849

Formerly List of all badges with full descriptions.

  • What are badge name's requirements?
  • Why didn't I get badge name (right now)?
  • Which badges can I earn multiple times?

Jump to:

Note: Some badges are awarded based on score. The term score means the total number of upvotes minus the total number of downvotes.

  • Any badge with a *** next to it is one of 20 badges that count towards the candidate score displayed on a moderator candidate in an election. The candidate score is a total of 40 points: the first 20 are awarded based on the user's rep divided by 1000 and rounded down; the second 20 represents the total number of unique badges earned of the 20 that count. Note that if the same badge is earned multiple times, it will only count once towards the candidate score.

  • Any badge with a "(retired)" next to it is no longer awarded, but is retained by users who previously earned them. See this answer for more info on what it means for a badge to be retired.

Return to FAQ index

Visit the Badges section of the Help Center on any site to see a complete list of badges that you can filter by earned, unearned, or type.

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2
  • 82
    +1 for the great work! But shouldn't the badges page look exactly like this? Or at least a link to this post, please.
    – Geoffrey Zheng
    Commented Oct 12, 2010 at 18:47
  • 29
    @RBemrose, in theory, yes. In practice, people get confused about the rules. My goal is to make a one-stop shop for badge info.
    – Pops
    Commented Oct 19, 2010 at 19:20

9 Answers 9

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405

Question Badges

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Altruist

  • bronze; awarded once

  • First bounty you manually awarded on another person’s question

  • Manually awarding means manually selecting a bounty winner; letting the system automatically award the bounty does not count (source).

  • Not awarded on per-site metas, since those sites do not have bounties.

Benefactor

  • bronze; awarded once

  • Award a bounty on your own question

    • Manually awarding means manually selecting a bounty winner; letting the system auto-award half the bounty does not count (source); letting the system auto-award the full bounty to an accepted answer does not count either.

  • Not awarded on per-site metas, since those sites do not have bounties.

Buzz

  • bronze; awarded multiple times

  • Make a post that gets reactions from five or more other users

  • Awarded only on Stack Overflow for Teams sites. During the beta test of the Thanks feature, the badge was awarded on the main public Stack Overflow site, but after the experiment concluded, prior awards of this badge on it were revoked.

Curious

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Asked a well-received question on 5 separate qualifying days, and have a positive question record

Inquisitive

  • silver; awarded once
  • Asked a well-received question on 30 separate qualifying days, and have a positive question record

Socratic

  • gold; awarded multiple times
  • Asked a well-received question on 100 separate qualifying days, and have a positive question record
    • This badge can be earned multiple times, once every 100 qualifying days (e.g., once you accrue 200 qualifying days, you'll earn it a second time, provided you still have a positive question record).

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • There are five different counts that are tracked when calculating the criteria for this badge:

    • Positive: Number of questions asked that have a score greater than 0.
    • Negative: Number of questions asked that have a score less than 0.
    • Closed: Number of questions asked that are currently closed and the current closure date occurred within 60 days of being asked.
    • Deleted: Number of questions asked that are currently deleted and the current deletion date occurred within 60 days of being asked.
    • TotalQuestions: Number of questions you've ever asked, including ones that don't fall into the above categories.

    For Closed and Deleted, only those questions whose current (most recent) closure or deletion event occurred within 60 days of being asked count toward the respective numbers. This means that questions that were closed/deleted within 60 days of being asked, later reopened/undeleted, and then subsequently closed/deleted after 60 days of being asked aren't included in these counts.

  • A given UTC day is counted as a "qualifying day" if there was at least one Positive question asked on that day, and no Negative, Closed, or Deleted questions were asked on that day.

    • This means that a single Negative, Closed, or Deleted question asked on a given day will make that day not count, even if there were one or more Positive questions asked on that day.
    • The number of qualifying days is counted live; later events that occur after the day is over can make a day cease to count (or begin to count). For example, if a question with a positive score is later closed or deleted within 60 days of being asked, or gets downvoted to a negative score at any point in the future, the day it was asked will cease to count. Also, for example, if an open zero-score question asked on a previous day when you've asked no other questions gets upvoted, it will make that day count.

  • In order to qualify for any of these badges, you must have a "positive question record", which means you don't have too many Closed, Negative, or Deleted questions overall. The formula is (TotalQuestions - Negative - Closed - Deleted) / TotalQuestions ≥ 0.5. Questions that qualify as Negative and Closed and Deleted count three times in this calculation. If you don't, you won't earn any of these badges.

    • Questions need not be Positive to count positively toward your question record score; zero-score questions that aren't Closed or Deleted can also count positively toward that score.
    • If you have enough qualifying days to meet the given badge criteria but didn't earn badges because you didn't have a positive question record, but you later go on to have a positive question record, you'll earn any badges you didn't qualify for. Example: you have 35 qualifying days but didn't earn the Curious and Inquisitive badges immediately upon crossing 5 and 30 qualifying days as your question record score was too low; if your question record score increases to 0.5 or above (whether through new questions or your previous questions no longer negatively counting), you'll earn Curious and Inquisitive the next time the scripts for those badges run.
      • If you find yourself suddenly qualifying for multiple Socratic badges as a result of the above (e.g., your record score never reached 0.5 until after accruing 200 or more qualifying days), note that the script for any badge can only award the badge once. As such, you'll receive one badge each time the script runs until you're caught up.

  • Note that the badge progress tracker in your user profile only tracks the progress of qualifying days toward earning the badge, and does not keep track of your question record score. If you've earned the required number of qualifying days but your question record score is too low, it will show as 100% progress but you won't earn the badge.

