Green Your Lab is a network built by the community for the community. Everyone pitches in to ensure we have a healthy and productive community.
Ethos of how we Operate
1. Anarchy
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All members are allowed to post and make edits to the Green Lab Best Practices Database. Anyone interested in building new features and want to volunteer with the backend running are invited to do so.
If there are any issues, we use:
2. Meritocracy
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The best posts receive the most likes and are bubbled to the top
If there are any issues, we use:
3. Democracy
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Any member can report any inappropriate content. There are mechanisms in place that remove posts that have been flagged multiple times.
If there are any issues, we use:
4. Aristocracy
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As you use our platform, you will notice that we have a number of levels to reward your contributions (See below for more details). The more active and well-liked you are within the Green Your Lab community, you will be granted new privileges to help us moderate the platform. Your posts and likes will also be given more weight.
If there are any issues, we use:
5. Monarchy
- A Green Your Lab Steward is chosen for a 2 year term. This person is usually the most active and most well-liked member of the community. As a very last resort, the Steward can override any issues.
Levels
We have 7 levels in total (Level 0 to 6). As you use the platform, you will get automatically promoted from one level to the next. Each level will offer you more permisions, abilities and privileges. You will be able to help out more in the running and managing of the platform.
Your progress from Level 0 (New Member) to Level 2 (Practitioner) is locked. But Levels 3-6 depends on your activity on the platform.
Below is more information about each level, what it takes to get promoted and what new super powers you will gain.
Level 0 – New Member
These are visitors who just created an account, and are still learning about our community.
New Members’ abilities are restricted to keep things simple and help them navigate. We hide any “advanced” functionality from new members to make the UI less confusing for them until they gain more experience.
New Members cannot …
- Send personal messages to other users
- “Reply as new topic” via Link button (UI removed)
- Flag posts
- Post more than 1 image
- Post more than 1 attachment
- Post more than 2 hyperlinks in a post
- Have actual links in the ‘about me’ field of their profile (will be silently and temporarily converted to plain text)
- Mention more than 2 users in a post
- Post more than 3 topics
- Post more than 10 replies
- Edit their own posts after more than 24 hours
- Access the Green Lab Best Practices Database
Level 1 – Enthusiast
Get promoted to “Green Lab Enthusiast” by…
- Entering at least 5 topics
- Reading at least 30 posts
- Spend a total of 10 minutes reading posts
- Posting an introduction on the “introductions” thread
Green lab Enthusiasts can…
- Use all core functions; all new user restrictions are removed
- Send Private Messages
- Upload images and attachments
- Edit our Green Lab Best Practices Database
- Flag posts
- Mute other users
Level 2 – Practitioner
Get promoted to “Green Lab Practitioner” by…
- 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
Green Lab Practioners can…
- Use the “Invite others to this topic” button for one-click onboarding of new users to participate in topics
- Invite outside users to PMs making a group PM
- Daily like limit increased by 1.5×
- Ignore other users
- Edit their own posts for up to 30 days after posting
Level 3 – Leader
Green Lab Leaders are trusted to help tidy up and organize the community.
To get to level 3, 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
* These likes must be across a minimum number of different users (1/5 the number), across a minimum number of different days (1/4 the number). Likes cannot be from PMs.
All of the above criteria must be true to achieve Level 3. Furthermore, unlike other trust levels, you can lose your Practitioner status . If you dip below these requirements in the last 100 days, you will be demoted back to Enthusiast. However, in order to avoid constant promotion/demotion situations, there is a 2-week grace period immediately after gaining Practitioner during which you will not be demoted.
Green Lab Practitioners 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 limit increased by 2×
Level 4 – Champion
Green Lab Champions have earned the highest level of trust in our community.
Get Promoted to Green Lab Champion by…
- The process is secret. It’ll be a surprise!
Green Lab Champions can…
- 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×
- Any TL4 flag cast on any post immediately takes effect and hides the target post
- Can send personal messages to an email address
Level 6 &7 – Moderators, Admins, and Stewards
Similary to Level 4, the process is secret. In all honesty, it’s becase we haven’t gotten the backend working yet. However, even once it’s fixed, we will continue to keep it secret to prevent spammers from gaming the system.