Exclude the guild recruitment categories from the requirements for the ‘regular’ level. Instead of 25% of posts across the entire forums, make it 25% from the entire forums except that one category.
It might also be beneficial for threads with over 100 replies to be excluded from the 25% of posts requirement. We shouldn’t have to read/open forum games, contests and other threads with massive numbers of replies to get to the 25% of replies read requirement.