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The user privileges in MMSE grants access to various site tools, with a higher reputation granting access to more tools, reflecting a level of trust in the user's actions.

As seen from the image below, the reputation changes required to attain new privileges follow a pattern where each subsequent privilege requires nearly double or triple the reputation change of the previous one, or at least equal reputation change as the previous one. For instance, marking questions as protected requires a 1500 reputation gain, while access to moderator tools required a reputation gain of 500.

However, I observed the following departure from this pattern. To become a trusted user, only a 500 reputation gain is necessary after a previous step of 1500 reputation gain. Moreover, the final privilege, which is granting access to site analytics, requires a 1000 reputation gain. This means that the last three steps require the reputation gains in the following order of 1500 -> 500 -> 1000 while the three preceding steps were 250 -> 250 -> 500

What could be the underlying reason for this deviation from the expected pattern?enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ This is a question for Meta Stack Exchange, since the points required for privilege levels, were not chosen by MMSE users, and are not unique to MMSE. They are the same for a very large number of sites on the SE network. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 31, 2024 at 12:15
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe. I am only active on MMSE (even though I have accounts in other SE sites) and this was something that i had observed here. Hence the question. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 31, 2024 at 13:45

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The points thresholds on small sites such as this one follow (with certain site-specific modifications) the requirements designed for "beta sites", as described in this main meta FAQ. Note that these thresholds are set differently than on sites with very large userbases, such as StackOverflow. There's a related main meta question titled Why are some privilege rep requirements scaled differently for beta sites? which notes that the scale factor is not consistent among all privileges. While it remains unanswered, I find the answer offered by Catija in a comment compelling:

My understanding is that the different order is due to the need. On a Beta, particularly early on, many questions will need to be closed, so close vote requirements are low to get more users quickly to the point that they can start having some moderation abilities.

Under this logic, "Trusted User" deviates from the pattern you've observed such that more people will have the associated post moderation privileges.

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