@Alter_Ego – nope, no check or anything at all, except for being great forum members.
@stilllearning – why would I do this? Well, the ads have been rather unprofitable lately. So, I thought I may as well remove them for the people that contribute the most to the forum. Plus, the people that use the forum most are not typically the people that click on ads. I've been thinking about giving people an option to pay in order to remove ads, but am not sure if enough people would want to do that, or even how much it should cost.