How are gold connectors on a board graded? Lets say a green board densely populated with open connectors (Like the ones in the picture attached) and not metal connectors.

What about if those connectors were all DB connectors instead with nothing else on the board?

I have a few of both kinds above and thinking floppy connectors too. The above knowledge would also help me gauge how much they help/hurt boards that otherwise have plenty of rich content otherwise. Couple pictures attached show what would be high tele but how bad do the connectors hurt the grade on these?

Additionally - I have a few boards which are densely populated high telecom grade but only on a quarter or half of the board while the remainder of the board remains completely unpopulated with anything at all. Any reason I shouldn't go ahead and cut these boards to create a Low grade/midgrade board and a high telecom grade?

Thanks as always!

Gold pins rarely hurt grades and what you posted is clearly high telco.
The connector socket can be painful though. old head and terminator optical ports kill grades. large fibre switches rarely get to high telco due to the heavy aluminium. It’s one of the rare cases where I suggest cutting the edge off the board.
Anything lesser than them is usually not going to hurt you.

As for partial fill boards like your last suggestion? Post photos. Sometimes cutting is necessary. Often it is not though.

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Have several boards a lot like this. Can't find the best ones right now but this one would suffice. Thought was to cut the board where the population stops and remove the three connectors if necessary.

Yes. A quick Alice will make for low telco.

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