As you can see from a previous post from Jin, Design for Drupal Answers, once Jin has completed the new theme that is used for Drupal Answers, we will get out of the beta phase.
The most important thing that changes is the minimum reputation required for most of the privileges.
The most important changes are the following ones:
Privilege Reputation in beta phase Reputation after beta phase ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Create tags 150 300 Retag questions 200 500 View close votes 250 1000 Cast close and reopen votes 500 3000 Edit questions and answers 1000 2000 Create tag synonyms 1250 2500 Approve tag wiki edits 1500 5000 Access to moderator tools 2000 10000 Protect questions 3500 15000 Trusted user 4000 20000
These changes don't influence the moderator users, who are considered trusted users with more privileges, independently from their reputation.
This means, for example, that more than 50 users will not be anymore able to vote to close questions (until they reach a reputation of 3000), and 15 users will not be able to create tags synonyms (until they reach a reputation of 2500), and only 4 users will be able to access the moderator tools. (Other users will be able to access the moderator tools once they become 10k users.)