User blog comment:3primetime3/Disabling Achievements???/@comment-4189499-20141017215943

I think badges are brilliant for engaging new users. Anyone is going to edit more if they see a little badge pop up on their first contribution, and every few contributions after that. They get people started, after which they are more likely to stay. The problem is when experienced users start to care too much about them. People shouldn't be cheating to get to the top of what is a largely useless leaderboard. The leaderboard also isn't evenly weighted, as mentioned in the blog, as a copy editor who goes around fixing spelling mistakes and a person who fills out full pages at a time would get different edit count attribution for the same amount of work, as the copy editor will be making many small changes across many pages as opposed to one big change on one page.

To conclude my stance, I think they should stay to encourage new user participation, but only if current users realise how little they matter in the end. If people continue to be stupid for badges, then they should go. Note that if you are trying to "game the system" to get a lucky badge, you may as well do it productively by fixing spelling and grammar rather than useless removal and readdition of content.