What is a Trusted User?
This site uses a system called “Mojo” to try to keep the comments as high-signal as possible. All users can rate all comments, except their own, between 1 and 5. When your comments are rated by others, those ratings are combined into a weighted average — newer comments count more than older ones — called your “Mojo”. This, roughly, represents the rating we could expect your next comment to receive based on your past comments. Users who have a mojo greater than a certain minimum and who have posted a sufficient number of comments are considered “trusted” users, and have the added capability to rate comments below the normal minimum rating. If enough of a user’s comments are rated below 1, that user becomes “untrusted”, which means that respected members of the community have repeatedly indicated that your input is offensive, content-free, or merely intended to annoy others.