Website/Username Badges

There are several badges which we use on our platform next to a username or on the profile of users. Some of these badges are ‘optional’ (as in users can choose whether to show them or not), but most of them are ‘mandatory’ (if assigned of course) and can’t be disabled by the user(s).

These badges offer an extra level of ‘transparency’ to our platform users. With these badges you can for example instantly see if a user which has posted a comment or review is a (‘paid’) platform sponsor, a manufacturer of us (or our projects/products), a supplier, staff member or if this user is closely involved with us personally (the Assistants for example). This ‘badge-system’ should provide a little bit more transparency and trust to our community members.

There are however also a couple of badges which platform users can unlock and earn.

NOTE: Site Badges are NOT shown on your forum account!

Current Badges

Bellow you will find a list of the (current) badges we use on our platform(s), and what they mean.
Please do note that it is not possible to apply for or request any of these badges manually, these will be assigned by us where required or desired. Neither is it possible (for most of them) to remove them from your account (if they are assigned).

Badges marked with [Internal Badge] are only meant for, assigned to and used by people/accounts directly related to us.

Badge	Description
	XNL Verified Account Badge (XVA) This badge shows when an account is verified. This badge ‘officially’ doesn’t belong among the other badges, but we have included it here to ensure that this documentation is as complete as possible. For more information about the XNL Verified Account Badge please visit the XNL Verified Account Page. Note: This badge is not used for official ‘staff’ or team members of our XNL Future Technologies Community, because these accounts already have their own ‘XNL Badges’!
	Official XNL Future Technologies Account [Internal Badge] This badge is shown when an account is an official XNL Future Technologies staff/team account, and thus belongs to our ‘main team’. People with this badge are part of the staff/team which develop, design and work on the projects, products, (3D) models the content etc. Note: This badge is also used for the platform owner(s). When hovering (with your mouse over the badge) it will say if it’s the platform owner or staff member.
	Official XNL Future Technologies Assistant [Internal Badge] Accounts showing this badge are marked as ‘Official XNL Future Technologies Assistants’, but are not part of the ‘main (core) team’ directly. People with this badge can have various functions which contribute to our platform (and thus offer assistance). Examples of this assistance can be (but not limited to): (Community) Moderators, Additional project/product support, forum assistance, project/product development assistance (as in testing and/or feedback), behind-the-scenes assistance (for example with preparing ‘the sett’, audio, lighting etc) and more of the alike. NOTE: We do not process request for this badge or request of uses asking/applying for ‘special assistant functions’, we have our own (non disclosed) ‘procedures’ to acquire additional assistance and assistants if required.
	Official XNL Future Technologies Internship Account [Internal Badge] Accounts showing this badge are of people/students which currently are following an internship at XNL Future Technologies. These internships can be for any (or all) of the services we provide, but might just as well have (almost) nothing to do with the content we produce publicly. NOTE: We do not accept ‘random internship requests’! We have our own (non disclosed) internship program.
	XNL Friend, Family or Relative This badge/account type has no special privileges (over other users) or any ‘moderator rights’, it is used for accounts which are marked as Friend, Family or Relatives (as the name suggests). This status/account type is intended for direct (real life/close) friends and family members of me and the others ‘working on’ this platform. So that these (for example relatives like a brother) are able to see what we’re doing without requiring them to get a Patreon account. This will also enable close friends and family members to test my/our projects, pages and more of the alike for us/me. These accounts are however NOT able to join giveaway’s, and will not get a (valid) vote in polls. NOTE: Members with this account type can’t disable this badge/status.
	Patreon Member This badge shows that the user has linked his/her account to their Patreon account and that they are currently an active (donating) patron. We make no difference in badges for patrons, because we feel that every patron is important no matter the amount they are able or wanting to pledge. If this badge is awarded to you, then you will have to enable it yourself in your account to make it appear on your account. So this also means that it is possible that you do see users whom are actually active patrons but don’t show this badge on their profile (either due to the fact that they haven’t linked their account or due to the fact that they have not enabled the badge itself).
	XNL Future Technologies Partner This badges shows that the account/user is an ‘official XNL Future Technologies Partner’. This partnership can be from a one-time (large) project collaboration, from an ongoing or longtime project collaboration. It can mean that this account is (another) content creator which we collaborate with (either ‘in-content’ or ‘outside of content’). But it can also mean that this account belongs to a ‘contacted (business) partner’. This badge can for example also be shown together with the Supplier badge, to indicate that this partner provides us discount(s) on their products in exchange that we (can) use them in our content.
