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IMHO, a person, who first notices that a closed post is improved enough to be reopened, deserves some support. What do you think of series of medals? Let's call such person 'Initiator'. I would count in both first reopening vote and reopening flagging.

  • (Coin Seeker) Bronze - for every question which reopening was initiated and reopening was accepted, at least once answered and together with its answers got 5 votes.
  • (Pearl Seeker) Silver - for every question which reopening was initiated, lately accepted, and together with its answers got 15 votes.
  • (Diamond Seeker) Gold - for every question which reopening was initiated, lately accepted, and together with its answers got 50 votes.

Reasons:

  • It encourages positive behaviour. More people will help with advices for editing.
  • It gives users an incentive to explore the site for improved questions

Edit (as reaction to @ben is uǝq backwards post):

Another variant I thought of:

  • (Good?) Bronze - for the first question which reopening was initiated and reopening was accepted, and lived for longer than a week.
  • (Goodness) Silver - for the 10th question which reopening was initiated and reopening was accepted, and lived for longer than a week.
  • (Saint) Gold - for the 100th question which reopening was initiated and reopening was accepted, and lived for longer than a week.
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  • 2
    +1, it would encourage positive behaviour without encouraging robo reviewers.
    – Stijn
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:47
  • Related and IMO more important: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/109543/… :)
    – Shadow The Kid Wizard
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:48
  • @Stijn I am sorry, but what are robo reviewers?
    – Gangnus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:48
  • @Gangnus those are users who make review decisions without thinking, just to get badges. (or out of sheer fun, can't know for sure)
    – Shadow The Kid Wizard
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:49
  • @Gangnus I think instead of "Initializer" you mean "Initiator". Initialize has a connotation of... resetting something back to the beginning.
    – doppelgreener
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:50
  • @Stijn Oh, yes. And the automatic checking is not so good, I am afraid.
    – Gangnus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:50
  • @ShadowWizard. I think, the encouraging to make something better is sometimes more important that to do it yourself. And I am afraid that often questions are repaired in a good will and nobody notices...
    – Gangnus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:52
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    I'd think this would encourage people to reopen the awful subjective questions that get big numbers of views and upvotes despite being offtopic.
    – Wooble
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:54
  • I like the idea, but the concern I have is the criteria are very involved. You have to do Step 1, and then you only get the badge if several other things happen in the future that you have no control over. Most badges have usually simple criteria based only on your own actions, although there are exceptions.
    – psubsee2003
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:54
  • @psubsee2003 THis is the way many badges work. How can you take into account the improved quality?
    – Gangnus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 13:05
  • @Gangnus I disagree. There are many badges that depend on others (such as the View-based and Vote-based badges), but they have simple and straight forward criteria. This doesn't. First you have to vote to reopen, then the post has to get reopen, then the post has to get new answers and new votes. There are too many moving pieces. Nearly all of the "Moderation" type badges are just do "X" and get a badge.
    – psubsee2003
    Feb 10, 2014 at 13:12
  • @psubsee2003 The reviver and necromancer work so. Even more, MOST of the budges work so. You do something and wait for reaction of community and get paid for it. Later.
    – Gangnus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 13:15
  • On that same note, we should have similar badges for closing. Especially for dupe-closing.
    – John Dvorak
    Feb 10, 2014 at 13:19
  • @Gangnus Many/Most question & answer badges rely the community, but most have simple criteria. Nearly all "Moderation" and "Participation" type badges are based on your own actions. We're just going to have to disagree to disagree. My opinion is that the criteria is going to cause confusion among many users and they are going to ask meta questions "Why didn't I get my "Pearl Seeker" badge".
    – psubsee2003
    Feb 10, 2014 at 13:22
  • @JanDvorak I thought about it, too. But that would be a duplicate, already refused one. And I agree with the reasons of the refusal.
    – Gangnus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 13:23

2 Answers 2

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Though I applaud the initiative I think this will cause problems...

Almost every question that ends up on reddit or Hacker News etc. already goes through several close-reopen cycles. By being the first to vote to reopen a closed question like this I get a free gold badge. It seems like it will force this sort of popular question to go through many more close-reopen cycles.

I would support a bronze badge for the first reopen vote as a method of teaching about the site's functionality, as with organizer. Also, your vote gets checked by reviewers and will remain closed, if necessary.

By combining votes into the criteria, you encourage people to do is to vote on "popular" questions, not questions that deserve/need to be reopened. This is not necessarily "positive" behavior and therefore should not be encouraged by a badge.

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  • I thought about it, too. In the Edit I have added another stairs I thought before.
    – Gangnus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 13:04
4

Don't simply give a badge to someone who was fastest to press 'reopen'. We don't want hungry badgevores roaming through the question cemetery and randomly clicking 'reopen'.

Reopen votes are initiated by edits too. So let's give a badge to someone who makes a non-trivial edit (more than spelling fix or retag or link edit) to a closed question which is subsequently reopened. The criterion for giving points to the badge would be that the question receives a full set of reopen votes under the influence of the edit spell from that person. An edit from third party during the reopen process would not grant the badge.

Because necromancer is reserved, let's call it resurrector. Perhaps also award a silver/gold badge for doing such edits many times (100 for gold?).

Another mutant power of edits is the possibility to turn a bad question into a good question. Let's treat it separately. Say, healer badge, for editing a bad question (maybe -3 or worse) that would become a good question (perhaps +3 or better) under the impact of that edit (that is, without edit from third party before the reopen criteria are reached).

Because the following scenario would be not very likely for questions with a really low score, we could, as an alternative, consider increasing the score for at least 6 as the granting criterion.

Why do I suggest that edits from third parties would not grant the badge? Because someone could make a minor edit (but big enough to be not counted as trivial) which might raise the attention of some other user, who would then make the substantial edit that would improve the question for reopening.

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  • I thought not about successful editor, there are already badges for them. I thought about somebody who taught the author how to improve the post, nudged him to do it, and after successful change, reopened. Another variant, about somebody who found the improved post.
    – Gangnus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 14:02
  • But I see: edit-initiated reopening by the same person-success of the question. Not bad at all, but it is something different. May be, one more badge.
    – Gangnus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 14:04
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    +1 for "badgevores" :)
    – Spontifixus
    Feb 10, 2014 at 15:14
  • Just an additional point: any user with 250 rep can cast the first reopen vote, so it would also be encouraging posting terrible questions just to edit them and reopen them for free badges.
    – Nissa
    Nov 21, 2016 at 3:45

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