If you don't know what these tools are see here first.

  • None of the tools have potential for abuse
  • The vast majority of them can be useful for people with 3,000 rep or even less.

Can't the tools be available sooner, if they can be useful? For example:

  • 2,000 rep: access to all tools not related to closing, reopening or deleting.
  • 3,000 rep: access to all tools not related to deleting
  • 10,000 rep: access to all tools
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3 Answers

up vote 15 down vote accepted

because to get 10k, you have to stick around for a while. If you've stuck around for a while you have an idea of how things work. If you know how things work, you can be an effective moderator.

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2  
They don't give any privileges. A user with 2k can already edit posts. How can showing him or her a list of posts that have been recently edited be dangerous? – Andreas Bonini Feb 14 '10 at 15:17
1  
@Koper: Well we've already built a nuclear reactor so how can building a nuclear bomb be any more dangerous? – Dexter Feb 14 '10 at 15:46
13  
@Lucas: I don't really understand that analogy. – Andreas Bonini Feb 14 '10 at 16:07
@Koper; It's not, but the principal behind it is. Giving someone a list is like saying "Make sure this is ok" - someone who only sorta gets how things work might not be able to do that. Plus we don't want EVERYONE with access to these things. – Phoshi Feb 14 '10 at 22:53

dmkee gave a great answer. Read it carefully. There is a surprising amount of subtly to the SO "culture" that does take time and effort to pick up...

Here's one example: the ability to view flags. You might think this is pretty benign, but flags were initially visible at a much lower rep level, and it caused no end of drama; some folks would go off upon seeing a single flag on something they'd written, and no amount of assurance that it made no difference unless several other people flagged within a relatively short time-span would comfort them. Allowing users to flag spam and abusive posts is an important part of community-driven moderation, so reducing this drama while still allowing some user oversight is important.

Beyond that, there are a number of 10K tools that are useless to anyone without the associated 10K abilities: recently deleted posts, posts with outstanding delete votes, and posts with outstanding undelete votes are all pointless for folks who can't see deleted posts, vote to delete or vote to undelete.

If you have a specific tool in mind, one which you consider a beneficial utility for users with < 10K rep points, I suggest that you post a feature-request here describing that tool and detailing why you think it would be useful.

Otherwise, I suggest you bide your time, and continue learning about how the sites work. A good place to start might well be the publicly-visible list of recent, closed questions, where you can see first-hand what sort of questions are deemed inappropriate for SO and why. Note that this is similar to one of the 10K tools...

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Though it started with a very simple idea, SO has grown in complexity over the last year and a half. There are a lot of details to know, a lot of cultural background and uneasy consensus that oils the wheels.

Your question here on meta and the fact that you haven't associated accounts suggest that you don't actually know much about the internals of the sites; not even the stuff that could be learned by reading the faqs and or pouring over your own profile pages, much less the things that can be found by reading the blog and tracking down thing referenced therein that you didn't already understand. Why would we want to trust you with greatly magnified power on the site until after you have rectified the situation?

"They don't give any privileges."

The fact that you want them (and for that matter that I miss them on SFU) shows clearly that they are worth something.

They are subject to abuse. In the simplest case, they would allow you to cast all your close votes in a great hurry with insufficient consideration: my experience and reports from others suggest that it takes the best part of an hour to cast all twelve votes with sufficient consideration, but the simple mechanical limit is probably closer to five minutes.

Finally, they are an motivation to use the site well. You need to contribute steadily for a long time or heavily for a non-trivial time to earn them. (It took me circa 1 year to get there at around 30 points a day, but you could do it in under 2 months if you could match the performance of the greats). The effort of getting there should help you clear up any deficit of understanding.

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