I just registered to leave the short note that for me as a user, badges noise is the most irritating thing I encounter as a new user of Discourse. Really, do I need to get one for every single thing? First post, first link, first like, first emoji, welcome, basic, first onebox… where is the end of it? I wouldn’t care if they were simply placed on my profile page or elsewhere, but they all generate notifications. Using (and I feel an immense pressure to say “abusing”) the same notification channels, which are used to deliver actually relevant information - e.g. that someone answered to my post. I can’t count the cases where I saw that notification dot on a browser tab, switched to it wondering whether someone answered to my message, just to get disappointed that it’s just yet another useless virtual badge.
This repeats on every instance I register at. Perhaps I’m not a typical user, as I tend to register at various places and engage in short exchanges rather than staying in one place forever. I can only guess they get less annoying when you’re already through all the possible actions, but as far as I know, there exist badges for long time users too.
Moreover, if the goal of this feature is to keep people engaged (I think I saw this stated in one of other topics, pardon me if I’m wrong), then to me, it works the opposite way. When I’m pulled onto a website under a disguise of a potentially useful notification, and then only find something totally irrelevant, I feel deceived. Someone managed to steal my attention again, and I dislike being stolen from. Especially when I had my attention focused on something actually important.
Also, now I know there is that “Skip new user onboarding tips and badges” option. It’s well hidden though, I’d never think to look in the “Interface” section. To me, way more obvious would be something like “Disable badges notifications” in the “Notifications” page. But now I know and I’ll try to use it everywhere where I register (well, knowing myself, I’ll only remember after I’m already deep in a stream of badges).