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After aquiring the electorate badge, I suddenly became tired of voting. Now I'm running for the steward badge, and I probally will just ignore the queue after 1000 reviews.

I understand that 1000 review is more than enough for each user in a lifetime. But voting seems different, there should be a reward for continuously voting either up or down, beyond the 600 threeshold.

EDIT:

Well, I think I got it. Although badges do stimulate a jump-start into a good habit, as @dasblinkenlight said, they also can have a side-effect of stimulating bad behaviour for "badge-hunters".

I also would like to make it clear that I did my job seriously both when voting and reviewing, and maybe I'll restart voting soon. I do enjoy SO a lot, mainly because I learn a lot here. This rant question I posed can serve as a good reminder to those who feel they work is a waste of time.

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  • 33
    If you're doing reviews just for the badge, please just stop. It's not worth it.
    – Mat
    Aug 1, 2013 at 18:20
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    Not everything needs to revolve around getting badges, you know.
    – Old Checkmark
    Aug 1, 2013 at 18:20
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    Badges are to get people voting. If you want to stop, it's up to you.
    – Dave Chen
    Aug 1, 2013 at 18:21
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    Not wanting the quality of the site to deteriorate can be a great motivating factor.
    – user200500
    Aug 1, 2013 at 18:21
  • I see many comments suggesting that someone voting/reviewing only to get badges is a bad idea. I do agree with this assertion, in general, but I assure it's not my case. I'm pretty confident I did my job in a serious fashion.
    – user225770
    Aug 1, 2013 at 18:27
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    @Ferdinand.kraft if you took your voting towards electorate seriously, then the badge did its job: getting you to contribute and improve the community. If you want to stop, that's up to you. Obviously everyone would prefer that you continue contributing helpfully, but what you've given to get the badge is a lot better than not giving anything at all.
    – Esoteric Screen Name
    Aug 1, 2013 at 18:29

5 Answers 5

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While there are badges for voting, we should not ever be encouraging people to vote just for the badges. Well-thought-out votes are the most basic and crucial step a community takes in keeping an SE site running. Badly-thought-out votes can grind a site to a halt. The badges encourage a person to start voting, but after that, they should keep doing it for the right reasons; it's easy, upvotes reward people for their work, downvotes keep things clean, and it's downright addicting.

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If the only reason you were voting was for a badge, then odds are pretty good your votes weren't exactly the most well-considered.

Voting is its own reward. You vote because it makes the site better. You vote because it helps show what good information and bad information are. Because it helps other people.

The same goes for reviewing. If you're reviewing just for a badge, are your reviews going to be that particularly good?

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The idea behind badges is to reward good behavior. For most people, if you put in enough time and effort to get to 600 votes or 1000 reviews, it's probably because you care about the site, not just to get the badge. If you only care about the badges, well, that's your prerogative. But I don't think new badges are going to be added. Keep up the good work if you want to contribute to the site; if you don't, don't.

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The idea is to improve the community by continuing to vote and review. This helps good content rise to the top, and bad content get filtered out. The point isn't to get the shiny gold star on your profile.

However, those reasons don't motivate everyone, especially as the community grows larger. The badges are there to encourage these activities by giving users who otherwise wouldn't participate in such fashions a prize to work towards, essentially tricking them into helping out.

If you're not putting any real effort into voting or reviewing, e.g. just voting on whatever you see to up your vote count, please stop. This harms the community, because it frustrates the purpose of identifying and presenting quality content. Nobody, or at least nobody sensible, comes to SE to see who has the most gold badges; they come to find good information.

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  • @JoshCaswell "e.g." means "for example" and "i.e." means "in other words", i.e. a different way of saying the same thing. Voting is used as an example; i.e. is not appropriate.
    – Esoteric Screen Name
    Aug 1, 2013 at 18:46
  • "i.e." is id est, meaning "that is"; your sentence reads better that way to me, but it's your sentence. Apologies.
    – jscs
    Aug 1, 2013 at 18:49
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A common theme behind the badges that you mentioned is that you are in full control of when you get them: all you need to do is show up a set number of times, to vote a set number of times, or to review a set number of items. The idea behind these badges that is not to stimulate a desired behavior continuously, but rather to "jump-start" it into a good habit.

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