When we imported Social Sound Design to the SE 2.0 platform, it was previously what we would consider a fully graduated site as far as privileges like closing, editing and access to moderation tools go - or at least the reputation threshold needed to access them.
We re-established it as a public beta, or the stage in which a site continues to grow to the point where it gains enough heavily engaged users to become self-sustaining, while continuing to work out any discussions revolving around naming, scope, tagging conventions and policy.
Stack Exchange sites start off in a closed private beta, where the reputation to access privileges is quite low. The 'bar' to access features like closing and deletion raises at each milestone; significantly higher in public beta, then quite high once a site graduates. Here, the privilege scale was set at a graduation level, however, we're very much still a beta site as far as the discussions we're having surrounding the problems we're solving.
Sound Design's privileges were still at the graduated scale.
I didn't quite realize this (totally my fault), I'm here to tell you that I just fixed it. I saw that we didn't have very many users that could close questions and completely missed the fact that the bar to do so is way too high, at 2000 rep, where it should be 500 rep at this point in the game, with other privileges made easier to grasp.
Most people reading this now have access to new privileges.
Take a look at the privilege breakdown on the main site, I'll highlight some of the more interesting ones, and end with some guidance:
- You have the power to cast close votes at 500 rep (was 2000)
- Access to moderation tools at 2000 rep (was 10,000)
- Use the review queues as early as 350 rep
- Edit any post without approval is now available at 1000
This means, many of you can now instantly edit mediocre questions to make them better for the site and if needed close them as off-topic.
There's more work to be done, we have to come up with some better text for our help center that says we're here for you if you're designing sound, working in the control room or doing interesting things with live setups, you really need to read your manual if you don't know how to plug in your mixer, I'm working on that this week.
So, go forth, use your new powers wisely and please remember to favor editing when possible. I'm going to be writing quite a few posts here today, apologies in advance for the overload, but I'd like to at least have a path paved for everything facing the site by the close of the week.
Hang in there, it won't be long - and thanks for your patience.
