I’ve been getting this badge recently, it says, “This badge is granted for sharing a link that was clicked by 25 outside visitors. Thanks for spreading the word about our discussions, and this community.”
I’m kinda wondering what’s going on here exactly; I’m not sharing any links to this website anywhere online, so why am I getting this badge? This kinda worries me honestly, cuz the only conclusion i can draw is that somehow I’m sharing stuff online without wanting to…
Correct me if I am wrong…
Your links are being view by people who are NOT members of this forum…or just lazy and not signed in. People do visit here from other places…or maybe your link was shared by Google Search…etc
the thing is, my links within those threads didn’t get 25 clicks, none of them, so…
Yeah I’ve been getting that one as well, mostly for really old posts, some of which don’t even have links in them, some have links to other posts, some are linked to by other posts and some do not. There appears to be no consistency about what the post contains that gets that badge.
The badge is explicitly for external links, links on this forum to other places has it’s own badge “popular link” so I’m guessing someone on another forum or discord or something linked to those posts of mine for some reason.
Let’s try to get that badge;
I wonder how many times i replied a post just reading the top of the article.
Hmm, I only know what the badge says it does, not sure why it would be behaving weirdly all of a sudden, we haven’t made any changes.
I’ve gotten it a few times randomly as well, and clicking on it to redirect me to the post redirects me either to someone else’s post or to a post I made with no links whatsoever. 
It isn’t really all of a sudden, I’ve had these badges pop up every once in a while for a very long time. Though they do seem to come in waves, over the past week or two I’ve gotten 3-4 of them where as previous several months I did not and the same happened at some other point when I got the other 6 or so.
Since it’s about off-site behaviour it can be anything and quite impossible to track. Could just be webcrawlers making a pass over old indexed pages to ensure their database is up to date.
maybe you dont see guest’s clicks?
it’s not necessarily “off-site” stuff
it happens when people, not signed in, follows a redirect link on the forum to another thread on the forum.
say this quote up there that just got made, of just one of those copy pasted post/thread links https://206.81.1.216/t/nice-share-badge/12746/10?u=gnuffi, if someone not signed in, visits this thread then clicks the quote or link so it redirects to that post, it counts as a share. it doesn’t necessarily have to be visited from an outside redirect to the forum
don’t know, seems something might have changed, i see old thread redirect “share” links that i know i’ve had higher counts on, now on 0
don’t know if something updated, or if guests aren’t shown anymore, or if it happened during the format change, no clue, but some of those share links did have higher counts visibly displayed at least before
Yes it does not necessarily have to be from off site, as you say. But it still happens to posts that are not linked within the forum.
after the discourse/forum format change (the one that changed old quotes, and how thread links got named/"displayed inline) a bunch of posts doesn’t display as “linked” even tho they are. Just look at my post, your post, this op, 0 links “tagged”, despite there being a shared link to a post here
it might appear like you get a badge for post with no link, but if you scroll to the OP you see a bunch of links, and clicking the right one will take you back to “your” post that then linked to post the badge was given for
it’s some manual fiddling, but the links are there “somewhere”
i for instance just got a “nice share badge” for this post https://206.81.1.216/t/lost-my-coin-streak-even-though-i-checked-daily-is-this-even-possible/3065/46?u=gnuffi, that post aint mine, nor does it display as replied/quoted and then have to manually go through “chains” in op now, where we then find (one) of the redirects i used quoting that post https://206.81.1.216/t/cant-buy-anything-from-store/5234/20?u=gnuffi that links to the one i got the badge for
it’s all a bit muddled since the format/display change, but i’m betting if you scour enough you’ll find the/“your” posts you guys are actually getting your share badges for, even if it doesn’t display directly anymore, or even sticks/saves the numbers on to the counters anymore
tho that’s ofc just 1 part
it can happen to any shared post, inside or outside the forum
you can drop a link on twitter and if people follow it should also count as shares, so maybe someone is having some sort of chrono diary on reddit where a bunch of “non linked” shares are coming from too? 