# User roles

A**uthors**

Authors on Pendia are content creators who write articles for the platform. Previous attempts to build decentralized content platforms often struggled with low-quality, plagiarized content due to a lack of quality control. Therefore, to publish, authors must pay a small amount of tokens, ensuring a focus on quality contributions.

On Pendia, authors have tools similar to Substack, Mirror, or Medium for content creation:

* Upload images, GIFs, and videos.
* Format text with various styling options.
* Include callouts and quotes for emphasis.

Authors also have control over ad placements in their articles and can access additional ad spots with a Premium purchase.

A future update will introduce an AI assistant to enhance content, focusing on SEO, spelling, grammar, and overall readability.

For articles that clear moderation and are posted in the main section, authors can access detailed statistics to gauge their performance. These articles will be featured in the author’s profile.

Articles that do not pass Sandbox moderation will remain in the author's profile. If they attract sufficient organic reads, they may still be promoted to the main section by the Pendia algorithm, making them eligible for payouts.

Authors with a high ratio of high-quality articles, either promoted by the community or algorithm, gain a higher reputation on the platform. This enhanced reputation impacts the positioning of their articles in the main Sandbox feed.

**Moderators**

Moderators on the Pendia platform are dedicated users who assess the quality of articles written by authors.

Each user, upon registration, is allocated 20 Karma points. These points are used to vote on articles in the Sandbox.

Moderators can browse articles by their posting time (new), by category (such as DeFi, trading, protocols, etc.), or go through all articles awaiting moderation. Alternatively, they can scroll through their main feed, which features new content from authors they follow. When a moderator upvotes an article, 1 Karma point is deducted. If that article is subsequently promoted to the main section of the Pendia platform, the moderator gains 2 Karma points and starts receiving article incentives, including rewards for article reads and ad placements.

To be promoted, an article should have a high number of views exceeding the minimum threshold, along with a favorable ratio of upvotes to views. For instance, an article with 1,000 views and 20 upvotes is more likely to be promoted to the main section of the Pendia platform than one with 3,000 views and 30 upvotes.

Since users own and govern the Pendia platform, improvements and adjustments to this mechanism are possible to ensure the system's resilience against Sybil attacks and fairness for all participants.
