236 votes
Add a badge for an answer voted higher than the "accepted"
A couple of times on the podcast Jeff has mentioned that the "system works" in that some answers have more votes than the "accepted answer" on a question.
In that spirit, why not make it a badge? You get awarded the badge if your answer gets voted higher than the accepted a... more
Status:
completed
implemented as gold Populist badge. Minimum 10 votes for accepted answer; your answer must outscore by 2x.
nobody_
Jeff,
I don't know if this is by design or not, but only the highest-ranked answer will earn the Populist badge, even though there may be other answers with more than double the score of the accepted answer.
camera
Here's a different suggestion: add a second checkmark to the answer and mark it as "People's Choice." Use a different color like yellow to differentiate from the questioner's selection. If the question goes to Public Wiki, then display the People's Choice above the questioner's choice. (I'll probably get a lot of flack for that one.)
chaosprime
'Contrarian' is also a pleasing name.
chaosprime
@cletus: Doesn't have to apply to CW questions. @devinb: On the one hand, I'm generally in favor of the events you describe, and on the other hand, I'm not seeing how this badge would particularly affect it.
devinb
I think this creates tension between the questioner and the community. When I ask a specific question (ie My architecture is such-and-such, how should I do X) and [A] answers "Do Y" and [B] says "Your architecture is stupid, you should never be doing Z". I would accept (A) because their answer is useful to me. But the community would often vote up (B) even though they didn't answer my question.
cletus
Ya know the 5/20/50 votes more than the accepted answer is probably going to do little more than rain down badges on CW "fun" questions even more than is happening already (which is a lot).
randolpho
I suppose I should mention explicitly that Popular Answer is a Bronze medal, Notable Answer is Silver, and Famous Answer is Gold.
randolpho
I like @endangerdmassa's limit suggestion, but I suggest a modification: it should follow similar rules to the Nice Answer, Good Answer, and Great Answer badges. For example: Popular Answer (Answer has 5 more votes than the Accepted Answer); Notable Answer (20 more); Famous Answer (50 more). The values are only initial suggestions, obviously.
jmucchiello
Any names for this? The "Late to the Party" tag? --- In addition to a minimum number of votes above the accepted answer, I would think you would have to do it multiple times to get the badge.
cletus
I sort of agree that this sends the wrong issue. Plus as noted it has some interesting implementation issues (eg switching accepted answer).
chaosprime
Good point. I'd say if your answer ever was accepted, you don't get the badge.
Robert Gould
But what happens when someone a few days or weeks later comes up with a better answer? Normally I'll mark the new answer as THE answer in that case, thus the badge would be earned but probably shouldn't have earned it
chaosprime
I don't really think it says that, yahoo anon. I think it says that if the community thinks a great deal more of your answer than the one the poster accepted, that's interesting and a minor achievement.
me.yahoo.com/a/ikxu0uwdyj5gpedygwkxmbejanyrns8-
This more or less sends the message that if someone chooses anything but the highest rated answer, they are wrong. I think this a bad message. Sometimes the group likes an answer but that answer is not really aimed at the question at hand. Why should get *extra* reward? If you answer is high rated, you already get reputation.
gortok
Can we name the badge the Kobiyashi Maru?
chaosprime
Over-by-10 is already a pretty high bar, and sounds good to me for a bronze badge. +20 is nuts and/or silver badge material. Paranoia about 'system gaming' isn't going to do anything but induce paralysis, anyway; everything about SO is vulnerable to 'system gaming', yet somehow it works reasonably well anyway.
For the name, Paradigm Shift comes to mind.
casperOne
I had this idea looming around for a long time. My suggestion for the badge name? I think that "renegade" has a nice ring to it, since it goes against the accepted answer.
endangeredmassa
It's true that this badge may exist at a time when it shouldn't. Once earned, the votes could change so that the accepted answer has the most votes.
It is not quite as true that this is open to system gaming. If you require a reasonable number of votes over the accepted answer, you would need at least that many friends/accounts to game the system. A limit of 20 votes would be badge worthy, no?
Kent Fredric
I smell potential for epic system gaming here. All you have to do is start accepting crap answers and give your friends lots of badges! WIN!
Robert Gamble
I like the general idea but I see a lot of logistical problems: How often do you check the criteria for this? What happens when the accepted answer is changed or the number of votes for the accepted answer eclipses the other answers (both of which happen often), do people lose badges? Should there be a minimum limit on the number of votes above the accepted answer to get this badge? etc.