The TL’s purpose isn’t to deterimine absolutes, nor even high confidence. No system will equate to reality. It’s solely to establish a general baseline of a poster’s intent in the system.
The rest relies on the moderators, not the system. If Bliz doesn’t moderate, the system doesn’t know. But that’s irrelevant to the forum’s owners’ intent for the system. They aren’t going to name it something different, or use several different names, because customers don’t enforce their rules.
If a forum poster routinely trolls or provides misinformation they will either be ineligle fot TL3 or lose TL3 status quickly due to forum sanctions.
This is not the WoW forum. I can not think of any bad troll who has earned and maintained TL3 long term on the D3 forum.
A troll may reach TL3 but their forum behavior eventually/ultimately leads to forum sanctions, thereby losing TL3.
It is mot about participation per se. One does need to be engaged in the forum by “reading” threads and posts and giving 30 likes. These metrics are on a 100 day rolling average.
In terms of participation in forum discussions, the bar is trivial and largely insignificant and is specifically posting 10 times in total.
Given the overall metrics, it makes dense to me to call them trust level, especially in light if tbe rules on trust levels and forum sanctions.
That’s a common perception due to the verbiage used.
This is true. I’ve seen people in various forms with elevated statuses who are trolls of some sort. Ever browsed MMO-C? Perfect example.
Which it’s too bad it doesn’t do.
Unfortunately, that’s something we can’t rely on. I wish we could, but… the aforementioned is a prime example too.
I know they’re not going to rename it, that was, as stated, wishful thinking.
Oh well, too bad.
Blizzard does moderate the forums. It is an imperfect system but the complaints that I have seen that the system is unfair typically come from scofflaws.
If one does not speed, the chances are very slim to none that one will get a speeding ticket.
I agree there. But I blame Bliz’s moderation philosophy, not so much the TL system.
Most active thread on the forum and it’s not even about D3.
/closethread 
Got D3 in the title. Close enough?
It’s misleading because if the primary purpose is to determine the trustworthiness of a poster, having almost every single criteria for obtaining TL3 be based on participation gives absolutely no indication of being worthy of it. Also, the levels of participation vary wildly depending on which set of Blizzard forums you’re on. The criteria for the EU D3 forums are much lower than their US equivalent and I obtained TL3 over on the DI / classic forums in under a couple of weeks of posting just from responding to / making Bug Report posts.
From what I gather, the core argument is based on semantics and simply boils down to use of the word “trust” in the title. IMHO, “Trust Level” is accurate when it is manually assigned by trusted mods. This automated system where the level is allocated based on interactions with other forum users seems to have drawn a fair amount of passionate criticism. Automated systems can be gamed and this one is no different. It is more reflective of the nature of the forum users. In another less toxic place and time, this automated system may well reflect “trust” in its purist form.
Perhaps it should be rebranded something more accurate like “Engagement Level”? Or “Blizz Troll/Shill/Edgelord Reward System”?
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Edit: Since this thread started, I’ve regained my BTSERS level 3 status )
Which would be about 1 of them, sadly.
Correct, which is how forum trolls have been able to gain access.
In 35 years of being on forums, any good, well-designed forum, everything is manual and anybody who has any kind of elevated status truly earned it. Some of the best I’ve seen, if someone earns it and then later shows their true colors, it’s gone for good. However, that’s rare.
I mentioned re-wording it, but it’s just wishful thinking that will never happen. It’s much better business-wise to use a system with a deceptive name rather than something more accurate since yes, your latter title recommendation is far more accurate based upon any competent person’s observations. There are plenty of trolls who maintain their status simply because they shill. As I mentioned earlier, a poster on the WoW forums who is a hardcore shill yet 50% of their posts are 100% pure insults (including racial remarks, threats, calling people “idiots”, and posting insulting gifs) maintains his. Because he praises any and all decisions Blizzard makes and tries to gaslight anyone who says anything critical, he gains that special immunity. Lots of discussion around that and it’s even been called “tinfoil hat” by sub-par gaslighters.
You keep discussing the WoW forum. No current TL3 on the D3 forum acts like that.
I agree. The reason I think that the word “trust” is okay is the required metric in relation to not being forum banned.
Furthermore, there is no explicit markings that someone is TL3 or not, so it seems to be trivial that some are arguing that it is a bad name. The simple reality is that this name is from the discource software and not from Blizzard itself.
More important question is, why are you still discussing this and why you have no trust Blizzard having control over forum rules? If something seems off, they will make it flexible enough to maintain a communtiy and enough contributors. Why even open this thread at the first place?
Discussing it because of genuine curiosity, which is fine. Having no trust in Blizzard is a 100% completely reasonable stance to have, which shouldn’t need an explanation considering it’s shared by such a large number of people and has been explained to death.