Many new users will simply close their eyes and go on upvoting regardless of why they are or for what they are upvoting. It is because that they want the badges. So why do these two badges exist?
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4To get people to think about voting. Voting is an incredibility important and people rarely do enough of it. Any harm that might come from people rashly voting to get these small badges will far outweigh the damage done by voting little or at all.– Seth ModCommented Aug 3, 2016 at 3:06
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I am not sure if anyone ever voted to get the badge :) Actually I don't remember having done anything ever because I got a badge for it.– Jacob VlijmCommented Aug 3, 2016 at 8:30
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@JacobVlijm how do you explain those terrible questions with the upvotes, or when every new question receives an upvote right away?– TheWandererCommented Aug 3, 2016 at 11:31
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1@Zacharee1seriously? Maybe, but normally, I didn't know the badge existed untill I get it. Even then, if you ask me what badges I have, I doubt if I can mention one. Maybe it's a European thing not to care about badges.– Jacob VlijmCommented Aug 3, 2016 at 11:47
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@JacobVlijm "Maybe it's a European thing not to care about badges." - Are you kidding? Europe copied everything from other ancient cultures.– ranchoCommented Aug 3, 2016 at 11:53
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@rancho badges are typically U.S., not directly an ancient culture :) (not the white part that is).– Jacob VlijmCommented Aug 3, 2016 at 11:58
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2 Answers
Short answer, not sure if the community agrees with me on this:
While I would encourage people to vote no doubt, and voting indeed is important, I'd like to stress at the same time on:
If you vote, be aware of what you vote for or against, and why
That means you have to have at least looked quite well into the answer and/or question, and in case of an aswer you have good reasons to assume the answer is good, preferably try it.
30 or 40 votes per day seem like a huge amount to me. They would take me a day's job to make. IMO too many to make a reasonable qualitative decision per vote. Not sure how these numbers were chosen, while at the same time only a few people do more then 10 reviews, as a comparison.
I am pretty sure I will never get these badges.
answered Aug 3, 2016 at 12:33
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40 votes is the daily limit. Back before I was a moderator (and didn't have a flag queue eating half the time I spend on the site) I used to run out of votes almost daily.– Seth ModCommented Aug 3, 2016 at 13:29
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@Seth I find that amazing. I have no doubts on your judgement, but I am afraid not many of us can make a reasonable decision on those numbers. I can' t for sure, but I might be attracted to the type of answers that take a lot of time to find out if it is a good one. Maybe that's one of the reasons straightforward questions often bring a lot of voting activity. Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 13:33
When I noticed the vox populi badge, not long after after creating my account, I decided I would try to get it, since I had some free time.
I took a sort of tour of Ask Ubuntu and found really great questions and answers deserving my upvote. Probably the most helpful part of that was finding some canonical questions, key landmarks...
Since then, I've never gone out of my way to use up my votes, but nonetheless I very often run out of post votes, comment votes and sometimes even close votes, just in the course of my participation.
I think the badges exist to encourage us to vote, because voting is how the site is curated of course, and also to help us gauge how much we should be voting; a lot, but not too much.
Personally I think the badge served a good purpose in my case :)
I think, in general, if people care enough about the site to want to get badges, they will most likely care enough to vote in good conscience.
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I'd like to agree with you, but happily upvoted, nevertheless definitely incorrect or otherwise not working answers are no exception. Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 17:59
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You're right @JacobVlijm but even so, I think it's a positive thing to encourage people to vote (one way or the other).– Zanna ModCommented Aug 3, 2016 at 18:03
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Oh, absolutely, but 40 is imo tempting to vote superficially. Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 18:05
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What worked for me is for example the pop up I got after upvoting an answer, saying "you haven't voted on questions for a while". That made me think, and vote for questions eversince, as much as on answers I think. Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 18:09
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Ah yes that is helpful too, I got it here on meta once @JacobVlijm :) maybe there are other pop-ups saying "you should vote more"... I wouldn't find out as I vote a lot– Zanna ModCommented Aug 3, 2016 at 18:14