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I agree that some of the badges on Worldbuilding set good targets, like asking good questions, raising correct flags, and editing posts in need of it.

However, the "Disciplined" (Delete own post with score of 3 or higher.) badge is confusing to me, given that the requirement is to delete your question that gets a score of three or more.

This just seems to be bad for the community, if good questions are potentially at risk of being deleted.

I don't really think that the Disciplined badge should be a badge at all. What are people's thoughts on this?

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In some cases, yes, it can be a problem. I tend to think that people will take rep over a badge most days of the week, but they can, of course, get the badge by simply deleting a post - and note that the badge applies to both questions and answers - with a score of three or more, then undeleting it after the badge is awarded. It's gaming the system, but it's possible.

I remember that I earned the Disciplined badge after deleting an answer of mine that involved applying the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation to a dragon (!). It got a few upvotes, but then someone pointed out that my analysis had a flaw, and it turned out that there was another, unrelated error. I couldn't figure out how to fix that, so, even though nobody downvoted, I deleted the answer (and later fixed it, and undeleted it).

Would I have deleted the answer if the Disciplined badge didn't exist? Probably; I don't like posting content that's incorrect, and I'll undo my mistakes when I can. But sometimes, people might not want to delete material, even if it's wrong or flawed, because they don't want to lose the rep - an understandable reaction. The badge helps sweeten the deal a bit; it encourages you to do the right thing.

That's the argument made in this Meta answer, as I just found out. I don't have data (yet) as to whether or not the badge makes more people willing to delete incorrect answers, but it makes sense that it could work. Some might call this a weak argument, and it is, to some extent. But it's a rationale for keeping it, nonetheless, and I haven't seen it used harmfully, in my experience looking through deleted questions and answers.

Also, there are certain criteria under which a user can't delete their own question:

You can’t delete answers that have been accepted.

You can’t delete your own question when it:

  • has an upvoted answer, or
  • has an accepted answer, or
  • has multiple answers (even if there are no upvotes)

We upvote a lot on Worldbuilding, and we get a lot of answers on each question - I think we average about 4.65285663 answers per question, give or take. So it's really hard to delete a question on Worldbuilding once it gets going. This means that it's not easy to abuse the badge, in terms of asking questions.

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Why not make it so that if your question is marked as duplicate and received 3+ votes, then you get the badge

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    $\begingroup$ Duplicates serve a useful purpose by increasing the "search footprint" of the target. Don't feel you need to delete them. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio Mod
    Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 0:24
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It does seem kind of silly ... but

Some people do ask the same question in slightly more refined ways over time. Going back and deleting the old versions (some of which may even be on hold), is not a bad idea.

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