I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense to me? Care to shed more light and elaborate? I think the trust factor, albeit minimal, comes with the idea of a conjunctive arrangement between a small donation and providing some personal information.
The SVU rank isn't meant to be one that is obtained difficulty. It is to assure other users' that this user has proactively provided Sythe with some information that could be used if the circumstance shall ever arise. There are other funranks that are extremely difficult to obtain - i.e. highly trusted, which has been obtained by >5 users on Sythe.
When the rank is called, "Verified User', I would assume the person is verified. Not, "Buy the rank and hope you give us your actual personal information.
I think the trust factor, albeit minimal, comes with the idea of a conjunctive arrangement between a small donation and providing some personal information.
Technically this is convoluted considering you're replacing the factual knowledge that the person requesting the rank is trusted or not, with a small donation, instead of intuitively knowing that person is a verified and trustworthy individual, I mean when a new person jumps onto the forums, their first action is getting acclimated with who is in charge, who is trustworthy and who are the staff members, I would insinuate someone with the rank "Verified"
would be a trusted individual, but personally I take ranks like these with a grain of salt because of the loose terms the person has to commit to, to actually obtain the rank. Anyone can donate 25$, say they are so and so, scam, then do it all over again with different information.
With any rank, the circumstances are that anyone can be behind that name, could be a convicted pedophile, it could be one of the staff members on this forum, it could be Barack Obama, Hitler's son it could be anyone; albeit the trust gained from that individual is supplementary, every rank that holds some power, hypothetically or not shouldn't be just some rank that is possibly a dice roll with who owns that rank, I mean how do you guys hire your staff members, middlemen, trusted members. Taking this from a personal experience, I've worked with countless of communities, shaping and molding the experience for members, and when I say
anyone can scam, be deceptive or anything in between, I'm not saying that loosely,
anyone can be who they say they are, do a 180 degree turn and deceive everyone. Now I understand this rank isn't a shining beacon for those looking for the most trusted individual; I personally think the rank name should be changed, to something like Scythe Sponsor, or Scythe Supporter.