Community Reputation System

The Decoding Us Reputation System is designed to foster a high-quality, trustworthy community for genetic genealogy and research. It rewards positive contributions and protects the community from spam and abuse.

How it Works

Every user starts with a neutral reputation score. As you contribute to the platform, your score increases. Conversely, actions that harm the community may lower your score. Higher scores unlock advanced features, ensuring that powerful tools are used by trusted members.

Earning Reputation

You can earn reputation points through:

• Identity Verification: Verifying your email and identity (+10 points).
• Data Contributions: Submitting sequencer metadata that is verified by the community (+5 points).
• Community Engagement: Having your posts or comments upvoted by others (+1 point).
• Research Participation: Accepting recruitment requests from researchers (+2 points).
• Welcome Bonus: New users receive a starter bonus (+5 points).

Losing Reputation

Your reputation score decreases if:

• Spam Reports: Your content is marked as spam by moderators or community consensus (-50 points).
• Negative Feedback: Your posts are consistently downvoted (-1 point).

Reputation Levels

Your score determines your access to certain features:

• Newcomer (0-10): Read-only access to public feeds.
• Member (10+): Can post to the public feed and upvote content.
• Trusted (20+): Can initiate Direct Messages (DMs) with other users.
• Community Leader (50+): Can create new groups and has higher visibility.