Posted Apr 20, 2026 10:59PM UTC
A quick read on who you’re meeting
You may have noticed a new little badge next to members’ names on their profiles, in the People index, and in your messages. It’s our way of giving you a quick read on who you’re looking at without having to dig around for clues.
What the badges mean
Most members are rolled up into one of three tiers:
- Unverified — we can’t reliably reach this account (usually a bouncing or unconfirmed email). Treat a new message from an Unverified badge the way you’d treat any brand-new correspondent.
- Member — a standard member in good standing. Their email works and they’re part of the community, but our other activity signals haven’t lit up recently.
- Active member — recently logging in, posting on the forum, filling out their profile, or sharing photos and stories. The badge you’ll see most on people who are showing up.
Supporters and staff — Fan, Patron, Hero, Moderator, and Administrator — carry their own badges in the same spot that stand in for the tier badges above.
How your badge is worked out
Behind the scenes, each account gets a score out of 100 that’s rolled up into one of the tiers. We don’t publish the exact weights — that would make the system easy to game — but in broad strokes, we look at whether your email is working, how recently you’ve been active, your forum participation, how long you’ve been around (silent old accounts don’t get credit just for being old), how complete your profile is, what you’ve contributed, and how consistently you sign in.
Badges refresh automatically as you use the site. If your email starts bouncing or gets reported as spam, we reset the badge to Unverified until the underlying issue is sorted out.
Improving your own badge
The most useful things you can do:
- Sign in regularly.
- Make sure the email on file is one you actually check.
- Fill out your profile — photo, description, location.
- Join a conversation on the forum.
For the full explanation — including every badge you might see and what each one means — read About member badges. We hope this helps build trust in the community and helps you track down new friends who are really "all there".