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How we fare in the new badge proposal

In the MSE posting Asking days badges, there is a proposal to create a new trio of badges for asking “good” questions on distinct days. Its basic metric for scoring is the number of separate days that a user both:

  1. has a positive record of questions, and
  2. asked good questions on that day.

See the proposal for precise definitions of those terms and other details, but the short story is:

  1. positive record of questions = equation image Except that you don’t count any question more than once for purposes of being negative, closed, or deleted.

  2. good questions on X separate days

    A good question is one that's open, not deleted, and has a score > 0.

    If you ask at least one good question in a UTC day and none of your questions that day are deleted, you get one more day of credit toward the badge.

Results Summary for top ELU users

I ran some queries against SEDE to see how ELU members would fair if those badges were awarded as currently defined.

I took the top four pages of Users by reputation, ran them through SEDE a bit, and found that that set of users would under the 5/30/100 criteria be awarded a grand total of

  •   2   gold badges (“Socratic”)
  • 20   silver badges (“Inquisitive”)
  • 75   bronze badges (“Curious”)

1. Table Sorted by “Good Asking” Days

This sorted first on Days, the number of qualifying days, and then on Reputation. The Rank is merely the line number of the resulting sort. The horizontal lines demarcate the gold set from the silver set and the silver from the bronze.

In case it matters to anybody, I’ve marked present moderators with ♦ and this year’s nominees with ♢.

