This guide explains what badges are in Discourse, how they work, and how to use them effectively.
Required user level: All users
Badges in Discourse are a key feature that reinforces positive user behavior and facilitates “learning by doing”. They are an integral part of Discourse’s gamification features, designed to encourage and reward user engagement.
Summary
This guide covers:
- What badges are and how they work
- How to receive badges
- Types and groups of badges
- Viewing and managing badges
- Additional resources for administrators
What are badges?
Badges are visual indicators of achievements or milestones that users can earn on a Discourse forum. They serve multiple purposes:
- Recognizing user contributions
- Encouraging positive behavior
- Marking progress in the community
- Gamifying the forum experience
How to receive badges
There are two primary ways to receive badges in Discourse:
- Automatically: The system grants badges based on specific actions or achievements.
- Manually: An administrator manually awards badges to users. Read how to manually assign a badge.
Some badges have optional properties:
- Can be used as a user title
- Can be granted multiple times
- Visible on the public badges page
- Shows the post that granted the badge on the badge page
Types of badges
Discourse badges are classified into three types:
- Bronze: Easiest to acquire, typically for basic actions
- Silver: Moderate difficulty, requiring more engagement
- Gold: Most challenging to obtain, representing significant achievements
Badge groups
By default, badges are organized into the following groups:
- Getting Started
- Community
- Posting
- Trust Level
- Other
If you need to modify the names of the default badge groups, visit discourse.example.com/admin/customize/site_texts?q=js.badges.badge_grouping
on your site to customize the text.
Administrators can create custom badge groups and adjust their positions on the badges page.
Viewing badges
To view available badges:
- Navigate to the
/badges
page on your Discourse site - Browse the list of badges, organized by group
- Look for the icon, indicating badges you’ve earned
- Check the counter in the top right corner of each badge to see how many users have earned it
For more details about a specific badge:
- Click on the badge
- View information about the badge and users who have earned it
Trust level badges
Some badges correspond to trust levels in Discourse:
- Basic (Trust Level 1)
- Member (Trust Level 2)
- Regular (Trust Level 3)
- Leader (Trust Level 4)
These badges notify users when they’ve attained a new trust level.
Disabling badges
Admins can disable badges, and remove them from the user summary page, by unchecking the setting enable badges
.
FAQs
Q: Can I suggest new badges for my community?
A: While users can’t create badges directly, you can suggest ideas to your forum administrators, who can create custom badges.
Q: Can I create custom badges for my community?
A: Yes, you can. You can create badges that are manually assigned or ones that are triggered by specified actions.
Q: Are all badges visible to everyone?
A: Most badges are visible on the public badges page, but administrators can choose to hide certain badges.
Q: Can I lose a badge once I’ve earned it?
A: Generally, no. Once you’ve earned a badge, it remains on your profile. However, administrators have the ability to revoke badges in exceptional circumstances.
Additional resources
-
Granting techniques
- Grant a custom badge through the API
- Make requests to the Discourse API with Zapier (see Grant a custom badge section)
- Award a non-custom badge through the console
- Grant a badge to individual users manually
- Bulk Award a badge to a set of users (Bulk award using CSV)
- Grant a custom badge to all members of a group from the console
-
Badge Queries
-
Miscellaneous
Last edited by @hugh 2024-09-03T02:44:27Z
Last checked by @hugh 2024-09-03T02:44:33Z
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