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When I was going through the list of badges, I felt there may be a badge which will be awarded when a user has 250 (or more, whatever seems appropriate) of his answers accepted; it may be a hard-to-earn badge though.

What say? Is is possible?

PS.: I think my question has been misunderstood by some. I meant that a badge should be awarded to an answerer who has got 250 of his answers (which he has posted in questions asked by different questioners) accepted by the respective OPs.

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    What desirable behavior would this encourage that we are not currently seeing? – Oded Oct 22 '13 at 15:24
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    It may not necessarily produce significant changes in behavior, but it may just lift the confidence or aura of a user who answers really well. I mean, it may give a sense of "high-feeling" to the best users who can earn that badge. I mean when there are so many badges to notify every action of a user, why not this one? (Just a suggestion :)) – Shaona Bose Oct 22 '13 at 15:28
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    @Oded for one, you might see more people catering to the OP's needs – Sam I am Oct 22 '13 at 15:28
  • i'd be more happy if the voters who actually cast a vote on my answer were the ones awarded with a badge for voting! – user221081 Oct 22 '13 at 15:45
  • @mehow If I got your suggestion right, well I think that would be a question of pure luck. Doesn't fulfill the purpose of a badge. Isn't it? – Shaona Bose Oct 22 '13 at 15:45
  • @mehow That would be the easiest thing to do here. That again, does in no way support the gravity of a badge. – Shaona Bose Oct 22 '13 at 15:48
  • just saying as this is also tagged discussion. I completely agree with you. Im not requesting a new feature as it would miserably fail. – user221081 Oct 22 '13 at 15:51
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    @Oded no one's likely to work towards it, but it may well provide encouragement/morale boost for someone who is already putting effort into answering questions in answerable ways, motivating them to do it that much more. THese effects are likley to be pretyt temporary, but it's not like badges are hard to implement, and this is a cool enough thing that it's not like it would cheapen badges as a whole. If you want it to be an encouragement thing, you could make it a train of them, starting at 10 for the bronze, which might well encourage starting users. – Ben Barden Oct 22 '13 at 15:53
  • @BenBarden - I would think gaining privileges was encouragement enough here. – Oded Oct 22 '13 at 15:55
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A fair bit of this is hearsay, and not possible for facts or stats on the proposed outcomes. Just chewin' the fat.

If you're going to do this it would be likely worth doing for questions (accepted awarded) and answers (accepted received).
So questioners are actually awarding and answerers working towards them.

If you only create a badge for answerers, then questioners may be even more reluctant to accept an answer if they know the answerer could get a badge.

Whether you do one or the other or both, it's likely going to bring a fair amount of unsavoury deeds.
I'll address both..

Against

Questioners
Users wanting the badge might accept answers they might not have otherwise done, even if they're poor quality answers.
This sends the message to other visitors that "this answered my issue", and causing confusion when you look at the question and answer and wonder how it answered it.

There's a danger badge hunters will ask questions just for the sake of being able to accept an answer.
Poor answers then obtain some bogus rep as the questioner accepts any answer given.

The potential of generating bad questions, and poor answers being accepted, is not a good thing at all.

Answerers
Users may attempt to answer more questions attempting for the badge. If they answer trying for a badge, it's possible they write a good one, but I think more badge whores will just write any crap, introducing more rubbish answers.

While we have the means to deal with this, it's time wasted for people voting, flagging and commenting. Especially if it's not a real question requiring a resolve or advice for someone and is just badge farming.

For
Questioners
Users wanting the badge will mark more answers as accepted, and perhaps continue the habit once earned, which is a good thing if a good answer.
There's usually at least a half decent answer to mark as accepted, and usually by 10 mins good answers have upvotes and bad ones downvotes, so even badge gamers who wouldn't have otherwise accepted an answer will likely choose the better one.

Answerers
Users may try a bit harder to give good answers to gain the badge.

Conclusion
Personally speaking, I think we have plenty of badges!
Certainly enough that most areas of expertise, interest and skill are widely covered so most people can gain a fair number of them without too much trouble.

Currently I believe (mostly) questioners only accept answers if they feel it was worthwhile, and sometimes even then they don't bother. While this isn't ideal for people answering wanting their accepted rep and green tick, it works well as only decent answers get accepted (mostly).
Plus answers not being accepted is no where near as bad as poor answers being accepted.

People wanting to earn yet another badge aside, I think this would have a detrimental effect, and I'd rather see dev time spent on other things anyway.

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  • I think I haven't been able to explain what I actually meant. I have edited my question. – Shaona Bose Oct 22 '13 at 16:38
  • You wanted answerers to gain a badge when they have X "accepted answers"? I addressed that, the additional bit about questioners is if you're going to do this, I think you should give questioners one too, for accepting answers. – James Oct 22 '13 at 17:07

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