 Rank      ID Name                      Reputation Days Bronze Silver     Gold
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
   1.    3119 Yoichi Oishi ♢                21468 567 Curious Inquisitive Socratic
   2.     305 Brian Hooper                  19811 109 Curious Inquisitive Socratic
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
   3.    4763 Uticensis                     10183  76 Curious Inquisitive 
   4.   17953 Noah                           7867  71 Curious Inquisitive 
   5.   10041 Daniel                        34832  68 Curious Inquisitive 
   6.     127 Mehper C. Palavuzlar          16184  66 Curious Inquisitive 
   7.    2637 FumbleFingers                 78103  63 Curious Inquisitive 
   8.   23608 coleopterist                  21824  59 Curious Inquisitive 
   9.    4801 Jez                            6472  57 Curious Inquisitive 
  10.     252 kiamlaluno                    31745  52 Curious Inquisitive 
  11.    9505 SF.                            6569  47 Curious Inquisitive 
  12.   11268 Armen Ծիրունյան                6560  46 Curious Inquisitive 
  13.   53966 WS2                           11814  45 Curious Inquisitive 
  14.   13711 Terry Li                       5040  45 Curious Inquisitive 
  15.    6006 MrHen ♢                       22264  44 Curious Inquisitive 
  16.   44619 Mari-Lou A                    16415  35 Curious Inquisitive 
  17.    3479 F'x                           27021  34 Curious Inquisitive 
  18.    8360 KitFox ♦                      18359  33 Curious Inquisitive 
  19.      61 Chris Dwyer                    5230  32 Curious Inquisitive 
  20.   17795 Bravo                          9551  31 Curious Inquisitive 
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
  21.    1606 Claudiu                        5675  29 Curious  
  22.    3782 Manoochehr                     4946  29 Curious  
  23.    2303 Robusto                       89611  28 Curious  
  24.    6509 RiMMER                        15429  28 Curious  
  25.    5964 z7sg Ѫ                         8980  26 Curious  
  26.   11433 jwpat7                        48950  25 Curious  
  27.     212 b.roth                        12409  25 Curious  
  28.     300 RegDwigнt ♦                   58211  23 Curious  
  29.    4972 Mitch                         26139  23 Curious  
  30.    1798 JoseK                          5833  22 Curious  
  31.    3559 Matt Элле�� ♢                  19454  21 Curious  
  32.    1547 Marthaª                       19588  20 Curious  
  33.   59527 David M                       11432  20 Curious  
  34.   66974 Josh61                        13476  19 Curious  
  35.   19894 JAM                            5742  19 Curious  
  36.   65205 Elian                         10357  18 Curious  
  37.    4040 Malvolio                       9213  18 Curious  
  38.   25030 terdon                         8863  18 Curious  
  39.   11762 Jim                            5888  18 Curious  
  40.    2085 tchrist                       50161  17 Curious  
  41.    1506 Jon Purdy                     19378  17 Curious  
  42.   64985 ermanen                       10922  17 Curious  
  43.   11550 Mahnax ♢                       7536  17 Curious  
  44.    7451 Urbycoz                        6978  17 Curious  
  45.      30 Edward Tanguay                 6514  17 Curious  
  46.    9001 Hugo                          41045  15 Curious  
  47.   20739 Ste                            5690  15 Curious  
  48.      48 JSBձոգչ                       36731  14 Curious  
  49.    5822 Callithumpian                 19106  14 Curious  
  50.   51137 Ryereḁd                       13358  14 Curious  
  51.   36232 Sven Yargs                    10866  14 Curious  
  52.   42788 Bradd Szonye                  10776  11 Curious  
  53.   23491 bib                           33090  10 Curious  
  54.   14666 Kris                          20734  10 Curious  
  55.     100 waiwai933 ♦                    9307   9 Curious  
  56.   10287 Tom Au                         6120   9 Curious  
  57.    6534 snumpy                         4929   9 Curious  
  58.   11396 Jeremy                         5322   8 Curious  
  59.    5432 Alain Pannetier Φ             13956   7 Curious  
  60.   21883 Cool Elf                       7463   7 Curious  
  61.    8732 aedia λ                        6606   7 Curious  
  62.      39 nohat ♦                       40985   6 Curious  
  63.    2022 mplungjan                     18941   6 Curious  
  64.      77 ShreevatsaR                   18501   6 Curious  
  65.   21655 Edwin Ashworth                17057   6 Curious  
  66.    4526 chaos                         15002   6 Curious  
  67.    6683 JeffSahol                     14891   6 Curious  
  68.    7662 Fraser Orr                     8089   6 Curious  
  69.   31341 jlovegren                      5269   6 Curious  
  70.    8019 TimLymington                  21052   5 Curious  
  71.   14073 MετάEd                        17271   5 Curious  
  72.     380 Mr. Shiny and New 安宇        15741   5 Curious  
  73.    2587 PLL                           14593   5 Curious  
  74.   13799 Irene                         10165   5 Curious  
  75.   16205 Pitarou                        9876   5 Curious  
  76.   18220 J.R.                          40901   4   
  77.   24489 StoneyB                       31743   4   
  78.   13140 Jay                           21559   4   
  79.    2007 Dusty                         12831   4   
  80.    9186 T.E.D.                        11995   4   
  81.   11146 Shoe                          11897   4   
  82.   11035 Lynn                          10718   4   
  83.    3534 phenry ♢                       9420   4   
  84.     184 Noldorin                       7254   4   
  85.   11928 David Schwartz                 7067   4   
  86.    3946 Kate Gregory                   6884   4   
  87.   42683 p.s.w.g                        5975   4   
  88.   32623 rhetorician                    5926   4   
  89.   12952 Barrie England               104265   3   
  90.   18696 Andrew Leach ♢                42757   3   
  91.    3036 Cerberus                      35363   3   
  92.    5754 Peter Shor                    30250   3   
  93.   10893 simchona ♦                    24113   3   
  94.    6336 mgb                           17052   3   
  95.   13141 onomatomaniak                 13565   3   
  96.    8377 Unreason                       9743   3   
  97.     110 VonC                           9686   3   
  98.     588 Ed Guiness                     7225   3   
  99.   15581 Brett Reynolds                 6400   3   
 100.     140 Vincent McNabb                 5188   3 
 101.   58761 medica ♢                      24673   2   
 102.   17956 Jim                           16982   2   
 103.    4941 Neil Coffey                   14309   2   
 104.    8816 Monica Cellio                 12203   2   
 105.   16264 Jim                           10403   2   
 106.   49727 user49727                      7529   2   
 107.   38065 John M. Landsberg              5878   2   
 108.    5894 HaL                            5865   2   
 109.    4951 mgkrebbs                       5455   2   
 110.    3820 Rory Alsop                     5197   2   
 111.   15299 John Lawler                   48084   1   
 112.     449 Kosmonaut                     34448   1   
 113.     547 Colin Fine                    30249   1   
 114.    2490 Hellion                       27887   1   
 115.   18655 JLG                           16858   1   
 116.   16191 Mark Beadles                  13770   1   
 117.    8656 MT Head                       10828   1   
 118.    5262 The Raven                      9488   1   
 119.   54363 oerkelens ♢                    8429   1   
 120.    9887 KeithS                         7478   1   
 121.    3626 slim                           7044   1   
 122.    7396 FrustratedWithFormsDesigner    6176   1   
 123.    2386 Jonathan Leffler               5290   1   
 124.    5450 James McLeod                   5041   1

