There are only 33 users with trust level 3, is this correct?
https://community.openstreetmap.org/badges/3/regular
Maybe I am misinterpreting something?
Trust level 3 has a fairly high bar to obtain and can also be lost if you don’t keep up the same level of activity on the site. I’ve gained TL3, lost it as I spent less time on the forum, then gained it again.
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Yes, that’s correct.
Of the trust level 3 requirements, these two seem the most difficult to keep up with on a diverse forum like this one:
- 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)
Since many people won’t participate in all the different geographic/language specific categories, hitting (and keeping up with) reading 25% of topics and posts can be quite difficult. Nice that there are caps, but that still means you need to average reading at least 5 topics per day and 200 posts per day to gain and keep TL3. Of course Discourse can’t track if you’ve actually fully read a post. All it really knows is if you scrolled past it slowly enough for the unread marker to be removed.
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I would consider myself a regular forum user. I check the forum 10+ times a day and i read everything from the dutch category and a lot from the forum wide categories.
But apparently that is not enough to be level 3.
To me it does feel like some requirements need to be tuned so that a regular forum user gets to level 3 without needing to artificially inflate read counts.
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According to the documentation already linked above, the total requirements to get TL 3 are:
In the last 100 days…
- 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 in the last 6 months
So, it isn’t just reading/viewing topics.
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Although I am a regular visitor with TL3 since long and like to be an active part of the community I do not favour Discourse trust levels. To my understanding these are designed more or less to fit social media/community stuff. For a factual forum like ours 2 trust levels (beginner and regular) should serve sufficient.
Again, if a third level with additional activity options is generally accepted, it should be permanent as the others. I’d say it’s nonsense to repeatedly grant and remove this level, unless a TL3 user starts to seriously disbehave (spam, offending language etc.).
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I could see this also being intentional, given the permissions TL3 gives. For reference…
TL3 permissions
Users at trust level 3 can…
- Recategorize and rename topics
- Access a secure category only visible to users at trust level 3 and higher
- Have all their links followed (we remove automatic nofollow)
- TL3 spam flags cast on TL0 user posts immediately hide the post
- TL3 flags cast on TL0 user posts in sufficient diversity will auto-silence the user and hide all their posts
- Make their own posts wiki (that is, editable by any TL1+ users)
- Daily like, edit, and flag limits increased by 2Ă—
A TL3-user is basically a moderator-light in some respects. I’m not sure how big a group you should be aiming for (and/or: how many users would actually use those features, on the other hand).
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To me it does feel like some requirements need to be tuned so that a regular forum user gets to level 3 without needing to artificially inflate read counts.
like use a bot to read through all these posts 
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I got the notification a few weeks ago and I can’t say it’s made a difference to my life 
From the description of the “perks”
You can now recategorize and rename topics, take advantage of more powerful spam flags, access a private lounge area, and you’ll also get lots more likes per day.
It’s all a lie! There is no private lounge area, and I’m not getting any more likes than before my “promotion”. All it means is you spend too much time on the forum and not enough time mapping 
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Maybe because we’re missing a tag for various kinds of lounges? Propose one and you can rise to level 4. 
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It actually existed, but now it seems gone. I can’t remember if it’s configurable in the host settings (which would explain why it’s not listed there 
). It wasn’t used anyway.
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I assume this only applies if you use the web interface to read posts?
Those of us who read them through our email clients are never going to be trusted?
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Yes, we’re no longer using the “private lounge” feature. The category wasn’t used (it had exactly 1 post, which was a comment on how no one was posting there), and a secret club for an “elite” user group seemed a little odd for an open community anyway.
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It looks like that is the case, yes.
That was my post and it was a kind of sarcastic comment about the value of this elite lodge, also in view of the fact, that every elite member posting there may be downgraded to a normal member any time and as such loose access to all the valuable elite posts, even his/her own. I appreciate the closing of this lounge, we surely don’t need such place.
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So did I, but now can’t find it?
The wording was “a secure category only visible to users at trust level 3 and higher”, perhaps for moderator-like discussions. Still not needed if they are to be public, but not as nefarious and derogatory as a “private lounge”.
Other questions from the powers:
6. “Make their own posts wiki (that is, editable by any TL1+ users)” Should this not be enabled for everyone, especially for Q&A?
7. “Daily like, edit, and flag limits increased by 2×” What are the limits here now?
I believe the thresholds for becoming TL3 were adjusted, but am not 100% sure
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