Question Badges

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Altruist

• bronze; awarded once
• Award a bounty on another user's question
  • Awarding means manually selecting a bounty winner; letting the system auto-award half 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
  • Awarding means manually selecting a bounty winner; letting the system auto-award half the bounty does not count (source)
• Not awarded on per-site metas, since those sites do not have bounties

Favorite Question

• silver; awarded multiple times
• Have a question listed as a favorite by 25 users

Stellar Question

• gold; awarded multiple times
• Have a question listed as a favorite 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 multiple times
• Earn a score of 10 on one question

Good Question

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

Great Question

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

Popular Question

• bronze; awarded multiple times
• Receive 1000 views on one question

Notable Question

• silver; awarded multiple times
• Receive 2500 views on one question

Famous Question

• gold; awarded multiple times
• 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

• bronze; awarded once
• Ask a question that receives no votes, no answers, no comments and no more than 11-15 views in its first week of existence

Answer Badges

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Enlightened

• silver; awarded multiple times
• Be the first person to answer a question, and receive a score of at least ten for that answer. The answer must be accepted by the question owner, and it mustn't be a self-accept.

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 at least 200 questions

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)

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)
  • it does not have the accepted checkmark
  • it has a score of at least 23
  • it has more than double the score of the accepted answer
  • the accepted answer has a score of at least 11
  • it is not an answer to your own question (source)

Reversal

• 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
• Answer a question 30 days after it is asked
• Your answer must reach a score of two before any earlier answer to the same question reaches a score of two
• For the purposes of the above rule, "earlier" refers to the submission time of the first revision (source)

Necromancer

• silver; awarded multiple times
• Receive a score of five for an answer posted at least 60 days after the question it answers

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 accepted answers with a score of zero, and have those zero-score accepted answers account for at least 20% of all your accepted answers
• Was originally named Tireless.
• Sources: [How long do Tireless and Unsung Hero badges take to be awarded?][6], a SO team member who checked the source code in chat

Unsung Hero

• gold; awarded once
• Have more than ten accepted answers with a score of zero, and have those zero-score accepted answers account for at least 25% of all your accepted answers
• Source: [How long do Tireless and Unsung Hero badges take to be awarded?][7], a SO team member who checked the source code in chat

• 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

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.

Following information copied from waffles♦'s answer here:

• Tag badges that are no longer applicable are revoked, unlike "regular" badges.
• A tag must appear on a minimum of 100 questions to be considered for tag badges.

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). As well, posts which are in community wiki status or that have been deleted do not count towards your tag score. Tag scores are only recalculated once daily, at 03:00 UTC.

Bronze

• 100 total score
• only non-wiki / non-deleted answers count
• minimum of 20 answers on the tag to be considered

Silver

• 400 total score
• non-wiki non-deleted answers
• minimum of 80 answers

Gold

• 1000 total score
• non-wiki non-deleted answers
• minimum of 200 answers

Note that posts which count towards a tag badge on a popular or heavily edited question stop counting if and when the question is auto-CW-ified.

Area 51 badges

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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 up vote
• 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
• Similar to the "regular" badge Pundit, not to be confused with the similar A51 badge Pundit

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
  • The A51 badge page says "First proposal with 1 follower," but this was changed with minimal fanfare

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

Commmentator

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

Editor

• bronze; awarded once
• Edit a post
  • JUST EXAMPLE QUESTIONS, OR PROPOSALS TOO?
• 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: the assumption that this works the same way as the "regular" Enthusiast badge does

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: the assumption that this works the same way as the "regular" Fanatic badge does

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 has at least one on-topic or off-topic vote.
    • 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: the assumption that this badge works the same way as the "regular" Mortarboard badge does

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

• bronze; awarded once
• Ask a question that receives three "great off-topic example" votes
• Badge is no longer in service 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

Other Badges

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Analytical

• bronze; awarded once; retired
• As of June 2013, this badge is no longer awarded 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 FAQ

Announcer

• bronze; awarded multiple times
• Share a link to a question that is visited by 25 unique IP addresses

Booster

• silver; awarded multiple times
• Share a link to a question that is visited by 300 unique IP addresses

Publicist

• gold; awarded multiple times
• Share a link to a question that is visited by 1000 unique IP addresses

• The date that the question was asked is irrelevant
• Only clicks from outside the Stack Exchange network count towards the badge
• Introduced in Stack Overflow blog post Announcer, Booster, and Publicist Badges (although the unique IP addresses requirement changed and time limit requirement was dropped).

Informed

• bronze; awarded once
• Read the entire About page
• Introduced as part of the new "Quick Start" guide
• Not awarded on per-site metas, as their about page redirects to their FAQ page
• The first badge that is awarded immediately and not by a scheduled job.

