what do purple names mean and why?

see above

They work with the CIA.

Very funny, MotherRussia.

Colour codes:

– orange: regular user
– blue: moderator
– green: super moderator
– red: admin (that's me)
– purple: ex-moderator (for various reasons)

Generally ex-mods either turn orange or purple. There are various reasons for that, it depends on a person. Purples tend to mostly stop their forum activity, although not all of them, of course.

At the time we brought in the purple colour it was because some prominent moderators had stopped modding but some were still around the site and it seemed helpful to have a way to acknowledge the contribution they had made to the site.

Also, when looking back on past threads, some posts only make sense in the context of being a mod at the time of posting, it's helpful to be able to have a way of seeing that with the purple colour. For instance, posts that have rules listed for the forum or have been locked or edited by a past mod only really make sense if you can see they were a previous mod by the purple...