20

Tumbleweed badge is awarded for a low voted, lowly viewed and unanswered question (it's more like a negative badge).

Now, think of the question that is so mind-blowing in its awesomness that it ratchets up the attention of a large base of users as well as picking up a scurry of upvotes in its favor. But, it also has no answers.

I think it would be a good idea to award a badge for such a question (for a period of time)

The eligibility of question [I mean number of votes, views etc] can be discussed and finalized. For now I am proposing **question with 10+ votes and 250+ views and no answer since 30 days* * .. to be eligible.

note: The number of votes and views can be discussed and finalized.. This figure is just a basic idea

Based on more votes and views, silver and gold badges can be awarded too..

|improve this question
  • Can you query the data dump and find fitting questions? I suspect you won't find questions with many views and votes but no answers. – Kobi Mar 18 '10 at 9:20
  • Yup .. there are many number of questions unanswered .. up-voted at-least 5 or more times. I got many in META(meta.stackoverflow.com/unanswered) and countable in SO(stackoverflow.com/unanswered/tagged?tab=votes) – InfantPro'Aravind' Mar 18 '10 at 9:37
  • So you mean no answers with upvoted. Also, the numbers are a lot smaller than I thought, but 5 upvoted / 100 views might work for you. – Kobi Mar 18 '10 at 9:41
  • I just noticed that 90% them are closed - answers:0 votes:5 - stackoverflow.com/search?q=answers:0+votes:5 - answer:0 votes:5 closed:0 results only 6 questions now - stackoverflow.com/search?q=answers%3A0+votes%3A5+closed%3A0 – YOU Mar 18 '10 at 9:50
  • @Kobi, No .. I mean no answers at all, means, no one has the idea about the question .. And yup 5votes and 100 views is considerable. – InfantPro'Aravind' Mar 18 '10 at 9:51
  • @S.Mark, Expected. what about those who aren't. :-) They deserve some attention. – InfantPro'Aravind' Mar 18 '10 at 9:52
  • The question could be raised, "what if the question gets the answer after rewarding the badge?" .. well. The question will be eligible for the badge if it is left unanswered for a particular period of time [say a month or two]. There after it doesn't matter whether the question is answered or not. This is not a new theme in rewarding badges, There are many members who undeleted their post following delete action .. have got "disciplined" badge. – InfantPro'Aravind' Mar 18 '10 at 9:53
  • 1
    There is only 6 questions, which aren't closed, updated on my above comment. and if 100+ views, only 3 questions left :P answers:0 votes:5 closed:0 views:100 stackoverflow.com/… – YOU Mar 18 '10 at 9:53
  • yup .. SO is having them in very low number. but that's ok, 3 is worth of attention.. anyway .. meta has them comparatively more (meta.stackoverflow.com/… ) including this one .. (meta.stackexchange.com/questions/38787/… ) LOL ;-) – InfantPro'Aravind' Mar 18 '10 at 10:02
  • I still hope to bring up such badge, that gains attention, instead of sacrificing own score as bounty, this would be great! – InfantPro'Aravind' Nov 28 '12 at 9:04
18

I don't think there should be one for no accepted answers. That would only encourage users to avoid accepting answers in case they get a badge, which is not a good thing.

I quite like the idea of a popular question that remains unanswered for a long time though, along the lines of Fermat's Last Theorem.

|improve this answer
  • 2
    yup .. I agree with you .. +1 – InfantPro'Aravind' Mar 18 '10 at 9:02
  • the logic behind meta still escapes me.. how can the question be up 4 and the disagreement be up 5? If youre against it, would you downvote the OP and upvote the answer? – Locutus Mar 18 '10 at 12:53
  • 2
    @DataPimp, I wouldn't like to second guess any rationale on meta, but I'm not completely disagreeing. The first para points out why I think unaccepted questions shouldn't be a factor, but the second para is in agreement with the OP. Perhaps people agree with my point about accepted answers? – Rich Seller Mar 18 '10 at 13:11
10
+25

tl;dr: I do not think this would be a helpful badge.

The Tumbleweed badge is something of an anomaly - a consolation prize. I could be persuaded to support its abolition (but see later on its one possible redeeming feature). Pretty much all other badges are there to incentivise behaviour that is considered constructive to the site.

Any new badge proposal should explicitly state what constructive behaviour it is intended to incentivise, and explain why there is no incentive for this behaviour at present.

So what's being incentivised here? The creation of questions with catchy titles, question-bodies that look at first glance to be well researched and include a small graphic or sample code (depending on the site), but which are essentially unanswerable. But in such a way that it's hard to close them as NARQ/non-constructive.

That's the behavioru that such a badge would incentivise.

And that's not constructive behaviour.

There are already plenty of incentives for asking highly-viewed and highly-upvoted questions - there's reputation itself from the votes, and many badges.

So the only new element to this badge proposal, is a consolation prize for its unanswerability.

Consolation badges in general are not a good thing - they are incentives to unconstructive behaviour. We already have one, and you could argue that's already one too many. Though it may act as a sweetener to beginners who ask a question that earns it: the Tumbleweed badge might just serve as enough of an incentive to get an otherwise-disheartened beginner to come back for another try.

That's a possible redeeming feature of Tumbleweed. But I see no parallel in this proposal.

|improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .