Making WordPress.org

Opened 11 months ago

Closed 5 months ago

#6938 closed feature request (invalid)

#WP20 From Blogs to Blocks: Unique Badge Event

Reported by: meaganhanes's profile meaganhanes Owned by:
Milestone: Priority: high
Component: Profiles Keywords: 2nd-opinion needs-design-feedback needs-copy-review has-screenshots
Cc:

Description

It would be engaging and fun to have a commemorative badge for participating in #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks campaign on WordPress.org. This would encourage participation and be a fun way to commemorate #WP20 forever. The process could be used for future WordPress anniversaries, projects (e.g. do_action hackathons), or events (regional WordCamps), on the theory that badges increase community participation, strengthen contributor community, and create unique opportunities. Currently, there is no official way to demonstrate participation (in #WP20 or other events), so this could also provide an opportunity for increased contribution in community events and initiatives.

There are no current means or methods for granting non-team badges to dot-org contributors. Additionally, it's not easy to create one-off badges assigned to people and have it done in a way that supports future maintainability.

There are many avenues possible for badge assignment. One proposed solution is to create a pseudo-team for commemorative badges, perhaps called “Unique Participation”, that has an existing process. We can retroactively identify participation via existing commenting data and timestamps. If we run into issues on implementation, the fallback can be activity log entries.

The badges should be fully inclusive and open to many forms of participation, including code, design, and photography, in order to ensure the badge is not exclusionary to those who do not want to express their thoughts in a prescribed format. Other methods of reflection can be encouraged, such as abstract art, videography, audiography, and other expression form such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB5gaJloeRU. We can expand the definition of participation as necessary as other methods are identified.

By default, this might set a precedent of the community wanting badges for more things outside of the existing team badge structure. That could be mitigated by undertaking the project as a single occurrence, proof-of-concept experiment, observing its impact on the desired results to see if the badge process helped or hindered the goals of awareness and participation.

We do not need to have badges on profiles on May 27th, but it can be a promised badge so that the technical implementation doesn’t need to be rushed. If the proposed “Unique Participation” team concept works, that can be implemented with existing processes. If the process is determined not to work, the “Unique Participation” team can be sunsetted.

In discussing this idea casually amongst friends made throughout the WordPress project, all are in agreement that this would only help the community reflect and re-engage after the challenging years we’ve had. It’s worth exploring the logistical issues and technical barriers, and resolving to facilitate the community that makes WordPress unique, if the community believes this is of value.

Change History (9)

This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #meta by sereedmedia. View the logs.


11 months ago

#2 @meaganhanes
11 months ago

  • Keywords 2nd-opinion needs-design-feedback needs-copy-review has-screenshots added

Here are our initial first thoughts for what this badge could look like, left as a sketch for us all to collaborate on:

https://cldup.com/NwNBobXBUz.jpg

This builds on the design system and branding used for the WP20 celebrations seen here:
https://cldup.com/N9Acl-TTyP.png

This proposed badge features the triple ringed "20" with our iconic W in the zero, and encompassing flavour text. Currently the flavour text reads:

Top Text: "#WP20"
Bottom Text: "ex bloggum ad obstruit" a temporary pseudo-latin string in the style of a sponsor's coin given at the inaugural WordPress US 2015

We envision two versions of this badge: one for participants who engage at least one time, and one for participants who complete a full 20 out of 20. We discussed implementing badges for each level and feel that such granularity and competitive spirit is not in line with this moment of reflection, but that a digital badge to commemorate blogging/journalling/reflection is very much in line with the nature of the WordPress project itself.

Open to feedback on how to make this design better! A refined version will be prepared starting on Tuesday.

This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #meta by courtneyengle. View the logs.


11 months ago

#4 @tobifjellner
11 months ago

If we decide to do this, then we could try to, at the same time, solve another problem:
It would be great if we could somehow have badges for "past contribution".
(Some of my thoughts are expressed in #6628) but when a previous GTE (or other significant contributor) for any reason needs to step down, it would be great to have some kind of recognition still visible in the profile.

Last edited 11 months ago by SergeyBiryukov (previous) (diff)

#5 @cavalierlife
11 months ago

I'm thinking it might be useful to have a standard badge that is used as the background or default badge for all events and participants. Then each unique event would have text or graphic or both applied on top of the standard badge. That might make it easier to quickly create new badges and have a thread running through them all. Similar to how Wapuu is often seen with just the ball changing, but Wapuu itself is basically the same. So if we're looking at the sketch above, the circle and its background design would be the same for every event, but in this case the 20 would be added on top - maybe in a blank space reserved in the center. Each subsequent event would have something else in the blank space but the surrounding design would remain the same.

This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #meta by courtneyengle. View the logs.


11 months ago

#7 @nomadskateboarding
10 months ago

I'm in favor of both badges proposed for the WP20 From Blogs to Blocks Campaign, single contribution and a completioninst badge.

I feel the idea of giving badges as a way to encourage engagement is a solid one. As @tobifjellner and @meaganhanes mentioned, retroactively giving participation badges is an avenue I would support exploring as well.

This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #meta by courtneyengle. View the logs.


5 months ago

#9 @coffee2code
5 months ago

  • Component changed from WordPress.org Site to Profiles
  • Resolution set to invalid
  • Status changed from new to closed

While I applaud and encourage the WP20 From Blocks to Blogs effort and those like it, this proposal aims to upend the way badges have been conceived and managed thus far.

As I said in the Slack discussion on this matter (and a number of times in the past), badges are a means to recognize direct contribution to the project. Event participation historically hasn’t been considered project contribution, at least as far as badges go. (For instance, despite requests to do so in the past, we do not have badges for WordCamp or Meetup attendance.) And from what I see, many of the prompts encourage project contribution, which have a chance to earn badges in their own right.

There are no current means or methods for granting non-team badges to dot-org contributors.

Badges are inherently tied to contributor teams because they are recognition of contributions through those teams.

We can expand the definition of participation as necessary as other methods are identified.

Again, this gets to heart of the matter. Badges recognize contribution, not merely participation.

They are not intended to incentivize participation (though some may view them that way) nor to commemorate an accomplishment or event that doesn't relate to contributing to the WordPress project. Attendance at events, taking courses, getting certifications, having a WP blog, individually advocating for WP in posts/articles/social media, even participating in Slack team chats, or generally participating in the WP discourse are all nice, and may be helpful, but they are not considered project contributions.

If, say, the Marketing Team were to make participation in this event worthy of the Marketing Contributor badge, then that would be their right, even if discouraged. But a full badge for this and things like it runs counter to the current ethos of the way we manage badges. As such, I'm closing this request as 'invalid' for the fact that this isn't the intent of our badges.

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