>>277550002
>ll the little things like finding out people I don't know at the meetups just mute me or hide my avatar right away
I've been playing with an avatar that has a broken shader and with the "show as user" (despite being trusted) function for a year now and have never been hidden, or muted, or whatever by someone in /vrg/ - or anyone else, in fact. Sounds like you are just paranoid. Go check in the parser how many people have you muted or hidden, I doubt it's many, if any. Unless you actively tried to be annoying.
A caveat is that many people disable shaders for most not-friended people, though.

>>277549851
>>277550258
>>277550002
It isn't publicly known what exactly you have to do to rank up, because then it'd be much easier to abuse the system, but yeah, the bottom line is a combination of adding friends, playtime, uploading content, and not being reported.
Eventually, anyone who plays for a while gets trusted rank, so it's really something new players shouldn't worry about.

>>277550403
The original author of The Box removed the map, so people reupload it either because they want it back and think they can do it but better, or because they think it might give them fame for being the author of one of the most popular maps. Personally, I hope it stays dead. A basically empty box-shaped room is, unsurprisingly, supremely boring.