Electorate, Pundit, etc badge progress

Question

We need more meta data about progress for some of the badges, particularly with new ones like Electorate, Pundit, and more. This started off as a whinge about Electorate, but has been expanded into something which might be closed as a close-to-duplicate. But I'd actually like some of these answered more individually. StackQL doesn't fix it, because it's typically old.

For example - I don't think I can tell how many questions I've upvoted. I can see how many upvotes I've made, but I can't tell which were questions and which were answered. So I can tell how close I am to Civic Duty, but not Electorate.

I can't tell how many upvotes I have on comments. This means I can't even tell which of my comments are popular, and the kind of comments that I should be making more of.

I can't tell how many consecutive days I've been around. (I know - I've asked it before, written the query, got the T-shirt - sorry, that was on EE - etc...)

I can't tell how many days I've hit the 200 point cap.

I can tell how close I am to Great Question, to Populist, to most of the badges in fact, but there are some that aren't. I know that the tag-related questions are designed to be 'surprises', but even that info is available in the Tag Stats. So I don't get why we don't see just a little more info.

I've heard that it's about the load on the database... but as there are queries which calculate all this quite often, how about the results of the queries get stored in a table somewhere, and then let people view the results for their stuff somewhere?

Answer 1

Some of the badges are supposed to be surprises, not World of Warcraft style level grinds based on numbers.

I worry that if we provide too many metrics:

• it becomes noise, like a bunch of inscrutable F-16 cockpit gauges -- how are all these numbers useful except for these specific badges?
• the badge becomes the explicit goal instead of the desired behavior
• the badges are no longer a pleasant surprise and reward but an expected "level up"

Answer 2

Beware, cynical response ahead...

Who really cares? Do you really care about badges so much that you would rather see your progress towards a specific badge, rather than seeing this "progress" as what it really is, something you should be doing anyway?

Why not treat Stack Overflow for what it is - a question and answer site - rather than what you make it out to be, some kind of game. If you can answer some technical questions and find some value in doing so, then do that. If you have a question that others can answer, ask it and get some answers. But otherwise, why are you here?

Answer 3

We cannot forget about the Observer Effect, which can be applied here: you cannot observe a phenomenon without interfering with it.

By creating the badges, which is a phenomenon observation, you most certainly interfered with StackOverflow usage, the phenomenon itself.

Personally, I find SO addictive mainly for 2 reasons:

1. I'm rewarded by peers for my knowledge
2. I'm rewarded by SO by my participation
3. In the end, I get recognition by sharing my knowledge

I would very much doubt SO would have it current level of success if people were not driven by their sense recognition for something positive: their knowledge.

Therefore, I think all of information on badge metrics should be available. The reasons:

• Most of them already are (Good Answer, etc.)
• The ones that are not, people are trying to get via data.stackexchange.com
• Some badges you just cannot try to achieve, because you have no control over it, no matter how hard you try. A good example is the Unsung Hero badge. How can you work on having your answers accepted with no upvotes?

And the main reason is that in most badges you want people to try to achieve, so you positively tailor behavior. The reasons:

• Some badges indicate participation. We want people to participate.
• Some badges indicate level of knowledge. We want people to share their knowledge.
• Some badges indicate quality of posts. We want people to post with quality.

Answer 4

As of May 8, 2011, this is possible for Electorate. Distribution of votes cast (on questions vs. on answers) is now public, so users need only do a little math. For those who find the badge description confusing, there's a handy example chart here.