tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Gold Badge for Sale)

Jonas Meyer comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (2038)

Jonas Meyer — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:31:38 -0800

Regarding Peer Pressure, fixing it (along with Disciplined) is [status-planned]:

http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2006/disciplined-and-peer-pressure-badges-active-in-stack-exchange-sites

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (977)

Anton Geraschenko — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:30:45 -0800

Actually, it's only awarded for flagging as offensive. I'd rather change it so that the badge is awarded any of the ways to flag a post, but I'll see what I can do to change the description until the badge can be "fixed".

Alberto GarciaRaboso comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (976)

Alberto GarciaRaboso — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:12:13 -0800

Talking about badges not awarded: I flagged several posts as requiring moderator attention, but did not get the Citizen Patrol badge. A Google search turned up this in SO:
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/6120/citizen-patrol-badge-not-awarded
In sum, it says that the Citizen Patrol badge is only awarded for flagging spam/offensive. Is it possible to change the badge description to reflect this?

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (908)

Anton Geraschenko — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:21:16 -0800

I think that the pissing contest analogy is good. We all know that the badges and reputation don't have any intrinsic worth, but when you find a number, it's fun to try to optimize it somehow. It's fun to try to get lots of reputation or to get lots of badges or to get particular badges (or in Andrew's case, to avoid getting any silver badges). The reputation and badges systems are set up so that in the process of having your own personal pissing contest, you will usually do something worthwhile. So long as nobody is being a nuisance, there's nothing wrong with having fun; it's actually encouraged.

I can't help going to so much trouble (it's actually very little). There's a bug, and I can't help reporting it.

Ben Webster comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (899)

Ben Webster — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:51:20 -0800

As far as I can tell, it's just a pissing contest of one. I don't see any signs that the overall attitude on the site toward badges has changed.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (898)

Anton Geraschenko — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:21:06 -0800

I contacted Fog Creek to find out what's going on with that badge (badges are usually awarded within an hour of the criterion being fulfilled). They've acknowledged that something is up and opened a case to look into it.

Kevin Lin comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (893)

Kevin Lin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:31:00 -0800

Harry, if anybody is being a troll, it's you.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (891)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:24:37 -0800

@Harry: I think you are a bit quick to utter the “troll” word. I think perhaps Sonia is overreacting a wee bit, but you're taking it right over the top. And since when is speculating on what will turn women off the same as speaking for all women? Get a life, please. Nobody here can speak on behalf of all mathematicians either, but we're still debating what will make mathematicians want to come here and to contribute.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (889)

Anton Geraschenko — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:42:44 -0800

@Harry: I changed your meta name, but I think you should have been able to do that yourself.

Sonia Balagopalan comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (883)

Sonia Balagopalan — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:58:38 -0800

I know this will be unpopular, but I'll risk saying it in case no one else will:

Pardon my language, but this whole badge hunt is turning into a kind of pissing-contest. It looks like it's gone beyond exploring a fun feature to the kind of pointless adolescent games which turns a lot of people, especially women, off mathematical communities and sometimes academic mathematics.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (867)

Anton Geraschenko — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:13:55 -0800

Wow, that was quick; I didn't even get the chance to vote it down. I think it may take a bit for the badge to register. If you haven't gotten it by tomorrow afternoon, I'll look into it.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (865)

Anton Geraschenko — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:10:34 -0800

@fpqc: Since you're not keeping your identity a secret, I'd like to strongly encourage you to use your real name as your user name on MO. I really think that real names bring a certain honesty to the community that makes it run more smoothly.

In case my approval is not a big enough carrot to get you to switch, I'll sweeten the deal. You're after the peer pressure badge, and that would be the most appropriate prize for succumbing to peer pressure to use your real name. So if you switch to using your real name, I'll downvote one of your low-scoring posts (eg this one), and I'm sure somebody else will join me, allowing you to collect your badge.

Ben Webster comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (837)

Ben Webster — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:49:58 -0800

Can we add "the cultivation of personae" to the list of things not to do in the FAQ?

Ben Webster comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (832)

Ben Webster — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:02:44 -0800

fpqc- what is it with you and the peer pressure badge? Is it just because nobody else has it? It's not much of a mark of pride, you know.

Benjamin Weiss comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (820)

Benjamin Weiss — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:32:48 -0800

HAHA, yes fpqc, the case you mention was on a homework question, and I am admittedly a killjoy sometimes. My only point was that there were cases when people appeared to behave in a manner which was counter-productive, perhaps putting garnering badges ahead of the original purpose of the badges.

I'm willing to be wrong about this, as I am frequently wrong on many issues.

One other note, that may be off-topic, but do I know you fpqc? I figure I must as we're at the same school, but I've been unable to figure out who you are just from your nom and interests.

David Speyer comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (817)

David Speyer — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:31:42 -0800

For the record, I don't actually worry very much about badges; I just have a good memory for trivia.

Benjamin Weiss comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (816)

Benjamin Weiss — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:55:09 -0800

post deleted as jejune.

Benjamin Weiss comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (814)

Benjamin Weiss — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:52:49 -0800

In my opinion, the badges themselves are simply a minor nuisance (as hanche suggests), but I find the "jockeying" that I've seen in the answers and comments on mathoverflow (what happens on the meta site is different--it's meta) to be quite distracting from the point of this site.

