If anyone reads this, please, if this is going to change to make reactions count, please either make it an optional value in the formula, or let admin to set some “score” for reactions used.
You can check the user’s trust level requirements levels by going to
/admin/users/{user_id}/{username} and scroll to trust level values.
As for the topic, this question came to mind several times during forum growth for the past couple of years. At first, I found TL3 basic requirements intimidating a bit. Now, going forward, I think default values are totally fine. This brings up a pack of people who we can trust into user to user interactions as we surely know they are truly appreciated by other members and they know their way around the forum (and more in our case), which makes them a nice group of valuable and loyal users.
If you aren’t satisfied with your TL distribution, why don’t you play with some settings? I would suggest understanding the “frequency” of your community. How frequent the messages are? If they are infrequent by your measures, reduce the time window of “tl3 time period”. Adjust the “tl3 requires days visited” accordingly.
May be the “tl3 requires topics replied to” of 10 is too much for your community?
I can continue The settings there are for you to adjust.
tl3 promotion min duration setting is what you’re looking for.