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Formerly Reputation requirements compared.

What are the reputation requirements for privileges on the various sites in the network?

Also, how do reputation requirements for various privileges compare on different Stack Exchange sites? Specifically, the following types of sites:

  • "Full" sites e.g. Stack Overflow, Ask Ubuntu, Gaming, etc.
  • Public beta sites, sites without a design, and other sites with "beta" reputation levels
  • Private beta sites

...as well as any site-specific differences.

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2
  • 2
    At what reputation can a new user begin to suggest edits? 0? Is it the same on meta?
    – bmike
    Feb 15, 2012 at 16:31
  • 3
    @bmike: Probably, since even anonymous users can suggest edits. Dec 1, 2012 at 8:27

1 Answer 1

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Sites

There are three main types of privilege thresholds (sorted from high to low):

  • "Full" requirements - used on Stack Overflow and larger sites with a design (example). These are applied to sites whose traffic and high-reputation user population is large enough. Formerly known as "graduated site" or "designed site" requirements, as this was originally tied to graduating or getting a design, but today it's possible for sites to be both but not have these thresholds. Effective February 2023, these privilege thresholds are no longer deployed on sites except under exceptional circumstances.

  • "Beta" requirements - used on public beta sites, sites without a design, and any smaller site whose traffic and high-reputation user population is not large enough to sustain the "full" requirements above (example). Originally, only public beta sites had this requirement set, but today it's possible for any site regardless of beta status to have these thresholds.

  • "Private beta" requirements - used on private betas and this Harvard University site.

Note that Area 51 has a unique privilege (level) schema that doesn't fit into any of the above general threshold sets, and therefore is not explained here. However, Area 51 Discussions uses the "full" requirements above.

Additionally, per-site metas do not have reputation, deriving their reputation straight from their corresponding main site (with some caching).

The three main types are covered in the table below. Some minor changes to individual sites are indicated with a † in the table and explained further below.

Privilege "Private beta" "Beta" "Full"
Create posts 1 1 1
Participate in meta 5 5 5
Skip lecture on how to ask - - 10
Create community-wiki answers 10 10 10
Remove new-user restrictions¹ 1 10 10
Vote up 1 15 15
Flag posts 15 15 15
Post instantly self-answered questions² 15 15 15
Comment everywhere 1 50 50
Set bounties 75 75 75
Edit community wikis 1 100 100
Vote down 1 125 125
Create tags 1 150 300
Vote in moderator elections - 150 150
Association bonus³ 200 200 200
Shown in network reputation graph and flair 200 200 200
Shown as "beta user" on Area 51 200 200 -
Reduced advertisements - - 200
Reputation leagues, top x% link in profile 201 201 201
Qualify for first Yearling badge 201 201 201
View close votes 1 250 250
Run for moderator - 300 300
Access review queues 350 350 500
See vote counts 100 750 1000
Edit freely, SE and LQP/A queue⁶* 500 1000 2000
No popup asking to comment when downvoting 2000 2000 2000
Non-nofollow link in user profile⁷ 2000 2000 2000
Suggest tag synonyms 1250 1250 2500
Vote to close and reopen 15 500 3000
Review tag wiki edits 750 1500 5000
Moderator tools 1000 2000 10000
Reduce captchas 1000? 2000 10000
Protect questions 1750 3500 15000
Trusted user 2000 4000 20000
Access to site analytics 2500 5000 25000
† Some site-specific change applies (see "Site-specific changes" below)
- The privilege does not apply at this stage
♦ Privilege is purely reputation-based; being a ♦ moderator does not suffice
¹ post more than eight hyperlinks (50 on Skeptics); less rate limiting; post images†
² compose and post a self-answer to your question at the same time as your question; if you don't have this privilege, you can still self-answer after posting your question
³ +100 reputation on any associated account once you reached this on any site
⁴ see and cast close and reopen votes on own questions
⁵ access the First questions, First answers, Late answers, and Triage (SO and Physics only) review queues
⁶ edit posts of others without review; access the Suggested edits and the Low quality posts or Low quality answers review queues
⁷ the website link in your profile has a rel=nofollow attribute if you have less than 2000 reputation, to make it not count for SEO purposes
⁸ see deleted posts, reviews of others; moderator tools (various information); vote to delete questions two days after closure
⁹ edit tag wikis without review; vote to delete negatively scoring answers; vote to delete closed questions with −3 or lower score without delay

Site-specific changes:

