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I've recently answered a question that has been upvoted 25 times.

A long time ago I got a silver good answer badge for an answer that must have been migrated, deleted or archived with question. I've double checked my account history and I can see nice answer badge awarded this month but no good answer was. I've had this silver badge for quite a while, the guts of a year I'd say.

Curious to know what may have happened.

a) My new good answer is taking place of archived one and so I don't warrant a second one, understandable behaviour if designed so.

b) Awarding of new badges is batched irregularly and it will be awarded in due course

c) This is an edge case bug and I should receive second silver good answer badge.


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a) This is a dupe. Searching... –  Ladybug Killer Sep 30 '09 at 9:44
What does that question title mean –  Alex Angas Sep 30 '09 at 10:04
@John thanks, i did have a look but didn't hit on the right keywords –  dove Sep 30 '09 at 10:46
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3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

The badge process kicks in regularly and every time it reports the number of badges of each type every user should currently have. If the count is larger than the count of badges you already have, you'll get a new badge. Otherwise, nothing will be awarded.

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It's a).

Badge totals aren't recalculated, so if you lose one (question migration, question deletion, down-votes etc.) your total doesn't go down. Then the next one you win brings the total back to what it should be.

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s/loose/lose/, otherwise +1 –  Rich Seller Sep 30 '09 at 10:43
@Rich - I'm always making that mistake, cheers –  ChrisF Sep 30 '09 at 10:44
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Since this question, badges have been overhauled and we look at a ReasonId column, which in this case is Post.Id. If you don't have a badge for that reason (post in this case, tag, etc. in others) then you'll earn a new badge.

To be as accurate as possible, this isn't always the case. Some are count based and have no reason, for example yearling does count years and see how many you need.

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