I don't mind people getting "badges" as they do seem to encourage some people to pitch in (which is their intended purpose), but they seem to encourage other people to behave in a manner which is detrimental to the site. Just my two cents.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (738)

Andrew Stacey — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:47:33 -0800

Great! Phone the Aquavit Book of Records (like the Guiness one only with more proof).

(I do remember that before you got your silver badge I was trying to figure out a way to ask a question specifically to get you a silver badge, but then you got one anyway so I didn't have to.)

David Speyer comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (735)

David Speyer — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:53:54 -0800

Andrew: You probably have broken my record. I remember that my second silver badge was Enlightened, for my answer to the Hidden Markov model question. I gave that answer on Nov 11. At that point my rep was about 3500. The first one was a few days earlier. I don't remember exactly when, but I would guess that it was right around when I crossed the 3000 barrier.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (733)

Andrew Stacey — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:00:09 -0800

The descriptions are incredibly vague and that's worrying me. I'm trying to see how high I can get my 'rep' before I get a silver badge. I'm not sure what David Speyer's record was, but I fully intend beating it. I'm pretty safe on the 'Civic duty' badge, I make sure that I don't visit here at least one day a week (well, sometimes I visit anonymously on that day), 'Good Question' and 'Good Answer' are fairly safe though I'm keeping an eye on those and 'Favourite Question' (and may have to delete a question/answer if it gets dangerous), most of the others are reasonably safe too. I was worried about 'Generalist' and so was busy retagging any question that I was going to answer to one of my 'safe' tags, but now that Anton assures me it doesn't exist I'll stop doing that.

(David, what was your record?)

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (724)

Anton Geraschenko — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:58:40 -0800

@CSiegel: Badges are never taken away, as far as I know. I agree that some of the badge descriptions are vague. You can usually figure out the exact rules by searching meta.SO. It's funny you picked out "Generalist" because that badge actually doesn't really exist yet, even on SO! As you can see, it's the only badge with zero recipients. They thought it sounded good and encouraged a good behavior, but never quite figured out how to implement it, so it remains a shell of a badge.

@hanche: I disagree. For one thing, badges often give some indication of the quality of a user's contributions relative to frequency. If they have 500 rep, but some "Enlightened" or "Nice Answer/Question" badges, that will generally mean that the user is not that active, but when they ask/answer something, it's good. That aside, people (maybe not you) find badges motivational, as some French guy once pointed out. That's why there are so many badges to encourage specific positive behaviors, like exploring the full functionality of the site ("Autobiographer", "Teacher", "Student", "Supporter", "Commentator", "Editor", "Cleanup", etc.) or helping out the community in various ways ("Critic", "Organizer", "Civic duty", "Citizen patrol", etc.). Even if they're useless for determining merit, they're so good at engaging new users that I wouldn't dream of removing them.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (719)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:21:24 -0800

I am not convinced that any of the badges are very helpful for the mathematics community. If I want to get an impression of a user's standing, I look at the reputation, not the badges. I think badges are a nuisance, and might as well be removed altogether. (But I don't think so strongly enough to bother lobbying for it. They're a very minor nuisance after all.)

Ilya Nikokoshev comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (717)

Ilya Nikokoshev — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:54:49 -0800

@Charles, though I think your answer is very good, I view the golden badges as not very helpful for mathematics community.

I personally would prefer my technical questions to get silver badges and my soft questions to not get them :) But as things work now, the technical questions don't stand much chance of getting many votes/views unless in a very general field.

By the way, "First answer accepted with at least 10 up votes" requires your answer to be first.

CSiegel comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (716)

CSiegel — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:41:08 -0800

Andrew, I think that at the time of awarding, I had 23 and the accepted had 11, or somesuch, and the badge just hasn't been taken away. Frankly, I'm not sure if I prefer the badge or the 400 rep I could have gotten...

But on the topic of gold badges (rather silver, mostly...) a lot of the descriptions are extremely vague. For instance, "Generalist"...what's "many tags" and what is "active"? Now, I am thinking that things like "First answer " might actually refer to the first answer you give on site, or the like? Or is say "First answer accepted with at least 10 up votes" saying that your answer first had 10 up votes, then got accepted? My point here is that the descriptions of the badges could generally be made more precise and clear.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (714)

Andrew Stacey — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:07:58 -0800

Hmm, I'm not sure I completely understand this gold badge. The rubric says: "Provided an answer that outscored an accepted answer with 10 votes by 2x". That wouldn't win any awards at the Campaign for Plain English! However, Charles' answer has 24 votes whilst the accepted answer has 14. I guess it's explainable if Charles' answer got to 24 whilst the accepted was only on 12; I presume that badges aren't withdrawn.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (712)

Andrew Stacey — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:05:21 -0800

I need more connivance than just one - but thanks for that one. I need JSE's answer to get three more votes (and either only three more votes, or for Tom's to get more as well so he always has double).

Andrew Stacey comments on "Gold Badge for Sale" (710)

Andrew Stacey — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:41:02 -0800

I don't think this is anything to particularly worry about since I can't see it coming up very often, but the behaviour at Famous Examples that led to Charles Siegel getting the first gold badge was a little unusual.

I see that I can fairly easily replicate it. Without too much difficulty, I can offer gold badges to Anton (via "How to respond to 'I was rubbish at maths'?"), gowers or Hagen Knaf (via "Blackboards"), and with a little connivance from someone else I can award one to Tom Leinster (via "metric spaces").

No, I don't have a serious point to make. Do I ever?