[surgical_fire]

Still something that defeats the purpose, no?

A verification badge should be something that says "this person indeed is who they claim to be" not "they can spend a couple of bucks a month" nor "we like him enough to give them a checkmark". Both are extremely unhelpful. The latter probably even more unhelpful since it is very subjective.

[ceejayoz]

Verification came with moderation tweaks for high-profile accounts to combat things like brigading via mass abuse reports. That's why consistently bad behavior tended to lose the check.

Probably should've been two different flags, but it wasn't.