The @mention in a topic will populate a list as will starting to type letters. With this angle one simple solution is to see about modifying Discobot tutorial to omit the mention part of the tutorial or finance a component or plugin
Op however can disable mentions by the looks of it here.
If badges are not really needed. Disable them and provide forum interface help topics
Discourse Meta is quite capable of achieving that with a proper setup to that end. See communities using discourse that do use it as a customer support platform