I’m writing this to document to myself where that option exists, because I often can’t find it during the once-every-few-months times that I sign up for a new discourse forum, and I’m unable to update that previous post to note its location. It’s under,
Preferences → Interface → Skip new user onboarding tips and badges
Looking at your screenshot it may be that at least those first two (First Quote and Welcome) were awarded before you had the setting enabled and are being surfaced now due to the change in the notification menu (ie. they were unread, and are now at the top of the list).
Using my extra-special admin eyes, it doesn’t look like you’ve received a notification for any new user badges apart from those two back in 2020?
I see, thank you for checking! Perhaps part of my confusion was I expected opening the notification menu would mark them as “read”, similar to how that menu works on Facebook etc. Now I am aware of the button to clear notifications. Funnily enough, I myself programmed an extension to work the same way…
You could certainly be correct that these are all old notifications. Until recently I did not regularly check this forum.
Opening the notification menu will clear the top-level bubble on your avatar, but leave the ‘in-menu’ ones intact so you can visit them in your own time (or just dismiss them ). The new menu also allows you to dismiss specific subsections now too, so you can clear out eg. your Likes but leave your reply notifications or bookmarks there for you to work through later on.
Allow users to opt out of badge notifications: Let experienced users skip “new to Discourse” features - #36 by sam @vinothkannans
). The new menu also allows you to dismiss specific subsections now too, so you can clear out eg. your Likes but leave your reply notifications or bookmarks there for you to work through later on.