I defend alot of people, I may have never met them face to face, but you can grow a trust with people even you have never being the same room with them.
How I've found this to work is how people keep their word, and the quality of work that they provide. Also after spending hours with most of these people on chat rooms you can catch them in lies, and further analize that personality through how they speak to the channel.
Anyways... yea I don't have anything else...