What causes a TOP CONTRIBUTOR's badge to be taken away?

Answer 1

Here's what one of the actually Yahoo staff said about it:

"Top Contributors are not necessarily determined by an Answerer's level. A Top Contributor is an Answerer whose Q&A shows that they are knowledgeable in a specific category. You can become a top contributor in up to three categories. The better your contributions are in any respective category, the more likely you'll become a Top Contributor for that category.

We basically take an Answerer's overall contributions on Answers in each individual category, toss them into a hamster wheel, and the ones that manage to stay on the wheel become Top Contributors."

Or there's a whole blog entry on the flag here:

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-d8pH0dcoRKeB12yOcnUQp.9VCFos;_ylt=AhZzkJc8w3crCXEtBBwscVHpy6IX?p=19664

It's rated on a weekly basis, and the exact criteria keep changing. Hope that helps!

Answer 2

It gets taken away when you stop answering, asking and getting best answers after some time. Perhaps as quickly as a few days. It's happened to me before.

Answer 3

It appears that if you don't continue to 'contribute' (ie you go away for a while, or change to answering in another section) your badge can disappear, thank goodness.
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