Favorite Question

  • silver; awarded once per question
  • Have a question listed as a Save by 25 users

Stellar Question

  • gold; awarded once per question
  • Have a question listed as a Save by 100 users

Investor ***

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Offer a bounty on another user's question
  • Not awarded on per-site metas, since those sites do not have bounties

Nice Question

  • bronze; awarded once per question
  • Earn a score of 10 on one question

Good Question

  • silver; awarded once per question
  • Earn a score of 25 on one question

Great Question

  • gold; awarded once per question
  • Earn a score of 100 on one question

Popular Question

  • bronze; awarded once per question
  • Receive 1000 views on one question

Notable Question

  • silver; awarded once per question
  • Receive 2500 views on one question

Famous Question

  • gold; awarded once per question
  • Receive 10,000 views on one question

Promoter

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Offer a bounty on your own question
  • Not awarded on per-site metas, since those sites do not have bounties

Scholar

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Accept an answer

Student

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Receive a score of one on a question

Tumbleweed (retired)

Improve this answer
2
  • Why aren't they sorted alphabetically?
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented Mar 18, 2023 at 20:58
  • 2
    @This_is_NOT_a_forum Groups of related badges are grouped together, such as Popular Question, Notable Question, or Famous Question. The badge groups are sorted alphabetically, in the order of the name of the first badge in each group. The horizontal lines indicate the end of one group and the start of another.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Mar 20, 2023 at 20:00
271

Answer Badges

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Enlightened

Explainer ***

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Edit 1 question within 12 hours of answering it

Refiner ***

  • silver; awarded once
  • Edit 50 questions each within 12 hours of answering it (score>0).

Illuminator

  • gold; awarded once
  • Edit 500 questions each within 12 hours of answering it (score>0).

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • Answers must have a score of 1 or greater.
  • The edit may take place before or after the answer is posted.
  • Self-answers don't count.
  • Only body and title edits on the question count, tag-only edits do not.
  • Multiple answers to the same question only count once.
  • Eligible edits will continue to count toward your total even if they are later rolled back or overridden.
  • Answers to closed questions don't count. This means that if the question is closed at any point in the future, that question will cease to count toward your total, though it will begin counting again if it's reopened.

Generalist

  • silver; awarded once
  • Earn a tag score of 15 on one of the top 40 tags, then repeat the previous step until any 20 of the top 40 tags are covered (source) (confirmation)
  • Only awarded to anyone after each of the 40 top tags has over 200 questions (confirmation)

Favorite Answer

  • silver; awarded once per answer
  • Have a answer listed as a Save by 25 users

Stellar Answer

  • gold; awarded once per answer
  • Have a answer listed as a Save by 100 users

Guru

  • silver; awarded multiple times
  • Earn a score of 40 on an answer to a question you did not ask, and earn the accepted checkmark for that same answer (source)
  • Community wiki answers are eligible for this badge (source)

Lifejacket

  • silver; awarded multiple times
  • Answer a question that has a score of -2 or lower
  • The question must later have a score of 2 or higher sometime after your answer was posted
  • Your answer must have a score of 5 or higher

Lifeboat

  • gold; awarded multiple times
  • Answer a question that has a score of -3 or lower
  • The question must later have a score of 3 or higher sometime after your answer was posted
  • Your answer must have a score of 20 or higher

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • Your own vote on the question, if any, is ignored when calculating the question's score at the time you answered the question. However, it is regarded when calculating the current score to see if the question later reached the positive score threshold. (Source)
  • Deleted answers are ignored
  • Self-answers do count

Nice Answer

  • bronze; awarded multiple times
  • Earn a score of 10 on one answer

Good Answer

  • silver; awarded multiple times
  • Earn a score of 25 on one answer

Great Answer

  • gold; awarded multiple times
  • Earn a score of 100 on one answer

Populist

  • gold; awarded multiple times
  • Provide an answer that meets all of the following criteria (source):
    • it is the highest scoring answer on the question (source) or tied for the highest score
    • it does not have the accepted checkmark
    • it has a score of 23 or more
    • it has at least one vote more than double the score of the accepted answer
    • the accepted answer has a score of 11 or more
    • it is not an answer to your own question (source)

Reversal (retired)

  • gold; awarded multiple times
  • Answer a question that has a score of negative five or lower and receive a score of at least 20 on the answer

Revival

  • bronze; awarded multiple times
  • Provide an answer to a question that is at least 30 days old at the time of answering.
  • Your answer reaches a score of two.
  • No other answers posted earlier than your answer currently have a score of two. "Earlier" refers to the time the answer was originally posted (first revision).

Necromancer

  • silver; awarded multiple times
  • Receive a score of five for an answer posted at least 60 days after the question it answers
  • Other answers are not considered when awarding this badge

Additional note regarding this badge family:

  • If one of your answers is merged into another older question, the time the new parent question is asked is treated as the question asking time. This means that if you answer a question too early to earn a badge, then that question is subsequently merged into an older question, your answer may qualify for a badge.

Self-Learner

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Provide an answer with a score of 3 or more to your own question
  • Works on community wiki answers

Teacher

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Receive a score of one on an answer

Tenacious

  • silver; awarded once
  • Have more than five (6 or more) accepted answers with a score of zero, and have those zero-score accepted answers account for more than 20% of all your accepted answers
  • Was originally named Tireless.

Unsung Hero

  • gold; awarded once
  • Have more than ten (11 or more) accepted answers with a score of zero, and have those zero-score accepted answers account for more than 25% of all your accepted answers

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • Only accepted answers at least ten days old are considered (source)
  • Community wiki answers, deleted answers, and self-accepted answers are not included in any calculations
  • To qualify for a badge, you must have more qualifying answers and a higher percentage than the amount quoted in the badge description. In other words, for example, if you have exactly 10 zero-score accepted answers and/or have exactly 25% of your accepted answers be zero-scored, you won't earn the Unsung Hero badge.
  • How long do Tenacious and Unsung Hero badges take to be awarded? - an SE team member who checked the source code in chat
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3
  • 3
    What is the purpose of the three asterisks (for two of the badges)? I was expecting a footnote (in a smaller font).
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented May 29, 2020 at 17:08
  • 4
    @P.Mort.-forgotClayShirky_q: See the question: "Any badge with a *** next to it is one of 20 badges that count towards the candidate score displayed on a moderator candidate in an election. The candidate score is a total of 40 points: the first 20 are awarded based on the user's rep divided by 1000 and rounded down; the second 20 represents the total number of unique badges earned of the 20 that count. Note that if the same badge is earned multiple times, it will only count once towards the candidate score."
    – V2Blast
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 21:06
  • 1
    Shouldn't "awarded multiple times" be changed to "awarded once per answer" where appropriate here?
    – E.P.
    Commented Jul 9, 2021 at 13:22
196

Tag Badges

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What are tag badges?

