Is this a beta test?
Roll out date? (approx)
Will there be both automatic badges (awarded according to objective criteria) and manual merit badges awarded by moderators?
Discourse isn’t 1.0 yet so I suppose everything is a beta test. But badges have been enabled in the admin settings for a long time now. I don’t think there will be any automatic badges at 1.0 release but I could be wrong.
There’s been a lot of talk about “low value / high value badges”, i.e. each badge having having an accompanying points value like on StackExchange. However the devs have not touched on it much.
Are badge points planned for a later version of the spec?
Yeah, about that - is there a comprehensive guide of which badge means what, anywhere? There’s the mouseovers in the “badges” section, but being ever the analyst I am by trade, would be cool to know more