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Why does being the first person to answer a question (which is accepted with score 10 or more) merit a silver badge? This seems like a quite arbitrary requirement to me. Is it just to incentivize people to answer questions quickly? In my experience, most good questions get answered within an hour or so anyway.

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    $\begingroup$ erm...why not? It's a badge given in response to a specific event (a good answer that helped the user that was the first given, i.e., no chance of copying anyone) and well - they're enlightened because they have the answer. sorry, but this isn't really a great question. $\endgroup$
    – auden
    Commented Aug 27, 2017 at 21:31
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    $\begingroup$ Related mother meta post: meta.stackexchange.com/q/20978/209806 $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic Mod
    Commented Aug 27, 2017 at 21:48
  • $\begingroup$ The title and the body of this post ask different things. Are you asking why a badge with those requirements exists? Or why it has that name? $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Commented Aug 28, 2017 at 10:28
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty The former. People are getting hung up on my parenthetical question about the name, so I deleted that part of the question. $\endgroup$
    – tparker
    Commented Aug 28, 2017 at 15:32
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    $\begingroup$ Well, the badge was there in SO since 2008, so if what you want is what made Jeff & Joel add it in, your best bet is to ask on the mother meta. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Commented Aug 28, 2017 at 16:40

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Participating in the SE has to be fun otherwise people won't do it, and earning badges is part of the fun. As the recipient of a few Enlightened badges they have always felt like a thank you from the SE for the effort I put in, and actually I like that - it's always nice to feel appreciated.

I don't think the Enlightened badge is intended to stimulate answers because it's hard to plan for it. If you jump in with a quick answer in an attempt to be first then you risk being trumped by a better and more considered answer later. I suppose the badge might incite you to jump in quickly to be first then rewrite your answer at leisure to make it better. If it ends up with a good answer for the PSE then, well, that's all to the good though I can't help feeling that anyone intent on this strategy really needs to get out more.

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