Users may earn badges on any site for positive contributions to established tags used on that site. Each tag badge has the same name as the tag for which it was awarded.

When a user meets the requirements for a tag badge that has never been awarded, the system creates and awards it automatically. These badges are displayed with a white background, unlike other badges that are displayed with a black background.

Tag badges are only issued for tags that are being used on at least 100 questions. Additionally, tag badges are not issued for tags that have the same name as a non-tag badge.

What is a tag score?

A tag score is basically the combined total of all the upvotes (+1) and downvotes (-1) you've accumulated on answers under that specific tag (votes on questions do not count). Multiple answers to the same question will all count toward the tag score and number of answers. Community wiki answers and deleted answers do not count towards your tag score. Tag scores are only recalculated once daily, at 03:00 UTC.

Bronze

  • 100 total score
  • minimum of 20 answers

Silver

  • 400 total score
  • minimum of 80 answers

Gold

  • 1000 total score
  • minimum of 200 answers

Possessing a gold badge for a tag will allow you to cast binding votes to close questions as duplicates or reopen questions closed as duplicates, provided you weren't the first one to add the tag and haven't previously voted to close or reopen, respectively. Source

Unlike most other badges, tag badges are revoked immediately if you ever cease to meet their criteria, which can happen if your answers are downvoted, deleted, or converted to community wiki, if the tag is removed from questions that you've answered, or if the tag becomes ineligible for badges because it's no longer used on 100+ questions.

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3
  • 4
    Which other badges are also immediately revoked?
    – JMP
    Commented Jan 23, 2019 at 22:50
  • 4
    @JonMarkPerry Only tag badges. Regular badges aren't revoked except under very special, exceptional circumstances. See the general badge FAQ.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented May 23, 2019 at 3:36
  • 1
    "Possessing a gold badge for a tag will allow you to cast binding votes to close questions as duplicates or reopen questions closed as duplicates, provided you haven't edited the tags" - It doesn't seem to matter whether the tags have been edited or not since only the "original" tags that were applied to the question matter. See this MSO post: My gold badge allowed me to instantly close a question despite the tag being edited out beforehand
    – MrWhite
    Commented Oct 29, 2021 at 19:04
132

Area 51 badges

NOTE: even though many badges have same name as Q&A site badges, the requirements are often different, e.g. Great Question which requires score of 50 and not 100. See the list here.

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Activist

  • gold; awarded multiple times
  • Refer 100 committers to a proposal

Adherent

  • silver; awarded once
  • Follow through on five commitments

Advocate

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Cast one upvote
  • Under the old voting system, this badge's award condition was: Mark a question as a great on-topic example or a great off-topic example

Analyst

  • gold; awarded once
  • Leave ten comments, each of which has a score of at least ten

Autobiographer

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Enter something in every field of your user profile

Campaigner

  • silver; awarded multiple times
  • Refer 25 committers to a proposal (note: this was reduced from 100 on DATE?)

Caucus

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Create a proposal that is followed by a user other than yourself

Centrist

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Ask a question that receives three upvotes
  • Under the old voting system, this badge's award condition was: Ask a question that receives three "great on-topic example" votes

Citizen Patrol

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Flag a post
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Citizen Patrol

Civic Duty

  • silver; awarded once
  • Cast 300 total votes
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Civic Duty

Commentator

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Post a total of ten comments
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Commentator

Editor

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Edit a post (including your own)
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Editor

Enthusiast

  • silver; awarded once
  • Visit the site for 30 days in a row
    • This can be tracked in the user profile under "consecutive days"
    • Simply loading the site is not enough to count as a "visit"
      • The exact amount of activity required to count as a visit is not public information
    • Each "day" lasts from midnight UTC to immediately before midnight, UTC; days are not counted in local time
  • Sometimes called "the woot! badge" because the company woot! sponsored the badge in the past
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Enthusiast
  • Source: based on the assumption that this works the same way as the "regular" Enthusiast badge works

Fanatic

  • gold; awarded once
  • Visit the site for 100 days in a row
    • This can be tracked in the user profile under "consecutive days"
    • Simply loading the site is not enough to count as a "visit"
      • The exact amount of activity required to count as a visit is not public information
    • Each "day" lasts from midnight UTC to immediately before midnight, UTC; days are not counted in local time
  • Sometimes called "the woot! badge" because the company woot! sponsored the badge in the past
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Fanatic
  • Source: based on the assumption that this works the same way as the "regular" Fanatic badge works

Filibuster

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Vote to delete a question

Founder

  • gold; awarded multiple times
  • Participate in every phase of a successful site.
    • There are four required steps to earn this badge for a site.
      • Follow the site proposal.
      • During Definition, provide at least one example question that receives a positive score.
      • During Commitment, commit to the proposal.
      • During Beta, follow through on the commitment you promised.
    • Source: Founder Badge Requirements

Good Question

  • silver; awarded multiple times
  • Post a question that receives a score of 30
  • Under the old voting system, this badge's award condition was: Earn 30 total "great ... example" votes on a question
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Good Question

Grassroots

  • bronze; awarded multiple times
  • Create a proposal which is followed by ten users at the same time

Great Question

  • gold; awarded multiple times
  • Post a question that receives a score of 50
  • Under the old voting system, this badge's award condition was: Earn 50 total "great ... example" votes on a question
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Great Question

