Do replies, likes, topics viewed, etc in privet categories such as the TL3 category count towards this?
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I believe its only messages that do not count. Anyone please feel free to correct me here.
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I have another question.
Does badges affect trust levels in any way?
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Badges do not affect trust levels directly. For example, you do need to earn the badge for receiving or giving a like because the x like given/received but it will not show earned x badge on the TL requirements.
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Are there still any plans for this? It seems interesting… 
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Unfortunately no there are not plans for this.
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The last time I checked the website, it was still mentioned there. Maybe it should be removed?
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- 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)
What is the point in these redundant stats? Why would viewing 500 even be mentioned if I’m gonna need to read a section capped at 20k, I’m assuming that will end up being much more than 500 viewed posts anyway which is done easily in 2 weeks rather than a year. Realistically, seeing as we are in 2022, experienced members, how many posts do I have to read and how does the system guarantee it knows how fast I read?
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I don’t know and I don’t know. But I would guess topics will read only once but under same topic can be a mega-load posts — you still red only one topic, but 1000 posts. That’s why both have to be counted. And reading speed can or can’t measured, but there must be somekind balance between work and how that work is rewarding — when the code is done, I mean. There is no point to do high tech solution when the result is such trivial (but important too, of course).
But for me this is mentally very problematic, because TL rewards quantity, not quality — and I know this meta is useless, because I can’t offer anything better.
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This is certainly true and I wish there was a way to fix this but without manually promoting people this is impossible. My 1 idea is with discourse automation people that have x number of posts with at least y amount of characters words etc that would determine if they get promoted or not. But that would encorge long posts (that may just spam characters to get promoted) or make things a lot longer then it needs to be just to be promoted.
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Hello and welcome @VanguardWatch 
For the reading requirements, the first one is how many new topics you’ve read within the current 100 day period. For smaller sites that threshold will be 25% of the total (eg. 4 new topics would mean you’d need to read 1 of them), but for larger sites with high topic creation (2000+) it will be capped at 500.
The second is for posts, and works in a similar way. (eg 100 new posts would mean you’d need to read 25 of them, and for busier sites with 80k+ new posts it would be capped at 20k)
This is across a rolling 100 day period, so if you dip below these thresholds (for visiting, reading, liking, etc) it is possible to drop out of being a Regular - though there’s a short buffer built in so as not to ping-pong up and down day by day.
It’s probably also worth mentioning that these are the default trust level 3 parameters, so can be changed by admins across different Discourse instances.
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What is the idea behind ‘understanding discourse trust levels’ and for users to reach each ‘trust level’? My understanding is that ‘discourse’ is anyone’s choosing, as an open-source. It is only a matter of getting to know its features, competitiveness and how to go about using it. I may be missing something here?
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This topic is in relation to the trust mechanism within the Discourse software. The trust mechanism basically a way of allowing your more active and healthy members to help maintain the health of the community. Two case examples
- You’re new to the community, you have trust level 0 or 1, that means you can only edit your own content – because you haven’t (yet) displayed behaviours common with what is expected from users with higher privilige levels(such as moderators).
- You’ve been part of the community since day 1, contributed regularly, and have trust level4: You are deemed trustworthy enough to be allowed to edit other people content, and essentially moderate.
It’s basically a system which automatically (but you can also manually) promotes people’s rights/permissions based on how positive their contribution to the community has been – it’s important to note that how many times you’ve been flagged also contributes to trust score.
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Another special aspect of trust levels is that moving between trust level zero (new user who has not yet spent any time reading) and trust level three (user has been around for a while and participates actively in discussions) is automatic! 
Out of the box, without any configuration or time consuming user management required by staff, your community will largely start taking care of itself.
Trust level four can only be attained by a user if staff manually grants it to them. It grants near moderator privileges so site owners want to be a bit more careful with it and only give it to people who are truly trusted to use it responsibly.
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I have read this thread and seem unclear on one aspect. I think this is a great way for self growth. Are there other incentives to grow in these different levels? What is the motivation for users to increase in trust levels?
Thanks!
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All the perks that come with each TL as you said. You can give out stuff if somebody reaches a certain TL as an extra perk. Some stuff could be a shirt for the forum or if it’s attached to a company you get x amount of time of Premium.
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What is the recommended way to audit your own stats and compare with the trust level settings of a given instance?
I’m mostly interested in how to view my own stats and compare with the defaults since it sounds like custom trust level settings are only visible to admins.
Is there a way to see a count of flags and flag types for example?
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I’m not sure there is an easy way to mark your own card? It would depend on how open the site is about their Trust Level criteria, as some like to keep it more opaque to prevent people from trying to game the system.
You can download all your activity from your profile, and perhaps analyse it in more detail that way, but I think it includes flags you’ve cast, rather than any you’ve received?
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Is it possible to lose trust based solely on flags? For example, someone who has achieved trust level 3 posting provocative or unpopular content, resulting in an abundance of flags from the community. Is it possible for that person to move from trust level 3 to trust level 2 even though a moderator has restored the flagged content and not taking proactive punitive action?
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For flags to affect your TL a moderator needs to agree with the flag and mark it has helpful for it to count.
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