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I'm no longer active on Stack Overflow, but it seems that any time I land on the site there's a notification that I've earned a badge for a question that has become "Popular" or "Notable". It seems literally only a matter of time before I "earn" a gold badge for having a "Famous" question. Is there some time limit or other method to prevent questions from accumulating page views for the life of the site?

More importantly, is this a feature or a bug?

On the one hand, when I see the notification that I got a badge just for not deleting my account, I shake my head and think, "Silly system! Don't you know about the Poisson law of small numbers?"

On the other hand, I actually get a little dopamine rush when I think that my question was one that other people were interested in reading. I feel like I helped someone who was searching for an answer.

On the third hand, who cares?

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    Says the person who has yet to earn the Tumbleweed badge... :P
    – iglvzx
    Feb 21, 2012 at 23:25
  • 1
    @iglvzx: Not so!
    – Jon Ericson
    Feb 21, 2012 at 23:27
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    Wait... third hand? Have you been watching Nationwide commercials?
    – Andrew Barber
    Feb 21, 2012 at 23:28
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    Badge inflation, like rep inflation, is not bad. It's not good. It just is. I don't think it's a problem. The more you contribute, the more badges you get - especially if you contribute valuable stuff, even if it was years ago.
    – Pollyanna
    Feb 21, 2012 at 23:48
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    It's taking a heck of a lot of time with some of mine...
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Feb 22, 2012 at 1:49
  • +1, I just got 'Popular Question' for a question with 0 votes...
    – Benjol
    Feb 22, 2012 at 6:44
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    @AndrewBarber It might have been more appropriate to use "on the gripping hand" here.
    – Brad Larson
    Feb 22, 2012 at 16:16
  • 11 years later, this question has been viewed 322 times.
    – Rebecca J. Stones
    Jul 5, 2023 at 1:03

1 Answer 1

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Will all questions eventually become popular, notable and famous?

NO. At least not before the heat death of the universe. You've clearly asked a lot of really interesting questions that, most importantly, a lot of other people subsequently had. Your questions were likely worded and titled sufficiently well that Google was able to lead stumped developers to the right place. Bottom line: the system works

For the rest of us normal folk, we, in the course of learning, ask plenty of simple, boring, often stupid questions that will languish in the depths of Jeff's database rarely to be seen again.

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    Flattery will get you... one more page view (and +1 on an question I can't answer). It seems you are correct about there being questions that are rarely viewed.
    – Jon Ericson
    Feb 22, 2012 at 0:09
  • "For the rest of us normal folk,...", memorable phrase, really beautiful. If we had a database of The Great Stack Phrases, I'd vote for this to be included ;)
    – brasofilo
    Jan 21, 2013 at 2:30

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