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If you refresh (F5 in chrome) repeatedly (you don't even have to wait for the page to fully refresh) while looking at a question it increases the view count, I'd have thought there would be something clever going off behind the scenes to stop this but it appears any daft user can get himself a 'Famous Question' badge this way :-) |
The question has been closed for the following reason "The question is answered, right answer was accepted" by Daz Liquid 13 Jul '11, 18:05
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"A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." - Napoleon In other words, hand out the badges! |
Great idea - works with FF, too - look at your badges:)
Hmmm looking at the badges I think maybe @Breck has been up to the same trick :-)
Riiiigghhht... that's how I got my two (2) Famous Question badges, which is 100% more than you have. It's Volker who's abusing it... he has 3! Get out the pitchforks and torches! :)
First to 999 views on a question ? Ready, steady , goooo :)
Yeah, programmers should use scripts to automate such tasks - they're wayyyy faster than manual GUI tractation. Once you earn 1000 rep points, we might share the script:)
Pitchforks, torches, minority elite oppressing others, this is starting to sound more like the French revolution than a forum, shame on you two for lowering the tone :-)
This looks like a loop hole that we need to close!
Yes, please, my fingers are already hurting...
... but I'm not sure how?
Even worse (or better ?), holding F5 down works too :-(
Easy solution: remove all badges related to number of question views.
IMHO, in contrast to reputation points badges don't allow you to do certain things, therefore I would not over-estimate this issue. I feel some sense in theses badges - at least now and then I look at which questions might have led to them (both for my own and other users) to find out which themes seem interesting.
Obviously I could also just search for views with many views by myself, but the badge mechanism throws some attraction automatically.
Maybe we should wait and see whether the number of views does increase siginificantly from now on... If this remains the only one to earn a "famous question badge" in some hours, all is well:)
I guess you missed my point... I don't see an excessive number of badges being awarded for Famous Question. Volker has 3, that's the most of anyone.
@Breck: Who? Me? - I'm not complaining...
... but Daz has shown that the value of (at least one of) his Famous Question badges is worthless... and therefore (to me) that puts in question the validity of all of his (and possibly others') badges. I am therefore of the opinion that the badges that can be affected by the owner of the badge directly should either be fixed (if a fix is possible, but I do not see a way to fix it) or eliminated.
@Mark: Who? Me? (Yes, I'm repeating.) What of my "famous" questions do you refer to?
CAVEAT: Some of my above comments might contain traces of irony:) And I don't own such a script... (And now I feel quite dumb to reveal this...)
@Volker: Sorry, wrong person... I should have referred to Daz, not you. I have edited my previous comment and corrected my mistake.
@Mark: It's alright - and I see your point. Nevertheless, I still would not over-evaluate this: This fine forum still should gain more attraction and more audience, not more rules.
I agree with Mark. There are some "solutions" that we could implement to mitigate this problem, but each has problems. We could change the number of views required for these badges to some outrageous number like a million views or something (but existing badges would persist). We could limit the number of views that come from a particular user and IP address, or just delete the badges from the system entirely (both require schema and code changes). We could change the system so that the person who asked the question cannot affect the view count (though you could just log out and do the same thing).
But any of these "solutions" can be circumvented fairly easily. My opinion is that if you are desperate enough to get the badge that you'd be willing to do this and thereby make the badge meaningless, well, go ahead.
I fully agree - particularly with your resume.
And I guess a question with a whole bunch of views but without (good) answers or without votes would look quite suspicious, too.
Of course this current famous question does not belong to that kind of questions. It has obviously triggered more comments than any other, methinks:)
(Sigh) Someone is at it again - this question got flooded with view requests around 5pm EDT today.