	XNL Future Technologies Supplier This badge shows that the account belongs to one of our suppliers. This badge will for example be used if one of the company’s we ‘get our stuff from’ has an account on our platform(s) when we do not have any special partnership agreements with hem. Note: This badge can not be requested or be removed upon request.
	XNL Future Technologies Direct Sponsor/Advertiser This badge shows that the account belongs to one of our direct sponsors and/or advertisers. These are sponsors which either directly sponsor the XNL Future Technologies Community Platform (and/or it’s projects) or sponsors through advertisements via our XNL Direct Sponsor Advertisements program. Note: For transparency towards our users, this badge can not be requested ‘randomly’ or be removed upon request.
	Significant Contributor Badge This badge should kinda be considered as an ‘honor/special-thank-you badge’. This badge is awarded to users/accounts which have made a significant contribution to our platform, content, project(s) or products for example. This contribution is non disclosed out of respect of the contributor (but might be published in either a blog or other content if agreed upon). The criteria for when this badge is awarded varies greatly per contribution! This can for example be a significant financial donation to our platform, due to providing special ‘objects’ for use in content, providing us with access to ‘area’s restricted for the public’ to shoot content, donating equipment/tools for our projects (without placed advertisement requirements and/or expectations) or anything else which is considered ‘significantly important’ for our platform or content. Contributor Note: This badge can not be requested nor can it be ‘bought’ “just to have it” on your account. If there is a very good reason why you should not have it assigned to your account when making a significant contribution we might consider not displaying it. However in general we prefer that it is used where appropriate for transparency to our users. Users Note: Do not consider this as some “Ow I’ll donate $500 so I’ll have an awesome badge to brag“. Because that is not what this badge is for, and neither will it be awarded just for such ‘donation bragging rights’.
	Beta Tester Badge This badge is awarded to accounts which are currently actively included in our beta testing program (for any or all project(s)/product(s)), or to accounts of users whom have in the past (beta) tested projects or products and have played a significant role in doing so. Note: This badge can not be requested, neither is it possible to ‘randomly apply’ for our beta testing (program). When and IF we need (more) beta testers, we will make a public notification, post or video about this. Badge owner note: When this badge is awarded to your account, you will still have to decide if you want to show it for your account or not. This can be enabled in your account settings. Out of (privacy) respect for our users, this badge is by default set to ‘do not show’.
	Mailbag Item(s) Badge This badge can be awarded to users which have send-in items via our ‘mailbag system’ by including their ‘barcode label’ (which can be found in your account). Depending on if the sent-in item was useful enough for a ‘separate content (either post or video) piece’, if it (mainly) was sent-in as ‘self-promotion’ (for your kick starter project for example) which are ‘less eligible’, or for any other reason (which we are not obliged to elaborate on!) we might decide to assign this award or not. When items which are sent-in are not used (in anyway) in our content, we will not award this badge either. If this badge is awarded to you, then you will have to enable it yourself in your account to make it appear on your account. Note(s): In most situations, we will actually assign the badge when we receive items usable for our content. This badge is cumulative, which means that it will show if you have sent-in ‘packages’ multiple times. However we only allow ‘one barcode label’ per package/content episode. So putting 5 barcodes in one package with 5 items will obviously not count as ‘five packages’.
	Bug Reporter Badge The bug reporter badge is (in our discretion) awarded to users which have reported significant bugs or issues in/with our projects, products or any other releases. There is no clear definition on how to obtain this badge, and we will assign this whenever we feel the situation/report suits the badge so to speak. This badge is (just like the mailbag badge) cumulative. Please note: Simple ‘bug reports’ or ‘mentions’ do not qualify for this badge. So a ‘simple report’ like: “When I click “this” button, “that” doesn’t happen/work” do not qualify. This badge is intended for serious efforts in reporting a bug, where a decent bug report is made, multiple tests (to re-produce) have been made (and documented) etc. The reason why we do not award this badge to ‘every bug report’ is that it would be taking up so much time to confirm each possible bug etc, that we don’t have time anymore for the actual content and real bugs. And taking into consideration that many projects on our platform are DIY projects, there are also many external factors which could introduce bugs (including external library’s and user error). Which is why this badge is only awarded when a real bug (on our part) is reported which ‘complies’ with the ‘official bug report standards’. (Typo’s and such in general do not qualify either!)

