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I've noticed potentially good questions that are poorly worded or have bad titles and thus have at least a couple of downvotes or even close votes. On occasion, after a quick edit, these questions go on to get at least a couple upvotes. These aren't bad questions, they're just poorly worded--which in my understanding is exactly why we're allowed to change votes after a post has been edited.

It could be a bronze badge, one-time-only to keep it from being too "easy" but I think it would be a good way to encourage people to clean up downvoted posts (that have redeeming potential) rather than killing them. Obviously it shouldn't be obtainable from your own questions to prevent gaming the system, and require some set limit of downvotes/upvotes to activate.

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  • 27
    The editor can't be involved in the downvoting/upvoting either, or you could just downvote, edit, then upvote.
    – user1228
    Nov 8, 2011 at 18:02
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    @Won'tಠ_ಠ true, that's part of why I suggested a min range of -/+ votes, so maybe the question has to go from -2 votes to +2, one user could never cause that on their own. Just not counting your own votes would probably be technically difficult.
    – Ben Brocka
    Nov 8, 2011 at 19:06
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    In spirit, this is a lot like the request for an edits-so-good-they-get-questions-reopened badge. I think it's been suggested multiple times in different places, and I finally made it a full-fledged feature request last month.
    – Pops
    Nov 12, 2011 at 23:21
  • @PopularDemand I like the idea, but closed questions seem to die quicker (in my limited experience) than downvoted questions, when they're due to poor wording/grammar/ect. Downvotes because a question is badly written seem common, actually closing the question for such a reason is relatively less common, though I agree we should encourage editing in both cases.
    – Ben Brocka
    Nov 12, 2011 at 23:26
  • You're right, language issues tend to result in downvotes, not close votes. The other request isn't really about wording or grammar. It's more about encouraging people to change their unfocused/ambiguous posts and polls into specific, answerable (read: Stack Exchange-style) questions.
    – Pops
    Nov 12, 2011 at 23:31
  • @PopularDemand Good point, but being closed is pretty intimidating; I'd wager a lot of people simply give up on a question or just ask a new question if one is closed (after all are closed posts even bumped upon editing?). In addition, really only the original poster can fix an unfocused/ambiguous post; most anyone can fix some bad wording, especially if the post is just from someone with poor English or using txt speak.
    – Ben Brocka
    Nov 12, 2011 at 23:35
  • Well, another one of the reasons for the badge is to make closure less intimidating. I tried another tack for that here, although that's getting kinda off-topic for this comment thread. I have edited some closure-worthy posts into valid posts by keeping their topic but changing their focus, without asking the original author. Technically, that was bending the rules, but the mods approved (this was on SU, not SO).
    – Pops
    Nov 12, 2011 at 23:42
  • @PopularDemand When it comes to reopening I'm a bit too inexperienced; it really doesn't happen without mod approval at UX, so I haven't seen how it happens too much in the wild. I like both ideas personally, but I think encouraging edits before posts are closed is the best way to go about it.
    – Ben Brocka
    Nov 12, 2011 at 23:55
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    Agreed, minimizing the amount of time low-quality posts exist is definitely the goal.
    – Pops
    Nov 13, 2011 at 0:03
  • "Saving a post" as you state here should definitely be a tag, because you can improve answers, sure, but rewriting something to be understood by more people is a larger benefit to the community.
    – cbroughton
    Nov 13, 2011 at 1:34
  • agreed with you, may this will reduse the downvotes too because this downvotes made new users to isolate from meta. So this new badge if come will really encourage editers to correct the question.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Apr 5, 2012 at 5:44
  • With the changes to the close system, this could be applied to only "On Hold" questions.
    – jmac
    Nov 12, 2013 at 2:59
  • @jmac sometimes poorly asked questions aren't closed before they're downvoted, improved and upvoted though.
    – Ben Brocka
    Nov 12, 2013 at 14:38
  • like the idea on editing questions to make them suitable but a dirty secret of SE is that while it supports reopening in theory, closing is somewhat arbitrary in borderline cases & question are rarely reopened even after editing (so why even bother with editing). downvoted questions tend to get closed quickly. also a badge is not gonna be much of a motivator, suggest the point system needs some adj to improve incentive on "rescuing" questions that are borderline & also more incentive not to close borderline questions etc. in other words overall the collaborative editing is really minimal....
    – vzn
    Mar 5, 2014 at 18:22

1 Answer 1

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In corporate life, a "turnaround" of a poorly-performing unit to a good-performing unit is hard to achieve because all the "legacy," issues involved. Hence, when one is accomplished, it is noteworthy. The same is true here. There should be a "turnaround" badge with bronze, silver and gold levels.

The question must have been -1 or lower, with a bronze badge awarded if the question gets 1 up vote, a silver badge being awarded for 5 (or maybe 10 upvotes), and gold badge for 25 (or perhaps 50).

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