Thanks for this post! I agree, it happens so often in the "new" section. Most thankfully get flagged or shut down early, but every now and then some make it further and some times even too high. But the community here isn't easy fooled, so that's a +!

The account verifying method you described is new to me and if it really is that simple as it sounds, that is amazing and would be awesome to have a "sticky" guidepost with it there for newbies in the #introduceyourself.

Sent you the 3rd reward for the suggestion! Thanks!

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A tweet made me aware of this post by a friend, which made me aware of #steemit: https://steemit.com/marketing/@lukestokes/how-one-steemit-comment-got-me-unblocked-follwed-and-retweeted-by-max-kesier

Of course, immediately after signing up, I spot out #newcomers and #verification, and check it out. That's just the way I am. :-) And whom do I find in the comments thread, contributing, as always? @lukestokes

I like Keybase's tracking  concept, described here
https://keybase.io/docs/server_security/tracking. Perhaps Steemit would benefit from this. Smarter people than me can weigh in.

Joe "tracks" Mary  after personally inspecting her public key and the identify proofs on social media pointing back to her key and signature.  By tracking Mary, he is effectively signing a snapshot of her identity, and Keybase is watching out for those public identity proofs disappearing, along with more behind the scenes, too, as explained in the tracking link above.

The more people who track Mary, and the longer Mary has been tracked by people who are themselves trusted, the more comfortable you can be that when Mary posts something, it's the Mary she's claiming to be.

Here I is: https://keybase.io/clarkeveretts

Glad you posted this, @acidyo.

P.S. I originally had markdown to "pretty up" the link to the tracking info, but of course that would have broken a copy/paste someone would do to verify I was the one who posted the comment! :-)
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Can you please send me an invite in keybase?