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What's the silliest badge?

I nominate the Caucus badge:

"Visited an election during any phase of an active election and had enough reputation to cast a vote. This badge can be awarded multiple times."

Maybe I misunderstand, but it seems the badge can be awarded multiple times during a given election. Every time you go back to the election page, you get the badge again? That can't be right, but I got two of them within minutes of each other back in 2012.

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    $\begingroup$ I have two of the Caucus badges. One from the previous election, and one from this election. But I don't get more now that I visit the election page. Might this be a bug specific to your user? $\endgroup$ – Thomas May 7 '13 at 13:51
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    $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson, if you look at math.stackexchange.com/badges/207/caucus?userid=8269, you will see that although the first two of your badges were awarded on Jun 8, 2012 23:00, the first was for the 2011 election, the second was for the 2012 election. (Click on their links to see.) $\endgroup$ – Joel Reyes Noche May 7 '13 at 13:56
  • $\begingroup$ @Joel, ha. So you can get a badge in 2012 for visiting an election page from 2011? But the thingy I quoted says it has to be an active election. I'm sure you're right about what happened; I'm still puzzled. $\endgroup$ – Gerry Myerson May 8 '13 at 9:18
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    $\begingroup$ Perhaps the badge was created in 2012, and you were awarded for the 2011 elections retroactively? $\endgroup$ – Joel Reyes Noche May 8 '13 at 9:34
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    $\begingroup$ @Joel is right, we only made the badge in 2012 so we awarded it retroactively for previous elections. $\endgroup$ – Grace Note♦ May 8 '13 at 11:27
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    $\begingroup$ Many thanks to all for clearing this up. $\endgroup$ – Gerry Myerson May 8 '13 at 13:14
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I nominate "Informed". You just have to get into a page and scroll to the bottom...

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  • $\begingroup$ Hmm. I just earned the Informed Badge. That was easy... $\endgroup$ – JavaMan May 7 '13 at 15:50
  • $\begingroup$ I just got it too. $\endgroup$ – GeoffDS May 8 '13 at 1:38
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    $\begingroup$ Yet I think it is valuable as at least some users might accidentally read the page while scrolling. $\endgroup$ – Hagen von Eitzen May 8 '13 at 14:49
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    $\begingroup$ The Analytical badge is pretty much the same thing. $\endgroup$ – Ilmari Karonen May 9 '13 at 19:54
  • $\begingroup$ @Ilmari: But to get the Analytical badge you at least have to open the segments in the FAQ (I'm not sure whether "expand all" and scrolling down works, but it is still [slightly] more than scrolling to the bottom of a page...) $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ May 9 '13 at 23:56
  • $\begingroup$ @Asaf: I just tested it: "expand all" works, and you don't even need to scroll down. There seems to be a slight delay before it's awarded, though. $\endgroup$ – Ilmari Karonen May 9 '13 at 23:58
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    $\begingroup$ @Ilmari, well... then this is equally silly. $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ May 9 '13 at 23:59
  • $\begingroup$ @Ilmari: With the new help center, this doesn't work anymore. So now Informed is really the silliest badge. $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ Jun 24 '13 at 20:45
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If we look beyond Math.SE, the silliest one may be Precognitive on StackOverflow:

Followed the Area 51 proposal for this site before it entered the commitment phase.

Since there was no Area 51 proposal for StackOverflow, nobody has this badge, or ever will.

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    $\begingroup$ I don't know if that's the silliest. Seeing how badges are encoded into the software which is used outside of SO itself... $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ May 7 '13 at 20:36
  • $\begingroup$ @AsafKaragila Right, I should have said "SE network-wide". $\endgroup$ – 75064 May 7 '13 at 21:55
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    $\begingroup$ There's also a family of unattainable bounty-related badges on meta.maths.SE. $\endgroup$ – Douglas S. Stones May 9 '13 at 4:13
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I'm gonna go with the tag badges, simply for irony, as MSE is my #1 method of procrastinating homework.

