I'm only asking this here, because the badge may have applications outside of Stack Overflow (for example, the main Stack Exchange Meta), but if it belongs on http://meta.stackexchange.com, all the better.
In the last few days, I've seen a growing, frustrating trend, of people answering egregiously bad, heavily-downvoted, off-topic, low-effort or homework questions.
Then someone will upvote the answer, because it is correct, even if they just did someone's homework, then another upvote will get added, then another, and then someone will comment "Here comes the reversal badge!"
Why? Why should someone get a gold badge for doing someone else's homework?
Or the scenario that prompted me to ask, just now, was that the answer-giver to an oft-asked, easily-Googleable, minimal-effort question got a downvote, then another, then a third, and they commented, "No reason to down vote it ! How else can you get the https://stackoverflow.com/help/badges/95/reversal".
How, indeed!
I understand the badge originally existed for outstanding answers on poor questions, but with the trend SO has taken in recent years to clean up and remove poor questions ("broken windows"), so...
- Does the Reversal badge have a place on Stack Overflow anymore, especially if it just encourages badge hunters to intentionally answer seriously low-quality questions?
- Can badges be retired so that those have earned it can keep it, but it can't be earned anymore?
