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  1.  

    I logged in to MO this morning and was shocked to discover that I finally had been awarded a gold badge: the populist badge. Unfortunately, I can't figure out what answer it was awarded for so I don't know what to delete to get rid of it. It looks like I'm stuck with it.

    In compensation, it appears that my badge numbers make a nice pattern: 1,36,100 so it's not all bad news.

  2.  

    Andrew: Gil Kalai recently accepted an answer to question 54232, "A book you would like to write". At the time of this writing, the accepted answer has 11 votes, and yours has 60.

    As far as I understand, if you delete the answer, you will not lose the badge, unless Anton asks the people at stackexchange to remove it. I seem to recall a meta thread where Anton mentioned that this step was needed for him to lose the extra badges that arose from the moderator elections.

  3.  

    Thanks for the detective work!

    (I wouldn't delete an answer just to get rid of a badge, even on a "soft" question.)

    • CommentAuthorWillieWong
    • CommentTimeMay 21st 2012
     

    My understanding is that badge recalculation is normally only done when said badge is awarded. So that if Andrew deletes his answer, and somehow wins himself yet another populist badge, then normalcy would be automatically returned (showing 1 populist badge total) unless he tries to restart the process again.

  4.  
    The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences notes three sequences beginning 1, 36, 100, of which perhaps the most interesting is http://oeis.org/A077448, Numbers $n$ such that $\sum_{d\mid n} \mu(d)\mu^2(n/d) = 1$.
  5.  

    Omigod! I checked my account and discovered that I have the worst possible gold badge.

    Is there an aqua regia badge?

  6.  
    Andrew I feel your pain -- funnily enough I got my first gold badge about a week ago. I couldn't be bothered to work out what for!
  7.  

    Andrew: It could be worse. I only have one gold badge -- the populist, or, "please, go get a life and do something other than use mathoverflow all the time" badge. I just checked, and it is for logging in every day for 100 consecutive days, which I was awarded approximately 100 days after mathoverflow started. In my defence, I just kept my iphone logged in to mathoverflow while doing other stuff, but I'd still gladly swap it for something (anything) else.

  8.  

    Is someone going to start a badge-to-scotch barter business? I am willing to trade my badges...

  9.  

    You are describing the fanatic badge, George; the one I termed the worst possible gold badge.

    If you find a good therapist please pass his or her name along.

    • CommentAuthorGjergji
    • CommentTimeMay 21st 2012
     
    Good thing they don't award the fanatic badge multiple times...
    • CommentAuthorAngelo
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2012 edited
     
    I got both the fanatic and the populist badge :-(

    I'll keep a stiff upper lip, and soldier on (don't you love these English idioms?).
    • CommentAuthorgilkalai
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2012
     
    So sorry Andrew, I thought 6 people will get golden badges at once (so 5 at least will be happy) but only you got the badge at the end. Personally, I like the badges. It gives MO users high dimensional rewards and allow different people to have different aims. Also being advanced in badges does not give you powers (e.g., to close and to delete) and as we all know, power corrupts.
  10.  
    • CommentAuthorgilkalai
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2012
     
    yea I remember, maybe I was behind that first silver one too. Andrew, arn't you celebrating the Abel prize celebration in Oslo right now?