Community Levels Explained

Community docs
1

The Community Level system is an important—but still experimental!—part of the RadHR forum.

Community Levels are a way of:

  1. Containing what people can do in the community initially, as they get to know it, so that they don’t do things they didn’t necessarily mean to

  2. Granting experienced users more rights over time, so that they can help everyone maintain and moderate the community they generously contribute so much of their time to.

RadHR offers users five community levels. Your current community level is visible on your user page, and a summary of all community levels within your community is presented on your dashboard.

How do users learn about the system?

  1. Every new user gets a welcome message mentioning the system and linking to this post, explaining that new users may be temporarily limited for safety reasons. They are also invited to start an optional interactive training conversation with discobot.

  2. Upon transition to community level 1, users are sent a congratulatory message which also links to this blog post and invites the user to fill out their user profile, or start a new topic.

  3. Upon transition to community level 2, users are sent another congratulatory message which also links to this blog post, as well as a tips and tricks blog post.

  4. Upon transition to community level 3, users are sent a longer form PM describing their new abilities. The message also links here to this blog post.

Community Level 0 — New

By default, all new users start out at community level 0. These are visitors who just created an account, and are still learning the community norms and the way the community works. New users’ abilities are restricted for safety—both theirs and yours. (We also hide “advanced” functionality from new users to make the forum less confusing for them as they gain more experience.)

Users at community level 0 cannot:

  • Send personal messages to other users
  • “Reply as new topic” via Link button (UI removed)
  • Flag posts
  • Post more than 1 image
  • Post any attachments
  • Post more than 2 hyperlinks in a post
  • Have actual links in the ‘about me’ field of their profile (will be silently and temporarily converted to plain text)
  • Mention more than 2 users in a post
  • Post more than 3 topics
  • Post more than 15 replies
  • Edit their own posts after more than 24 hours

Community Level 1 — Basic

At RadHR, we believe reading is a healthy action in any community. If a new user is willing to spend a little time reading, they will quickly be promoted to the first community level.

Get to community level 1 by:

  • Opening at least 5 topics
  • Reading at least 30 posts
  • Spend a total of 15 minutes reading posts

Users at community level 1 can:

  • Use all core community functions; all new user restrictions are removed
  • Send private messages
  • Upload images and attachments if enabled
  • Flag posts
  • Mute other users

Community Level 2 — Member

If members keep coming back to the community over a series of weeks; you’re not only reading, but actively participating enough to get full membership.

Get to community level 2 by:

  • Visiting at least 15 days
  • Giving at least 1 like
  • Receiving at least 1 like
  • Replying to at least 3 different topics
  • Entering at least 20 topics
  • Reading at least 50 user posts/replies
  • Spend a total of 60 minutes reading

Users at community level 2 can:

  • Use the “Invite others to this topic” button for bringing in new users to participate in topics
  • Invite outside users to private messages, making a group private message
  • Daily like, edit, and flag limits are increased by 1.5×
  • Ignore other users
  • Edit their own posts for up to 30 days after posting

Community Level 3 — Regular

Regulars are an important part of the community; the most active readers and reliable contributors. Because you’ve been around, you get to help tidy up and organise the community, lucky you!

To get to community level 3, in the last 50 days:

  • Must have visited at least 20% of days

  • Must have replied to at least 10 different non-private topics

  • Of topics created in the last 100 days, must have viewed 10%

  • Must have received 20 likes, and given 30 likes*

  • Must not have received more than 5 spam or offensive flags

  • Must not have been suspended or silenced in the last 6 months

  • These likes must be: across a minimum number of different users (1/5 the number); across a minimum number of different days (1/4 the number); and from public topics and posts. .

All of the above criteria must be true to achieve community level 3 and, unlike other community levels, you can lose level 3 status. If you dip below these requirements in the last 50 days, you will be moved back to Member. To avoid constant promotion/demotion situations, there is a 2-week grace period immediately after gaining Community Level 3 during which you will not be moved.

Users at community level 3 can…

  • Recategorize and rename topics
  • Access a secure category only visible to users at community level 3 and higher
  • Spam flags cast on new user posts immediately hide the post
  • Flags cast on new user posts in sufficient diversity will auto-silence the user and hide all their posts
  • Daily like, edit, and flag limits increased by 2×

Community Level 4 — Big Cheese

Big Cheese’s are regulars who have earned the highest level of community engagement, such that they are almost moderators within the community already.

Get to community level 4 by:

  • Manual promotion by staff (currently the only way this happens)
  • (Possibly via a to-be-developed election-type system in the future)

Users at community 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 flag cast on any post immediately takes effect and hides the target post
  • Can send personal messages to an email address

For a complete breakdown of the permissions granted to each community level, check out our FAQ on Meta.

We believe this system will help lead to a stronger, more sustainable community by empowering members, regulars, and big cheese’s to curate and support the community. But like everything else in RadHR, the system is evolving over time as we gain more experience. We’ll continue to update this post if anything changes, and please let us know what you think below…