Understanding Trust on Karmyq

Trust Tiers

Every member has a trust tier based on their karma in the community:

• Emerging — newer to the community, building a track record
• Trusted — established member with positive contribution history
• Pillar — a cornerstone of the community with deep roots

Trust tiers are not rankings or status symbols. They reflect how long and how actively someone has been part of the mutual aid ecosystem.

Joining a New Community

You do not start from nothing in a community you have just joined — if you have been active somewhere else on Karmyq, a small amount of standing comes with you.

The reason is that trust is measured on two axes, and they behave differently:

• Depth is local. Repeated exchanges with the same people, and the exchanges you have completed in this community, only ever count here.
• Breadth is not. It reflects the range of your participation across every community you take part in, so it follows you when you join a new one.

In practice that means a member who is active elsewhere and has just joined shows as a participant rather than a blank, while a member who has never completed an exchange anywhere shows as new until their first one. The carry is deliberately small: it says you take part somewhere, and nothing more. What actually builds your standing here is the exchanges you complete here.

Ratings travel too. Feedback counts 70% from this community and 30% from everywhere else — but until someone has rated you here, your rating from elsewhere is all there is, so it counts in full. Someone others have consistently vouched for is not a stranger on their first day.

A community can set breadth to zero in its trust model, and range of participation then stops counting. That narrows what carries across; it does not end it, because ratings still do. Only a member with no history and no ratings anywhere starts at a true zero.

Reading the Trust Path

When you see a request in your feed, a trust badge shows how you are connected to the person who posted it. For example:

You → Maria (87 karma) → Alex

This means you know Maria through a completed exchange, and Maria knows Alex. You are two degrees apart.

Opening the Trust Card

Click the connection badge on any feed item to open the full Trust Card. It shows:

• The person's trust tier and karma score
• The full connection chain, step by step
• How they joined your community (invitation chain), if different

Why Member Profiles Stay Private

Karmyq is a platform of relationships, not a browsable directory. You see trust information about someone only when there is a live connection between you — a match, a curated feed item. This is intentional. The trust path is earned through real interactions, not profile browsing.