2. Table Sorted by Reputation

As you see, a high reputation and a large number of good-asking days hardly go hand in hand. Here is the same table but sorted first on Reputation before Days:

 Rank      ID Name                      Reputation Days Bronze Silver     Gold
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
     1.   12952 Barrie England               104265   3   
     2.    2303 Robusto                       89611  28 Curious  
     3.    2637 FumbleFingers                 78103  63 Curious Inquisitive 
     4.     300 RegDwigнt ♦                   58211  23 Curious  
     5.    2085 tchrist                       50161  17 Curious  
     6.   11433 jwpat7                        48950  25 Curious  
     7.   15299 John Lawler                   48084   1   
     8.   18696 Andrew Leach ♢                42757   3   
     9.    9001 Hugo                          41045  15 Curious  
    10.      39 nohat ♦                       40985   6 Curious  
    11.   18220 J.R.                          40901   4   
    12.      48 JSBձոգչ                       36731  14 Curious  
    13.    3036 Cerberus                      35363   3   
    14.   10041 Daniel                        34832  68 Curious Inquisitive 
    15.     449 Kosmonaut                     34448   1   
    16.   23491 bib                           33090  10 Curious  
    17.     252 kiamlaluno                    31745  52 Curious Inquisitive 
    18.   24489 StoneyB                       31743   4   
    19.    5754 Peter Shor                    30250   3   
    20.     547 Colin Fine                    30249   1   
    21.    2490 Hellion                       27887   1   
    22.    3479 F'x                           27021  34 Curious Inquisitive 
    23.    4972 Mitch                         26139  23 Curious  
    24.   58761 medica ♢                      24673   2   
    25.   10893 simchona ♦                    24113   3   
    26.    6006 MrHen ♢                       22264  44 Curious Inquisitive 
    27.   23608 coleopterist                  21824  59 Curious Inquisitive 
    28.   13140 Jay                           21559   4   
    29.    3119 Yoichi Oishi ♢                21468 567 Curious Inquisitive Socratic
    30.    8019 TimLymington                  21052   5 Curious  
    31.   14666 Kris                          20734  10 Curious  
    32.     305 Brian Hooper                  19811 109 Curious Inquisitive Socratic
    33.    1547 Marthaª                       19588  20 Curious  
    34.    3559 Matt Эллен ♢                  19454  21 Curious  
    35.    1506 Jon Purdy                     19378  17 Curious  
    36.    5822 Callithumpian                 19106  14 Curious  
    37.    2022 mplungjan                     18941   6 Curious  
    38.      77 ShreevatsaR                   18501   6 Curious  
    39.    8360 KitFox ♦                 ��    18359  33 Curious Inquisitive 
    40.   14073 MετάEd                        17271   5 Curious  
    41.   21655 Edwin Ashworth                17057   6 Curious  
    42.    6336 mgb                           17052   3   
    43.   17956 Jim                           16982   2   
    44.   18655 JLG                           16858   1   
    45.   44619 Mari-Lou A                    16415  35 Curious Inquisitive 
    46.     127 Mehper C. Palavuzlar          16184  66 Curious Inquisitive 
    47.     380 Mr. Shiny and New 安宇        15741   5 Curious  
    48.    6509 RiMMER                        15429  28 Curious  
    49.    4526 chaos                         15002   6 Curious  
    50.    6683 JeffSahol                     14891   6 Curious  
    51.    2587 PLL                           14593   5 Curious  
    52.    4941 Neil Coffey                   14309   2   
    53.    5432 Alain Pannetier Φ             13956   7 Curious  
    54.   16191 Mark Beadles                  13770   1   
    55.   13141 onomatomaniak                 13565   3   
    56.   66974 Josh61                        13476  19 Curious  
    57.   51137 Ryereḁd                       13358  14 Curious  
    58.    2007 Dusty                         12831   4   
    59.     212 b.roth                        12409  25 Curious  
