For example, I got a message from the user “system” saying “Thanks for spending time with us.” I have no time for these automated distractions and I would like to disable them, but there is no option to mute the system user as with other users.
I also would prefer not to see notifications about badges that I have earned.
Is there any way to improve this or do I just have to accept these infuriating nudges in order to participate here?
It is possible to disable badges globally for the whole Discourse forum in admin settings. They likely were enabled by default, I’d be fine with disabling them if others support this idea.
This website is a https://www.discourse.org deployment. Probably need to look for feature requests there.
Also you may consider setting up email notifications (which do not notify you about new badges) and simply ignoring in-app notifications on this forum. The “system” user hasn’t bothered me ever since that “Thanks for spending time” message.
I too dislike this and disable it on every Discourse I join - it’s buried in Preferences → Interface, scroll to the bottom and look for “Skip new user onboarding tips and badges” and tick it on. There are a ton of things in Discourse settings to dig through while you’re in there, fine tune your experience.
Thanks for the instructions. It took me a while to find “Preferences” so for anyone else, you click the circle with your avatar/initial then the user icon with the tooltip “Profile,” then you will see Preferences. Buried indeed!
Is there anyone with a preference for keeping the defaults as they are?
While I am complaining about default Discourse features, what about disabling the feature that rewrites URLs with the page title? For example, https://delta.chat/en/help#instant-delivery is more useful than FAQ - Delta Chat because the latter hides the “instant-delivery” anchor.
Discourse is optimized for community engagement. You may get the hang of it after a bit of practice.
Is that code for “I prefer to keep the engagement reward defaults”? 
Which is definitely silly if you are not selling user’s eyeballs to Big Advertising.
But the marketing brainworm has infected the whole planet…
This is the only reward they can afford for those providing free tech support for strangers. Not sure what this has got to do with advertising.
the practice of chasing engagement metrics comes from the discipline of marketing.
if you would prefer to keep these features could you explain why?
fwiw afaik it is impossible to disable “likes” on discourse at all, some forums that want to do it resort to hiding them with CSS.
You could actually enable further message reactions:
I think we could have a separate discussion about whether features such as reactions are a net negative, whether it’s weird for the “like” icon to be a heart rather than a thumb or arrow, etc.
But badges and the automated message from the “system” user seem to be of a different character in terms of offering no upside for the user. I would support removing them. Does anyone else care enough to voice support or opposition for such a change?
despite following @punkero’s instructions I am still receiving badge notifications:
I suppose ‘Enthusiast’ is not a “new user onboarding badge,” but just a regular badge which you have no choice but to be notified about? how many more such distractions do I have to look forward to?
do you think sufficient support has been voiced to make this change?
… I also just got another message from the “system” user saying “Congratulations on your trust level promotion!” So apparently it’s not limited to the first “Thanks for spending time with us.” I assume this is different from the “badges” setting so is there any way to disable this, either for myself or globally?
I think you might want to interpret silence as an indication that from the thousands of users, you may be one of the few who are not satisfied with the existing rules in place.
And
And presumably there are even fewer who would be dissatisfied with a change?
Since literally nobody voiced support for the way it is, compared to the 3-4 people who expressed being bothered by the way it is now?
I voice support for the way it is.
You might have better luck requesting a per-user toggle feature on the Discourse forum.
could you share a bit about why you support the way it is? when you said this:
I took that to mean it literally bothered you and you would have appreciated not receiving it. but you are happy for other users to continue to be bothered in this way?
I also received a second automated message from the “system” user (“Congratulations on your trust level promotion!”) so perhaps our experiences have been different.