Privileges not tied to a specific threshold

  • To answer protected questions, you need to gain 10 reputation on the site – the association bonus does not count. In other words, the reputation threshold for answering protected questions if you have the bonus is 110, not 10. (Being a ♦ moderator does not suffice.)
    • This does not apply on per-site metas, where you can answer protected questions if you have at least 10 rep on the main site, even if you earned it through the association bonus. (Again, being a ♦ moderator won't allow you to answer unless you have the required rep.)
  • For every 1,000 reputation after gaining the moderator-tools privilege, you gain another delete vote. (Delete votes are capped at 30 per day.)
  • For every 2,000 reputation, you get one bonus flag per day. (You also gain bonus flags for casting helpful flags.) (Flags are capped at 100 per day for comments and 100 per day for posts.)
  • If you have a gold tag badge for a certain tag, you can bindingly close and reopen questions using that tag as duplicates, and can modify the duplicate links on such questions, within limits that prevent gaming the system.
    • Specifically, the privilege works like this: consider all the tags currently on a question. Eliminate those tags that you don't have a gold tag badge for, and eliminate those tags that you were the first one to add in (per the revision history). You can exercise the privilege if and only if there is at least one tag remaining.
  • Having a network-wide flair requires at least 200 rep on a specific site; having ♦ moderator or staff rights does not confer this ability.
  • Only moderators and staff members may add, remove, or change orange ("moderator-only") tags (e.g., ) on meta questions.
  • Stack Exchange staff members have certain privileges that are granted to them with their staff bit, which they can use without necessarily being a moderator, plus some additional privileges that are not granted to any users (including moderators).

When reputation thresholds change

When a site's privilege thresholds move from "private beta" to "beta" or from "beta" to "full", or when the individual requirement for a specific privilege is increased, there is no grandfathering of privileges of any kind. You'll immediately be held to the new threshold(s) and lose any privilege(s) you no longer qualify for.

Chat

There are three chat domains:

  • Stack Overflow
  • Meta Stack Exchange
  • Stack Exchange (everything else)

Your chat privileges are based on your reputation in the respective domain. Stack Overflow Chat and Meta Stack Exchange Chat use your reputation on the respective sites. The algorithm for calculating reputation on Stack Exchange Chat is a little more complicated:

  • If you have at least 20 reputation on a single site but lack the network-wide association bonus rights, your SE chat reputation will simply be the sum of all your reputation on all sites.

  • If you do have the association bonus rights, your SE chat reputation will be the sum of your reputation of all accounts on which you have at least 200 reputation.

  • If you don't have at least 20 reputation on a single site, your SE chat reputation will be equal to the sum of your rep on all sites, minus the number of sites on which you have accounts, plus 1.

The first and third criteria were implemented to ensure that in order for users to talk in chat, they must have at least 20 reputation on a single site, or have earned 20 aggregate rep points overall on different sites (only counting the default 1 for signing up once).

Reputation earned on sites with site-specific chat servers (Stack Overflow and Meta Stack Exchange) does count toward the total reputation earned for the general Stack Exchange chat server.

Note that it may take a few hours for your chat reputation to update on all chat servers, so you may have enough rep for a privilege but not have it because your chat profile hasn't updated yet.

Chat privilege Reputation
Chat and show avatar* 20
Create a chat room 100
Create a gallery chat room 1000
Review chat flags 10000

* Show your actual avatar instead of an "anonymous" avatar in chat rooms.

9
  • Stack Overflow isn't that different from the other sites. There are more sites with a deviating level for tag creation, and running for moderator is the only other difference. I'm going to merge the last two columns.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Jul 16, 2017 at 16:23
  • What about "comment voting"? in which reputation can one do it?
    – user718628
    Mar 12, 2020 at 16:30
  • 2
    @aminabzz Upvoting comments shares the rep requirement with post flagging, so at the moment, it's 15 rep.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Mar 12, 2020 at 19:58
  • Perhaps cover edit (incl. tag wiki) suggestion privileges? Jun 7, 2021 at 11:13
  • 1
    Thanks for putting this together @AdamLear but what about unregistered accounts? This user has 1000+ rep but still has some restrictions on their account, like not being able to vote, right? Can they participate in elections? Can they set bounties? Can they do all the other things that 1000 rep users can do? Jul 21, 2021 at 15:07
  • 2
    @user1271772 I believe the main restrictions on an unregistered account are that it's incredibly easy to lose access to one and unregistered users can't vote. I don't think we've ever had an unregistered user try to become a moderator, but I'm reasonably sure we'd ask for a full signup at that point since we have to be sure that account won't be lost or potentially taken over by someone else.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Jul 21, 2021 at 15:21
  • @AdamLear Thanks for your very swift response! So they can't vote, but can they do other things that come with rep, such as approve edits on other people's questions, or offer bounties? Since you said you "believe" these are the only restrictions, perhaps you haven't confirmed what privileges their accounts are restricted from getting? Jul 21, 2021 at 16:39
  • This is no longer correct, I believe. Non-designed sites I think can choose to raise their rep requirements. And sites like Quantum Computing have a design, but lower rep requirements (not sure if they will raise that).
    – Laurel
    Nov 19, 2021 at 21:11
  • @Laurel we can simply choose to raise our rep rep requirements (for example 25k for seeing site analytics, instead of 5k)? Dec 27, 2021 at 5:30

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