Here's how you can distinguish user levels on bitcointalk.org.
0 Posts: Brand New
1 Activities: Newbie (new user)
30 Activities: Member Jr
60 Activities: Members
120 Activity: Newbie
240 Activities: Sr. Member
480 Activity: Full Member
775-1030 Activity (random): Legend
Activity or article, the number of posts, it shows that the person has been active for years and is reputable on the forum. Bitcointalk has many topics in different languages such as Chinese, Indonesian, Indian, German, Russian, Dutch, Korean.
In addifion to this you need to have a certsin amount of merit too to get a higher ranking, this starts from the "member" rank. You will need to have activity 30 and at least a merit of 10 to grow from "jr. member" to "member" for instance.