[Dave Baumann]

I’ve implemented a user group structure and promotion scheme. The order of the groups are as follows (names subject to change):

1. Registered
2. Junior Member
3. Member
4. Senior Member
5. Regular

The promotion goes:
Registered -> Junior Member: 10 reputation points (the default) and 5 days registered and 10 Posts
Junior Member -> Member: 10 reputation points and 100 days registered and 100 Posts
Member -> Senior Member: 10 reputation points and 365 days registered and 1000 Posts
Senior Member -> Regular: 20 reputation points and 730 days registered and 5000 Posts

Each group has more forum capabilities / privileges (assume cumulative capabilities from each group):

Registered: Basic forum viewing, posting, search capabilities. Cannot edit posts. Cannot use reputation, cannot rate threads, cannot use Private Messaging, cannot create polls, cannot see RPSC sub-forum of General Discussion.

Junior Member: Cannot use reputation, can rate threads, can create polls, can create signature, can view and post in RPSC sub-forum of General Discussion after signing up to the RPSC usergroup in the Control Panel. Can use Private messages – up to 50 PM’s stored.

Member: Can leave reputation, cannot leave negative reputation, cannot see who left reputation. Can use Invisible mode. Up to 100 stored PM’s, up to 5 recipients, with tracking

Senior Member: Can create custom title, can upload message attachments, can post calendar events (only events relevant to the site, please). Can leave negative reputation, can hide reputation. Up to 200 stored PM’s, can deny message receipts.

Regular: Can delete own posts, can move own threads. Up to 500 stored PM’s, up to 10 recipients.

Yes, this scheme does have some reliance on reputation, but it is reliant on “Senior Members� and “Regulars� using it responsibly – members of these groups found to be abusing it will be dropped down from their group to a lesser one. For most promotions, staying at the default reputation level is enough to move to the next group once you have met the time and post criteria.

“Registered� users have very low privileges as we have noticed an increased trend in people registering to the forums and spamming or phishing forum members, so to get PM capabilities you have to have at least contributed.

The site staff can choose to place people of their choosing outside of the usergroup / promotion scheme.

Update:

We've instigatged a Demotion scheme whereby users in the Regular, Senior Member and Member usergroups will be moved into the Junior member group should their reputation sink below -100 points.

We have also disabled post counts on non-core forums, including the "Religion, Politics & Socioeconomic Climate", "General Discussion" and "Site Feedback" forums.

Update:

Edited group descriptions to include impact on access to the Religion, Politics & Socioeconomic Climate sub-forum of the General Discussion forum.

Update:

Positive rep power capped at +15. Negative rep power set to 1/3rd of positive rep power, capping it at -5. Reputation cannot be given to posts in the non-core forums General Discussion, RP&SC, and Site Feedback.