Every action that adds something to the catalogue earns points. Points push you up the cartographer tiers and unlock badges. Tiers also unlock responsibilities — Cartographer and above can verify community submissions.
Logging a dive, adding a sighting, posting a photo on a site page, leaving a useful comment, suggesting a new site, reporting bad behaviour, contributing to editorial corrections. Point values are admin-tunable in the rewards engine; the live table is in the profile page.
Snorkeller (0) → Diver (100) → Navigator (500) → Cartographer (2 000) → Reef Steward (5 000). Each tier has its own perks; verification rights start at Navigator.
Automatic badges fire on milestones (first sighting, five sites visited, etc.). Manual badges are granted by moderators for exceptional contributions — a curated batch is published with each edition.
Moderators can grant point bonuses or badges for one-off contributions: organising a region cleanup, writing a long-form site description, contributing reference photography. These show up on your profile with the reason note attached.