Lobbyist

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Refer a user who commits to a proposal

Loyalist

  • silver; awarded once
  • Follow through on ten commitments

Mortarboard

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Earn more than 200 reputation in a single day
  • Reputation points earned for associating accounts do not count for the badge
  • Each "day" lasts from midnight UTC to immediately before midnight, UTC; days are not counted in local time
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Mortarboard
  • Source: based on the assumption that this badge works the same way as the "regular" Mortarboard badge works

Movement

  • silver; awarded multiple times
  • Create a proposal which is followed by 50 users at the same time

Nice Question

  • bronze; awarded multiple times
  • Post a question that receives a score of ten
  • Under the old voting system, this badge's award condition was: Earn ten total "great ... example" votes on a question
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Nice Question

Pioneer

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Follow a proposal

Promoter

  • bronze; awarded multiple times
  • Refer five committers to a proposal

Pundit

  • silver; awarded once
  • Leave ten comments, each of which has a score of at least five
  • Analogous to the "regular" badge Pundit

Radical (retired)

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Ask a question that receives three "great off-topic example" votes
  • Badge is retired because the "on-/off-topic example vote" system was removed

Revolution

  • gold; awarded multiple times
  • Create a proposal which gains 100 followers and/or 100 committers

Upholder

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Follow through on a commitment
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120

Moderation Badges

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Citizen Patrol

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Flag a post
    • Previously only awarded for flagging a post as spam or offensive; this was changed on Feb. 9, 2011 and applied retroactively

Deputy ***

  • silver; awarded once
  • Raise 80 flags deemed helpful by moderators or the system

Marshal ***

  • gold; awarded once
  • Raise 500 flags deemed helpful by moderators or the system
  • Initially named Marshall (source)

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • Prior to January 20, 2012, these badges were awarded based on flag weight, a number that increased or decreased based on the net amount of your helpful and declined flags on posts (initially 100, increasing linearly up to 500, then by a hidden, non-linear scale up to 750). Back in that time, the criteria were:

    • Deputy: have a flag weight of at least 500 (i.e. at least 40 net helpful flags on posts)
    • Marshal: have a flag weight of at least 749 (an undisclosed number of net helpful post flags)

    In January 2012, flag weight ceased to be shown and the badge criteria were changed to the current ones. Users who previously earned one or both of the badges under the prior definitions were allowed to keep them, but it/they cannot be earned again if one later qualifies under the new criteria.

  • Not awarded to ♦ moderators, only to regular registered users (source).

Civic Duty ***

  • silver; awarded once
  • Cast 300 total votes
    • Upvotes and downvotes on questions and answers count
    • Comment votes do not count
    • Votes on community wiki posts do count

Cleanup ***

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Perform a rollback of any post
  • Rollbacks on your own posts do count

Constable

  • gold; awarded once
  • Served as a pro-tempore moderator continuously for one year, or be a moderator when the site graduates (leaves beta)
  • Awarded on beta sites to both manually-appointed moderators and moderators elected in pro-tem elections
  • Not awarded to Stack Exchange staff
    • You may see this badge awarded to former Stack Exchange staff in certain cases (specifically, if their staff bit was removed, but their moderator bit wasn't removed by the time the badge script ran)

Sheriff

  • gold; awarded once
  • Served as a moderator continuously for one year on a graduated (non-beta) site
  • You can also earn the badge on non-beta sites that don't have elections, i.e. their moderators are appointed by SE staff (specifically Ask Patents, Meta Stack Exchange, Stack Apps)
  • Not awarded on beta sites; pro-tem elections don't count
  • Not awarded to moderators who gained their current diamond when the site was still in beta
  • Not awarded to Stack Exchange staff
    • You may see this badge awarded to former Stack Exchange staff in certain cases (specifically, if their staff bit was removed, but their moderator bit wasn't removed by the time the badge script ran)

Critic

Custodian

  • bronze; awarded once per review queue
  • Complete at least one review task (your first in a given review queue).
  • The review doesn't necessarily have to take place via the review page. This means that users with low reputation are able to gain this badge in the Suggested edits queue, when reviewing a suggested edit to one of their own posts.

Reviewer ***

  • silver; awarded once per review queue
  • Review 250 items in a review queue
  • For the First questions and First answers queues, this may or may not include items reviewed in the former First posts queue, depending on whether this badge was previously earned for the old queue; see Additional information for this badge family below
  • Replaces Reviewer (old) - see below

Steward ***

  • gold; awarded multiple times per review queue
  • Review 1000 items in a review queue
  • For the First questions and First answers queues, this will include the respective items reviewed in the former First posts queue; see the below section.

Additional information for this badge family:

  • Review audits do count towards the badges, provided they are passed
  • In September 2021, the former First posts review queue was discontinued, and progress from the former queue was reallocated to the queues that replaced it, First questions and First answers.
    • For the Reviewer badge:
      • If you previously earned it for the discontinued First posts queue, no progress toward that badge will be transferred to the new queues. You will be able to keep your prior badge, but you will also be eligible to earn this badge again for the new queues once you complete 250 reviews in each of them.
      • If you did not previously earn it for the discontinued First posts queue, the number of reviews on questions you made there will be counted toward your progress for the First questions queue, and the number of reviews on answers you made there will count toward your progress for First answers.
    • For the Steward badge, if you've already earned it one or more times for the discontinued First posts queue, only those reviews you completed after the last time you earned it will be counted toward badge progress in the new queues; if you did not, all of your reviews there will be counted. Reviews you've made there on questions will be counted toward progress in the First questions queue, while those you've made on answers will count toward progress in First answers.

