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The counter for the Copy Editor badge progress is off by double digits in my profile. As you can see, I've had 100 edit suggestions accepted, but the progress counter shows 75:

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Also, you can see yet a third count in my activity section:

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I actually noticed the discrepancy a while back, but I was curious the badges would end up being based on the real count or the incorrect count in the progress stats, so I decided to wait until I reached 80 before posting on meta. When I reached 80, I realized that the badge progress counter is decremented when a post you've edited is removed, so I waited until I was over 80 not including removed posts. Then I waited until I was well above that threshold, just to be sure.

Based on the rep reversals in my profile, only 9 of the 100 posts I've edited have been removed. The 98 in the activity log makes sense, because I've seen that those entries go away when the post they refer to is deleted, so the number is the total number of edits (accepted and rejected) minus the number removed. There's one extra (100 approved + 6 rejected - 9 removed = 97, but the activity section's counter shows 98), but I'm sure there's a simple and logical explanation.

However, I can't explain why the badge progress counter only shows 75 when I have 91 accepted edits that haven't been removed. I'm not sure how rollbacks affect the count, but I find it unlikely that more than 16 of my edits have been rolled back. I'm not aware of any except one that I rolled back myself after realizing it was a mistake, even though it was approved.

Also, as of this writing I don't have the Strunk & White badge, even though I passed 80 in the number of approved edits minus the number removed about a week ago. So, it appears that the badges are based on the same query that produces the flawed badge progress counter.

[I edited the title to make it clear to the tomato-throwers that this was intended as a "I noticed a discrepancy, why don't the numbers add up?" question, not a "Hey, no fair, where's my badge??" question. The discrepancy was explained in the accepted answer.]

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marked as duplicate by 3ventic, gnat, ProgramFOX, Azik, Shadow Wizard May 28 at 13:24


I am pretty sure that the difference is edits on your own posts –  psubsee2003 Aug 16 '13 at 23:28
@psubsee2003 Edits to my own posts aren't suggested edits. They wouldn't be included in either my editor stats or the number of suggestions shown in the activity. Also, I've edited my own post many times, and if they were included than the discrepancy would be well over 50. In any case, I know for a fact that my editor stats only change when suggested edits are approved or rejected. –  Adi Inbar Aug 16 '13 at 23:40
+1 for your stack overflow gravatar –  Cole Johnson Aug 17 '13 at 7:08
You need to have made edits to posts that are not your own, and only one edit per unique post counts. –  Martijn Pieters May 28 at 11:53

1 Answer 1

up vote 3 down vote accepted

There are multiple things that can cause discrepancies between these counts.

  • Only one edit per post actually counts towards the badge.
  • Edits that only change the tags do not count.
  • Edits to posts which are now deleted do not count.
  • Edits to your own posts do not count (which should be irrelevant for the suggested edit count).

Also note that the total number of suggestions in your activity would include those that have been rejected, or are even still pending.

The badge progress indicator is correct. That is your badge progress. However, I can't tell you exactly which edits, etc are not counting towards it because that's a lot of effort just to prove that something we know works correctly is actually working correctly.

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Most of this is already accounted for in my post. I specifically noted that the activity includes approved and rejected edits, and I took into account that edits to deleted posts aren't included. Edits to my own posts are out of scope since as you said yourself they don't show up in the editor stats. There has only been one post on which I've had two edits accepted (the one I rolled back, mentioned mentioned). The only other part that I didn't account for (and wasn't aware of) is the 3rd bullet point. If 15 of my edits on posts that weren't deleted only changed tags, that would explain it. –  Adi Inbar Aug 16 '13 at 23:52
That turned out to be the answer. I found 14 tag-only edits. That plus the rollback of my own approved edit makes 15. Close enough, I probably overlooked a 15th tag-only edit somewhere. –  Adi Inbar Aug 17 '13 at 6:52

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