What is the specific criteria for being a Top Contributor?

They are not chosen and it is not just based on Best answers but total contributions.

It is very easy to get and does not in any way indicate quality of answers given.

All it means is that you answered enough questions and got enough points and some best answers in the required 3 week time frame to meet the secret criteria for getting the Badge.

Just answer enough questions in a category over 3 weeks and get some best answers and one Monday you will have one.

No one knows the formula but Staff, rumors are posted about the # of answers needed and what % of best answers but those are all just copying what has been posted for years.

Staff post about it here

http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&...

Nobody knows. No, they aren't hand-picked, of that we ARE certain. If they were, many would NEVER get the badge/crown. It is all in the numbers.

Rumor is 45-50 answers in one month, with 10% of them being Best Answers will do it, but I've seen it done with lots less. Which seems to be possible in the less active subcategories.

I know that just answering isn't all that essential. A long time ago, I quit answering for about 6 months. I kept the TC badge for over 6 weeks based ONLY on getting Best Answers through voting. And I wasn't even doing the voting myself.

To become a top contributor, you have to answer a number of questions every week, and maintain a minimum best answer percentage of at least 10-15%.

You can become a top contributor in any three categories at a time, but you can't become one in Jokes and Riddles or Polls and Surveys.

You have to go to the category every week, to maintain the top contributor listing. The amount of questions you have to answer *probably* depend on the category; categories with less traffic would require less answers to maintain the badge.

If you suddenly don't answer in a category very often, or your best answer percentage drops too low, you may end up losing the top contributor statistic after a couple of weeks, but you can still get it back.