Reviewer (old)

  • silver; awarded once; retired
  • Already possess the Strunk & White badge
  • Review at least 1000 posts from the review section or flag queue
  • Take action on at least 200 posts from the review section or flag queue
  • For the purposes of the badge, actions include
    • Editing successfully (i.e. declined edit suggestions do not count)
    • Flagging helpfully
    • Successfully voting to close
    • Voting on the post, unless the post gets deleted
    • Commenting on the post
  • Proposed at two levels: silver at 1000 reviews/300 actions and bronze at 300/60. Initially introduced as a bronze badge with the 300/60 requirement, but was changed to silver at 1000/200 approximately one day later.
  • Replaced with the new review badge family above (Custodian, Reviewer, and Steward) on September 21, 2012 (source)
    • Users who already had this badge will have an extra silver Reviewer badge, but it can no longer be attained

Disciplined

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Delete one of your own posts that has a score of three or more at the time of deletion
  • Posts that you own but are not self deleted do not count.

Editor

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Edit any post or tag wiki (including your own posts and tag edits, excluding grace period edits)

Strunk & White ***

  • silver; awarded once
  • Edit a total of 80 questions, answers, and tag wikis combined

Copy Editor ***

  • gold; awarded once
  • Edit a total of 500 questions, answers, and tag wikis combined

Additional criteria for this badge family (excluding Editor):

  • Edits on deleted posts do not count
    • Edits to wikis of tags that later get removed do count
  • Edits within the 5-minute grace period do not count
  • Edits to your own posts do not count, except for Editor (source)
  • Edits to community wiki posts do count (source)
  • Edits that consist only of tag changes do not count, except for Editor (source)
  • Tag wiki excerpt edits do count (source)
  • Edits by ♦ moderators to Help Center articles count as well
  • Edits you suggest before gaining full edit privileges do count, once approved (source)
  • Each edited post counts only once, regardless of how many additional edits you may submit

Electorate ***

  • gold; awarded once

  • Vote on 600 questions

  • Have at least 25% of your total number of votes cast (questions and answers) be on questions

  • Comment votes do not count for either criterion

  • Answer votes do not count toward the 600 required votes

  • Votes cease to count if the posts get deleted

This seems to be an especially confusing badge, so here are some examples to address cases commonly complained about on meta sites. "Total" is just the total number of votes cast (on both questions and answers) and "Ratio" is the percentage of the total number of votes cast, that are votes on questions.

Questions Answers Total Ratio Electorate awarded?
600 2400 3000 20% No; ratio too low
201 401 602 ~33% No; < 600 questions
599 0 599 100% No; < 600 questions
600 0 600 100% Yes
500 500 1000 50% No; < 600 questions
650 650 1300 50% Yes

Excavator

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Edited one post that was inactive for at least 6 months

Archaeologist

  • silver; awarded once
  • Edited 100 posts that were inactive for at least 6 months

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • Posts whose last edit date (or creation date if never edited) is at least 180 days ago are considered "inactive for at least 6 months" for the purposes of this badge; other activity types such as Community bumps or reopenings are ignored
  • Edits to your own posts do not count (source)
  • Tag-only edits do not count (though they are considered when calculating the "last edit" date)
  • Each post counts only once toward the check, so editing the same post multiple times won't count
  • Tag wiki edits do not count
  • It is possible to disable this badge family on specific sites (though it's not currently disabled on any)

Source

Organizer ***

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Edit the tags on a question asked by another user
  • Your own questions don't count
  • Both binding, privileged edits and suggested edits count for the badge (once approved)
  • Your edit need not edit only the tags; it can also edit the title and body
  • Changing the order of the tags (if their popularity order has changed since the previous edit) will also count for the badge

Peer Pressure

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Delete one of your own posts that has a score of negative three or lower at the time of deletion
  • Posts that you own but are not self deleted do not count.

Proofreader

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Reviewed 100 suggested edits
  • Any type of review, including "Improve Edit" and "Reject and Edit", counts for the badge.
  • This badge works exactly like the review badges listed above (with a threshold of 100 review tasks) but only awarded for the Suggested Edits queue specifically.

Sportsmanship ***

  • silver; awarded once
  • Cast 100 upvotes on competing answers (source)
    • If you answer a question and earn a score of at least one, all other answers to that question are considered "competing answers"
    • Deleted posts do not count
    • Retracted votes do not count
    • Wiki posts do count
    • If you upvote multiple competing answers on a single question, this counts multiple times, irrespective of how many (upvoted) answers you have on that question.
  • Originally proposed in June 2009; implemented October 2010.

Suffrage

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Cast 30 votes on questions and/or answers in a single day
    • Each "day" lasts from midnight UTC to immediately before midnight, UTC; days are not counted in local time
  • Votes you cast on posts that are later deleted do count toward this badge
  • Originally proposed in June 2009; implemented October 2010.

Supporter

Synonymizer

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Receive approval for a tag synonym suggestion you submitted

Tag Editor ***

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Edit a tag wiki entry (excerpt or body)
  • Suggested edits count only if they are approved
  • Badges awarded prior to Feb. 9, 2011 were awarded under the old tag wiki editor rules:
    • Editing a tag wiki requires 1500 reputation, as well as one of the following:

Research Assistant

  • silver; awarded once
  • Edit 50 different tag wiki bodies
  • You can edit an existing tag wiki or create a new one
  • Edits to tag wiki excerpts do not count (source)
    • Except for trusted users when creating a tag excerpt from scratch (source)

Taxonomist

  • silver; awarded once
  • Create a tag that is applied to 50 questions
    • If User A creates a tag that falls into disuse and User B later uses the tag again, User A continues to get credit for creating the tag, for the purposes of this badge (source)

Vox Populi

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Cast 40 votes - the maximum (limit) for a single day.
    • Each "day" lasts from midnight UTC to immediately before midnight, UTC; days are not counted in local time
    • It is possible for the system to restrict you to fewer than 40 votes in a day.
      • You get two types of votes per day: ten can be used only on questions ("Q-votes") and 30 can be used on either questions or answers ("QA-votes").
      • When you vote on a question, the system tries to use your Q-votes before your QA-votes.
      • When you only have five QA-votes left for the day, you can no longer use your Q-votes. The "You have n votes left today" counter starts to appear after you cast votes. This means that if you start a day by voting mostly on answers and burning through your QA-votes first, it'll be impossible for you to reach 40 votes that day (unless posts you vote on get deleted - see the next bullet).
  • Votes you cast on posts that are later deleted do count toward this badge
  • First suggested here by waffles. A proposed refinement by Bill the Lizard was implemented a few days later.
  • See also the blog post Vote For This Question or The Kitten Gets It
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105

Participation Badges

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Autobiographer

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Enter something in the “About Me” field of your user profile (source)
  • Previously, this badge was awarded only for filling in all profile fields; this was changed in September 2014 so only the "About Me" description field needs to be filled in, and badges were awarded retroactively
  • Due to a bug, for an unknown period of time before April 2021, this badge was only awarded on a site if you manually created or edited your profile description on the site; descriptions that were automatically filled in when joining the site did not count. While the bug is fixed today, badges weren't retroactively awarded, so if you qualified for the badge but didn't earn it as a result of this bug, you must make an edit to your profile to earn it.

Caucus

  • bronze; awarded multiple times
  • Visit an election page while an election is in progress
  • You must have the minimum reputation required to be able to vote in the election
  • You get the badge once per election, as long as you visit the election page while an election phase (nomination, primary, or final) is in progress, even if there are no candidates who've nominated

Constituent ***

Additional information for this badge family:

Commentator

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Post a total of ten comments

Pundit

  • silver; awarded once
  • Leave 10 comments that each have a score of at least 5 (this was reduced from 10 to 5 on Nov 2, 2010)
  • Comments on deleted posts count towards the badge (source), deleted comments do not (source)
  • Automatically generated comments (e.g. "Does this answer your question?") count as long as they're not deleted
  • There will never be a gold version of this badge (source)

Enthusiast ***

  • silver; awarded once
  • Visit the site for 30 days in a row
  • Not available in Stack Overflow for Teams

Fanatic

  • gold; awarded once
  • Visit the site for 100 days in a row
  • Not available in Stack Overflow for Teams

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • Simply loading the site is not enough to register a "visit" (source)
    • The exact amount of activity required to register a visit is not public information
  • Each "day" lasts from midnight UTC to immediately before midnight, UTC; days are not counted in local time
  • You can click the number of days on your profile page (the "profile" tab) to see a calendar of which days were registered as visits
  • On days when no (or very few) visits can be registered due to an extended site outage, Stack Exchange employees may (at their discretion) award visits on the day(s) the site is down to those who registered a visit on the previous day that the site was up.

Mortarboard

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Earned at least 200 reputation (per the below criteria) in a single day

Epic

  • silver; awarded once
  • Earned at least 200 reputation (per the below criteria) on 50 days

Legendary

  • gold; awarded once
  • Earned at least 200 reputation (per the below criteria) on 150 days

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • All of the following events count towards a specific day's total reputation calculation: upvotes and unupvotes, accepts (both to the asker and the answerer) and unaccepts, suggested edit approvals, bounties earned, and (in the past) documentation reputation events (on Stack Overflow).
  • Any other events like downvotes, undownvotes, the association bonus, vote invalidations, and deletions are not considered.
  • Votes that are later deleted for any reason (manually retracted or invalidated) do not affect previous days' reputation earned calculation. Unupvotes and unaccepts affect the day the undo event occurred.
  • Each "day" lasts from midnight UTC to immediately before midnight, UTC; days are not counted in local time.
  • Under certain rare circumstances, it is possible to hit the daily reputation cap but not have that day count as a qualifying day for the badge.

Precognitive

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Awarded to those who followed the Area 51 proposal for a particular Stack Exchange site before it entered the commitment phase, when the site enters its private beta phase.
    • In other words, it marks the people who have been around and supported the site before it was even launched
  • Not attainable on all sites; in particular, those that were launched before the Area 51 site creation process was invented, like Stack Overflow, Super User, and Server Fault

Beta

  • silver; awarded once
  • Participate actively in a site’s private beta phase by:
    • Upvoting or downvoting 10 posts
    • Making three posts with score > 0
    • Visiting the site on three separate days
  • All three requirements must be met before the public beta begins (or possibly before the badge script runs)
  • Not awarded on per-site metas, and activity on the site's meta doesn't count towards the requirements.
  • The script for this badge doesn't run until just after the private beta is complete, so you won't earn the badge until that time. This is because the criteria for this badge were previously undisclosed and this was to prevent people from figuring out the criteria.

Quorum ***

  • bronze; awarded once
  • One post with score of 2 or more on the related per-site meta

Convention ***

  • silver; awarded once
  • Post at least 10 posts which each have a score of 2 or more on the related per-site meta

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • These badges are awarded on main sites for participation in the meta site. As such, by definition, they cannot be earned on per-site metas themselves.
  • Not available on sites without per-site metas, such as Meta Stack Exchange and Stack Apps
  • Prior to the Meta Stack Overflow-Meta Stack Exchange split, activity here on this site counted toward earning these badges on Stack Overflow, as this site also served as Stack Overflow's per-site meta. However, after that, activity here on this site ceased to count, with only activity on the new Meta Stack Overflow counting. Those who previously earned one or both of these badges on the basis of participation here on this site got to keep it.

Talkative

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Post at least ten messages in chat
  • Receive at least one star in chat
  • Chat messages in private rooms also count for this badge

Outspoken

  • silver; awarded once
  • Receive stars from at least ten different users for at least 10 different messages in chat
  • Each message is only counted once, and each user is only counted once. So it’s not enough if one message is starred by nine people, and a tenth user stars nine other messages.
  • If you want to know, here’s the precise definition: Consider the bipartite graph whose vertices are all your messages and all the users, and whose edges are the stars you received. So a user (vertex) and a message (vertex) are connected by an edge if and only if the given user has starred the given message. You are eligible for the Outspoken badge if and only if this graph has a matching number of at least ten.

