A discussion about what happens to user badges after a user is banned or anonymized. Jumanji wants to know why badges don’t disappear after a permanent ban, and Stephen explains that badges are based on a query and will continue to be awarded if the criteria remains true. Jumanji notes that even after anonymizing a user, the badges remain. Stephen clarifies that the badges no longer belong to anyone, but Jumanji argues that badges represent an honor and should be removable when a user leaves or is forced out, especially since they are used to promote the feature and praise users.
I’m running a custom install. Can you please tell me what is supposed to happen to awarded badges when a member is banned permanently? In our case, the account is still visible on our website, along with that user’s topics and replies.
We want those badges to disappear permanently, never to return. But they don’t. If we remove them, they come back once automated jobs run.
Thanks!
Why would they disappear?
What’s stopping you renaming or anonymising the user?
Badges are based on a query - if the criteria for the query remains true the badges will continue to be awarded.
Deletion will remove whole topics or leave gaps in topics, neither is usually helpful.
Anonymising the user might be the best bet.
I’m still seeing badges for anonymized accounts.
Understood on the other points. Thanks!
Sure but now those badges don’t belong to anyone.
While that’s true, there’s technically still an account there, and “something” there for people to see. And for accounts that were older, with a ton of account history and activity, it’s not impossible to click through and determine who the account belonged too (as you said, we don’t like deleting content, unless the account is a spammer or worse).
I think a badge is an honor, something you’ve earned as part of the community, and once you leave, or are forced out, that should be something we can take away/back.
We also actively market screenshots of the badge pages to our community in website announcements and through email newsletters and social media, in an effort to let other members know this feature exists, but also to praise those users who have accomplished something. It’s strange that in some instances, there are a ton of “anon-random-number” accounts listed.
But it’s something we’ve dealt with, so we can continue to do so.
Thanks for the info!