    60.    8816 Monica Cellio                 12203   2   
    61.    9186 T.E.D.                        11995   4   
    62.   11146 Shoe                          11897   4   
    63.   53966 WS2                           11814  45 Curious Inquisitive 
    64.   59527 David M                       11432  20 Curious  
    65.   64985 ermanen                       10922  17 Curious  
    66.   36232 Sven Yargs                    10866  14 Curious  
    67.    8656 MT Head                       10828   1   
    68.   42788 Bradd Szonye                  10776  11 Curious  
    69.   11035 Lynn                          10718   4   
    70.   16264 Jim                           10403   2   
    71.   65205 Elian                         10357  18 Curious  
    72.    4763 Uticensis                     10183  76 Curious Inquisitive 
    73.   13799 Irene                         10165   5 Curious  
    74.   16205 Pitarou                        9876   5 Curious  
    75.    8377 Unreason                       9743   3   
    76.     110 VonC                           9686   3   
    77.   17795 Bravo                          9551  31 Curious Inquisitive 
    78.    5262 The Raven                      9488   1   
    79.    3534 phenry ♢                       9420   4   
    80.     100 waiwai933 ♦                    9307   9 Curious  
    81.    4040 Malvolio                       9213  18 Curious  
    82.    5964 z7sg Ѫ                         8980  26 Curious  
    83.   25030 terdon                         8863  18 Curious  
    84.   54363 oerkelens ♢                    8429   1   
    85.    7662 Fraser Orr                     8089   6 Curious  
    86.   17953 Noah                           7867  71 Curious Inquisitive 
    87.   11550 Mahnax ♢                       7536  17 Curious  
    88.   49727 user49727                      7529   2   
    89.    9887 KeithS                         7478   1   
    90.   21883 Cool Elf                       7463   7 Curious  
    91.     184 Noldorin                       7254   4   
    92.     588 Ed Guiness                     7225   3   
    93.   11928 David Schwartz                 7067   4   
    94.    3626 slim                           7044   1   
    95.    7451 Urbycoz                        6978  17 Curious  
    96.    3946 Kate Gregory                   6884   4   
    97.    8732 aedia λ                        6606   7 Curious  
    98.    9505 SF.                            6569  47 Curious Inquisitive 
    99.   11268 Armen Ծիրունյան                6560  46 Curious Inquisitive 
   100.      30 Edward Tanguay                 6514  17 Curious  
   101.    4801 Jez                            6472  57 Curious Inquisitive 
   102.   15581 Brett Reynolds                 6400   3   
   103.    7396 FrustratedWithFormsDesigner    6176   1   
   104.   10287 Tom Au                         6120   9 Curious  
   105.   42683 p.s.w.g                        5975   4   
   106.   32623 rhetorician                    5926   4   
   107.   11762 Jim                            5888  18 Curious  
   108.   38065 John M. Landsberg              5878   2   
   109.    5894 HaL                            5865   2   
   110.    1798 JoseK                          5833  22 Curious  
   111.   19894 JAM                            5742  19 Curious  
   112.   20739 Ste                            5690  15 Curious  
   113.    1606 Claudiu                        5675  29 Curious  
   114.    4951 mgkrebbs                       5455   2   
   115.   11396 Jeremy                         5322   8 Curious  
   116.    2386 Jonathan Leffler               5290   1   
   117.   31341 jlovegren                      5269   6 Curious  
   118.      61 Chris Dwyer                    5230  32 Curious Inquisitive 
   119.    3820 Rory Alsop                     5197   2   
   120.     140 Vincent McNabb                 5188   3   
   121.    5450 James McLeod                   5041   1   
   122.   13711 Terry Li                       5040  45 Curious Inquisitive 
   123.    3782 Manoochehr                     4946  29 Curious  
   124.    6534 snumpy                         4929   9 Curious  

