An Explanation of Trust Levels

You did an excellent job of it too. The pride is well deserved.

No question! You and the staff have done a GREAT job. My hat truly comes off to you guys.

@HAWK
In NO WAY did I mean to sound like I was dinging you guys. I was not. I respect and will abide by the authority here.

However, my point was this. Yes, you guys are staff and you guys did do the design and testing but that does give you an unfair advantage over the Community when it comes to an area like the Showcase.

I accept the challenge of proving myself to be a worthy member.

Hehehe, jokes on you, even if we weren’t doing the testing, I believe Staff have full access to all categories anyway!

Nonetheless, you’ll quickly find that most of us staff don’t like to showboat, so we won’t be abusing our early access by any means. In all seriousness though, we are evaluating our requirements for TL 3 as we watch members progress from TL 0 to TL 1, from TL 1 to TL 2, etc. We want to make sure members can obtain these levels. TL 2 to TL 3 is a bit tricky because we want to ensure the members who are giving back are the ones earning this level as the level has a LOT of perks.

Don’t fret about it though, we’ll make sure the levels are ironed out as we see how everyone takes to Discourse. This is something we are currently monitoring and will for several months.

@cpradio cpradio

I like you! Yes, I always knew you guys hold the keys to the kingdom (so to speak).

But after a few interactions with you, Hawk and a couple of others I AM getting a better feel for you guys.

My personal desire is that this site does not morph into some strange site like another one we all know about where the Mods & Admins are down right vindictive and yet claim they are the most open.

The way it is shaping up right now I truly believe you guys are genuine. Thanks for that!

Question @HAWK , I see for Trust Level 3 you have to have viewed 25% of hte threads started in the last 100 days. Does that mean 25% of all the threads in the forum? That’s a little extreme if so. Some people (I’ll use myself as an example) stick purely to the CSS threads. I know nothing of Ruby or Python (etc) so viewing it is of no interest in me. Can you please go into more detail? Same with viewing the 25% of posts.

Wanted to edit my post so some Moderator can combine these posts…Perhaps @TechnoBear since he’s floating around and edited my last one .

I also think it would be a cool feature if you got to see your…stats. I’ll explain. For Level 3, for example, you have requirements you must fill, like giving x amount of likes, receiving x amount of likes… Well if you are level 2, it’d be nice to see what you are missing for level 3. Might be a bad idea,dunno. Just throwing it out there.

I believe that is on the Discourse road map somewhere. It just hasn’t become a high enough priority yet.

If there’s any way to merge posts on Discourse, then I’ve yet to find it. I could try deleting one and pasting it into the other, but that might play havoc with the two “likes” you’ve already aquired on the second post, so I’ll just leave well-enough alone.

Off topic:

Just remember, @RyanReese, @TechnoBear is a she bear.

Yeah, we’ve discussed that a lot. The current percentages are a lot lower than originally set, but we’re feeling our way. The staff here have been testing this system out for a good while now, and I don’t know if any of us are Level 3 yet, but many are close, so it certainly is possible. (And it’s only been this week that we are really getting to test this system in the real world.) Like you, most of what goes on here is over my head, but TBH, it’s a lot easier than you think to meet the requirements of level 3.

Well I don’t know the traffic of other sections of Sitepoint but honestly this is the way I feel about this. I will again use myself as the example. I see no point in making us view threads (25%) other than the sole purpose of seeing if anything is flaggable or there is any spam. Again, I don’t know how much traffic there is outside of the CSS (maybe HTML) forum so maybe tthe 25% quota can be met on just those… But I see no reason on making users view more topics than they want just to meet that quota. I know Level3 isn’t really a big deal and it’s not a deal breaker if people ever reach it…but I just have quarrels with the logic. If someone wanted level 3, they’d have to venture outside of what they want to contribute with.

Again, it’s not a big deal but I’m just showcasing my logic on this situation. 25% is certainly reasonable although I just wanted to explain why I have issue with it. Just my 2 cents

And you are correct, but the perks that come with TL 3 really benefit those who do go outside of one particular category and go into several. As they allow you to move topics to where they should belong, edit titles, update tags, etc.

Anyone who sticks to one category will have little use for those features.

Yep, I perfectly understand. Over time, we’ll no doubt come to a better understanding of the usefulness or otherwise of this level. It does give members some degree of moderator power, so in that respect it would suit someone who’s more interested in the forums as a whole. But it’s not a deal breaker IMHO. I agree that someone who only visited on single category regularly but who was a great member and contributor would be worthy of such powers.

Understood. I just wanted to ensure you guys had thought about this. cpradio, that is a good and valid point. I understand where you guys are coming from. Thanks for the clarification :). Perhaps you guys should also consider forcing users into having at least one tag on the threads (like stackoverflow) to also ease the work of Level3/moderators. Forcing one tag might also have them do a range of useful tags (perhaps limit based on trust level)

I am liking what I am seeing here. Lucky for me there are several categories that I am interested in so hitting that 25% might be a bit faster for me. I dunno yet. It would be nice to see that Stats but I do agree it could be dangerous. Considering my background seeing that data could be used to Game the System.

Buddy

It may not be as difficult as you think. It’s not easy I’ll give you that.

But some of the requirements for Trust Level 3 are based on the past 100 days.
So it’s a % of Topics and Posts created in the past 100 days - Not everything in the forum

At the vBulletin forums we at times had requirements for certain “perks” eg.
10 post count to put a homepage link in your Profile
25 post count to have a Signature

Countless members recieved fluff violations for making “me too” posts trying to up their post counts.

So say a member knows they are getting close to Trust Level 3 and really wants the “unrestricted self-promotion” of the Showcase category? Will they be wise enough to not get themselves in trouble trying to get there?

That was my concern. Seeing stats like that can be like a red rag … and the point of it really isn’t to have some kind of competition.

Oh I agree whole-heartily @ralphm

I will say with what I know right now I could probably game the system pretty accurately AND get away with it.

So my free advice at this point is for you guys (Sitepoint staff/admins) or whomever is to watch your analytics like a Hawk. MANY, MANY, MANY forums do not and they are exposing their site to some of the techniques that I would employ.

Just so you know guys know. I told @HAWK who I was and that I was here to be a genuine part of the Community.

IF you ever feel that I am sharing TOO MUCH information PLEASE zap my post or PM me. No offense will be taken.

Buddy

Hehe, well at least we’ll watch you like a hawk. (joke) But yes, vigilance is critical, and there are lots of pretty vigilant people around here. One thing I love about Discourse is how everyone can participate in moderating to some extent. A ton of spam has already been flagged this week by the community. It’s fantastic.