Trust Levels
Trust Levels are our way of protecting new users from accidental damage to their account or others’ while they learn how to use the forum. Trust Levels are also used to reward experienced users who post quality and helpful content so that they can better contribute to and help moderate the forum.
Because of the value of Trust Levels, MongoDB offers five different levels starting with Seedling. Each level comes with different abilities within the community. For example, a Seedling user is limited to the number of likes they can use each day.
Trust Levels are earned as you engage more in the community and contribute meaningful information to the forum through your posts:
(0) Seedling
All new users start at Seedling. Seedling protects users from damaging their or other user’s accounts and prevents them from spamming, harassing, or abusing the forum, topics, and posts.
Seedling limits:
- Cannot send personal messages to other users
- Cannot flag posts
- Cannot post any attachments, more than 1 image, more than 2 hyperlinks, or mention more than 2 users
- Cannot have links in the ‘about me’ field of their profile
- Cannot post more than 3 topics or 10 replies
(1) Sprout
Graduating to Sprout is easier than you might think. New users can earn the trust of the forum by posting and reading in the forum without violating the code of conduct.
Becoming a Sprout:
- Entering at least 5 topics
- Reading at least 30 posts
- Spend a total of 10 minutes reading posts
Sprout advantages:
- Send PMs
- Upload more images and attachments
- Flag posts
- Mute other users
(2) Sapling
Users become full-fledged members of the community when they become a Sapling, which comes with new perks and abilities within the forum. Unlike Sprout, Sapling is attained over time and not only by posting and reading a certain amount.
Sapling:
- Visiting at least 15 days, not sequentially
- Casting at least 1 like
- Receiving at least 1 like
- Replying to at least 3 different topics
- Entering at least 20 topics
- Reading at least 100 posts
- Spend a total of 60 minutes reading posts
Sapling advantages:
- Invite users to PMs making a group PM
- Daily like limit increased by 1.5×
- Edit their own posts for up to 30 days after posting
- Edit wiki posts
- Ignore other users
(3) Elder
Like Saplings, Elder is earned by posting quality content over time. Elders are regulars of the forum and seem like they are always around lending a helping hand and help tidy up and organize the community.
Elder:
- In the last 100 days must have visited at least 50% of days
- In the last 100 days must have replied to at least 10 different topics
- In the last 100 days of topics created in the last 100 days, must have viewed 25%
- In the last 100 days of posts created in the last 100 days, must have read 25%
- In the last 100 days must have received 20 likes, and given 30 likes.
- In the last 100 days must not have received more than 5 spam or offensive flags
- In the last 100 days must not have been suspended or silenced
Elder advantages:
- Recategorize and rename topics
- Access a secure category only visible to users at trust level 3 and higher
- Have all their links followed
- Make their own posts wiki
- Daily like limit increased by 2×
(4) Cultivator
Cultivators are regulars who have been around forever and seen everything. They set a positive example for the community through their actions and their posts. If you need advice, these are the folks you turn to first, and they’ve earned the highest level of community trust, such that they are almost moderators within the community already.
Gain Cultivator:
- Manual promotion by staff only
Cultivator advantages:
- Edit all posts
- Pin/unpin topic
- Close topics
- Archive topics
- Make topics unlisted
- Split and merge topics
- Reset topic bump date
- Daily like limit increased by 3×