Observations

As you see, at 2/20/75 bronze/silver/gold badges awarded, this would be a fairly rare badge when compared against our other currently awarded bronze, silver, and gold badges.

You should also remember that my numbers will be a bit higher than reality, because it does not include deleted questions. The Days will be a little lower, and perhaps this will make some slight difference in badges awarded.

It isn’t very many, all in all.

However, that does not necessarily mean that the criteria for badge awards are “too tough”. An alternate and completely viable hypothesis is the comparative paucity of question-asking badges (and Days in general) speaks more to the issue which these badges are attempting to address than it does to a problem with their selection criteria.

In other words, there aren’t many people consistently asking good questions.

4
  • I'm not sure you should have numbered the rank, or at least, if they are to be numbered then the top table should go 12-13-13-15 as the position numbered 14 is tied with 13.
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 6:37
  • @AndrewLeach The first is sorted by (N, Reps) and the second the other way around. I then prefix the line number in the resulting list.
    – tchrist Mod
    Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 13:01
  • 4
    More badges! YAY! I think what that second table tells us is that committed users with reasonably good command of English (who naturally tend to accumulate higher rep) don't ask that many questions themselves. I know I personally sometimes ask questions where I either already know the answer, or could find out easily enough without actually asking on ELU, but I figure it's a good question that might help improve the site. This doesn't seem to be a very common practice yet (though I'd have clocked Daniel for doing much the same), but perhaps a badge might push in that direction.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 18:08
  • 1
    @FumbleFingers Your clock is accurate.
    – Daniel
    Commented Jun 28, 2014 at 1:29

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
6

A couple of clarifications:

  1. The score for determining a "positive record" does deduct a point from the numerator for each negatively scored questions, closure, and deletion. So if your first question trips all three, you will start at -2 ((1 - 1 - 1 - 1)/1). The penalty is particularly harsh on a site like Stack Overflow where such a reception occurs more frequently than on most other sites.

  2. The status of question asking days is recalculated each time the check for badges is run. So if you ask a rotten question on Monday, have good asking days the rest of the week, and fix up the Monday question to the point where it's good by Friday, you could earn the bronze badge that week.

I've updated the MSE post and I'm sorry for the confusion. Just posting the query for evaluating the criteria might have been a better move.

The primary purpose of a badge is to encourage specific behavior. In this case, the behavior we are targeting is the habit of asking questions on the site when you have them in real life. Most of the rules are designed to discourage a series of bad behaviors that might result from the original proposal:

  • Shotgun: asking as many questions as possible, hope that some are on target, and damn the collateral damage.

  • Grinding: asking questions without any real concern or interest in the answers.

  • Duplicates: normally we love duplicate questions. In this case, it would be too tempting to ask a duplicate and plead ignorance when caught. We tackle this two ways:

    1. Closed questions cost you a good asking day.

    2. Closed questions hurt your asking record.

  • Feast and famine: the original design made it possible to ask many questions in a short period to get the gold badge and never need to ask again. This version, like the Fanatic badge, "measures a dimension of engagement that we haven’t before." Coming back day after day to ask an acceptable question is a habit that's surprisingly difficult to get into.

  • Just-too-late asking: I circulated internally a version of the badge set that targeted asking weeks. It was a lovely idea, but it meant that people would need to wait an entire week at times to ask their next question if they wanted to make progress on this badge. Fortunately, saner minds than mine prevailed.

