In short, the auth icon is who you are.
YOU! The purpose of the auth icon is to signify
that a particular message was actually submitted by a particular user. While messages
that do not have an auth icon may have been submitted by the person whose name appears
as the submitter, that is not necessarily the case. This is still not proof that the
user is who they claim to be, but your old world identity (a.k.a. legal birth name)
matters not to Ubersite.
"Why do we bother?" you ask. I'm glad you did. We bother in order to lend
credibility, identity, and integrity to the Ubersite so that every visitor reaches
their own personal nirvana each time they visit. Consider the alternative: a bunch of
random people making random decisions with no sense of accountability or personal
responsibility. Sounds a little too much like a certain branch of a particular
government. Ubersite is not the US Congress. Ubersite is not a corrupt
corporate spokesperson trying to take away your Constitutional rights because they affect
our bank account. Here, we provide a simple tool and the world creates a living, breathing,
thinking website. Here, you can read
all of the messages posted by a particular authorized user to judge for yourself that
person's credibility and personality, characteristics which, unlike Congressmen,
some of our users posess. If you like a couple of things a user has written,
maybe you would like other things they have done. You could then review their material
and give it a high rating so others may have the pleasure of reading it as well.
"What benefit does this give to me? [or What have you done for me lately?]"
they scream. By registering as a user, you lend weight to the criticism or praise that
you give to a message. If you find something too offensive to the point that
it isn't even funny, you can help steer others away from that material. If a friend
of yours has written a story and you want to hype it up, you can bump up the rating
of that story thereby making it more accessible. Most of all though, this will make
you feel like you count and are not simply a tax payer id. Ubersite will make you a
better (user.age >= 18 ? lover : person).
