Contributor Mentorship Program - Graduate and Facilitator Badge

[Nao]

Contributor Mentorship group would like to grant badges for mentees, mentors, and other significant contributors.

• Color: Yellow – same as the Training Team
  • box-shadow: rgb(233, 192, 45)
  • background-color: rgba(233, 192, 45, 0.25) - for Faclilitator badge
• Dashicon: ​https://developer.wordpress.org/resource/dashicons/#editor-spellcheck
• Text: Mentorship Program Graduate / Mentorship Program Facilitator
• Badge criteria: mentioned in recap post after a cohort completion (graduation) - to be published (can the program admins @harishanker and myself could have a capability to assign the badges manually?)

[coffee2code]

Badges are tied to teams. Under what team's scope would these badges fall? Based on using the Training Team's badge color, I assume the Training Team?

For context, badges are also intended to recognize direct contribution to the project. Badges are not intended as an incentive for 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.

A "Mentorship Program Facilitator" badge might be in line with this mandate assuming they can't just be assigned the team's Team badge. Since this seems to be a Training Team effort, couldn't mentorship program facilitators earn the Training Team badge? Or if this is a Community Team effort, then their team badge? (As an example, the Jobs site moderators have a distinct scope of contribution, but they earn the Meta Team badge and not a dedicated badge.) There can be many paths to a team's Team badge.

But moreso I don't feel that a "Mentorship Program Graduate" fits. At least based on its wording, it seems to commemorate a person completing a learning program. That in and of itself isn't a contribution; using that learning to actually do mentoring would be a contribution. Is it possible to measure mentoring contributions? If so, I'd suggest instead having a "Mentor" badge that is earned after completing the program and having applied that mentorship learning in some non-trivial way (i.e. mentoring N months or N number of people, even if those criteria are low). "Mentor" seems a very vague badge though, but forgive me I'm not familiar with the program or who mentors are mentoring. Something more specific like "Training Mentor" or "Community Mentor" would be better, for whatever is most appropriate. But again, couldn't mentors just earn the Training or Community Contributor badge instead?

[Nao]

Thank you for the feedback.
To answer your question, the mentorship working group is currently operating under the Community Team. We are using their Slack channel & P2.

You have a valid point that badges are not an incentive for participation but they are a mark for contribution achievement. The working group did not advertise the badge as an incentive, but as you said some may see it that way in the future. Incentives can work and our badging system doesn’t have to always keep the status quo, but I agree that a broader change may be necessary if we want to start giving out badges that deviate from the current norm.

Let me bring this up in the next working group meeting for clarification in our direction.

[ninianepress]

What if we change the current system so there are two sets: Team badges and achievements? The latter being for contributions like the mentorship program completion and the ​#WP20 From Blogs to Blocks marketing campaign.

I think it's incredibly important to acknowledge and celebrate a wide range of contributions to help Make WordPress all the more welcoming as well as to encourage more contributions.

[ninianepress]

I'd like to note a similar trac ticket for the ​# WP20 From Blogs to Blocks Marketing Team campaign.

If we iterated on the current badge system, then these badges could potentially be created as well.

[JeffPaul]

@coffee2code given that the mentors/mentees spread across various Make teams, what if those badges were added to each Make team matching their existing team badge colors?

[coffee2code]

Replying to ninianepress:

What if we change the current system so there are two sets: Team badges and achievements? The latter being for contributions like the mentorship program completion and the ​#WP20 From Blogs to Blocks marketing campaign.

This is along the lines of a counter-proposal I was considering to address these two tickets (this one and #6938). I like the notion of the badges remaining very team-focused and having contributor + team variants, and then having achievements as something that allows us to be more open to milestone, event, and participatory related recognition.

Achievements will need some design input since they should have a different look to differentiate them from badges (and if for no other reason than the dashicons font is both deprecated and fairly limited for iconography).

Anyhow, I don't have anything written up yet but will do so soon and create a ticket for it.

Replying to JeffPaul:

given that the mentors/mentees spread across various Make teams, what if those badges were added to each Make team matching their existing team badge colors?

Are you suggesting that each team get a third, mentor-related badge? If so, I'm opposed. However, it is reasonable for team-specific mentors to be considered an effort worthy of that team's Team badge. And those getting mentored hopefully advance to earn the team's Contributor badge.

Assuming a formal proposal for Achievements, the Mentorship Program Graduate would be a valid achievement. Those graduates, if then attached to a team, can contribute to also earn their respective Team badge.

The proposed Mentorship Program Facilitator badge seems more fit as an avenue to earn the Community team badge since that team appears to be overseeing training of mentors. There could be a case for a related achievement. But I do think we want to be careful about not having a proliferation of achievements for every possible thing.

[JeffPaul]

@harishanker as the one leading the ​WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program, do you have an ideal handling for how mentors/mentees from the ​inaugural cohort are recognized with WP.org profile badges (or alternatively achievements, which wouldn't be available for quite some time if we go that route)?