This post raised my curiosity, which is the reason for this thread.
Keep in mind that vas majority of legendary members became legendary before merit was introduced. And back then you only needed activity.
Nowadays its much harder to rank up due to merit requirements, and with good reason tbh
When I was a newbie, I was told that the majority of legendary members got their ranks before the merit system. I have become a legendary member and likewise many other persons, yet someone still believes that airdropped legendary members are still more than self-made legendary members.
Any data to compare both?
Either of the ways, being recognized or reputable does not have to do with ranks, but what you can contribute to the forum base on what you know, i hope some of us would have been surprised with the speed of powergloves when we started to have achieved more higher ranks requirements faster but left with activities to meet up those ranks.
That been said, if you're a newbie of this era and works hard, you can achieve the rank of a legendary, though the change there may be uneasy as merit is most the lacking aspect to get there after some must have already gotten the required activities, as for those beneficiary of the airdropped merits, they have the privilege and to have been given such is not bad because they have all arrived earlier before us and before the merit system was being introduced, while the reason for the merit system was majorly intended to die down the incidence of spammers ranking up.