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So, I was awarded the Enlightened badge within the last day or two here on Meta. Which is fine by me, except it looks like my highest voted answer is 8 upvotes, 0 downvotes. I suppose two people could have voted it up, then removed their votes, but it seems like suspiciously unusual timing.

So is this

1) something weird MSO is doing,
2) me being terribly lucky with two upvoters upvoting at the right time (and then choosing to remove their votes)
3) me being stupid and either misunderstanding Enlightened or not seeing my well-upvoted answer?

As requested, screenshot of my +8 answer: alt text

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You might want to take screenshot on that 8 upvote, 0 downvotes post before someone upvote to make it 10 :D –  YOU Apr 16 '10 at 3:49
Be sure also to indicate the answer in question with a freehand circle. It's not a real question without that. –  Greg Hewgill Apr 16 '10 at 4:07
Feel free to add a drop shadow to the freehand circle if you want to escalate your issue up the chain –  Mark Henderson Apr 16 '10 at 4:54
What is MSO's obsession with freehand circles??? –  Billy ONeal Apr 16 '10 at 5:33
@Billy ONeal it's either that or waffles and unicorns. At least to me freehand circles are easier to draw than unicorns. –  alex Apr 16 '10 at 6:20
Unfortunately they are also less yummy than waffles or unicorn too... –  James McNellis Apr 16 '10 at 7:10
@Billy: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19478/the-many-memes-of-meta/… - And stop misusing punctuation marks! –  Ladybug Killer Apr 16 '10 at 12:52
@waiwai: In case of doubt: 3) –  Ladybug Killer Apr 16 '10 at 12:55
In-jokes are fine I guess, but oh my god am I sick of freehand circles, waffles, unicorns, and the like. </anypopularityimayhavehad> –  beska Apr 16 '10 at 14:57
@alex: llamas are harder –  perbert Apr 16 '10 at 18:42
@greg: Screenshot added. –  waiwai933 Apr 16 '10 at 19:57
To use Jeff's words @beska: Perhaps this is not the site for you and you'd be happy somewhere else –  juanformoso Apr 16 '10 at 20:00
Nice circles, +1. @beska, you are out! –  Ladybug Killer Apr 16 '10 at 20:02
What browser are you using? I see a CSS bug. The downvote part is floating too far down. –  BalusC Apr 16 '10 at 20:12
@Balus: most likely caused by the Waffle bug. –  perbert Apr 16 '10 at 20:19

3 Answers 3

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Could this be due to the voting anomaly script? Maybe you got a bunch of votes on your +8 answer that were counted as anomalies (i.e. coming from suspected sock puppet accounts, etc.) and were removed, but only after you already got a badge for it.

Maybe this could also be a byproduct of some errors I've been getting lately. I've noticed more often that clicking the voting arrows puts up a box saying an error occurred. Sometimes the vote is displayed as having been added (i.e. the total changes), sometimes not. Refreshing the page usually puts the score back to what it was before I voted, and I can then vote again without error. Maybe these errors are screwing things up behind the scenes.

EDIT: Looking at the question Jeff linked to below, the second explanation above may be the cause, especially since Benjol claims in the linked question to have successfully upvoted an accepted answer from waiwai933 10 times. That would be enough for an Enlightened badge (although the answer still displays only +2).

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this is the most plausible IMO. Particularly in light of this: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/46706/… –  Jeff Atwood Apr 16 '10 at 20:10

This is mysterious indeed.

At first I was thinking migrations, but I don't see any answers of yours that have >10 score and are accepted across any site in the trilogy!

edit: at some point that post had more than 10 votes, either because:

  1. it was done through votes which were later removed as anomalous

  2. erroneous denormalized count updates

In the case of #1, there's not a lot to do.

We did deploy improved code for #2 so the denormalized counts are always set via live queries of the votes table rather than a brain-damaged .Score++.

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@Jeff it's not nice to censor us :) –  Earlz Apr 16 '10 at 20:51

I loaned you one of mine.

You'll need to give it back when you're done with it, though. It's the only thing I wear when I make waffles for my unicorns.

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I sense a feature request coming... –  Jon Seigel Apr 16 '10 at 18:32
I've been wanting to edit one of Polly's posts for a long time now to attempt to get revenge :) –  Earlz Apr 16 '10 at 18:56
@Earlz: Fixed that for you. :D –  Jon Seigel Apr 16 '10 at 18:58
@Jon much better :) I tried to get it even more memeish. @Pollyanna is a meme by his self though –  Earlz Apr 16 '10 at 19:08
@Pollyanna: That's an interesting vote count you've got there. –  perbert Apr 16 '10 at 19:45
@json wow, he has never voted a single person down.. –  Earlz Apr 16 '10 at 20:02
@ear xkcd.com/725 –  juanformoso Apr 16 '10 at 20:06
@Dow I don't understand how that comic has anything to do with what we were talking about –  Earlz Apr 16 '10 at 20:49
@Earlz: I think it references back to your first comment. –  Jon Seigel Apr 16 '10 at 21:57
@Jon @Downvoter sucks at making jokes then... –  Earlz Apr 16 '10 at 22:13
It applies perfectly to your first comment, it's like that comic was made for me to put it here because of your first comment. @ear @jon –  juanformoso Apr 17 '10 at 0:23
LOL! That's hilarious! –  Adam Davis Apr 17 '10 at 1:42

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