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I just noticed that I've was awarded the Critic badge on Stack Overflow for first downvote, however I have not to my knowledge placed any downvotes. Checking my profile, the only activity I see for the day I was issued the badge (Oct. 14) is two upvotes and a comment.

I do not recall having made and undone a downvote, but there of course exists the possibility that I did so and then forgot about it.

I have just verified that adding and then undoing a downvote leaves no record of either action in my profile, nor does it result in a net reputation change, so unless there exists some other observable difference between "making and undoing a downvote" and "not making a downvote"...either my memory or the badge is wrong, and I have no way of knowing which. (Of course, the badge is correct now, as a result of these tests.)

Unless there are more detailed logs that I am unaware of, there's not much that can be done, but I thought it worthwhile to get a bug report on file in case anyone else observes the same issue and wants to know if anyone else has run into the same problem.

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    Your public profile says that you have cast 1 downvote and 21 up-votes. Do you see anything here? stackoverflow.com/users/current/?tab=votes&sort=downvote Commented Oct 22, 2015 at 22:47
  • It doesn't show any downvotes for me, but it does state that there were 22 votes cast and only 21 upvotes. I suspect that Anna Lear's answer is correct; I can't see deleted questions at my reputation level, so the downvote doesn't show up for me, but does for you. Commented Oct 22, 2015 at 23:02
  • So if you scroll down to the bottom of your profile and look at "votes cast" you see something different? Pretty sure that isn't rep dependent. Commented Oct 22, 2015 at 23:15
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    I didn't notice that summary; it does in fact state that I have cast 1 downvote. I was looking at the list of votes cast from the votes tab, which states "You have not cast any votes" when I set the filter to downvotes only. Commented Oct 22, 2015 at 23:19
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    [sigh] everyone's a critic. Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 1:28
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    Congratulations! You casted a useful downvote! Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 19:21
  • To downvote is not a shame, it's a duty as well as to upvote, so you should be proud of your badge. ;-) Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 11:13
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    skypjack, I didn't mean to imply that I felt any shame for having been given the badge. I just worried that I was being falsely honored for dedication to a duty that I had neglected, and decided to balance things out somewhat by making sure I at least performed my duty to report suspected bugs. Of course, it now turns out I was performing said duty overzealously, and actually submitted a false bug report. Which is in turn a proper reason to feel shame, so through a somewhat convoluted series of intentions and actions, I have found a valid reason to be ashamed of my critic badge. :-) Commented Oct 26, 2015 at 22:16

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You downvoted a question on October 14 that has since been closed and deleted.

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    If a downvote falls in the forest and nobody sees it, does it still affect your badges? Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 21:34
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    @nocomprende afaik badges are not retracted. Once you get it you keep it even if at some point you don't have the requirements anymore. Commented Oct 24, 2015 at 6:19
  • @Bakuriu It is that way for all badges except tag badges. If you drop below the requirement of a tag badge it is taken away. Commented Oct 24, 2015 at 14:05
  • @NathanOliver That's probably because tag badges (at least gold ones) provide privileges (i.e. dupehammer). Privileges are retracted when you don't fulfil the requirements anymore. Commented Oct 24, 2015 at 17:03
  • @Bakuriu Yes and no. Tag badges have always been retracted when the user no longer met the badge requirements, but that sure became a nice side-effect once privileges got involved. Other badges (with a few exceptions like Fanatic and Unsung Hero) may be retracted when users are merged if the user after the merge no longer meets their requirements. Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 3:21

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