co-founders both have graduate degrees in psychology, and they know exactly what message ignoring their customers’ pleas on the forum sends, and it’s precisely the message they want to send to us.
you exagerate
they did give us the mem’s back
no, they did not… all i see in my courses are few, very few mems, and only in old courses i get to see some mems (if any)
that’s odd
I like this comment and it is on-topic for this post so I’m putting it here:
On another web page, that I joined years ago, users haven’t been pleased with the (minor, compared to what is going on on memrise) changes the creators have made. Because there were some people complaining silently, somebody wrote an open letter via a petition site for people to sign. And there were a lot to sign. Unfortunately, I cannot tell about the outcome of this open letter, but what I want to say is:
If few people complain about something silently and yet still sum up to be enough for the open letter to gain importance, why shouldn’t we - a lot of people that try to protest loudly enough to get heard - try the same?
Maybe I’m thinking too naively here, but if we all collect the points that are annoying us, write them down, packed in strong arguments, and give some better ideas for memrise to follow, maybe they will read it once enough people have signed and thereby shown full support to those critics?