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No, I don't want an argument on this. I'm wondering if (hopefully from a site admin/moderator/high rep user) if any badges are "bad". For example, the "tumbleweed" badge almost seems bad because it means you probably didn't ask your question well. So, are any of the badges bad or are they all a "good" accomplishment?

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    Tumbleweed is not necessarily an indicator of a bad question, just a very localized one (i.e. the user has already provided so much detail that 1-few people know about that specific thing (resulting in low views), and 2-no one has to comment asking for more details).
    – John
    May 12, 2011 at 19:18

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"Badness" is ultimately a matter of opinion. FWIW, every time someone makes a request for a new badge for some negative behavior, it's downvoted to oblivion in short order with the note "badges exist to promote good behaviors." You can check some out at the lowest voted [badge-request] posts page.

Tumbleweed is an anomaly, it's kind of a "sorry nobody on our site could help you, have a consolation prize" badge. The fact that it goes to some bad askers is an unfortunate side-effect.

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    I just saw FWIW on another comment for the first time and off the top of my head could not figure out what it stood for. I figured it out now, but it might be a little confusing for others.
    – jzd
    May 12, 2011 at 16:37
  • Funny you should say that; I generally avoid abbreviations, but made an exception for FWIW because it's so well-known and easy to "reverse-engineer" (or so I thought). Thanks for pointing it out, I'll try to use it less in the future. @jzd
    – Pops
    May 12, 2011 at 16:41
  • Yea, maybe I have just glazed over it in the past, but it stood out to me twice today.
    – jzd
    May 12, 2011 at 16:46
  • @jzd: +1, I needed Googles help ... (@Popular: but that just a few seconds ...)
    – Hendrik Vogt
    May 14, 2011 at 6:30
  • @jzd, hahaha, I think the other one you saw was also written by me (you answered a question of mine on SO that day).
    – Pops
    May 14, 2011 at 21:32
  • I mostly need to look up stuff like that, since I'm not a native speaker. FYI ;-)
    – takrl
    May 25, 2011 at 11:18
  • I had to look it up simply because, since it didn't appear to change the meaning of the sentence, my attempts to infer the meaning through context weren't doing as well as usual. :P
    – root
    Aug 13, 2013 at 13:47

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