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I read this: Meaning of Cleanup badge (First rollback )
and this: What is a 'rollback'?
If this badge is only available for users with 2000 rep and above, why do I see it? It should be invisible until I have 2000 rep.
I think it's better to not show it until user has 2000 rep. Expose the badges only when someone can get them.
No. You see all possible badges that are available. Some badges nobody can earn on specific sites, for example the Precognitive badge on Stack Overflow. Nobody has earned it and nobody can any more. Or that about the Sheriff badge: only available to moderators.
I think it will be very confusing when you see some badges on this site, others somewhere else. It just doesn't make sense. Just show all.
Also, as Shadow Wizard pointed out in a comment, you can earn that badge by rolling back an edit on your own post, even with 1 reputation point.
When Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky created Stack Overflow, they wanted badges to work like Xbox achievements. It seems to have been mostly Jeff's idea.
On a gaming console, you often see achievements/trophies/whatever-they-are-called that you cannot earn yet. Knowing that at some point the badge/achievement/trophy/etc will become available is supposed to be part of the fun - both on gaming consoles and on SO.
On a more practical level, you will see badges like these on other people's profiles. When that happens, you will probably want to know how these people earned them, and what they mean.
This is especially true during a moderator election: if someone wants to nominate themselves in a moderator election, they are required to have certain badges. You'll want to know how these moderator candidates got these badges, and what you have to do to earn them - even if you can't earn them yourself yet.
Part of the point behind badges is to encourage users to work towards them.
I'm not saying this all "works" necessarily (that's another argument), but it is "the point".
How do you define "cannot earn" and so which badges not to show?
For example:
Custodian - Complete at least one review task
Reviewer - Complete at least 250 review tasks
Steward - Complete at least 1,000 review tasks
You cannot earn Reviewer until you've earned Custodian, and cannot earn Steward until you've earned Custodian and Reviewer.
So do we not show Reviewer and Steward until they've earned Custodian? And once they earn Custodian show them Reviewer but not Steward?
What if they see and earn Custodian, then (by chance) see Reviewer appears and go for that. Do they check back once Reviewer is earned and see Steward?
As these badges are only unlocking as they have earned the previous one, are most users not going to wonder where this ends?
What is the next one after Steward? Review 2000 posts? 5000?
A potentially worse one is:
Enthusiast - Visit the site each day for 30 consecutive days
Fanatic - Visit the site each day for 100 consecutive days
They see Enthusiast, work for it and earn it. It's a tricky badge, as people have work, families, holidays, etc.
Then days or weeks later they view the badges page out of chance and notice "Fanatic", and curse the site for not telling them of its existence when they already had a 30 day head start to earning it.
To earn Fanatic they now have to do the same work all over again they did to get Enthusiast.
I do not see any harm in showing people "what they can earn" even if it's not what they can earn "now". They can work towards "unlocking it" so they can then work towards earning it.
In some cases, the working towards being able to earn a badge brings good actions to the site.
