Questions people actually ask

No, in either direction. Forge does not sell promotion, testing or priority, and nobody can buy their way past the queue.

Yes. Browsing is open to everyone. An account is only for contributing: testing a project, giving feedback, or submitting your own.

A two week grace period. You get every feature and no responsibilities, so there is time to look around before anything is expected of you.

No. Only the project owner reads it. Thirty independent opinions beat one opinion repeated thirty times, so feedback stays private between you and them.

Yes. Full marks in the first 24 hours, sliding down after that. A week later the quality mark closes, so feedback that arrives too late to matter earns least.

It goes to the owner privately, graded critical, major or minor. Nothing broken is published until it is fixed, so finding one is credit, not ammunition.

Because Forge is a community first. You join and test other people's work before you get to put your own in front of anyone, which is the whole reason the feedback you get back is worth reading.

Master Craftsman on the contribution ladder, or Champion on the chat ladder. Six of the seven weekly slots come this way. The seventh is the weekly contest, which asks for neither.

No. Row level security blocks it at the database, not just in the interface, so there is no way around it.

Recruitment is announced and you apply through a ticket. Elite chat rank is the floor for most roles. Learning is the exception: apply any time, sit a short entry test, start teaching.

Contribution measures what you have given, earned only by reviewing others and finding real bugs. Community measures that you are actually around. Someone who talks a lot and someone who finds critical bugs have not done the same work, so the two are never added into one score.

Community Helpers issue warnings and mutes, and every one is archived so a pattern is visible rather than argued about.