Badges are assigned in three ways:

Automatic Yearly Badges
Year badges are assigned to players that have been plaing on The Network servers for 1, 2 or 3 years. Players who get this badge must also meet these requirements to prevent drop-by players from being awarded:
Joined one of our servers for the first time 1, 2 or 3 years ago.
Joined one of our servers within the past 30 days.
Played for a minimum of 120 minutes overall.

Automatic Rank Badges
Assigned based on the Experience Points (XP) system.

Manually awarded badges
Special badges may be manually awarded to players for achieving specific goals or recognition for serving the community in a special way.