The Sigma Community is using the Discourse community platform. Discourse platform utilizes user trust levels to grant experienced users more rights over time. The operating principle is that users are trusted to maintain and curate the community they generously engage with and prevent spam attacks from the trollers.
The Discourse platform offers four trust levels . Trust levels are awarded as badges. The easiest way to learn about a user’s trust level is by opening their user card (by clicking on their username or avatar image). You can also find a summary of all trust-level badges at the bottom of the Badges page.
Trust Level 0
By default, all members start from Trust Level 0. These are visitors who just created an account and are still learning how the way our community works.
Please note that Trust Level 0 members cannot…
- Send personal messages to other users
- Flag posts
- Have links on their profile
- Post attachments or more than 1 image
- Post more than 3 topics
- Post more than 10 replies
- Edit their own posts after more than 24 hours
Trust Level 1 — Early Adopter
If a new member is willing to spend a little time reading the posts, they will quickly be promoted to Trust Level 1 and earn an ‘Early Adopter’ badge.
Advance to TL1 by…
- Entering at least 5 topics
- Reading at least 30 posts
- Spending a total of 10 minutes reading posts
Early Adopter members can…
- Use all core forum functions; all restrictions for Trust Level 0 are removed
- Send PMs
- Upload images and attachments if enabled
- Edit wiki posts
- Flag posts
- Mute other users
Trust Level 2 — Conversation Starter
When members keep coming back to the community over a series of weeks and have not only read but actively participated long and consistently, they are trusted and become the conversation starter.
Become a Conversation Starter by…
- Visiting at least 15 days, not sequentially
- Casting at least 1 like
- Receiving at least 1 like
- Replying to at least 3 different topics
- Entering at least 20 topics
- Reading at least 100 posts
- Spending a total of 60 minutes reading posts
Conversation Starters can…
- Use the “Invite others to this topic” button for one-click onboarding of new users to participate in topics
- Invite outside users to PMs making a group PM
- Daily like limit increased by 1.5
- Ignore other users
- Edit their own posts for up to 30 days after posting
Trust Level 3 — Community Regular
Community Regulars are the most active readers and reliable contributors for months, even years. Because they’re always around, they are further trusted to help moderate and organize the community.
To become a Community Regular , in the last 100 days you…
- Must have visited at least 50% of days
- Must have replied to at least 10 different non-PM topics
- Of topics created in the last 100 days, must have viewed 25% (capped at 500)
- Of posts created in the last 100 days, must have read 25% (capped at 20k)
- Must have received 20 likes, and given 30 likes
- Must not have received more than 5 spam or offensive flags (with unique posts and unique users for each, confirmed by a moderator)
- Must not have been suspended or silenced
All of the above criteria must be true to become a Community Regular . Furthermore, unlike other trust levels, you can lose Community Regular status . If you dip below the requirements in the last 100 days, you will be leveled back to a Conversation Starter . However, to avoid too much fluctuation, there is a 2-week grace period immediately after gaining a Community Regular trust level, during which it will not be re-evaluated.
Community Regulars can…
- Recategorize and rename topics
- Access a secure category only visible to members at trust level 3 and higher
- Cast spam flags on Trust Level 0’ posts to immediately hide the post
- Cast flags on Trust Level 0’ posts in sufficient diversity to auto-silence the member and hide all their posts
- Make their wiki posts
- Daily like limit increased by 2
Trust Level 4 — Community Leader
Community Leaders are regulars who have been around and are the biggest contributors. They set a positive example for the community by sharing their knowledge. If you need advice about Sigma, these are the leaders you turn to, and they’ve earned the highest level of community trust.
Become the Community Leader by…
- Manual promotion by admin only
Leaders at trust level 4 can…
- Edit all posts
- Pin/unpin topic
- Close topics
- Archive topics
- Make topics unlisted
- Split and merge topics
- Reset topic bump date
- Daily like, edit and flag limits increased by 3×
- Any TL4 flag cast on any post immediately takes effect and hides the target post
- Can send personal messages to an email address
This trust system will lead to a more robust and more sustainable community by carefully empowering community members to become Regulars to maintain and curate.