Participation Badges

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Autobiographer

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

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

Constituent

• silver; awarded multiple times
• Vote for at least one candidate in the election phase of a Community Moderator Election

• Introduced during the 2012 Stack Overflow moderator election
• Not available on meta sites, which do not have elections

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)
• There will never be a gold version of this badge (source)

Enthusiast

• silver; awarded once; same family as Fanatic (gold)
• Visit the site for 30 days in a row

Fanatic

• gold; awarded once; same family as Enthusiast (silver)
• 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" (source)
  • 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

Mortarboard

• bronze; awarded once
• Earned at least 200 reputation in a single day

Epic

• silver; awarded once
• Earned at least 200 reputation on 50 days

Legendary

• gold; awarded once
• Earned at least 200 reputation on 150 days

• All positive reputation activities, including up votes, accepted answers, bounties, and suggested edits count towards this badge except for association bonuses, which do not count. (source)
• Down votes cast or received do not count towards this badge. (source)
• Each "day" lasts from midnight UTC to immediately before midnight, UTC; days are not counted in local time

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
  • 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
  • Despite this, it still appears in the badge list for every site in order to inform and incentivize participation on Area 51.

Beta

• silver; awarded once
• Participate actively in a site's private beta phase
  • Not just 3 bronze badges anymore, but the exact requirements not disclosed to prevent users from just doing the bare minimum. (source)
• Not awarded on Meta sites, including Meta Stack Overflow

Quorum

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

Convention

• silver; awarded once
• Post 10 posts with score of 2 or more on the related meta site

Talkative

• bronze; awarded once
• Post at least ten messages in chat
• Receive at least one star in chat

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 reputation ≥ (number of years as an active user) × 200
  • The script that awards this badge only runs on the anniversary of you joining the site
  • If you do not qualify for Yearling on an anniversary, but do meet it before your next anniversary, the badge will be awarded
    • Example: A user who earns 190 rep in his first year will not be awarded Yearling on his first anniversary. If the user earns 40 more rep exactly one month after the first anniversary, the Yearling badge will be awarded the next time the badge script runs. This is because (190 + 40 = 230 rep) > (200 rep / year × 1 1/12^th years = 217 rep)
  • The badge used to require only years × 100 rep; this was changed after the account association bonus was implemented

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
• This badge was originally awarded for achieving a flag-weight (10k only) of 500

Marshal

• gold; awarded once
• Raise 500 flags deemed "helpful" by moderators
• This badge was originally awarded for achieving a flag-weight (10k only) of 749
• Initially named "Marshall" (source)

• As of Jan 20, 2012, flag weight is no longer used
• Not awarded to diamond 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

Constable

• gold; awarded once
• Served as a pro-tem moderator for a year or through site graduation

Sheriff

• gold; awarded once
• Served as an elected moderator continuously for one year

Critic

• bronze; awarded once
• Cast a downvote
  • Usually requires 125 reputation (rep requirements chart)

Custodian

• bronze; awarded once per review task
• Complete at least one review task.

Reviewer

• silver; awarded once per review task
• Review 250 posts in a review task
• Replaces Reviewer (old) - see below

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 Custodian, Reviewer (see below), 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

Steward

• gold; awarded once per review task
• Review 1,000 posts in a review task

Disciplined

• bronze; awarded once
• Delete one of your own posts that has a score of three or more at the time of deletion

Editor

• bronze; awarded once
• Edit any post

Strunk & White

• silver; awarded once
• Perform a total of 80 edits between questions, answers, and tag wikis

Copy Editor

• gold; awarded once
• Perform a total of 500 edits between questions, answers, and tag wikis

• Edits on deleted posts do not count
• Edits to your own posts do not count (source)
• Edits to community wiki posts do count (source)
• Edits that consist only of tag changes do not count (source)
• Tag wiki edits do count (source)
• 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, and have at least 25% of the total number of votes cast be votes on questions
  • Comment votes do not count

This seems to be an especially confusing badge, so here are some examples to address cases commonly complained about on MSO. Total is just the total number of votes cast (Questions + Answers) and Ratio is the total number of votes cast that are 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 first post that was inactive for at least 6 months

Archaeologist

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

• Edits to your own posts do not count (source)
• Specific criteria for what edits count towards this badge are still vague and unknown

Organizer

• bronze; awarded once
• Retag a question asked by another user (not your own question)

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

Proofreader

• bronze; awarded once
• Approved or rejected 100 suggested edits

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"
  • Upvotes you cast before you post your own answer do not count
  • Deleted posts do not count
  • Retracted votes do not count
• 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
• Originally proposed in June 2009; implemented October 2010.

Supporter

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

Synonymizer

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

Tag Editor

• bronze; awarded once
• Edit a tag wiki entry
• 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:
  • Be in the top 20 answerers for the tag
  • Have an accumulated score of 100 votes on non-CW posts with positive score

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)

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, the "You have n votes left today" counter starts to appear after you cast votes.
  • Once the counter starts, it never goes back up on that day. Therefore, if you start a day by voting mostly on answers, the counter can start when you have more than five total votes (i.e. including both Q and QA) left, making it impossible for you to reach 40 votes that day.
• 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