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    $\begingroup$ +1...not to mention procrastinating on one's thesis!!! ;-) $\endgroup$ – amWhy May 9 '13 at 23:06
  • $\begingroup$ @amWhy, very, very true.. $\endgroup$ – Joachim May 14 '13 at 10:31
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"Autobiographer" is somewhat silly. You can fill in everything in your profile with junk, get the badge, then delete it all. I should know.

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The Reversal badge is kind of silly (but also impressive). To get this gold badge, you need to:

"Provided answer of +20 score to a question of -5 score. This badge can be awarded multiple times."

How many people have managed that impressive feat? As of this writing, on math.SE, four. And what were the examplary answers that gained them this rare badge? Well...

Screenshot of Reversal badge recipients list on math.SE

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    $\begingroup$ Three out of four come from the same question (10K only) which, unsurprisingly, spawned a dedicated meta thread. $\endgroup$ – 75064 May 9 '13 at 15:25
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks. For the curious but rep-challenged among us, eFreedom comes to the rescue. Oh, and apparently the other question got its own meta thread too. $\endgroup$ – Ilmari Karonen May 9 '13 at 15:32
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    $\begingroup$ Today, the question woul be closed in less than ten minutes. $\endgroup$ – Michael Greinecker♦ May 9 '13 at 15:37
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    $\begingroup$ @75064 Thanks for the link, I had been sorely missing my favorite question from good old kalle (aka horowitz) since it was deleted. $\endgroup$ – Alex Becker May 9 '13 at 17:22
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    $\begingroup$ Thank you for the recognition. $\endgroup$ – skullpatrol May 13 '13 at 3:03
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"Unsung hero" and "Tumbleweed" - I seem to be uncapable of making any progress in these directions.

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    $\begingroup$ I could help you get the "Unsung Hero" badge by downvoting all of your score 1 accepted answers, of which you have 169. This might earn me the "Suspended" badge, though. ¶ "Tumbleweed" can be pretty useful, actually. $\endgroup$ – 75064 May 8 '13 at 14:57
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    $\begingroup$ I've always thought of "Unsung Hero" and "Tenacious" as very troubling badges. If people are getting them, then it's a sure sign that the site's becoming too damn big. $\endgroup$ – J. M. isn't a mathematician May 8 '13 at 15:11
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    $\begingroup$ To reduce the unsunginess on the site, users with soon-to-expire votes can search [tag of expertise] score:0 isaccepted:yes and spread the wealth around... $\endgroup$ – 75064 May 8 '13 at 15:32
  • $\begingroup$ There is a trick to get Tumbleweed. But I won't tell until I decide to try it for myself. :-) $\endgroup$ – Asaf Karagila♦ May 8 '13 at 20:40
  • $\begingroup$ Why I added tumbelweed: I guessed that Math.SE seems to have so many quick-reacting participants (even though there is a high question frequency) that it is hard to stay unnoticed and unanswered (fortunately). On sites with really high question frequency, on the other hand, a question can quickly fall out of sight so that there tumbleweed status is so ubiquitious that it loses usefulness. At least that was what I thought. $\endgroup$ – Hagen von Eitzen May 9 '13 at 10:06
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    $\begingroup$ @Asaf: Add a fake [closed] to your question title and hope nobody notices? (Yes, it's possible, but you have to use some Silly Unicode Tricks(TM) to do it.) $\endgroup$ – Ilmari Karonen May 9 '13 at 14:32
  • $\begingroup$ It's also forbidden... $\endgroup$ – Michael Greinecker♦ May 9 '13 at 19:03
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    $\begingroup$ Unsung hero and Tenacious are really stupid. The only way I see to get them without cheating is by being "lucky" at the beginning of your Math.SE career. Since on average you won't satisfy the conditions at all, I don't see a way to get these badges later on. $\endgroup$ – azimut May 14 '13 at 11:48

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