Personal Profile Status Badges (Patreon Unlock)

Users whom have unlocked the ‘one-time-pledge-unlocks’ (by being or having been a Patreon member) can select an (predefined) ‘custom profile status’ which will be shown on their public profile page. Along with this ‘profile status’ they will also enable a custom badge which is linked to this status. Only one of these statuses can be active at any given time.

The intended and suggested use of the status and badges are listed bellow, however these are not mandatory and thus it could easily be that someone ‘just randomly’ selected a badge because he/she “just liked the badge/icon“.

Badge	Description
	Busy (Delayed Response) Users can set this status and it’s badge when they are for example busy and due to that might be (a lot) slower when responding to comments and/or comment replies. This is roughly intended for: “I will read your messages, and try to comment when I have time but it might take a long time” or something like “I’m very busy, will try to read the messages but will/can only reply to super important comments/questions at the moment” TIP: You can also use this one to indicate that you for example are not subscribed to email notifications for reply’s to your comments.
	Sketching/Planning/Researching Users can set this status and it’s badge to show that they are currently researching, planning, sketching or thinking about a new project, product or anything a like. This status basically represents: I’m currently having an (great) idea, but I’ll have to do some more research and planning.
	Developing Users can set this status and it’s badge to show that they are currently developing a new project or product. This badge is generally intended to show that they have passed the ‘I have an idea stage‘, that development has started, but that it hasn’t reached full testing or prototyping yet.
	Testing Users can set this status and it’s badge to show that they are currently developing a new project or product and that they have now either reached an important/crucial testing phase or that they are for example testing to see how certain (additional) features would work out or not.
	Prototyping or Building Users can use this status and it’s badge to show that they are currently building and/or prototyping their project/product. Suggested use (when using in a ‘project stages method’) is that you use this badge when you are working on a ‘test version’/prototype before you might go to ‘full production’. Or you could just use it to show you’re “building stuff” of course 😉
	3D Printing Users can use this status and it’s badge to show that they are currently 3D Printing a (large) project or portion(s) of their project. Obviously this is also a ‘more generic badge’ which can also be used just to show how much you love 3D printing 😉
	(Crowd) Funding or financing my project Users can use this status and it’s badge to show that they are currently in the process of getting their project/product funded. This can be by all kinds of means like for example: Crowd funding, (gathering) sponsors or just saving money from their own funds. NOTE: This is not intended to start ‘public funding campaigns’ on our platform! It is just to show that your are currently ‘saving up money’ or so for your project/product.
	In Production Users can use this status and it’s badge to (proudly) show that their recent project/product has been completed and gone into (full) production.
	Just hanging around, Enjoying the content or Lurking This status and it’s badge can be used by users whom are mainly “just reading”, enjoying and using the content, but don’t interact much with other users. However it can also be used for users whom are actually quite active and whom consider themselves as ‘platform furniture’ because they actually like to hang around and interact much.
	On Vacation The on vacation status and it’s badge can be used when users are for example: On Vacation (duh 😉 ), away from the platform(s) for a while, are actually not on vacation but will not respond to comments/replies (for a while), are “taking things easy”, or just because they love beaches and palm trees 😉

Disclaimer

Aside from the Internal XNL Future Technologies badges, having any badge(s) assigned to your account does not give you any additional rights on our platforms. Neither do these badges give you any ‘special powers’ or treatment over other users on our platform. We reserve the right to revoke any (or all) badges from your account without prior notice and without having to provide you with an reason. Having a certain badge (or not) does not automatically imply endorsement or that we ‘agree’ with the person(s), brand or company attached to the account. You are not able to hold us accountable in any way for having badges, not having badges or having your badges revoked. We also reserve the right to change the graphics and/or definition of any or all badges at any time.

ANY Attempt to falsely acquire or display badges anywhere on or for your account, will result in an immediate ban.

Last Updated: 13-04-2022