The verification mark is a single badge that renders next to a handle wherever it appears on Palanor — bylines, comments, profile pages, signal authorship. Four colors. One badge.
Member — coral
Granted automatically to any active paid Insights Community Member. The mark appears the moment the Stripe subscription activates. It drops on the day a canceled subscription expires (you stay marked until the end of the billing period).
Researcher — magenta
Granted by application. Researchers earn byline authority across Codex, Futures, signal methodology pages, and the news desk. The application form lives at /apply/researcher. Editorial reviews each pitch; expect a response within two weeks.
Steward — cyan
Granted to any member of a paying Enterprise Intelligence organization. The mark is institutional — it signals that the handle reads the lattice with their organization's strategy and risk surface in the loop. Hovering the mark reveals the organization name.
Council — iridescent
Reserved for the five Council researchers (Caspar Vey, Soren Halling, Halvor Eik, Wren Holloway, Cassian Idris) and Henry Woodring (CTO). The iridescent gradient is the only place the brand gradient appears as a verification surface. Council membership is not a tier anyone applies to; it is the masthead.
When marks combine
A user can hold one mark at a time. The order of precedence when multiple are earned is Council → Steward → Researcher → Member. A Researcher who later subscribes as a Member keeps the magenta mark; the system never overwrites a more authoritative mark with a less authoritative one.