I've received quite a number of badges, but although I've searched in meta and in the main English site, I couldn't find what the point of badges is.
2 Answers
Badges reward good behavior
The blog post that first announced badges describes their purpose thusly:
Our goal with the badges is to encourage people to a) have fun and b) use the Stack Overflow website in ways that make sense.
A second blog post about badges says something along the same lines:
Badges exist to reward and encourage the kind of positive behavior we want in our community.
Gold tag badges give privileges related to duplicates
Tag badges are supposed to indicate your expertise in a certain area, and when you reach the threshold for a gold tag badge, this translates into the ability to unilaterally close (or reopen) duplicate questions in that tag.
As an aside, moderators have binding close votes too, but we do not get the badge listed next to our name like a gold badge holder unless we also have a gold tag badge for the question we're closing as a duplicate, like this:
Badges help indicate participation
Although it's not mentioned in the aforementioned blog posts (due to changes that happened in 2015 after those blog posts were written), there is another place badge count... counts. The "Candidate Score", which is shown for each person running during each moderator election, is based on a combination of reputation and certain badges:
- 1 point for each 1000 reputation up to 20,000 reputation for a maximum of 20 points.
- 1 point each for Moderation badges - Civic Duty, Cleanup, Deputy, Electorate, Marshal, Reviewer, Sportsmanship, Steward - for a maximum of 8 points.
- 1 point each for Editing badges - Copy Editor, Explainer, Organizer, Refiner, Strunk and White, Tag Editor - for a maximum of 6 points.
- 1 point each for Participation badges - Constituent, Convention, Enthusiast, Investor, Quorum, Yearling - for a maximum of 6 points.
For badges that can be awarded multiple times only 1 point is granted for each badge type, thus ensuring a maximum score of 40 points.
People of course are free to vote however they want, but higher scores look better.
On sites where users leave "welcome" comments for new users, it is often suggested (for example on Bicycles Meta) to only suggest a new user take the tour if they don't have the "informed" badge (which is given for taking the tour).
Badges also give a quick indication how much a user has participated on meta, which doesn't have its own (visible) reputation system.
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Badges may have been intended to do these things, but do they actually do them on this site? As Mitch has pointed out in a comment below the question, badges resemble 'a gold sticker your mom gives you when you are 5 years old', and to be able to participate here, one has to be considerably more mature than a 5 year old. Also, much of what has been said here could have been said about the reputation-points as well, so this doesn't really explain why there are badges in addition to the reputation-points.– jsw29Commented Dec 7 at 21:18
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1@jsw29 Badges do overlap some with rep but for the most part they promote different behaviors, like edits/review. It's harder to answer what the behavioral effect of badges is. There are certainly some people who chase them down. For me, the last time I remember caring even a little about a badge (with the exception of tag badges) was during the ELL election, when I was missing some really trivial badges. As an aside, on MathOverflow, they hide both rep and badges from view.– Laurel ModCommented Dec 7 at 21:34
They are akin to getting "achievements" in computer/console games. Badges are one of many ways that Stack Exchange games you to participate more in it, as are points, privileges and the like.
answered Aug 1, 2018 at 20:24
which makes one wonder who thought that it was a good idea to use something suitable for 5 year oldsBecause in the beginning you had "kids" running Stack Overflow, kids who grew up with gameboy, Nintendo, playstation and XBox. The whole concept of collecting weapons, energy, fuel, fruit, and coins etc. brainwashed kids, who are now adults. Simply swap coins with rep and badges.