The design goals explain why I don't think raising question score needed to get a good asking day is a good plan. Voters on ELU are somewhat generous toward questions:

    Avg Q score  Site Name 
    -----------  ---------
    11.747645    Skeptics  
     6.525704    Parenting 
     4.906445    Gaming  
     3.418933    English Language and Usage
     2.405586    English Language Learners
     1.838194    Super User
     1.602753    Stack Overflow
     1.448387    Server Fault

English is just below the median site on the network in terms of generosity of question votes. As a result, there will be a large number of "Curious" badges here: 539 as of today. That's actually a good thing. We want people who have already shown they can ask not-terrible questions to be acknowledged and, more importantly, spur them on to silver. The count of "Inquisitive" badges using the top 124 users by reputation is not far from the total count: 31. Since there are only 2 "Socratic" badges, it's obviously a true accomplishment. Yoichi Oishi and Brian Hooper don't show up at a site very often. Y'all are incredibly lucky to have those two.

Bronze badges are all about discovery. Ideally, people will earn them without really knowing why. Fittingly, the "Curious" badge should inspire curiosity. "How did I earn that badge? Asking questions on 5 separate days? I wonder how many it will take to get to the next level?" If we make the rules of the game too tight, the sorts of people we want to discover these badges might not get the bronze. I was talked down to 5 from 7 shortly before I posted the MSE feature request and I'm glad I was. Bronze badges (especially one-timers) should be achievable by just about any reasonably motivated user.

6

All of us would love to see more good questions on the site. Creating a badge for good questions seems immediately like a good idea. So, on the one hand, I like it.

However, I'm uncertain if the bar for defining a good question (or questions, etc.) isn't being set too low. If all you need is >0, that might not only include, but even reward, a fair number of mediocre questions. I don't know how carefully people pay attention to attaining badges, but my concern is that we have already many 0 and +1 quality questions. Should they be encouraged?

I would like this more if the bar were set higher. One reason is that, if we have complaints now about down votes, I can only imagine more complaints if a low-up-vote badge is thrown into the fray. The question then becomes, how high? And if higher, then how different is this from the good question badges we already have in place?

Another reason I'm wary of this is that up votes are not a reliable indicator of quality.

Yet further concern (and perhaps this shouldn't be a concern at all, seeing that answers are a benefit to all users) is that now, the majority of our questions seem to be need-based (e.g. see this question, clearly a "real" question with a score of +3. Though I didn't get any up votes for answering it, I felt (after answering it) that what I learned while putting my thoughts into words was it's own reward. The point being, if we give a badge for multiple questions with a sum score of >0, are we creating an incentive for more 'iffy' questions (this question has a score of +1.) Do we really want a boatload of similar questions?

So I'll leave it here. Though I really like the idea of lots more good questions (and therefore answers), I'm unsure if this is the way to do it.

5
  • 1
    Your second concern here is kind of water under a bridge: we all know that votes aren't a direct indicator of quality but at the same time it's basically the only metric we have to go on and the one the site is built around anyway. I can see your first concern might be an issue (especially since it makes sock puppets easer to fly under the radar) but wouldn't the low score count be mitigated by the fact that only day-of votes are being counted (which was my understanding of the proposal, but I could be wrong)?
    – Caleb
    Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 7:43
  • @Caleb - I believe you're correct, but I not sure that offsets the potential problems.
    – anongoodnurse
    Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 7:51
  • 3
    I don't know how many complaints there are about down votes, but this site needs a lot more of them!
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Jun 25, 2014 at 0:11
  • @curiousdannii wait until the day you receive two or more anonymous downvotes for a question which you think is perfectly acceptable. The important factor is the latter one. You believe it is a legitimate question, and yet it's been downvoted. If you are experienced, you'll be able to "guess" or reason out its weaknesses, but if you're new? What do you do? If you are proud, you might sulk, or abandon the site for ever. If you come to learn, and are used to asking questions, you might ask a reason for the downvotes. (cont'd.)
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jun 25, 2014 at 6:58
  • The injury is worsened when there is no explanation offered, which has happened sometimes. At least when a question is put on hold, there is an official reason, a guideline for the asker and they know that at least five experienced and respected users have voted to close their question. Moreover, they have names too!
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Jun 25, 2014 at 7:00

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