Yearling ***

  • silver; awarded multiple times
  • Have a reputation of at least (number of years since registration) × 200 + 1 (starting reputation)
    • The number of years is not restricted to integers and increases continuously. For example, if at the 2-year mark you don’t have the 400 required reputation, the number of years still continues to increase. So half way through year 3 (i.e., after 2.5 years), you’d need 2.5 × 200 = 500 reputation to qualify for the second yearling badge.
    • You can be awarded only one badge each time the script runs; if you find yourself suddenly qualifying for multiple badges, expect to get one each time the script runs until you're caught up.
    • This badge is awarded on per-site metas using the reputation copied from the main site, so if you have visited the per-site meta when logged in (created your profile there), you'll earn this badge on both the main site and per-site meta at the same time (give or take, as the script that updates your meta reputation runs on a scheduled basis).
      • If you haven't visited the per-site meta when logged in and later visit it once you have one or more Yearling badges on the main site (creating your profile there), you'll receive the same number of Yearling badges there as you earned on the main site per the above bullet on multiple awards (as the meta profile creation date is backdated to the time you created your main site profile).
    • The badge used to require only (years) × 100 reputation; this was changed after the account association bonus was implemented
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88

Other Badges

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Analytical (retired)

  • bronze; awarded once
  • As of June 2013, this badge is retired due to the FAQ being changed to the Help Center all across the network. Those who earned it previously get to keep it.
  • Visit every section of the former /faq page

Announcer

  • bronze; awarded once per post
  • Share a link to a post that is visited by 25 unique IP addresses

Booster

  • silver; awarded once per post
  • Share a link to a post that is visited by 300 unique IP addresses

Publicist

  • gold; awarded once per post
  • Share a link to a post that is visited by 1000 unique IP addresses

Additional criteria for this badge family:

  • The date that the post was created is irrelevant.
  • In order to get credit for a certain click, the link must be a short-form link that contains your user ID (e.g. https://$site/[q|a]/[post ID]/[user ID]). Short links that don't contain the "user ID" portion and full-form links don't count. If you want to be sure a particular link counts, use the "share" button underneath the post.
    • Note that when such links are posted in the network's chat rooms, the chat system will expand the link and strip out your user ID, so link clicks from there will not count toward your total.
  • If your account is merged into another account, any prior unique IP address clicks from before the merger will be counted toward your current account (and combined with its count, removing duplicates); however, later clicks on links that still contain your old user ID will not count anymore.
  • There are separate counts per post (question or answer). In other words, each individual post ID has its own separate count.
  • Prior to December 2019, the badge could only be earned on questions, with shared links to answers counting their unique IP address toward the parent question's total. Those who earned the badge under the previous definition but wouldn't qualify under the new definition will get to keep it, but those who earned it under both the old and new definitions will have their duplicate award revoked.
    • An example of where one qualified for the badge family under the old rules, but not the new rules, is if one shares a link to a question that receives 500 visits from unique IP addresses, and a link to one of that question's answers that receives 500 visits from different unique IP addresses. The total number of unique visits to the question as a whole adds up to 1,000, satisfying the old criteria for Publicist, but the new criteria aren't satisfied since the totals for each individual post (question or answer) is less than 1,000. In this case, if you earned a badge previously, you'll get to keep it.
    • An example of where one qualified for the badge family under both the old and new rules is if one only shared a link to an answer, which received 1,000 visits from unique IP addresses, and didn't share a link to the question. You would have qualified for the question under the old rules, but would now be qualifying for the answer. This would have resulted in you earning a duplicate badge as the question and answer are now counted separately, but this duplicate badge would have later been revoked.
    • For an unknown period of time prior to December 2019, there was a bug in which shared links to answers weren't having their question totals aggregated with the question properly, resulting in unique visits to those links not counting even though they should have. This was the original impetus for changing the criteria at that time, as it would have been too difficult to fix them to conform to the prior criteria. This does mean that if you would have earned a badge under the old criteria but didn't earn it as a result of that bug, but you don't qualify under the new rules, you won't earn the badge. (See the first example above.)
  • Prior to early 2017, only links from outside the Stack Exchange network counted. This was changed for technical reasons as a result of the changeover to HTTPS, and was awarded retroactively.
  • Introduced in Stack Overflow blog post Announcer, Booster, and Publicist Badges (although the unique IP addresses requirement changed and time limit requirement was dropped).

Census (retired)

  • silver; awarded once
  • Completed at least one Stack Overflow Developer Survey between 2017 and 2022 inclusive
  • Introduced in 2017 to encourage more users to participate in the Developer Survey. This badge was previously awarded upon completion of each Developer Survey and could be earned multiple times if multiple years' Surveys were completed.
  • For the 2017 Developer Survey, the badge could only be earned on Stack Overflow.
  • For the 2018 Developer Survey, the badge was earned on whichever site the user started the survey on.
  • For the 2019-2022 Developer Surveys, users had the option to earn the badge on a selection of technical sites other than Stack Overflow. After completing the survey, the user would be prompted to choose which one site to award the badge on.
  • In May 2023, after the SE team became aware of privacy risks caused by awarding this badge, all past awards of this badge were revoked from all users who earned it on any site. The badge was then re-awarded a single time to users who'd earned it previously on any given site, and then ceased to be awarded (was retired) for subsequent Developer Surveys.

Informed

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Read the entire tour page (formerly called "About")
  • Introduced as part of the new "Quick Start" guide
  • Not awarded on per-site metas, as their tour page redirects to the main site's version
  • The first badge that is awarded immediately and not by a scheduled job.

