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On Stack Overflow, I see a set of three new badges: Announcer (bronze), Booster (silver), and Publicist (gold). Their common description is "Shared a link to a question that was visited by x unique IP addresses in y days".

Now, how do I share a link? Is this a harbinger of assimilation by Reddit/Facebook/whatever? The blog is quiet...too quiet...

There is now a blog entry for this. Later, many of the actual numbers in the blog post changed, like some of the requirements for the number of unique IP addresses and the time limits.

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2 Answers 2

up vote 50 down vote accepted

psst.. hey buddy... psst.. let me tell ya a little secret..

what you see when you click the 'share' link

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I see what you did there: the permalinks now include the logged in user's ID; that seems to be new. Thanks for the explanation :) –  Piskvor Sep 7 '10 at 8:23
@Piskvor - What about SO? There is no user's id in the link. –  Giorgi Sep 7 '10 at 10:05
@Giorgi: There is, but only in links to questions, not to answers –  Tobias Kienzler Sep 7 '10 at 12:11
If people were to use these links to cross-link between questions, will this count towards thier efforts on these new badges? And, if it does, is that intentional / encouraged / discouraged? –  DMA57361 Sep 7 '10 at 13:17
@Jeff, I'm a little disappointed in that answer. I too saw the link button under the questions, but my question would be where and how to use it? Are badges generated based on pasting that link into another SO answer or question, or external sites? –  Jonathan Day Sep 18 '10 at 0:38
@Jonathan: you can post the link on SO, or anywhere else on the Internet, or text it to your friends, or put it up on a billboard. It is not relevant where people encounter your promotional link. The key is that enough of them use it in a short enough time. Your user ID is part of the link, so the system will always know which visitors it has to attribute to you. –  ЯegDwight Sep 18 '10 at 0:58
@Jeff, dumb memes aside, that image could really use a circle or an arrow. The word "link" is only slightly more noticeable than the lightened rest of the image; it doesn't help that it's small and gray. I skipped right over it the first time I looked at this answer, because the real "link | edit | flag" links under the image looked more like content than the image did. –  Pops Sep 20 '10 at 15:07
@RegDwight: Thanks, but that's not strictly true according to the blog post. The link must be posted outside the StackExchange network for it to count. "...the tracked IPs must originate from outside our existing network..." –  Jonathan Day Sep 20 '10 at 15:08
So if I use a link that is directed to an answer, does it count? –  puretppc Jan 25 at 2:37

A more detailed explanation is provided in the Stack Overflow blog post Announcer, Booster, and Publicist Badges for those of you unsure of the specifics of when/where sharing counts towards badges.

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