How do trust levels work?

@LC-Canada , hi, i don’t see the trust level status. i used your avatar, the pic of your dog, right? I’m not stalking you‼️ is that you know how the forum works and the quirks to it

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The status is on the left side. And yes, for @LC-Canada it’s the dog picture. She is TL4 (Leader), which is a manual promotion.

grafik

TL0 - Newbie
TL1 - Basic
TL2 - Member
TL3 - Regular
TL4 - Leader

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Hi, yes! A few days ago i replied to a post in the forum without realizing it was from a year ago. Boy, was face red :woman_facepalming:t2:
I think the dates of posted forum questions, request, general stuff, etc, etc needs to be highlighted , or made bigger :rofl:

if one is not careful enough, one has chances to reply to a discussion of half a year, year ago)

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Depending on the topic, it doesn’t matter. It’s strongly encouraged to prefer an old topic over a new one when it’s about the same topic. New topics on the same issue will mostly be closed and merged to the old one. This is to keep the number of topics lower and thus easier to find answers for your questions.

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I just found a button for the mobile version. I’m so happy :joy:

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I have never looked what I am, but seems “only” member.
I have had flagged and removed posts, some are answers to flagged/removed.
Truth to say, some are very unclearly flagged. Once I asked what was there, because to my eye, nothing, and my post was put back. Why then people flag it? They can’t handle someone disagreeing?

One can get “better” trust level just by posting messages of no content, like “always be kind”, and get tens of likes. Because yes, it’s easy to like such post in a heated discussion. But for some reason, that lits an “alarm” in my head.

Personally I trust much more a person who has an opinion and shares it, even if it were opposite of mine, than one who hovers on the forum throwing popularism lines here and there. It’s like they are here, you see them often, maybe their post is easy to like, then you start to think it’s a nice person, but actually you don’t know anything about them.

If I were asked, one could only get a “regular” status if they had for example 500 sent and received cards, because this is Postcrossing forum, not a aphorism forum :slight_smile:

(I don’t look at the trust level normally, but I was surprised a newish member with very few sent cards can have a better trust level than me, who am a member of years and many sent cards. )
In my eyes, trust is something that comes in time, when you know someone, not by succeeding in a “like-hunt” :smile: . And as in normal life, if I disagree with a friend, or even say something I’d like to take back, we apologise, and the trust isn’t gone. I trust the ones who let me be myself, and be human :smiley:

So to me, trust level doesn’t tell about the true trustworthiness of a person.

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Well no, and I must admit that the wording is somehow irritating. It really is just how much one is engaged on the forums (at least TL0-3) at a given time.

The software was not made for Postcrossing, but is a general forum software.

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That also creates a question are flags confirmed by stuff reversible? When the flagged post is deleted the TL decreases, but are you getting TL back when post is reinstated if all other criteria are met?

It does create some ground for nasty crowd behaviour in my opinion, but luckily TL3 can’t do much harm anyway. EDIT: Actually, the trust level were made to avoid nasty behaviours, so probably my opinion is not correct here

All Leaders, moderators, admins are very well-known though, so in my eyes, 200+ users with slightly wider rights of TL3 who can help organize the forum and keep small issues cleared out is not that bad of a forum engine mechanism. You wouldn’t know a person based on amount of cards sent too… (but if it can be additional requirement - I’m sure most regulars meet it with ease)

I noticed that in discussions it really does matter whether you and a person you’re talking with exchanged cards before - then you’re real for each other and that’s basic trust

P.S And I run out of likes for the next 11 hours :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Yes, I understand, but it’s misleading that this is “Postcrossing forum” and one can be in high trust level when they don’t show much interest on Postcrossing :slight_smile:
I just hope that no one thinks a high trust level would mean the person would be trustworthy in a swap, for example.

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I agree with this.

That’s an interesting question! Hope it will be answered by the admins. (even if I don’t think it will matter a lot here on the forums, but stuff like this makes me curious)

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Thanks :blush:

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I don’t think it’s a like hunt, but how much you participate in a substantive way. Take a look at the criteria @catchycat posted here for Level 3 (click on the Screenshot link)

I don’t see many people making minimal comments to get to the next level much.

It takes effort to be reading lots of posts & commenting constructively on a regular basis - most of our lives are too busy to do that without being committed to participating & creating an interesting space in the Forum.

And yes, a community Forum software system, doesn’t necessarily indicate trustworthiness as we commonly use the term everyday, but it does tell you about someone’s participation level & enthusiasm for the Forum which is what it’s designed to do.

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True, and I didn’t mean that.
I meant one feels they know a person ( a little ) when they know their opinions, at least I do think this way. And telling opinions is the situation when your posts gets flagged.
So, normal behaviour, getting to know each others, “exposes” to flagging, and lowering trust level.

But I do understand it’s not “trust” in the way I think, towards people.

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Yes, I did put it “like-hunt”, because hopefully (and most likely) it’s not their life goal, but also didn’t think better word, and I’ve sometimes wondered what is the point appearing to a discussion with some line saying nothing, and then people like it, like there were something important people didn’t know :slight_smile:

(But I know from other forums, if people disagree even with friendly tone someone comes and says “let’s not fight”. I know it can be some bad personal experience of people who don’t know how to disagree or something like that, and they don’t feel comfortable it happening here, because they might see there something that isn’t.)

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The person you are talking about could be me. My trust level is “regular” so it’s better than yours. I have hidden my profile so you can’t see it. Sorry! :joy: however, really enjoy reading these conversations and I do it very often but almost never comment anything. I bet there are lots of people like me who regularly read this forum but rarely comment. Participation in the debate is not natural to me and not everyone is fluent in English.

I like to post photos of my stamps or outgoing postcards and that’s way I get likes. Postcrossing is a lonely hobby so it’s nice to publish these photos. Please remember, there are many ways to participate in this forum and none of them are worse than the other.

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High five! I’m like that too. Im pretty timid in nature so I rarely comment on heated discussions, and this seems to help a lot because I had only received one flagged post ever (and actually back then I flagged myself, how funny of me not knowing that there are moderators helping to delete ended swap posts lol)

Anyway, I was granted regular status like exactly the 100th day of my participation :joy: super cool imo, and lost it when I was taking my month-long high school exams, but regained it again recently.

TL3 isn’t too difficult to get (well, Discourse was also designed for forums smaller than this, so it shouldnt be difficult), for people who don’t get flagged that much, because that seems to be the strictest requirement here :grimacing: I participated mostly in swaps and tags, and these two alone helped me achieve the requirements :love_letter:

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There are ways to express opinions in polite conversation, without being rude to other members. Rudeness gets comments flagged.

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I never really considered how this all worked. In fact, I just realized that I was a regular. Lol Thanks for this discussion. It’s interesting.

There are more than one occasion I’ve encountered when people mark offensive and consider aggressive not rude but neutral comments with any opinion different from theirs :woman_shrugging: just saying

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No :slight_smile:
Of course I know there are member who read and don’t write (much). Nothing against that.
I meant people who do participate and write, but “without content”, getting likes to their post, that means nothing, and doesn’t fit to the conversation.

Yes, of course I remember this and I never said there is only one way.

I have nothing against someone having better level, and I have no intention or need to get better level.
I think after this I will never look at my level again :slight_smile:

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