Hmm...
Noticing the two of you gents made me realize something.
The easiest way to get a purple bar is to become a mod then to resign from that position.
Tempting... tempting...
Aelius is purple because of his long history of service. He just ran out of available time to fulfill his duties here, so it's the gold watch of retirement.
Kojo is purple because he finds more bugs than everyone else put together, and it's not even particularly close. I couldn't even tell you who #2 is (maybe Seha?). He was my unofficial QA before, and now it's a more formal role.
It wasn't this way in the past, but
I typically use the purples (and greens) as a focus group for changes I intend on making, before I float them to the general public. It's a collection of people who are visibly, demonstrably invested in the community (plus Byrth), so if they react badly to something, then that's an indicator I need to rethink it (or at least make a better case for it).