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Should there be a silver version of the Populist badge?

I was thinking 10 upvotes for you; 5 for the accepted.

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  • I'd be interested to see how many badges this would create. Could be quite a lot. – cletus Jul 9 '09 at 4:16
21

I say yes. Many of the questions I answer don't ever see 10 upvotes total, let alone on a single answer.

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    If a question doesn't even receive 10 upvotes, by definition it's not that popular. If you double the accepted answer on an obscure question, are you still a populist? – womp Jul 9 '09 at 2:15
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    @womp: Maybe call it "Rebel Without a Cause"? – Eric Jul 9 '09 at 2:28
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    Maybe those could be bronze? but you should at least have ten upvotes to get a silver. – George IV Jul 9 '09 at 2:28
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I realize that this is somewhat tangentially related, but I've never liked requiring the accepted answer to have at least 10 upvotes. It would make much more sense to require that your answer have at least 20 upvotes. As it currently exists, you could have a question where the accepted answer has 7 upvotes and your answer has 90 upvotes and you won't get the badge. But another question where the accepted answer has 11 upvotes rewards an answer with, say 23 upvotes with a Populist badge.

Granted, I don't actually have any Populist badges (I should, but that's another topic), but I believe that my above assessment is an accurate reflection of the behavior of the badge.

To tie this back to the original subject, I think that you could get bronze and silver badges by lowering the required score that your answer has to have in order to be awarded the badge.

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    Requiring the accepted answer to have at least 10 votes at least stops the badge being awarded if the accepted answer is just stupid (assuming this is the way it works). – Tom Hawtin - tackline Jul 9 '09 at 2:04
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    Is that the rationale? I can understand disallowing it for negatively scored accepted answers, but I don't really see how you can draw the line between a 7 or 8 point accepted answer and a 10 or 11 point one for the purposes of this badge. – Kyle Cronin Jul 9 '09 at 2:07
  • you could basically award the badge to yourself at will with the scheme you're describing. – Jeff Atwood Jul 9 '09 at 2:11
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    @Jeff: I'm not sure what you mean. I would still have to have an answer with 20 upvotes and have the question owner pick an answer with less than half the votes as accepted. It's possible to game this, but then again it's not any more difficult to game it the way it currently exists. – Kyle Cronin Jul 9 '09 at 2:26
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    I'm 2 votes away from a populist, in exactly the situation Kyle describes :-) stackoverflow.com/questions/162159/… – Vinko Vrsalovic Jul 9 '09 at 6:49
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    @Jeff: at will? You still need at least two accounts in concert and get at least 20+X votes on two separate answers. – Vinko Vrsalovic Jul 9 '09 at 6:51
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    If I could drop 20-upvote answers at will, I'd already be doing it everywhere. – Justin Morgan Jun 17 '11 at 13:45
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I was actually thinking this very thing earlier today and never got around to posting it. I see no problem with this honestly. Maybe you could have three levels.

Bronze - Your answer gets 2x the amount of the accepted answer (no minimum)

Silver - Your answer gets 2x the amount of the accepted answer (accepted answer minimum of +5)

Gold - Your answer gets 2x the amount of the accepted answer (accepted answer minimum of 10) <-- Current Method

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    I was thinking that for silver. I don't think that there should be a bronze for that. Although there is a badge for some pretty simple things. – George IV Jul 9 '09 at 2:28
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+100

I like TheTXI's idea for levels, here's my name suggestions:

Bronze - Rising Star
Silver - Democratic
Gold - Populist

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  • Bronze means if you get 2 and accepted gets 1, you get a badge (too many), and if you get 100 and accepted gets 0, you get no badge (?!?!). – PengOne Jun 16 '11 at 16:33
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    Actually, if you and the accepted both get 0, technically you are 2x the accepted, so you should get the badge. – PengOne Jun 16 '11 at 16:33
  • @PengOne, I'm sure those edge cases would have to be massaged. – Lance Roberts Jun 16 '11 at 16:33
  • I think leaving off the bronze handles that. I like the name, though. – PengOne Jun 16 '11 at 16:35
  • Alas, it appears there is insufficient interest for this one. Thanks for adding the nomenclature. – PengOne Jun 22 '11 at 3:36
  • I like the name of Bronze, too – Thea Feb 20 '12 at 10:19
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Naw. Populist should be a silver badge. Gold should be another version, even more difficult to obtain (say... beats an answer accepted at 20 by 2x). That badge should then be named Demagogue.

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