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I saw a 1 character edit on one of my posts and wondered why; apparently it was after my (less-comprehensive) answer was accepted, to allow the check-mark to be transferred to the higher voted answer (written by the asker) after giving himself a Populist badge.

I think that self-answers should be ineligible for the Populist badge.

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  • 4
    Um. The asker didn't make the edit. – Raven Dreamer Jan 15 '12 at 22:27
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    @RavenDreamer from my understanding there was mild collusion in chat about it. In any case, an answer may be edited for some minor formatting issue and render it eligible for transfer – Nick T Jan 15 '12 at 22:30
  • hmm the edit was by a different user, but the timing is certainly strange. – CodesInChaos Jan 15 '12 at 22:32
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    Accepted answers don't require edits to be changed, only upvotes and downvotes do... what appears to have actually happened is that the edit was made to get you attention, and therefore upvotes to push you over the 10 score barrier, which I don't think is really worth complaining about since you benefit in rep. – waiwai933 Jan 15 '12 at 22:37
  • ^ What he said. I'm confused what the Populist badge has to do with edits. – animuson♦ Jan 15 '12 at 22:37
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    I assume @Wipqozn edited the answer, so he could revoke his upvote, which resulted in the OP gaining a populist badge(25 vs 12 fulfills the factor 2 criterion). Not sure why the OP didn't just have the patience to wait till he naturally out-scored Nick by that margin. But even then, it would have been gaming the badge: He deliberately accepted an inferior answer in order to get the badge. – CodesInChaos Jan 15 '12 at 22:41
  • @CodeInChaos That appears to be the other possible explanation for the edit; I just went with mine because that's what the linked chat seemed to indicate, but you're right in that your explanation is also a likely scenario. – waiwai933 Jan 15 '12 at 22:45
  • There was actually no reason for the edit/vote change, given the score totals at the time. That happened as a result of a misunderstanding. All I did was canvass for enough votes to get @nickt over 10, and then move my accept for an hour. – LessPop_MoreFizz Jan 15 '12 at 22:49
  • The reason for the edit was because the badge was not being awarded, even though the OPs answer had enough votes (at the time of my edit, NickT was at 11, and Lesspop at 24). I made my edit so I could remove my vote and bring NickT's answer down to 10 in order to see if that would award the badge in case their was a glitch that NickT's answer needed to have a score of exactly 10 for it to work. RavenDreamer pointed out directly after I did this that it just takes time before badge is award, and that's it not instantaneous. – Wipqozn Jan 15 '12 at 22:51
  • Here is a relevant chat log. I seen that LessPop was confused about why he wasn't getting the badge, and when Raven commented on the conditions I seen that lesspop had made them already. My edit/vote change was to bring NickT's answer to 10 to see if that fixed the issue (although it turns out there was no bug, there is just a delay) – Wipqozn Jan 15 '12 at 22:56
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    @LessPop_MoreFizz Nice exploit. </sarcasm> – Andrew Barber Jan 16 '12 at 1:08
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    I agree. It's also funny because of the "gaming" part. – Ry- Jan 16 '12 at 2:10
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Starting with the next build, Populist will no longer be awarded for self-answers, Code's answer already has the reasoning, no need to duplicate it here.

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  • Will this be one of the cases where badges are revoked or will the normal rules apply (i.e. the badge won't be awarded the next time you win it)? – ChrisF♦ Jan 16 '12 at 11:55
  • @ChrisF - this only affects future badges - they aren't count-based anymore, so even if you got a bad one (there would have been 14 not-awarded in history from this change), you'll still get the next one. – Nick Craver♦ Jan 16 '12 at 12:01
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    Ah - OK. Didn't realise that they weren't count based any more. – ChrisF♦ Jan 16 '12 at 12:02
  • @ChrisF - yup, we see "did you get this badge for this reason" on the checks now...most of the time that reason is the post Id. – Nick Craver♦ Jan 16 '12 at 12:03
  • @NickCraver Are there any more count-based badges, or is that old behaviour entirely gone? (I ask for the community changelog.) – Jeremy Banks Jan 16 '12 at 14:23
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I think that self-answers should be ineligible for the Populist badge.

I agree with that part. The vote changing and editing part are just red herrings.

The main issue here is to get a populist badge you need to accept another answer, that the popular vote considers inferior to your own. This is probably deliberate, since you could simply accept your own answer if it's better.

It's possible that you post an answer of which you believe that it's inferior(But perhaps makes a point not covered by the other answer, so it's still worth posting), but the public disagrees and thinks it's better. That seems less likely than the alternative, so I think you shouldn't be able to get populist for answers to your own questions.

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