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If a user is under investigation of voting irregularities, and has been charged as guilty, system takes back reputation earned from fraud voting. Should system take back those badges (Enlightened, Nice Answer and etc.) earned from fraud voting as well?

Personally I think it should, simply because badges are gained by cheating.

Note that this is completely different from normal voting increase/decrease scenario, for instance, user has an answer get voting increased over 10 (earn Nice Answer Badge) then voting decreased under 10.

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Why bother? Unlike reputation points, badges do not convey any extra access or functionality. People with more access than they should can create havok and extra work for the community and Moderators.

People with badges that they didn't really earn have badges that they didn't really earn.

It seems to me that that's an awful lot of work for very little gain.

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Why? If they had questions or answers which were one-off from 10, 25, 100, whatever the number is, why does it really matter that they get that badge revoked? Chances are, with a score that close, it's eventually going to get bumped back up to that number and they'll get the badge for the post again anyways.

The user committing the voting fraud can only really get the Suffrage and Vox Populi badges, which are pretty easy to get without committing voting fraud anyways, so who cares.

Unless they've created a sock puppet account, the behavior really isn't that horrendous that it warrants interference in relation to badges. After all, badges are just there to encourage positive behavior. If they are creating sock puppets, well there's a far worse punishment they'll get than just having badges revoked.

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    I don't really understand the first paragraph. Why do you assume that after the votes are removed in cases of vote fraud, that the score will still be "that close"?
    – Cody Gray
    Commented May 7, 2012 at 8:36
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    "The user committing the voting fraud can only really get the Suffrage and Vox Populi badges", I doubt that, I know someone who get at least Enlightened and Nice Answer badges (and probably some bounty points) by fraud voting on StackOverflow. Think about a user has 10 fake accounts and use those fake accounts voting questions/answers posted by the primary account. Anyway, If system is designed to let user get something by cheating, no matter how meaningless the thing is, I would consider this as a FAIL design.
    – yorkw
    Commented May 7, 2012 at 9:03
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    @TheEnlightened: Chances are it was justone vote. SO it will be reverse from 10to 9, or 25 to 24. Still right there. yorkw: The only way they can get an Enlightened badge via cheating is if they have sock puppets. Like I said, creating sock puppets is far worse and badge revocation is the least of their problems.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented May 7, 2012 at 17:34
  • @animuson, Can you explain more about the worse punishment for sock puppets? Moreover, if user has several friends keeping voting each other (says for reputation, badges and bounties), do they get the same worse punishment as sock puppets?
    – yorkw
    Commented May 7, 2012 at 22:42

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