I think we should not tie the level of trustworthiness to the member status only. Because there are some suspicious folks here who have the member status and have been long time forum members, e.g. the mentioned person above: https://forum.enlightenedstates.com/u/youknowwhattimeitis
I really like the “people vouch for people” voting idea that @Divine_Lotus suggested:
With that, everyone can see who vouched for whom.
Then everyone can make up their own mind whom they are going to trust by how much.
@Divine_Lotus
I don’t think we need any special integration for that.
Just a thread and one post per user.
In their posts everyone will list the usernames (tagging them) of those users whom they consider trustworthy, suspicious or scammers.
For example:
< JAAJ’s post >
According to my experience:
Trustworthy Trading Partners: @Divine_Lotus @SammyG etc.
Suspicious Forum Users: @youknowwhattimeitis
Scammers: @Spritualplayboy
One such post per user.
Then people can user the search function to check the whole thread and see how many and how vouched for whom.