Not a Robot

  • silver; awarded multiple times
  • Awarded manually by the SE team for attending an event organized by Stack Overflow or one where Stack Exchange employees are actively participating
  • Introduced to promote socialization on Stack Overflow
  • The first badge that is awarded manually
    • The badge was awarded manually to the Community user on Stack Overflow in an experiment to see how long it would take for meta users to notice
  • Only awarded on Stack Overflow and the international Stack Overflow sites
    • The badge is awarded on an international Stack Overflow site if the user participates in an event held in the site's language. Users who qualify for a badge on an international site may also qualify for it on the main English Stack Overflow site.
    • Of note, these international site events are not listed in the list of events to earn the badge on the main Stack Overflow site. They are, however, listed in the corresponding lists on the international sites.
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Documentation Badges (Stack Overflow)

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Note

As Stack Overflow Documentation has been discontinued, all Documentation badges, except for Documentation Beta and Documentation Pioneer, have been removed from the system and revoked from users who earned them. In exchange, a new single silver badge, Documentation User, was awarded to those who earned at least one revoked Documentation badge, excluding Educated.

The decision to revoke the badges is explained in this post, excerpt below:

We also have a longstanding policy against revoking badges. But we've never had [an entire set of badges] for a discontinued beta feature either. While we could just retire them, it seems confusing to show expired Documentation features on the list of badges. In addition, we'd lose a lot of good names for potential future badges. As a compromise, anyone who earned a Documentation badge other than Educated (for reading the tour) will be issued a newly minted silver [Documentation User] badge.

Read more: 1, 2, 3

Here's a screenshot of the set of Documentation badges before they were removed.

Current badges

The following badges remain after Documentation was phased out. They are considered retired as they are no longer possible to earn.

Documentation Beta

  • silver; awarded once
  • Contributed 3+ substantive pieces of documentation during the private beta
  • Requirement must be met before the private beta ended

Documentation Pioneer

  • silver; awarded once
  • Contributed 3+ substantive pieces of documentation in the first public month of Documentation
    • awarded from July 21, 2016 till August 20, 2016

Documentation User

  • silver; awarded once
  • Earned at least one badge for contributing to Stack Overflow Documentation
    • The above two badges did not count towards earning this badge, as they were counted and kept separately
    • The Educated badge (for reading the tour) did not count towards this badge
  • Note that only one badge is awarded to each user, no matter how many revoked badges they earned.
  • As all Documentation badges (except the above two) have been revoked, this badge is meant as a compromise for those who earned at least one Documentation badge when it was live.

Discontinued badges

The following badges were revoked after Documentation was discontinued.

Backer

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Cast an upvote
    • Usually requires 15 reputation (rep requirements chart)

Bluebook

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Cited a topic or example you've contributed to in an answer you posted
    • Not awarded for questions
  • Answer MUST be upvoted at least once
  • You must be a contributor to the topic/ example cited

Creditor

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Cited a topic or example you haven't contributed to in an answer you posted
    • Not awarded for questions
  • Answer MUST be upvoted at least once AFTER the citation is added
  • You must not be a contributor to the topic/ example cited

Educated

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Read the entire Documentation Tour
  • This badge did not count towards earning the Documentation User badge.

Incrementalist

  • bronze; awarded once
  • Submitted a proposed change of a topic
    • Approved by others

Knowledgeable

  • silver; awarded once
  • Submitted a proposed change of a topic that handles others' improvement requests
    • Approved by others
  • Proposed change must be marked as Handling improvement requests

Peer Review

  • bronze; awarded once
  • First review of someone else's proposed change

Primer

  • bronze; awarded once
  • First topic request to either be upvoted by others or to have a topic created from it

Renovator

  • bronze; awarded once
  • First improvement request of a topic or example
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Why didn't I get badge name right now?

(even though the badge progress tracker on my user profile or the review stats page indicates that I qualify for the badge; I even got the message "Congratulations - you earned [badge name]")

Most badges (with the exception of the Informed badge) are awarded by scheduled jobs, which are non-deterministic, meaning that there's a percentage chance of a certain badge query running every few minutes. Some badges, such as the Explainer family, have reduced chances of running, and the Beta badge isn't awarded until after a site's private beta finishes.

Additionally, if you cease to qualify for the badge before the badge script runs, you won't earn the badge. For instance, if one of your questions receives a score of 10, but it gets downvoted to 9 before the script runs, you won't earn the Nice Question badge. If the badge is one that can be tracked in the user profile, it may take some time before it once again shows up as a trackable badge.

Note that the badge tracker display in the public profile is loaded live, so it may display a "Congratulations - you've earned [badge]" message before the badge script has run and actually awarded you the badge. That message is simply based on full, live progress to earn the badge, and not based on whether the badge was actually awarded to you or not. Only when you see the badge in the "Badges" subtab of your user profile is when the badge has actually been awarded to you.

Tag badges are based on tag scores, and those are calculated once every day (in the early UTC morning), so tag badges are awarded (and revoked) even less often.

Under extremely rare circumstances, it may be possible for the badge criteria to be faulty. To confirm if this is still the case, wait 24 hours for any scripts to run, then carefully read the exact criteria here and check to see if you still continue to meet them, before filing a bug. To increase the chances that others (including the SE team) will recognize your bug report as a legitimate issue, provide some data of you and other users who should have earned the badge but didn't.

More information can be found here: How long does it take for badges to be awarded? How are they generated?

What are "retired" badges?

Retired badges are those badges that are no longer awarded by the system, either because the feature they are related to was later removed, or because the team has decided that it promotes some type of activity that should no longer be promoted.

Users who earned retired badges will still be able to keep them, but they can no longer be awarded to new users or existing users who haven't. Note that it's still possible to "earn" retired badges by merging an older account with a retired badge into a newer account without it; this is why you may still see them being awarded from time to time.

Some badges may have been fully revoked from all users in addition to ceasing to be awarded - these include the Census badge and the above-mentioned Stack Overflow Documentation badges. However, that happens only in specific exceptional cases - see the above sections for each of those cases - and in each case the full revocation of badges was made up subsequently by a single badge being awarded for past recognition of having earned a revoked badge.

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